Category: Military

Military Power: Balance

Balance Of Forces, (Washington Times)…William Hawkins, June 26, 2008, Pg. 22

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the Air Force secretary and chief of staff earlier this month, he cited problems in the nuclear weapons program. Many suspect the firings were prompted by more systemic failures …

Provides the perspective on the need to balance immediate  with longer term needs.

“It is a matter of balance,” Mr. Gates told his audiences, “We must build out the Navy. We must modernize the Air Force, in particular the aging fighter and tanker fleet. And we must prepare the Army and Marine Corps for full-spectrum conflict.”

… America must be prepared for dealing with nations “discontented with their role in the international order and rising and resurgent powers whose future paths are uncertain,” diplomatic code for a rising China and a resurgent Russia.

All-Volunteer Force: Challenges

All-Volunteer Army: An Ongoing Experiment
(USA Today)…Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, June 25, 2008, Pg. 9

In 1973, the military draft ended, and our nation began the experiment of manning an Army exclusively with volunteers. A decade later, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger proclaimed, “To all the American people, I would say that the experiment is over. We know that an all-volunteer force can succeed, and we know what it takes to make it succeed.” And yet, perhaps today we really don’t know all it takes to make the all-volunteer force succeed.

The real issue confronting today’s Army derives from three aversions held by Americans:

•We are skeptical of a sizable military. “The spirit of this country,” Thomas Jefferson noted, “is totally adverse to a large military force.”

•While many Americans yearn for some form of national service, few are eager to revisit the inequities of conscription.

•Americans have a low tolerance for long wars.

Retired lieutenant colonel Leonard Wong and retired colonel Stephen Gerras are faculty members at the Army War College. Their views are not necessarily those of the Army.

Air Force: Change

Air Force Adrift, (Washington Post)…Editorial, June 21, 2008, Pg. 16

SLOWLY AND painfully, the U.S. Army has adapted itself to the unconventional wars the country has faced since Sept. 11, 2001. Following a reorganization of forces, a rewrite of doctrine and the emergence of new commanders such as Gen. David H. Petraeus, American ground troops are winning counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and eastern Afghanistan — and are recognized as state-of-the-art by NATO allies.

… In contrast, the U.S. Air Force, which dominated the 1990s with its smart bombs and stealth planes, has lost its way in the new century.

Heroic Military Working Dog

Once At A Local Pound, Gabe Now Sniffs Out Bombs In Iraq
(Houston Chronicle)…Rosanna Ruiz, June 21, 2008, Pg. 1

In his early years, he was known to wander …

His impressive military record led the American Kennel Club recently to honor Gabe with its Heroic Military Working Dog Award medal. His partner, Sgt. Charles Shuck, of the 178th Military Police Detachment, also shared in the honor.

The pair has conducted more than 170 combat patrols, including search operations, raids and sweeps that provided safe environments for task forces, Iraqi police and other coalition forces, according to the AKC.

DoD: Fuel and Food Bills

CNN, June 18, 2008, Rise In Fuel And Food Prices Affects Pentagon, Issue Number One (CNN), 12:00 PM

ALI VELSHI: Well, you’re going to love this story. You all probably have an idea of what you spend on gas and food every month. Hopefully it’s a simple family budget. But what if you had a food and fuel budget for your entire company? And what if that company was nearly three times the size of Wal-Mart, IBM and ExxonMobil combined? CNN’s Barbara Starr has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARBARA STARR: If you think your gas and grocery bill is high, meet Tina Jonas. She spends $15 billion a year on fuel and $3 billion a year on food.

TINA JONAS, PENTAGON CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER: It’s pretty hectic around here.

STARR: Jonas manages the Pentagon’s $600 billion budget.

JONAS: If we were a country on earth, we’d be about the 17th largest economy in the world.

STARR: She likes to point out that the Pentagon’s budget woes are just like everybody else’s, running out of money in a world of rising prices. The U.S. military is the single largest consumer of fuel in the country, perhaps the world — 122 million barrels a year.

JONAS: We need another $3.5 billion of fuel money just to get through the year. We’re going to need another $1 billion to finance our food bill.

STARR: And why is that?

JONAS: Well, transportation’s driving a lot of it. The cost of wheat and corn and other things have gone up.

STARR: From her desk, or what she calls her dash board, Jonas monitors everything.

JONAS: What I do for my fuel prices is, I have my — the figures that I have here tell me how short I’m going to be in the accounts that buy fuel for the departments.

STARR: So the budget around here really isn’t that different than your family budget really?

JONAS: Well, that’s right. We’re car pooling a lot at home now. Took the metro yesterday.

STARR: Seriously?

JONAS: Yes, I did. I’ve been taking it the last couple of days. My husband, he’s a former retired Marine, so he’s pretty tight with the bucks. (END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: And Jonas has another tip for saving money that might sound familiar, pay your bills on time. She’s making sure the Pentagon does that and so far she calculates she has saved about a quarter of a billion dollars in late fees.

VELSHI: All right. And that — I mean, when you’re at the Pentagon, that’s a lot of money to be able to save, but they’ve got big budget needs. Where do they get the new money for those?

STARR: You know, I asked that question, Ali. I said, so is there a secret printing press for money in the basement? There’s always been that rumor here in the Pentagon. But, of course, what they do is they go to Congress to get authorization to spend more money. So, of course, they’re really getting it from you and me, the taxpayers.

VELSHI: Yes. And those gas prices have really, really hit them very hard. It’s a great story. It’s a good lesson to learn. You know, when the biggest of the big save money by doing those things, it could work for us.

Boeing wins appeal: 35 Billion

Audit Says Tanker Deal Is Flawed
(New York Times)…Leslie Wayne

In a stunning turnabout for the Boeing Company, government auditors on Wednesday upheld the company’s appeal of the Air Force’s decision to award a $35 billion contract to build midair refueling tankers to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus.

FCS Funding

Army Touts New Technology (Wall Street Journal)…August Cole, June 13, 2008, Pg. 11

With work on the 2009 defense budget expected to continue through the fall, the Army brought the first FCS prototypes, including a 27-ton hybrid diesel-electric, tanklike cannon and other high-tech systems, to lawmakers’ doorstep this week. The White House requested $3.6 billion for the program in 2009.

The Senate Armed Services Committee said it wants to fully fund FCS in order to give the program a chance to succeed. Cuts, even small ones, can have ripple effects that slow development and hurt suppliers. So far, the cuts add up to about $1 billion, Boeing says.

But the House Armed Services Committee wants to slice about $200 million from the program, just as it sought cuts last year.

The Army is counting on Future Combat Systems to give it new networking and communications abilities, as well as more sophisticated ground vehicles and added firepower.

The program has 14 components, including remotely controlled aerial and ground vehicles. Some technologies are already in use while others, like bigger armored vehicles, won’t be ready for a few years. The first Future Combat Systems-equipped brigade is set for 2015.