Relevancy is such a valuable commodity:
Russia’s attack on Georgia has become an unexpected source of support for big U.S. weapons programs, including flashy fighter jets and high-tech destroyers, that have had to battle for funding this year because they appear obsolete for today’s conflicts with insurgent opponents.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spent much of the year attempting to rein in some of the military’s most expensive and ambitious weapons systems — like the $143 million F-22 Raptor jet — because he thinks they are unsuitable for the lightly armed and hard-to-find militias, warlords and terrorist groups the U.S. faces in Iraq and Afghanistan…
When Russia’s invading forces choked roads into Georgia with columns of armored vehicles and struck targets from the air, it instantly bolstered the case being made by some that the Defense Department isn’t taking the threat from Russia and China seriously enough.
“Swords into ploughshares” may have to wait another generation. Pity.
Would be nice to see what a wing of Raptors configured for AAW and Air to mud could do, but I doubt the State Department (hack, spit) would let them one happen.
At least the Cold War came with beer and peanuts……………
If the f-22 is as good as they say it is, why are we shutting down production? Ok it is expensive, so do not buy as many per year, or let the Aussie’s and the Israelis buy some.
I know there is a lot of hype about what is good and what is not, but if we truly have a world beater, I think we need more than a few.
Oh yeah, sorry got a little carried away. If it takes the Russians to get us thinking of building more, that can’t be bad can it?
People here should study the history of Gates during his stint at the CIA . He was a model of the perfect bureaucratic back-stabber.
What we are faced with is that, due to a reluctant left-wing, appeasement oriented Congress, any Secretary of Defense soon comes to tailor his budget to fit political realities and hope that whistling past the grave-yard by rationalizing away potential PRC or Russian threats will allow them to claim that they didn’t need/want those grapes anyway, and thus stint on really expensive but effective systems. We obviously need “both and,” not “either or.” There is a price for doing something and a price for doing nothing–and history unfortunately shows that the price for
doing something on the front end–as high as it seems at the time–pales in comparison to the price of doing nothing on the back end if the stars are just the slightest bit out of alignment.
Virgil, thanks for your comment. It clears some questions I had about Gates. Like, wondering why the guildmaster couldn’t remember the whole “Want peace? Be ready for war” thing.
[...] “The military-industrial complex thanks Vlad the assailer,” Neptunus Lex quips. “Relevancy is such a valuable commodity.” [...]
[...] “The military-industrial complex thanks Vlad the assailer,” Neptunus Lex quips. “Relevancy is such a valuable commodity.” [...]
So which is worse- “next-war-itis” or “last-war-itis”? Oh the gruesome inevitability of it all…
If I remember Ronald Reagan right he said “Everyone calls it the military industrial complex till there is a war. Then it is called the Defense Industry”
I see the dangers of forgetting the 800 lb surly bear and the Dragon are still there as the Eagle is out hunting snakes in the mountains that eat armies (Afghanistan) and the remnants of Babylon. While we are busy fighting the shadowy enemy and look into the darkness, these two could just cut us from behind.
The military (that i sadly cannot serve for medical disquals) need to remain large and as well armed since unlike Gates’ view that we will keep fighting the rock throwers and ieds since these two nation states are the one who keep supplying the bombs and we need to call the spades what they are. We are in a war of proxies much like the Spanish civil war was before WWII. We need to recognize it for that and more. WE ARE AMERICA and have no real friends except Britain and its other former colonies like ourselves.
BTW what is Russia doing with our Hummers it took from Georgia?
[...] "Vlad the assailer", as Neptunus Lex calls the Russians, has recently reinvigorated the F-22 and other big-money [...]