1 By the time I'm done, we won't need a military.

2 Lots of familiar names, especially if you remember the Bush administration.


Barack McSame Obama. Mmm-mmm-mmm.

3 I think DoD needs to be prepared to cut $100B a year. And I'm a hawk. But wait til they hear what Gary Johnson has in mind.

4 Gates is a worthless sucker of cock.Even he couldn't or wouldn't cut further.Panetta will.Get ready for second tier status.Yay!

5 Is America a nation that needs a military so its citizens have the environment and opportunity to build their lives to the best of their ability or is it simply a gigantic health care and retirement plan with a military to protect it?

Well, it isn't either of those things.

We sure don't have a place where citizens can build their lives to the best of their abilities.  Those that try are govt. fee'd  and taxed to death.

And I'll never be able to retire.

6 4 One caveat:we may stay first tier simply because of residual power after the collapse.

7 Why do they just keep recycling the same people. Oh, and I guess they will never give an apology to McChyrstal. I think he was wise to get out of Obamatown.

8
At least now we know Petraeus is a political hack...and a fan of Obama.

9 sock fail

10 3 QB's drafted in the Top 10. That's something.

11 DoD is a huge welfare/cronycapitalism/feedtrough. Pick any weapsys and follow its sorry history.  Pick a percentage to cut and let them figure it out.

12 8 That's been obvious for some time.

13
Obama plans on cutting $400B from Defense?

But his economic goon Goolsby just blamed the slowing economy double dip recession on government spending cuts, defense cuts in particular.

14 I don't know that this makes Petraeus a fan of Obama, but Obama certainly put him out of play for a Republican candidacy, now or in the future.

15
and Tim Geithner still has his job?

16 Leon Panetta the Secretary of Defense?? Win The Future

17 We could probably save a ton of money by eliminating the Pentagon entirely and farm out most of the strategic planning to this very smart military blog that I read several times weekly.
A lot of the regulars are pretty unstable but they show up in good humor with mostly fake names and are on the cutting edge of advanced techniques like thermo nuclear flame warfare, uranium depleted crossbows, and pathetic cat pictures.

.......just a thought.  

18 11 True to an extent.The root of the problem is that the military has lost all it's in house design capability.The Navy,for instance,had lots of ship design expertise,they knew if a civilian yard was blowing smoke upo their ass.They new the costs of capabilities.Without that expertise they are now promised everything by the builders,who well undestand the costs will increase exponentially as the process gets further along.Same with the other services.

19 Petraeus is chief blasphemy enforcer for the Tailban anyway, so might as well just close the whole Pentagon.

20 Wasn't Les Aspin available?

21 The real savings kick in when we stop defending Alaska, Texas, and all rural areas. If you're served by high-speed rail, we got you covered...

22 To be fair,ex military brass have been effective CIA chiefs in the past.As long as Petraeus doesn't institute a white gloves to handle the Holy Koran policy at CIA.

23 Those Ohio boomers (and a lot of the LA attack subs) are gonna have to be kept running.  There's no way we'll sell anyone on replacing those things with new boomers.  The cash to replace cold war oriented weapons systems ain't gonna be there.

24 If you want to cut $400 billion as Obama wants to, you better be able to tell the country what they won't be getting in the future because while there's always money that can be saved you're talking a lot more than the defense equivalent of 'waste, fraud and abuse' at that level.

He won over a lot of voters in 2008 with his promise to weaken America's defenses. So I'm not sure that's much of a problem for the JEF.

Oh, FWIW, GE is still working on the engine for the F-35 JSF (funding it with the taxes they didn't pay and/or their "green" bullshit subsidies); they apparently expect funding to resume in the future.

I expect a big chunk of that $400B will be taken out of the VA and pay/housing/equipment/medical care/etc for enlisted personnel.  Because that's the sort of childish shit the left does.

25

Wasn't Les Aspin available?

LOL. Ouch.  Isn't he dead?

26 Panetta is probably going to need to get the Military Channel Package piped in to the Pentagon to go with his normal CNN intelligence gathering technologies, and he'll be good to go.

27

Regarding the F-35, isn't the hover mechanism powered by a glorified PTO?

Check me if I'm wrong.

28 Pull out of Afghanistan and tell the warlords that if we see any terrorists being trained there again, we shell the shit out of them. That'll save us a bundle.

29 26 The boomers are relatively lightly used.We can probably husband them for a considerable extra lifespan.The attack boats,not so much.We will probably simply see a further decrease in that category.

30 My plan is to start using the bad guy places as a practice range for Global Strike, and darken the skies with UAVs. Roll out human pilots and turn it all over to AIs. What could go wrong?

31 I am indeed dead...... and available.

32 31 PTO?It uses a lift fan powered by a driveshaft connected to the main engine.That is only the B model,no other model has VTOL capability.The B has been the only version with serious problems as opposed to normal teething.The Marines want it though,nothing else can fly off their baby carriers.

33 Prelude to leaving Afganistan...  Move the general's chair to the edge of the deck, then, when he retires/leaves, blame him for Afganistan's failure... 

If I were Petraus, I'd retire first... 

34 The Navy will be stuck with a bunch of useless LCS units.  No new big carriers, probably.  What happens if the F35 fails?  These all-things-to-all-branches projects have a way of coming unglued.  Like the F111.  And what takes the place of the F22 in 10-20 years?

35

Katie Couric is leaving CBS.  I know I should be happy, but there are still so many women left on TV.

36 40 The standard carrier version of F-35 is fine,it's not going to fail.Only the B model is having trouble.The Navy doesn't want or need the B model.LCS is potentially useful,of course the politicians are forcing them to by BOTH designs rather than choosing one.F-22 will still be around 30 years from now,minus attrition,which can't be replaced of course.

37 My initial thought is that this is a way to take Patreus off the table as a potential presidential candidate in 2012.

38 The whole second engine debate is over.GE/Rolls Royce developed a second choice powerplant for F-35 as a hedge in case the primary was a failure.The primary has been very successfull,GE/RR has been cancelled,twice.GE is not happy and we know they are connected.F-111 was a failure initially because the chosen powerplant didn't meet spec(F-14 had trouble throughout it's career as well).Such failures are the reason they developed 2 engines at once as a hedge.

39 Oh yay.  So our super-genius CIA director who gets his information from CNN will now be our super-genius SecDef who still gets his information from CNN.

We are so boned.

40 42: LCS is potentially useful,of course the politicians are forcing them to by BOTH designs rather than choosing one.F-22 will still be around 30 years from now,minus attrition,which can't be replaced of course.

Half of the LCS mission modules aren't even designed, let alone integrated with the platform.  If you change from an anti-piracy mission to ASW, do you have to return to San Diego to get your mission module replaced?  And the thing has no range.  Dash capability, yes, but range no.  Outgunned and fragile and fuel-hungry.  The world has found ways to make decent small combatants (Visby, FFG-7, Meko, etc.) but they can't be all things at once.  You have to decide what you really want and stick to that.  Time for a clean sheet of paper on that one.

And yes, the small numbers of F22s will still be around.  But will we have the skills to build more, or newer and better variants?

41 WOW thats really neat,I wanted to thank air jordan you for this great read

No, you're just mailing it in.

Lace Wigs has attitude!!

42 I do agree that the loss of in-house design capability has been tragic, for the Navy in particular.

43 Posted by: Leftover Soothsayers at April 28, 2011 09:20 PM (2NNz2)

And a dhimmi, which for an American general is unforgivable. I wouldn't cross the street to piss on him if he were on fire.

44 I approve.

45 47 Just a useful gun (the 57mm Bofors is little but very good) ,a helicopter.and self defense missiles like RAM make it usefull for alot of your standard Frigate roles.It will be excellent against the Iranian crap solinter fleet.When the modules come online they will be broken down into dedicated single roles TF's,ASW ,minesweeping/countermeasures etc.They will need dedicated logistic support,no doubt.

46 The attack boats,not so much.We will probably simply see a further decrease in that category.

Posted by: steevy at April 28, 2011 09:43 PM (19GMw)

Agreed. But the attack boats are what will protect our sea lanes. We are boned (am I the first to say that?).

47 So this fuck is going to cut the budget of MY military when he has us in 2 wars....oh wait fucking 3....? Obama sucks cock, to prove to this country that, yes Obama sucks cock, he had to spend 1 trillion dollars on a failed stimulus, 1 trillion on a fucktarded healthcare bill noone wanted, bow to every foreign dictator he could find, and now cut the military budget. He coulda saved alot of time, and alot of our money, and just dropped down to his knees on inauguration day, and sucked a dick. Is this Obama's way of playing "hard to get"?

48 Isn't it ironic Democrats constantly rail against Republicans wanting to cut spending and blame Republicans for wanting to cut police and fireman and first responders. Yet the DoD - our nations own 'First Responders' - is the first and biggest place the DEMOCRATS always cut ACTUAL spending.

49 There won't be a healthcare and retirement plan of any kind with a military to protect it, if there isn't an environment of opportunity for prosperity.

50 My countrymen make do with cowhide shields and spears. Do you think you're special?

51 I really should start prefacing all my comments with "Sorry guys, but I just can not make ________ comment without using alot of profanity, and I am honestly tired of coming up with jokes and sock puppets to describe ways Obama sucks cock so I have ceased trying."

52

It uses a lift fan powered by a driveshaft connected to the main engine.

Well, I'm by no means an aeronautical engineer but "driveshaft" makes me think of some shitty shaft on an old truck that vibrates all over the place.

Our technology can't suck so much as to enable a fighter to hover using a driveshaft. Just sayin.'

53 59 Well,Harrier used only redirected thrust from it's single engine.There have always been heat problems with Harriers.This concept was supposed to do away with the excess heat.They did not want extra lift engines which are a serious waste of space and weight.I know they are way behind scghedule on it,there were weight problems from the beginning.I think they have finally started getting the flight testing on track but there is no doubt this version will suffer the largest cost increases.

54 Whatever you do, don't cut entitlements by a fixed percentage and let them figure it out.

55

"We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

My best guess would be that Petraeus will be training a Civilian Army force; and even if using it to enforce payments to the Soviet seems absolutely proposterous...

We are living the exact reasons why the USA adopted its Declaration of Independance...

-Shockingly, line-for-line: http://bit.ly/jNDPJq

 

56

Our technology can't suck so much as to enable a fighter to hover using a driveshaft.

 

I would imagine it's a Carbon Fiber shaft...not what you are thinking of.

57 ErickW needs help changing a sway bar and now he's an expert on airplane driveshafts. Holy cow.

58 There are really only two technologies that need development, high powered lasers and rail guns.

59

Our technology can't suck so much as to enable a fighter to hover using a driveshaft. Just sayin.'

Posted by: ErikW at April 28, 2011 10:07 PM (tmilK)

And you want to use what? Rubber bands? A bike chain?

What technological method transmits rotational kinetic energy, but is "Erik Approved?"

60 65 There are really only two technologies that need development, high powered lasers and rail guns.

Posted by: Dr. Heinz Doofensmirtz at April 28, 2011 10:28 PM (y5xyR)

Power storage and generation is the problem. We can already make weapons-grade lasers and railguns, power supply is the larger problem.

61 Now, now.  Don't you worry your pretty little heads.  Whatever Barry Zero is doing is, like, totally awesome and full of intelligentness.

62 I'm glad I didn't go back into the defense industry. 

Thanks Barry.

63 What the fuck good is well armed militay when I can't even buy an incandescent light bulb? How the hell is that building my life to the best of my ability?

64 Frankly, they ought to cancel all the high speed rail stuff and build a rail gun big enough to shoot the moon, literally.

65 And yes, the small numbers of F22s will still be around.  But will we have the skills to build more, or newer and better variants?

The newer and better stuff will be cheap drones that can pull more G's and loiter much longer than a manned aircraft.  When the designer isn't forced to wrap an aircraft around a human, the potential performance envelope expands greatly.

66

 Here the dems have a point.

  If gov cant spend a dime without wasting 70%; defence surely falls into that catagory. The national sentiment seems to be "what the hell are we doing in these far flung places". The cold war is over. Get the hell out of the EU, let them finance their own defence. I think it is not a vacation spot for the military, but its hard to argue its not.

 Im sorry, but the way most people think is that we should use our tech to its full advantage . Less people more distruction, and then get out of there. With satellites and missiles do we realy need to be cuising the seas to the same extent as we do now? Wouldnt we better off spending a shit load of money on making sure our advisaries software doesnt work when they need it? A big ass expolsion in some remote location would send the message that we can touch you anywhere. No need for the Marines, just a few, slighty smaller than nuclear, ICBMs would make the point. 

 I do not think we should gut the military, but a haircut is in order.

67

Mr. Pink -  you saved me a lot of typing.  Amen and Thanks. 

I'm an active Army guy and a fan of large explosions in general.  Yes, there is space to cut in the defense budget, just like in any large budget.  And yes, I could survive a small pay cut, and a small pension cut.  What they do to Medicare and Social Security, they can do to me.  I won't like it, but I'll survive.

That being said, I'm damn glad I got my retirement orders last month.  Odumbass does not deserve my efforts. 

68 You got a really useful blog I have been here reading for about an hour. I am a newbie and your success is very much an inspiration for me. dvd ripper, free dvd ripper, free dvd ripper for mac.

69 3 I think DoD needs to be prepared to cut $100B a year.

And I'm a hawk.

But wait til they hear what Gary Johnson has in mind.

Posted by: someone not getting the point at April 28, 2011 09:14 PM (Fw2Gg)

This. DoD is bloated beyond belief.

That's not to say that everything else should remain the same - DoD takes it's cuts like everyone else.

Curious if the cuts described are REAL cuts, or if they are 'Unicorn cuts' in the form of cutting 78 billion from a request 300 billion increase. 'Cause, Lucy, that ain't a cut.

And Obama is trying to neuter a potential opponent in Petraeus. It's going to suck for the JEF if the good General turns the agency into a lean, mean spyin' and intelligence/counter-intelligence machine.

70 40 The Navy will be stuck with a bunch of useless LCS units.  No new big carriers, probably.  What happens if the F35 fails?  These all-things-to-all-branches projects have a way of coming unglued.  Like the F111.  And what takes the place of the F22 in 10-20 years?

Posted by: Skookumchuk at April 28, 2011 09:47 PM (btzPD)

I've never understood why they want a JSF. What the Air Force needs is much different than what he Navy and Marines need because their missions and platforms are not the same.

Sure, the idea is to 'save' with common parts, etc, but the getting there usually results in spending more money for something that is compromised in all ways.

71

 The US needs a strong and capable military because the hostile nations of the world (Who are getting stronger all the time.) that is increasingly more dangerous DO NOT CARE how much money Americans want to spend for defense or how much you want to cut from the defense budget. They only care for whether the US has the capabilities to fight them in war, or deter them from engaging in a conflict.

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Good intentions matter a lot less than cold steel, which means no matter what your intentions are for cutting defense, the other guys in the world will notice you are cutting your military capabilities and respond accordingly.

I will differ from many people - defense spending should not be cut and in fact, needs to be increased.  We need a military that is strong and expanding in its capability to fight and/or deter aggressors, with the ability to project power around world (Because waiting for the enemies to come to the US is foolhardy.). That requires major funding. Given the lead time it takes to repair shortfalls in defense, if we wait until war erupts to being rebuilding defense, we WILL pay a higher price in money and blood than even the most expensive spending projections right now.  We got too many things we need to fix and too many missions to accomplish.  You can increase efficiencies and reduce waste and corruption, but that can only work for so long.  After that, the question will be framed like this - do you want to spend money now?  Or do you want to spend blood when the war comes?

72

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<a href="http://stephen-soos.blogspot.com/">Stephen Soos</a>