A great idea
by tdaxp ~ March 17th, 2009
While the Democrats are intent on turning America’s car industry into an arm of the Welfare Office, some Republicans are much more recklessly trying to turn America’s military-industrial complex into such a welfare program, too:
The Weekly Standard
Throwing skilled workers out of a job in the middle of a deep recession…Gates is preparing the most far-reaching changes in the Pentagon’s weapons portfolio since the end of the Cold War, according to aides.
Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said.
We need to signal cooperation, not rivalry, with the People’s Republic when it comes to arms platforms. Much better to roll back the F-22 program, and put the proceeds into armored vehicles used for guarding Chinese copper mines in Afghanistan.
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:...
March 17th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
My step-father and I came up with the idea of getting the Chinese to join the coalition in Afghanistan. Can you imagine the impact of about 200k Chinese soldiers in theater?
March 17th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
ElamBend,
Exactly.
Further, a few years of peace in Afghanistan will see increased Chinese investment in the country. This will change — or at least complicated — Afghanistan’s strategic orientation.
(A comment by doug has been removed from this thread due to profanity.)
March 18th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I watched an excellent talk on why we should scrap the f22 and f35. It totally changed my thinking on this platform and the type of weapon systems we should be pursuing. The talk was based on a book called “The Coming Defense Meltdown.” The authors (or at least one of them) is connected to Lind’s “Defense and the National interest.” I highly recommend it. It gives a good historical argument on why fighter bombers are a waste of resources and not needed. We can actually build better aircraft for the same price and produce a larger quantity as well. It totally changed my thinking on the f22/f35. Here’s the link:
http://www.booktv.org/watch.aspx?ProgramId=LW-10272
March 18th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Correction above, the name of the book is:
America’s Defense Meltdown
March 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Cooperation?
Does that mean we should ask the Chinese to let us use their secret sub base to base some of our own subs? Think of the cost savings to both sides!
March 18th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Seerov,
Don Vandergriff has a long post discussing the edited volume. [1] It looks like Chet Richards’ crew put it out, which is good.
I criticized some of the ideas when they were presented in Chet’s latest. [2] Still, I think the main point – we are buying a small number of extremely expensive machines that are unlikely to be effective used – is a good one.
Brendan,
Yes.
[1] http://donvandergriff.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/americas-defense-meltdown-pentagon-reform-for-the-new-president-and-congress/
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/02/12/review-of-if-we-can-keep-it-by-chet-richards.html