This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
If Spending Is Our Military Strategy, Our Strategy Is Bankrupt
Submitted by Mark Mateski via The Mises Institute,
Even today, few deny the long arm of US military might. After all, the US military exhausted the Soviet Union, crushed Saddam Hussein, and drove Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda into hiding.
To what should we attribute these triumphs? Some would say US planning and foresight. Others would mention the hard work and dedication of US soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Still others would point to the application of superior technology. All would be correct to some degree, but each of these explanations disregards the fact that for more than a lifetime, the United States has wildly outspent its military competitors.
For many years, the United States spent more on defense than the next ten big spenders combined. It turns out that’s no longer true, according to Jane’s and PPGF. But whether the current count is seven or nine, we must acknowledge that US dominance was purchased at a high cost.
The High Cost of Big Debts
The first cost is the accumulation of debt. While many will admit to the numbers, few will publicly concede the long-term threat they pose to national and international security. Among the few, Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has for several years consistently declared that “The single biggest threat to national security is the national debt.” While US defense spending is currently declining, these charts illustrate that the US share of global defense spending has remained strong (1) regardless of the irregular ups and downs of external events and (2) largely independent of the debt burden.
The second cost is the accumulation of commitments and expectations. Despite the drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, senior US policy makers remain staunchly determined to maintain a high level of global engagement. If you doubt it, read the recently published 2015 U.S. National Military Strategy. Among other things, it underscores the US commitment to countering agents of instability, whether “violent extremist organizations (VEOs)” or nation states, the standout examples being Russia and China. Not surprisingly, the strategy has prompted headlines such as “China Angered by New U.S. Military Strategy Report,” “Pentagon Concludes America Not Safe Unless It Conquers the World,” and “Pentagon’s New Military Strategy Calls for Preserving US Dominion of the World.”
Yes, these criticisms arrive from predictable quarters, but in this case the perception is reality, and the reality is that US policy makers continue to pursue a strategy laden with unavoidably expensive commitments — commitments guaranteed to antagonize Russia and China. (All of which stimulates a risky reinforcing feedback loop.) As Patrick Tucker at Defense One quipped, “The United States is preparing for never-ending war abroad.” Despite this, don’t expect to find any references in the published strategy to “debt,” an oversight that ignores Mullen’s warning and validates David Stockman’s statement that “We’re blind to the debt bubble.”
Our Military “Strategy” Amounts to Little More than Big Spending Plans
The third cost — one we rarely discuss — is the dangerous yet unspoken conceit held by a generation of senior US officers and policy makers: the belief that they are innately superior strategists. Just ask the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden! But what if in reality spending was the primary driver and arbiter of these outcomes?
It is suggestive that in cases where the sheer weight of US firepower proved unable to secure a decisive victory (Korea and Vietnam are canonical examples), the United States’s cash-poor but tactically savvy opponents still managed to frustrate and confound front-line US forces. As H. John Poole, a retired Marine colonel, combat veteran, and prolific author, has remarked:
For America’s wartime units, firepower has been and still is the name of the game. This game has some less-than-ideal ramifications. Since WWI, far too many units have not matched up well — tactically — with their Eastern counterparts. As unlikely as this may seem to today’s active-duty community, it is nevertheless well documented. (Global Warrior, 2011, p. xxii)
On this count, “cyberwar” is a prime illustration of another domain in which spending doesn’t guarantee proportional dominance. The recent OPM hack is a painful example, and if practitioners like Richard Stiennon (There Will Be Cyberwar) are correct, more is coming.
As a rule, US policy makers minimize these counterexamples. Commentators like John Poole who point out weaknesses and alternatives tend to be written off by Washington apparatchiks as well-meaning but misguided zealots. And to be fair, from the mainstream perspective Washington’s argument in support of the status quo is actually quite strong — as long as the money continues to flow. For those who discern the uncomfortable truth that the US debt addiction is unsustainable, the picture looks very different. Alternatives to spending-as-strategy exist, but they require policy makers and strategists to rethink their dearly held assumptions of economic and strategic superiority. It requires a unique mind and stout internal mettle to do this, and so far this decade, we have seen little evidence in Washington of this type of insight and character. Let’s hope that the anticipation of crises yet-to-be pushes hitherto overlooked reformers to the front of the national security debate.
I’ll close by restating the problem via analogy: US global superiority in military affairs is actually the superiority of a rich kid who thinks he’s really smart but in reality is merely just rich. When the seemingly endless flow of money slows (as it inevitably will), the mask of cleverness will fall. Everyone who resented the kid will be waiting at the edge of the playground for this day of reckoning, and because no one else will have been so dependent on spending-as-strategy, the erstwhile rich kid will find it tough going.
»
- 16043 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+11%3A36-45&version=NIV
'Nuff said.
It must be obvious to everyone on ZeeHedge that US global policy is treasonous. It has nothing to do with national defense, but with selling overpriced widgets that go boom and kill little brown people whom I don't want to know, don't fear, and have no problem with. You don't need Smedley Buttler to explain that war is a racket for the international banking crowd.
Yep, but the US has played this beautifully. We print money out of thin air and fuel the greatest techology/military expansion in history. Think about it, China has financed the US war machine by buying T-bills. And now we extend the motherfuckin' show till the end! The US and allies can wipe whole peoples off the map now in the name of "freedom" and "democracy". No wonder the fucking neocons have boners and stiff nipples. The only threat to this wonderful plan is from within, which is why we see Cloward-Piven in action in all it's glory. Think about it, it is all very simple. The only real threat to all of this bullshit are the American people themselves!
I have five sons, 16-23 years old. No fucking way they are going anywhere to fight for this shitshow. Over my cold body.
I have five sons, 16-23 years old. No fucking way they are going anywhere to fight for this shitshow. Over my cold body.
This is the end game, IMO. Who wants to send their sons to die for plastic men giving pretty speeches about promises they will never fulfill? Who wants to die for Caitlyn Jenner? For college professors who dream up new ways to twist the knife on people paying their bloated salaries through the tax system?
I'm already looking at how to rearrange my life to need less, spend less, earn less, and therefore pay taxes less. At least until an opportunity to move out rolls around. Seriously, why work to support this system?
"We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."
Speaking of enemies, why didn't he mention American citizens( err I mean terrorists)?
Gotta love the MIC, they think they beat their enemies, foreign and domestic-at the same time.Madness.
How will we produce the machinery of war when we'v sent all our manufacturing overseas?
...ah, gee .....we didn't send ALL of our mfg. overseas ....we kept the good parts like war industry .
The only stuff that went offshore was unimportant.
"kept the good parts" -- like a $billion fighter jet that doesn't fly in bad weather
Or maybe it's the coders that will be our salvation when the cyber war starts. Too bad we H1B'd or outsourced that too.
Thanks for sharing the Satanic Verses, No_Truth.
You've surpassed even Phoenix Capital as the comic relief of ZH.
= D
Dammit, get out there and spend you unpatriotic bastards! - Keyensian-Economist.
Or we'll tax the living shit out of you and spend it on what we want anyways! - Keynesian-Statist.
But I repeat myself ;-)
I’ll close by restating the problem via analogy: US global superiority in military affairs is actually the superiority of a rich kid who thinks he’s really smart but in reality is merely just rich. When the seemingly endless flow of money slows (as it inevitably will), the mask of cleverness will fall. Everyone who resented the kid will be waiting at the edge of the playground for this day of reckoning, and because no one else will have been so dependent on spending-as-strategy, the erstwhile rich kid will find it tough going.
Have to disagree. Constant war keeps a force that is always experienced being in the field and conditioned for war. No other military force could match the US in a kinetic war at this time. Not only in terms of the harware, but the actual large amount of personnel with real world experience in intelligence, operations, and logistics that is needed in actually carrying out a war besides just shooting off a missile from some silo. Whether we have the very best expensive hardware or not does not take away at all the combined experience that lies in the heads of all the troops that have been there engaging in it. The military could do the same job they do now and be just as dominant with a much smaller budget if they didnt waste so much on arms systems they dont need or even want in some cases - but Congress wont kill the program because it'll cost jobs in their district as these things get farmed out to many different states and districts for just such a reason. New fighter plane is ridiculously expensive for its mission. Seems to be a plane trying to find a mission instead of making a plane for a mission. And its inferior to the plane its replacing in a dogfight.
Baloney.
Within the last 20.years, there have been many instances whereby the U.S. military was stopped dead in its tracka, or at the very least so-called commandera deemed certain, potential missions as too dangerous, and thus didn't authorize them. Helicopter missions in Bosnia. A ground war in Kosovo. The list goes on.
I mean really, now, has .guv prosecuted a full-blown war againat a detemined enemy in the last 40 ywars??? Blowing up convoys doesn't count in my book.
The armed forces are the tip of thd spear of U.S. foreign policy, the PR machine set on full blast for the bankers.
Having served in the USMC in the 90's, I know it to be true.
A perpetual, low grade, drawn out engagement is much better for the profit margins; why have a quick decisive victory (equivalent to killing the cash cow),
when you can milk it, for butter, cheese and have calves (little ancillary wars) to keep revenues flowing. Some have theorized we could have had a
decisive victory in Viet Nam, but did not strike at times when the iron was hot because too much money was to be made in a prolonged engagement.
Exactly. Bell Helicopter was located in Texas, LBJ's home state. My dad, a draftee with an axe to grind, also said that Lady Bird's family held interests in a Vietnamese construction company, the Haliburton of their day.
"Some day this war's gonna end."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRp7tYWnJJs
Bingo.
What did the Johnson and Nixon Admins do to create the illusion that the economy was all ice cream and sunshine? Used the Fed as a political pawn, by keeping interest rates low, plus the war spwnding was a temporary boon to the economy.
Then the 70's happened..
I think that anyone that believes that a striking hot iron was all it would have taken to conquer the Vietnamese must be a mind reader. There is no way they could have been conquered as long as they had ammo. They had everything to lose by stopping fighting, meanwhile the body count would have kept rising and the flower crowd would have kept on creating problems.
Truth is, the U.S. has no stomach for dirty wars. Drones are the answer to their fondest dreams. All reading ZH realize the propaganda ploy is cracking due to alternative news sources.
FD, anyone who thinks the US mil is somehow invincible is a Goddam fool. Never mind Grenada or Kosovo, has anyone noticed how our best/brightest combo of .mil and mercs has fared against the so-called 'seperatists' in Ukraine?
Another day, another fuck up.
I have to agree. The US military hasn't really beaten a major enemy since WW2. In many engagements against third world nations they failed - including Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan.
While there are many dedicated and courageous members in the military, they have been used in conflicts and for purposes warned against by many of the nation's founders. Most of them, like most Americans, are completely unaware of this reality. They are products of American dumbing-them-down 'schooling' and media propaganda.
There is so much in this current society which is a fraud. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the 'overwhelming superiority of the USA military' also turns out to be a fraud. Unfortunately, hubris in this area won't just cost money. It will cost many lives.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-officer-corps-that-ca...
Correction, it is the Russians who defeated the Germans in WWII, get your history correct. The faggoty western men came in when the brunt of the german army was dealt with, the pussies knew they would of been slaughtered, but the terrorist western axis of evil sure has one super powered lying machine that brainwashes the dumbed down masses.
There fixed for you.
The Spanish-American War was the last true unaided victory by the U.S.
Yes, we have an experienced cadre of NCO's.but the point of the article is that without the money to support those ridiculously long supply lines, we are not goint to be able to get there " Fustest with the mostest". And don't forget, the war is constant because we can't beat these barefoot ragheads who are driving around in our Hummers. Check out the histories of the other empires in the dustbin of history. They tend to Rhyme.
Unfortunately, I agree. The US has been dumping old hardware/munitions since the 1992 Gulf war and honing battle skills/plans in that timefram too. Almost like someone knew what was going to happen.
You can hate the shit out of the US miltary but they are the best on the planet by far.
And no one thought replacing >1000 generals under the Obama regime was a big deal. Do people realize now that they culled the ranks to keep the most "loyal"? Again, simple and in plain sight.
Tell me why so many generals have been booted (not demoted or transferred) and why so many experienced NCOs (multi-tours Iraq AND Afghanistan are being forced out while we continue to train "wet behind the ears" street kids and non-citizens. The POTUS wants us weakened. We soon will have a "boots on the ground" army that has never had a shot fired at them.
Make work for the Brothas.
Curious that all this real world experience doesn't seem to help when it comes to winning; not against third world nations, or ever barefoot guerrillas in Afghanistan. When was the last the the US won a war??? Lots of people would reasonably say that it was the Soviets that broke the Third Reich. I'll give the US the beating of the Japs in fairness.
Stop sequestration! We got billboards all over town with that slogan on it.
It's like a family man pissing his wages up against the wall then returning home to give his wife a black-eye when she calls him out.
Psssssst. Got some news for you. We're already Bankrupt via The Emergency Banking Act of 1933. Read below. An oldie but goodie.
The Bankruptcy of The United States
United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303
Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11.. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner’s report that will lead to our demise.
It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. H.J.R. 192, 73rd Congress m session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution To Suspend The Gold Standard and Abrogate The Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers. With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy have adopted a new form of government for the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part: "The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States?’
Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America, that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be "money" in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or "currency." Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not "money." A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not "money?’ The federal United States government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money, -gold and silver coin.
It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any "money." Most Americans have not been paid any "money" for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now, do you understand why you are "bankrupt," along with the rest of the country?
Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). when ever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs.
Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-Bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.
There is a fundamental difference between "paying" and "discharging" a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common law is valid unless it involves an exchange of "good & valuable consideration." Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity or justice because they have so much wealth already.
Their lust is for power and control. Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.
The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a "Canon Law Trust" as their model, adding stock and naming it a "Joint Stock Trust." The U.S. Congress had passed a law making it illegal for any legal "person" to duplicate a "Joint Stock Trust" in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post-facto (to 1870), although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution. [1:9:3]
The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums are the same.
Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it.) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principle.
Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913)
"Hypothecated" all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, -in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a "beneficiary" of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their "subjects," the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.
In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit "money substitute" it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their "economic slaves", the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.
Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the people have exchanged one master for another.
This has been going on for over eighty years without the "informed knowledge" of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough. Now it’s easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt.
Why don’t more people own their properties outright?
Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid? Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?
We are reaping what has been sown, and the results of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life. Few of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.
America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit and its reputation for courage, vision and human rights. This is an undeclared economic war, bankruptcy, and economic slavery of the most corrupt order! Wake up America! Take back your Country."
http://www.afn.org/~govern/bankruptcy.html
+50
Jimmy Trafficant's speech can never be re-posted enough, IMO.
"Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their "economic slaves", the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. "
- James Anthony Traficant
Human productivity is the only collateral that exists in the entire world.
James Anthony Traficant
out of the mouths of crooks....
The Journey is never a straight line.
--Wei Tu Long
I have nothing against a gay line.
'You can look all you want, but don't touch' is my watchword
How about you?
I already kicked the entire Military Industrial Complex's head in at the edge of the park March 10th 2008 @ 11:00am Bear Stearns time New York Shitty. Of course, the coward pathetic MIC is too retarded to know what hit them, and too full of hubris to admit it when they got their asses handed to them collectively in less than 1 motherfucking hour, pussies.
NOTE: I plan on making them all cry like little girls in the zero sum end game. lol
:|
An excellent post.
But is too long.
Better to break it up into 5 posts.
“Pentagon Concludes America Not Safe Unless It Conquers the World,” and “Pentagon’s New Military Strategy Calls for Preserving US Dominion of the World.”
Pentegon determines that we cannot be hurt if we are dead. Shock and Awe are not free.
Warmongering doesn't pay. PERIOD.
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/warmongering-vs-econ...
The goal of American foreign policy is not to win wars, but to make them continuous. Wars that end mean the gravy train stops, and the power-mad psychopaths in Washington don't want that happening.
It's why the drug war has lasted four decades. It's why we continue to intervene in shitty little countries that pose no threat to us. It's why they squander a trillion dollars on planes that can't fly and other Cold War relics.
All of this crap ends when the dollar collapses. It can't come soon enough in my opinion.
The war on poverty has cost us more than all other wars combined, from 1789 onward. The war on drugs has been stupid, but it's a blip compared to the war 9th poverty. Peanuts. Epsilon. Un rien de rien.
The purpose of war is war.
Only the country that is always fighting....can be sure of always winning.
Bullshit. Military strategy is a reflection of political policies, and is funded by political decisions, and the military acts in often stupid ways because of political intervention. Look at the current grossly incompetent Commander in Chief and Secretary of Defense. They are determining what the military does or does not do and where defense funding is spent in the short term.
When bad people start wandering around your neighborhood (and give some serious thought to where your neighborhood boundaries are these days), do you want to own a doberman or a chihuahua. If you are an anti-everything leftard pussy, the answer is obviously chihuahua, or maybe a cuddly little bunny - hence this carefully slanted article.
Haha Lol, Political Decisions, Political Policies. Who do you think funds the politicians?
You have coporations and moneyed interests. You ain't got no politics.
I think the best strategy by Russia & China is to :
Wait & watch & sometimes stage a show so that allies of America get flustered and make America spend higher & higher on military bases , thair equipment, firepower & personnel.
All this will boil down to one thing only -> large borrowings/debt
Ultimately America will become unsustainable to run and collapse under its weight of military spending on borrowed money.
Earlier the chimp HomObamma said : 'The expenditure has already been accrued' (actually spending on 100+ military bases). He had shut down the govt . But next time , the entire evil American setup will blow up like a soap bubble.
Remember , violence can never be sustainable, you cant win peace, stability & growth by violence. Violence is evil , it is satanic, violence is backed by evil forces.
Does anyone here feel like the U.S. is heading for an epic military defeat somewhere, soon?
I kind of do. Some sort of Stalingrad event, something truly terrible, something that makes the entire world gasp.
When is the last time anything like that has happened to the American military? Pearl Harbor?
Ha! They'll simply declare victory, haul ass, and leave their shit for the enemy to use in the next eternal war for eternal peace progression.
All this spending and we can't come up with a measly 2 or 3 billion to harden our Electrical Grid against an Electromagnetic Pulse. Be it from the Sun (Solar Flare) or an enemy. If the United States gets hit by a big one our Grid could be down for a year or more killing over 50% of our population. With all the fear mongering about a potential Nucluar War we should have hardend our Grid 20 years ago. Maybe this is their plan to cull the heard. None the less unforgivable incompetence to have not taken care of such an easy and cheap preparation for a highly probable event.
It's not Pentagon spending per se, but spending trillions on worthless shit that doesn't work, with huge payola envelopes and future board seats for sufficiently compliant congresswhores.
Just saw a propaganda video on sea trials for both variants of the littoral combat ship. (aka little crappy ship). They are basically UPS delivery vehicles with a turret-mount popgun for a weapons system. Zero chance of surviving a real engagement, according to an admiral's study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-EPWLuzhuY
The F-35 is much worse--it just failed numerous combat tests against one of our old F-16s.
The flag officer traitors in the Penragon will do anything for their next star. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
We are completely fucked in a real shooting war, and we have no industrial production to ramp up as we did (massively) after Pearl Harbor.
Therefore, it will go nuke in a hurry.
The F-22 is too expensive, and not as good as they think, it has many many problems, the F-35 smoking joint fighter (which is modelled after the Russian Yak – 141) is a complete money trap for the people building it, last I heard, it had 700+ problems to resolve, Hahahaha. The Littoral Class Freedom (if you can believe them calling anything this!) as well as the Zumwalt (very N4Zi sounding) navy vessels is the same as the F-35, just the sea version, it is so unsafe that even the navy will not guarantee the survival of the crew, on both! Hahahaha.
The latest beach landing craft they are making is a joke, it looks and moves like pre WWI. Serious, look it all up, it’s the UHAC (Ultra Heavy-lift Amphibious Connector) Quite a fancy name for a floating elephant/turd. All three sea vessels are floating coffins.
Sputnik news: F-35, software problems, bet they still not fixed.
http://sputniknews.com/military/20150313/1019429096.html
Medium News: F’d: How the world got stuck with the World’s worst new combat aircraft.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5
Littoral Combat Ship Will Be Modified, If Not Replaced
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2014/August/Pages/LittoralCombatShipWillBeModifiedIfNotReplaced.aspx
Can the Navy's $12 Billion Stealth Destroyer Stay Afloat?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/22/can-the-navy-s-12-billion-stealth-destroyer-stay-afloat.html
LA Times: The Pentagon's $10 billion radar doesn't work
http://fortruss.blogspot.co.at/2015/04/la-times-pentagons-10-billion-radar.html
DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/straus-military-reform-project/weapons/2015/not-ready-for-prime-time.html
Delivery of Troubled Zumwalt Stealth Destroyers Delayed for US Navy
http://sputniknews.com/news/20150311/1019322119.html#ixzz3hMaZuxHS
Osama Bin Laden died in Dec, 2001-the guy who they 'found' 8 years later, and gave a "proper Muslim burial" to at sea, 100 miles out, is open for discussion
As I have pointed out here at the Hedge : the two pillars of US hegemony's historical TIMELINE :
1° The Reserve "our money your problem' print monopoly since 1971/1973 BW revoke and Dear Henry's shuttle diplomacy petrodollar bulwark. (The Original Friedmanite Monetary Sin of the West).
2° The Big Stick argument honed in the Injun Wars : As long as the enemy kill ratio stays 300/1 in our military ventures, we can't lose our $ hegemony and the money rolls in and we stay king of the heap under FED and Rockafella/Ford's --Oil/car duopoly. The golden age of Consumerism.
Based on American "exceptionalism", guaranteed by a big stick MIC strategy that went global in NAM plays, engineered on a false flag "Gulf of Tonkin" Johnsonian sleight of hand ---So conveniently planned after Aldous Huxley day at Dealey Plaza Dallas...
The MIC and Nixonian petrodollar hold has run the world since then.
Reaganomics and Bush's NWO then shoved it down the throats of all and sundry in WS's "greed is good" supply side Oligarchy shenanigans.
USA, USA all the way to Berlin and beyond under WTO "cheap labour arb.", "outsourced", template of US Oligarchy 1% !
Until Lehman's Titanic hit the Rock of Scylla of unsustainable asset pumping fed on toxic debt leverage.
And now Pax Americana heads for the Charybdis whirlpool of Inverted Mussolinian capitalism (crony but led by private Oligarchy) gone viral in FED print to infinity to save its legacy. And this is a financialista disease now disseminated via HFT type bankster frenzy aided by CB print plays that know no limits.
Some Odyssey!
Is the richest kid in town as smart as Ulysses?
Fighting any war with a five to ten thousand-mile supply line is a losing proposition; all the enemy has to do is stay out of your way and you eventually will SPEND yourself to DEATH....
Step aside pilgrim, this is a job for the USAF and Space Command.
We'll have it wrapped up in a few hours.
The U.S. has a number of problems -
Debt will continually reduce the numbers and logistics ability of the military.
The U.S. has not had a Pearl Harbor since - well, since Pearl Harbor. There has been no nation galvanizing event to support a war since. That usually means that there should not have been any wars since. And because of this, the U.S. has never had a true commitment to pay any and all costs to win.
The U.S. military can sweep any army from a country, but cannot hold a country in which there is already an on-going Civil War among the people in that country. That has been the one true thing in every conflict since WWII.
The U.S. continues to think we hold the moral high ground. As a result we neither take the ruthless actions to suppress an enemy, nor do we support puppet leaders capable of taking such action. Thus every victory ends up - not destroying the enemy - but rather creating more enemies.
Trillions spent in the past 15 years beating up, but not defeating, camel-riding troglydytes...not sure if I was a military man I'd be super-pumped about that.
Bankrupt since 1933.