Since the May 2, 2011, Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, President Obama has lauded the mission’s success and championed U.S. Special Forces as a major component of future military operations. Both Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have stressed that, as conventional forces draw down in Iraq and Afghanistan, special operations units will become an increasingly significant component of America’s national security strategy. However, the relationship between conventional and nonconventional forces is not so simple. The President makes the assumption that lowering the number of active-duty …
Want to hear something disturbing? China has increased its defense budget by double digits every year for the last 20 years. Just as China seems to be gearing up for some undefined enterprise, the U.S. is winding down its defense budget at a similarly rapid pace. Despite the obvious contrast, President Obama said recently that reductions in U.S. defense spending “will not—I repeat, will not—come at the expense of the Asia-Pacific.” Yesterday, Obama visited Australia to announce a renewed U.S. troop presence in coming months, part of a new security …
The echo chamber of Washington is hard at work. The consensus is growing that the U.S. military will need to aim for a slimmer but still perfectly effective military, thanks to the budget and capability cuts of the past three years. However, given the magnitude of ongoing defense budget cuts, a hollowing force simply does not translate into a “meaner” military. For the past half-century and more, America has taken a leadership role in the world. This has manifest vital national interests all around the globe. As a result, the …
Tomorrow starts the 11th year that U.S. military forces will be fighting in Afghanistan. Even though President Obama twice “surged” U.S. troops on the ground there since taking office, he has been busy cutting military capabilities and dollars the entire time. During his first two years in office, the President and Congress helped accelerate the reduction of America’s military technological advantages. Advanced equipment projects killed, delayed, or modified over the past three years include: F-22 fifth-generation tactical fighter, C-17 cargo aircraft, VH-71 helicopter, Combat search and rescue helicopter, DDG-1000 destroyer …
Members of Congress, prominent military and veterans affairs experts, and Tea Party representatives raised concerns that further cuts to the U.S. military would do irreparable damage to national security, during an event sponsored by the Coalition for a Common Defense on Capitol Hill. The event took place amidst the growing chorus of Administration officials and experts raising red flags about further cuts to the U.S. military. The chorus is growing because if the congressional “supercommittee” does not reach an agreement on deficit reduction by November 23, there will be huge …
The U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) force faces an uncertain future, writes Mark Schneider in his recent post on DefenseNews.com. A set of Minuteman failures in the recent years is as concerning as the exponential loss of design and engineering expertise within the Air Force itself. As Schneider warns, no one involved in the original Minuteman design is active in the program, and no one in the Air Force project office has experience in managing the development of a new ICBM. This could cause substantial problems if a …
It took a Twitter town hall to learn how the President really thinks about defense. Not only does Obama want to gut defense as part of his debt deal (a proposal that simply won’t work)—on top of that, he wants to use the Pentagon budget as his personal ATM to fund more stimulus spending. According to Obama, the Pentagon budget is “so big that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans …
President Obama had no shortage of things to say at yesterday’s Twitter town hall meeting, even if he didn’t always have firm grasp of the facts or reality. A reader ran the numbers: Obama used a total number of 8,519 words in his answers — or roughly 38,703 characters. At 140 characters each, that’s about 276 tweets (excluding space for @replies, links or hashtags). In the course of the conversation, Obama didn’t let the facts get in the way of his answers. Heritage investigative reporter Lachlan Markay noted Obama’s false …
Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the federal government has steadily increased the number of jobs transferred from private contractors to the civil service. Insourcing was supposed to save money, but the results tell a different story. The effort stems from a March 4, 2009, administration memorandum on government contracting. President Obama described this initiative as, “…reforms in how government does business, which will save the American people up to $40 billion each year.” But would it really save money to increase the number of federal government employees at …
In a few weeks, President Obama will submit his fiscal year (FY) 2011 defense budget request to Capitol Hill along with a myriad of important supporting documents including the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), long-range shipbuilding and aviation plans, and the Quadrennial Defense Review. While many expect a minimal topline increase for defense spending again in FY 2011 (one to two percent real growth), this modest bump is still insufficient to pay all the Pentagon bills. The underfunding of defense plans has become predictable and why many analysts discount as …
