MissileThreat.com and Hans Kristensen are wrong to understate the Chinese nuclear threat

A recent MissileThreat.com article inexplicably and wrongly downplays the Chinese missile and submarine threat significantly, which is a stain on the previously almost impeccable credibility of the MissileThreat website, which has normally been a very credible information source.

The article informs the reader that the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warns in its report that China is “on the verge” of acquiring a credible continous at-sea nuclear deterrent and that China supposedly already has 2-3 SSBNs; hence, the Commission says, the US should enter into arms limitation talks with Beijing.

But the ESR Commission and the MissileThreat website are actually understating the Chinese military threat. Anti-nuclear, pro-disarmament hack Hans Kristensen (a Danish pacifist activist working in the US) understates it even worse.

Firstly, China had 2-3 Jin class SSBNs (plus one Xia class submarine) 5 years ago, in 2007. Since then, it has grown to 5 Jins and the one Xia class boat, as documented here. A mere 2-3 Jin class boats is what China had in 2007. Common sense and logic alone should tell us that China has only increased its SSBN fleet since then, and has has had plenty of time (5 years!) to do so. And indeed, China has 5 Jin class SSBNs today, with a sixth one under construction. This is consistent with the Office of Naval Intelligence’s 2006 statement that China would need at least 5 Jins to maintain a continous at-sea nuclear deterrent.

Secondly, contrary to what the article (and the MissileThreat website, in its profile of the missile) claims, the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (the principal armament of the Jin class) has a range of 8,000 kms, not 7,200. That range makes a Jin class boat capable of targeting the entire US West Coast while being positioned just east of the 150E meridian, just east of Japan and well west of Hawaii. It does not need to sail close to, let alone east of Hawaii as the article wrongly claimed.

Even if the JL-2’s range was “only” 7,200 kilometers, that would still give a Jin enough range to target the entire US West Coast while being positioned at the 160E meridian, still well west of Hawaii. In fact, if a Jin boat were positioned just slightly east of Hawaii, its JL-2 missiles could hit any target anywhere in the US, including even Maine. (A Chinese YouTube video claims that the JL-2 has a range of 7,400 kms, and the SinoDefence website says it has a range of between 7000 and 8000 kms.)

Kristensen and MissileThreat also falsely claim that Chinese SSBNs would be vulnerable shortly after leaving their bases. This is false, at least regarding the Yulin Naval Base near Sanya (which is quoted in the article), on the South China Sea, and possibly also false with regard to the Jianggezhue Naval Base near Qingdao. The entrance to the Yulin Naval Base is partially underwater and the water in front of that entrance, and in the entrance lane itself, is so deep that a submarine entering or leaving that base can do so while being fully submerged, as reported by the Daily Telegraph here. So the ony way for the USN to know when a sub would be leaving the base would be to permanently have an American sub positioned near the entrance and monitor it as Chinese subs enter and exit the base, then track a Jin class sub leaving the base.

MissileThreat and Kristensen also mock the Jin class’s survivability, saying that it’s noisy and might not survive in the Pacific. The Jin class is noisy to be sure (as the ONI confirms), but it won’t matter in the congested waters of the East China and South China Seas or in the Sea of Japan. Nor will it matter in the vast swathes of the open Pacific, where the only way of detecting a Jin boat is to know where to look for it. But because a Jin can exit its base unseen, and because the Pacific Ocean is so vast, the USN would never know where to look for the Jin class.

Moreover, as MissileThreat itself admits, America’s ASW capabilities have dwindled dramatically since 1991. The fleet of P-3 Orion ASW aircraft is old, worn out, and dwindling, planned orders for replacement P-8 Poseidon aircraft are small, S-3 Viking carrier-borne ASW aircraft have been retired, the submarine fleet is dwindling and overcommitted, and so is the surface combatant fleet, not all of which is equipped with sonars. It would therefore be very easy for a Jin class boat to exit one of its subs unseen and then vanish in the vast swathes of the Pacific, only to threaten the US.

Kristensen, of course, desiring to mislead the public about China’s military capabilities and to lull the public into a false sense of security, falsely claims that “in a war with the United States, China would not last long”. What utter garbage.

In fact, China’s nuclear arsenal is very survivable. Its DF-5 ICBMs sit in hardened siloes, it has built many decoy siloes, while its DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs (like their DF-21 MRBM and their SRBM and GLCM counterparts) are road-mobile (a rail-mobile version of the DF-31 is reportedly under development). Its nuclear strike aircraft are dispersed around many bases around the country, and nuclear-capable Q-5s and JH-7s are mostly based in hardened or underground and under-mountain hangars. Jin class submarines, of course, being submarines, are even more survivable, like other SSBNs.

Looking at China’s entire portfolio of military capabilities – not just the nuclear ones – it is clear that China’s military is catching up with the US military quickly and that, as things stand today, Beijing would actually win a conventional war with the US in Eastern Asia.

This is because the US military today is poorly prepared for wars in anti-access/area-denial environments. Its sole bombers capable of penetrating Chinese airspace are its 20 B-2 bombers. Its cruise missiles could be easily intercepted by Chinese air defense systems. The bases of its short- and medium-range aircraft are all within easy reach of Chinese SRBMs (DF-11, DF-15, B-611), MRBMs (DF-21, DF-3), and GLCMs (CJ-10, DH-10). Its ASW skills and assets, as stated above and admitted by MissileThreat, have dwindled disastrously since 1991. Its submarine and surface combatants are dwindling, too, and will do so even if sequestration is averted completely. It has only 14 mine countermeasure ships, most of them committed to the Persian Gulf, while China has 100,000 naval mines. Its carriers are at risk from Chinese ASCMs and ASBMs. Its carrier-borne aircraft have a short range.

Thus, in a war with the US, China would simply need to use its SRBMs, MRBMs, and cruise missiles to destroy American bases in the region (and the aircraft parked there), while Chinese DF-21D ASBMs would sink any American carrier within 2,700 kms of China’s coast.

Alas, it is the US, not China, that would not last long in a war between Washington and Beijing.

Americans: Cut spending, except the spending we personally live off

The most recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll finds that the vast majority of Americans oppose any cuts in the government programs they personally benefit from (i.e. receive money from), and support cutting spending only in what they personally don’t benefit (or at least don’t believe they benefit) from.

The latest edition of this poll has actually found that Americans are “more protective than ever” of these programs.

The poll also finds that, contrary to two widely-reported polls that purported to show a large majority of Americans supporting deep cuts in defense spending, only 15% of men and 19% of women support such a course of action.

79% of Americans oppose any cuts in Medicare. Only 17% would be okay with some cuts in it, and only 3% would like to see “lots of cuts” to it.

Opposition to any reforms or cuts to the program transcend beyond demographic divisions. 71% of men, 87% of women, 93% of non-Hispanic blacks, 78% of whites, and 68% of men over the age of 50 (although that demographic group is more open to cuts than women or younger people).

As the National Journal reports:

The figures were similar for Social Security, the other big, universal entitlement that enjoys widespread popular support.

As with many other surveys, the latest edition of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll found more support for cutting so-called means-tested programs that are available only to the poor or lower-middle class. Still, 45 percent of men and 52 percent of women said that the government shouldn’t make any cuts in “food stamps and housing vouchers” that go to poor families. Among white men without a college degree, a once Democratic-leaning group that has become elusive for the party, some 45 percent wanted the government to leave these programs alone.

However, it’s not as if public opinion has swung to a clear defense of expansionist government. Previous editions of the Congressional Connection Poll and other surveys have found stern opposition to the president’s health care law, and especially the mandate that Americans buy health insurance.

The poll also belies the 2 rigged polls produced earlier this year by the liberal CPI/NPR and by the University of Maryland which puported to show majorities (over 60%) of Americans support deep defense spending cuts.

In reality, as the UT/National Journal poll shows, only 19% of men and 15% of women support cutting defense spending “a lot”, while 34% of women and 32% of men say that it shouldn’t be cut at all, and a large plurality (47%) of both men and women take a centrist position, saying that defense spending has to see some cuts and thus to contribute to deficit reduction, but not be cut deeply. Thus, a plurality of Americans want defense to contribute to deficit reduction, but they’re wary of deep cuts, worried (quite rightly) that such cuts would impair the nation’s ability to defend itself (which they would).

And what’s most interesting about these results is that on defense spending, women are at least slightly more conservative than men. This is in stark contrast to the liberal views expressed by most women on other issues. It shows that providing for the common defense has an appeal that transcends gender barriers and, if anything, the necessity to provide for it resonates more strongly with the fairer sex than with men.

(Or maybe most American women simply understand that they cannot bet their children’s and their country’s security on American men breaking free of their defense cuts kool-aid?)

Finally, what this poll also shows is that the vast majority of Americans are trying to have it both ways: they want the federal budget to be balanced and spending to be cut, but at the same time, they’re warning politicians not to even think about touching entitlement programs or other popular federal giveaways, such as food stamps (although the percentage of Americans defending the latter is much lower). The problem is that the budget deficit will never be significantly reduced, let alone eliminated, if entitlement programs are left untouched, because they, by themselves, constitute 63% of all federal spending.

Thus, what the poll shows is that the vast majority of Americans don’t want limited government; they want to continue to receive their government handouts.

The poll’s full results can be found here:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/poll-shows-public-wants-entitlements-left-untouched-20121204

The poll was conducted between Nov. 29^th and Dec. 2^nd on a sample of 1,003 people.

Rebuttal of RINO and Democrat congresscritters’ blatant lies

The DefenseNews.com website has recently published an article by John T. Bennett that extensively quotes a letter sent by 11 RINO and 11 Democrat members of Congress – including such conservative stalwarts as Barney Frank, Lynn Woolsey, Keith Ellison, Jim Moran (D-VA), and Chris Gibson (RINO-NY) – that calls for deep, $550 bn defense cuts and falsely claims that such cuts would be “harmless” because they would be “strategic”, i.e. done in a manner targeted at specific programs rather than being done across the board like sequestration. The Congressmen falsely claim that because such cuts would be done in a targeted manner, they would be harmless.

What utter garbage!

Firstly, the Republicans who joined the Dems in signing these letters are RINOs, not conservatives: RINOs such as Tom McClintock and Chris Gibson (both of whom have very liberal voting records). Jim Moran of Virginia is a Democrat, not a Republican – and a very liberal Democrat at that, representing a very liberal district where the only competition is between left and lefter.

(And BTW, Congressman McClintock’s name is Tom, short for Thomas, not Tim, and he’s from California, not North Carolina. DefenseNews can’t get even that right.)

And if you support deep, crippling cuts to America’s defense, and even worse, if you join the House’s most strident liberal Democrats to do so, you are a traitor, you are not a conservative, and you have no right to call yourself one.

Secondly, despite the Congressmen’s pious assurances that “substantial defense savings can be achieved over the long-term, without compromising national security, through strategic reductions in the Pentagon’s budget”; that “The recommendations of those studies would responsibly achieve defense savings over the next decade”, that the DOD could “save up to $550 billion without harming U.S. national security. In fact, achieving defense savings as part of the larger effort to reduce the national debt will go a long way toward bolstering U.S. national security”, these assurances are hollow. They are blatant lies. These cuts (proposed by the think-tanks cited by the Congressmen) would, in fact, gut the US military. And I don’t use that word lightly.

How do I know? Because I’ve actually read and thoroughly reviewed the defense cuts proposals of these “think-tanks” (they were: CATO, POGO, TCS, NTU-PIRG, the Stimson Center, the “Project on Defense Alternatives”, and the Soros-funded “Center for American Progress” ) and have utterly refuted all of them. Their proposals of defense cuts would entail, inter alia:

1) Deep cuts to the Navy’s ship fleet, down to just 230 or fewer ships, including deep cuts in the carrier, attack submarine, cruiser, destroyer, ballistic missile submarine, amphibious assault ship, and auxiliary ship fleets, leaving the Navy too weak and too small to handle any major adversary or to secure the world’s shipping lanes on which 95% of America’s trade depends. Deep cuts in the Navy would dramatically reduce America’s power projection capabilities; deep cuts in attack sub fleets would also gut America’s already-underinvested anti-submarine warfare, naval intelligence, and long range strike capabilities, while cuts in cruiser and destroyer fleets would leave the remaining ship fleet poorly defended against air and missile attacks and also reduce long range strike capability, as well as BMD capabilities. Thus, enemy navies would have no problem defeating the USN with submarines, aircraft, and anti-ship missiles, while the USN’s power projection capability would be cut by almost 60 ships, i.e. almost 20%.

2) Deep unilateral cuts to the nation’s nuclear deterrent, to just 900 warheads, 200 ICBMs (instead of the current 450), and no more than 8 SSBNs, with zero strategic bombers. This would open the nation to, and invite, a nuclear first strike by Russia or China. Keep in mind that Russia has 1,492 deployed and 2,800 total strategic warheads and the means to deliver all of them if need be. It has 434 (mostly multi-warhead) ICBMs, including 58 SS-18 Satan ICBMs capable of carrying 10 warheads each and 136 SS-19 Stilletto ICBMs capable of carrying 6 warheads each. It also has 14 ballistic missile submarines (capable of delivering over 2,000 warheads) and over 200 Tu-95, Tu-160, and Tu-22M nuclear strategic bombers. It is now developing new ICBMs, strategic bombers, and SSBNs. It also has a huge arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons and their delivery systems which, according to the Obama Administration, outnumbers America’s tactical nuclear arsenal 10-1. China has at least 1,800, and possibly up to 3,000, nukes, and the means to deliver over 1,100 of them immediately to various targets (including hundreds to America; China has 36 DF-5, over 30 DF-31, and a number of DF-41 MIRVable ICBMs as well as 6 SSBNs). Cuts in America’s nuclear deterrent would also force America’s allies to develop their own nuclear arsenals, thus making the nuclear proliferation problem much worse.

3) Deep cuts in missile defense programs, leaving the nation and its allies exposed to ballistic missile attacks.

4) Deep cuts in the force structure and modernization programs of the Air Force, including the F-35 stealth fighter program, and killing the USAF’s Next Generation Bomber/LRSB program, thus depriving the Air Force of a bomber capable of penetrating defended enemy airspace (B-52s and B-1s have huge RCSes and are easy for even legacy 1960s’ Soviet air defense systems to shoot down), leaving the USAF with only 20 penetration-capable B-2 bombers. This would be a death sentence on any pilot not flying an F-22, F-35, or B-2.

5) Deep cuts in all modernization and research programs across the board. The result would be a military saddled with old, obsolete, unsurvivable weapons that are increasingly expensive to maintain.
6) Deep cuts in the ground force, rendering it unable to wage even one major war.
7) Deep cuts in the troops’ numbers and healthcare, thus breaking faith with them. This would cause many troops to leave service, harming recruiting and retention.

(8) Cuts or even wholesale cancellations of crucial weapon programs (necessary in the anti-access/area-denial threat environment) such as missile defense systems, the Next Generation Bomber, the F-35, the P-8 Poseidon ASW plane, the Virginia class attack submarine, the V-22 rotorcraft, etc.

You can see the details in my rebuttals of the destructive proposals of these “think-tanks”: http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/congress-must-reject-the-pdas-destructive-defense-cuts-proposals/; http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/exposing-the-anti-defense-hacks-on-the-sdtf/; http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/pogos-spend-less-spend-smarter-policies-would-gut-defense-and-jeopardize-nat-sec/; http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/whats-wrong-with-simpson-bowles/; http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/rebuttal-of-catospdas-defense-sense-defense-cuts-proposals/; http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/lets-stop-pretending-that-deep-defense-cuts-can-be-done-safely/.

The fact is that, contrary to the pious denials of those RINO and Democrat Congressmen, the massive defense cuts proposals of these think-tanks would severely weaken the US military and imperil national security for the reasons stated above. So despite their pious denials, national security would be severely compromised and harmed.

The fact is that so-called “strategic defense cuts” would be just as harmful to the nation’s defense and thus to its security as the across-the-board cuts, if not more. That’s because these “strategic” defense cuts would deeply cut the meat and bone of the military – at the very capabilities, units, and weapons which are crucial for defending the country.

Cutting America’s nuclear deterrent, missile defense systems, long range strike capabilities, Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps in a “strategic” manner would be just as destructive to national security as sequestration, if not more so.

Nor should we be surprised. Gutting defense is one of the goals of the liberal think-tanks who put forward these proposals and of the Democrats who signed this letter. The public debt is merely their latest pretext.

(Does anyone really think that Ed Markey, Barney Frank, Jerrold Nadler, and Barbara Lee want the US to have the strongest military in the world? Or a strong military at all? Of course not. They want to gut the US military – and these 11 RINOs have joined hands with these liberal Democrats in this quest.)

Just because someone proposes “strategic”, “targeted” defense cuts instead of across-the-board ones doesn’t mean that these defense cuts would be harmless. In fact, the cuts proposed by these leftist think-tanks would SEVERELY harm national security for the reasons stated above.

In fact, sequestration would be better than these damaging, destructive cuts. “Targeted” defense cuts that are “targeted” at the things that are crucial for protecting the country would only harm US national security, not enhance it.

Thirdly, deeply cutting defense spending would do NOTHING to halt the growth of, let alone reduce, the debt. Those think-tanks propose defense cuts of $550 bn per decade, i.e. $55 bn per year. While this would be a big blow to the Defense Department (cutting its base budget by more than 10%), it would do very little to reduce the annual budget deficit (which is $1.3 trillion per year) and would do NOTHING to stop the growth of, let alone reduce, the national debt. In fact, even abolishing the Defense Department entirely would do nothing to stop the national debt’s growth. The country needs to start cutting ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS, which comprise a full 62% of the federal budget and which these Democrats and RINOs who signed the letter feverishly defend against any reforms.

Fourthly, contrary to these Congressmen’s claims, the think tanks which proposed these deep defense cuts are not from “across the political spectrum”. They are exclusively from the left and, in the NTU’s case, from the center. The Soros-funded POGO, TCS, PIRG, the Soros-funded Center for American Progress and Soros-funded CATO Institute, and the Massachusetts-based “Project on Defense Alternatives” are all leftist think-tanks. The NTU has to be classified on the center because it is conservative only on fiscal issues, takes no position on social issues, and is very leftist on defense issues.

I repeat, these think-tanks, with the NTU’s sole exception, hail exclusively from the hard left.

Fifth, DefenseNews’ claim that even under sequestration defense spending will reach $600 bn by the end of this decade is a blatant lie. It’s not even close to being true. In fact, as this CBO report demonstrates:
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/07-11-12-FYDP_forPosting_0.pdf

annual defense spending will be stuck at $493 bn – below $500 bn, let alone $600 bn – in FY2022. Not even close to $600 bn.

Sixth, DefenseNews’ claim that the FY2013 defense authorization bill recently passed by the Senate would authorize $650 bn in military spending is false; the total amount to be authorized would be only $631 bn, and even that ONLY if sequestration doesn’t kick in, as it is likely to be.

Seventh, Tom Coburn’s defense cuts proposals would, like the proposals of the forementioned think-tanks, gut the US military, for the reasons stated here: http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/the-tea-party-debt-commission-and-sen-coburns-defense-cuts-proposals/

As with the defense cuts proposals’ of those think tanks, I’ve reviewed Coburn’s proposals, and the fact is that his proposals would be deeply destructive for the reasons stated in my rebuttal.

The Congressmen’s claim that “The Pentagon’s budget has increased dramatically over the last decade, due in large part to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq” is also a blatant lie. The DOD’s base budget increased by only 35% from FY2001 to FY2012, from $390 bn to $531 bn; the total military budget, including spending on Afghanistan and Iraq, increased somewhat more, by 65%, from FY2001 to FY2012, but that growth took place over eleven years, not one year.

Their claim that “future defense budgets should (…) acknowledge that our modern military is able to approach conflicts utilizing fewer but more advanced resources” is a blatant lie. Firstly, massive defense cuts, including the proposals of all “think-tanks” listed above, would cut or outright cancel the vast majority of the programs developing or procuring new, more modern equipment – including the crucial Next Generation Bomber. Secondly, technology is no substitute for numbers. A ship or a plane can be in only one place at any given time. It cannot be in two places simoultaneously. And a small fleet of ships or planes would be woefully inadequate to defeat even a trivial adversary, because of the sheer number of sorties that would have to be flown. The claim that the US military can win future wars with far fewer resources is a blatant lie. It’s just another convenient, but false, pretext for more, deeper defense cuts.

The letter also says “Congress must consider these changes, not past spending or percentages of GDP, and move toward defense budgeting that focuses on meeting specific military requirements.” But the defense cuts these Congressmen (and the think tanks they cite) propose would result in defense budgets that would be woefully inadequate to the military’s specific requirements – both in size and in terms of force structure and crucial equipment programs (or rather, the lack thereof). The result would be an underfunded, poorly equipped, obsolete, poorly trained, hollow military which would also be too small in size to handle any serious adversary.

Moreover, because the world hasn’t gotten and is not going to get any safer, and because the threats to America’s security (including China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran) are growing, not shrinking, the US military will need to retain its current size and will need more resources, not fewer. Fewer resources will mean “not enough resources to deal with security threats.”

In short, the Congressmen’s letter is a litany of blatant lies, and so is this DefenseNews “article”.

Shame on these Congressmen for lying so blatantly and for proposing treasonous, destructive defense cuts.

And shame on DefenseNews for uncritically repeating their blatant lies and throwing in a few lies of its own – while failing to get such basics as Congressman McClintock’s name right.

Dear Readers, please call your Congressman and your Senators and tell them that you will never vote for them again if they vote for any massive defense cuts, including those proposed by those leftist think-tanks.

Among the 11 RINO Congressmen who signed the letter were: Justin Amash, Mick Mulvaney, Reid Ribble, Raul Castro Labrador, Tim Johnson (RINO-IL), and Tom McClintock.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121211/DEFREG02/312110003/Bipartisan-Group-U-S-Lawmakers-Put-Defense-Cuts-Table?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE; http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/budget-appropriations/272021-conservatives-liberals-in-house-join-to-call-for-more-defense-cuts

The consequences of further deep nuclear arsenal cuts

For years, advocates of America’s nuclear disarmament, such as the ignorant anti-defense hacks at the ACA, the CLW, the FAS, and the NRDC, and extremely leftist Congressmen like Ed Markey and Tammy Baldwin, have been advocating cutting America’s nuclear deterrent unilaterally to “the low hundreds”. They believe that America’s military power, including its nuclear deterrent, is a problem to be eliminated, not an asset or a solution to any problem. They seek America’s unilateral nuclear disarmament and they see deep, unilateral cuts as the first step towards that goal.

Their disastrous, treasonous agenda of unilateral disarmament was boosted when extreme leftist Barack Obama, who shares their views about America and its military power, was elected President. In his first term, Obama immediately announced the goal of Amcutting and eventually elimnating America’s nuclear arsenal completely and took multiple steps towards that goal, including signing a ridiculous New START treaty that obligates only the US to cut its arsenal, while Russia is allowed (and plans to) build up its arsenal to New START ceilings and other countries, including China, are not covered by the treaty at all.

Now, freshly reelected, Obama plans to further cut America’s nuclear deterrent, much deeper than under New START – to just 1,000 or fewer warheads, down from about 5,000 today. These cuts would also mean deep reductions in the number of ballistic missile submarines, bombers, and/or ICBMs, or perhaps even elimination of one or more of the legs of the nuclear triad, thus relying on a dyad or a monad and dramatically limiting America’s response flexibility even more than raw number cuts would.

These cuts were made under the guise of a fig-leaf “Nuclear Posture Review Implementation Study”, which was rigged from the beginning, because from the start, Obama ordered that study to give him options for cutting the US nuclear arsenal, and to conclude by recommending cuts.  He specifically ordered study authors to give him options to cut the arsenal to one of the following levels: 1,000-1,100 warheads, 700-800, or 300-400 warheads.

As unnamed DOD officials have told Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, this is the first time ever that a study like this was conducted with the pre-ordained conclusion that further cuts must be made, and the first study ever to be mandated to produce plans for cuts to specific levels and to craft a deterrence strategy based on those artificially set low levels.

All previous reviews and studies first attempted to assess the threat environment (more or less well) and only then, based on that assessment, recommended a force level range.

That’s because Obama couldn’t care less about America’s security. As stated previously, he considers America and its military power to be a huge problem (“whether we like it or not, we’re a global military power”). So he wants to cut America’s arsenal deeply and eventually eliminate it; then, Obama believes, dastardly America will no longer threaten anyone.

But for those of us who want America to be secure and to have the strongest military in the world, the consequences of Obama’s unilateral cuts will be disastrous.

The first consequence of these deep, unilateral cuts would be a high risk of, indeed an invitation to, a Russian or Chinese nuclear first strike on the US. This would be possible precisely because the US nuclear arsenal, under Obama’s plans, would be small and thus easy to destroy in a first strike. If the ICBM leg of the triad is eliminated and the submarine fleet is cut significantly, all that Moscow or Beijing would have to do would be to destroy the handful of bases where USAF strategic bombers are or could be stationed, destroy the USN’s 2 SSBN bases (where several SSBNs would be sitting), and sink the few remaining SSBNs that would be at sea at that moment (both Russia and China have sufficient submarine fleets to do this).

Should the unilateral cuts be distributed more proportionately (e.g. roughly equal cuts in the ICBM, bomber, and SSBN fleets), this will still render the arsenal far too small to deter and too easy to destroy in a nuclear first strike.

The Heritage Foundation agrees. In a recent research paper, it correctly observed that “if the U.S. maintains a minimal force, it would lack survivability and likely would be completely destroyed by the enemy’s first strike in the event deterrence does fail.” In that same paper, Heritage found that the US needs about 2,700-3,000 deployed nuclear warheads.

Furthermore, a nuclear arsenal too small in size or not diverse enough (i.e. a dyad or monad) would lack the flexibility needed by the US to hold and, if necessary, strike enemy targets in various ways rather than one, and, after Obama’s newest cuts would be administered, it would simply be too small to hold all or even most enemy military assets at risk. 300, 400, or even 500 warheads are simply woefully insufficient to hold most of Russia’s military assets (not just its bases, but also e.g. weapon factories) at risk, let alone Russia’s, China’s, North Korea’s, and Iran’s combined.

Thus, with a small nuclear arsenal, the US would have to target innocent civilian populations, because that’s all that 300 or 400 warheads would be enough for. Such a policy would be considered immoral by most Americans and therefore wouldn’t be considered credible retaliation in the eyes of America’s enemies – making their first strike on America even more likely. Furthermore, targeting civilian population centers would leave enemy military assets unharmed.

The second consequence would be that America’s allies would be left with no option but to produce their own nuclear weapons, since America’s nuclear umbrella could no longer be relied upon. They cannot afford to, and will not, bet their security and their very existence on the small nuclear arsenal that Obama would temporarily leave in place, or on America breaking free of the Democrats and of the “nuclear disarmament will make us safer” kool-aid by 2016. Several of them, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Germany, have the capability to “go nuclear” within months if need be. Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, are now developing nuclear capability under the guise of “peaceful use of nuclear energy”. These countries will go nuclear if the US nuclear deterrent becomes inadequate, as three distinguished CSBA analysts warned 2 years ago in a Foreign Affairs article.[1] This would make the nuclear proliferation problem much worse.

The threat of America’s allies going nuclear is not theoretical: France and Britain did this in the 1950s and Israel in the late 1960s or early 1970s. And in the last several years, three NATO allies have warned the US against cuts in its nuclear deterrent – saying it would “threaten NATO’s cohesion” – while Japan and South Korea have time and again reiterated the importance they attach to America’s nuclear umbrella, as Keith Payne points out in the Washington Times.

Depending on how deep the cuts go – if they cut America’s arsenal to just 300-500 warheads – they would also encourage many enemies who currently don’t have nuclear weapons to obtain them, because under such scenario, anyone would need only 300 nuclear warheads to reach nuclear parity with the US.

Thus, the nuclear proliferation problem would get much worse.

Obama, cynically using American children as his propaganda pawns, falsely claims that “we’re moving closer to the future (…) where these weapons never threaten our children again, a future where we know the security and peace of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But American nuclear weapons don’t threaten American children – they PROTECT American children. It is Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear weapons that threaten American children.

But Russia, China, and North Korea all refuse to give up their nuclear arsenals or even to cut them. Instead, they’re GROWING them. Russia is now steadily building up its strategic nuclear arsenal while retaining a 10:1 edge over the US in tactical nukes. China has at least 1,800, and up to 3,000, nuclear warheads and is consistently growing its arsenal. North Korea is building up its small stockpile.

Recently, when the UN General Assembly called on all nuclear powers to give up their nuclear weapons, China abstained and North Korea voted against.

For these and other reasons, it’s clear that they will never give up their nuclear weapons (and neither will Pakistan, India, or Israel), and thus, a world without such arms will never exist.

The deep nuclear arsenal cuts proposed by Obama, pro-disarmament groups, and leftist members of Congress like Ed Markey must be absolutely and permanently rejected. If implemented (God forbid), they would gravely imperil the security of America and its allies. If they are implemented, they must be completely reversed and the culprits severely punished for disarming America.

Rebuttal of Doug Bandow’s latest anti-defense lies

The pseudoconservative, anti-American “American Spectator” magazine has published yet another ridiculous screed by leftist-libertarian, isolationist pundit Doug Bandow (whose screeds AmSpec publishes regularly while refusing to publish my works, thus giving a voice to only ONE side of the debate). In his latest screed, as in previous ones, Bandow makes a litany of blatant lies, which can be summed up in the following themes:

1) “The GOP tossed money at the Pentagon, creating new unfunded liabilities out of two unnecessary wars…”

FALSE. Firstly, the GOP did not “toss money at the Pentagon”. From FY2001 to FY2012, base defense spending rose by only 36%, and total military spending by 65% – over more than a decade. As for “two unnecessary wars”, that is also a blatant lie. While it might be argued that the Iraqi war was unnecessary, no such claim can be credibly made about the Afghan war, which was ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. In case Bandow or anyone else has forgotten, that war was started by the Afghanistan-based terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 (which was an act of war, not a crime), and was necessary to rout these terrorists, bring them (including Osama bin Laden) to justice. After 9/11, the only alternative to invading Afghanistan and routing Al Qaeda and the Taleban was doing nothing, thus showing that an attack on America could go unpunished. And that’s exactly what Bandow advocates. Shame on him.

2) “The GOP ran against the idea of a budget sequester because it insisted on protecting bloated military outlays.”

FALSE. The military budget is not bloated at all. It amounts to only 4.22% of America’s GDP and just 17% of America’s total federal budget, even though defense is the #1 Constitutional duty of the federal government. It is needed to finish the war in Afghanistan and to protect America from foreign threats, including Putinist Russia, Communist China, North Korea, and Iran. It is not bloated at all. Virtually everything in the base defense budget and in the DOE’s national-security budget pays for the troops, units, weapons, installations, and programs that the military needs to protect America. Any claims that the military is “bloated” is a blatant lie. And the GOP has NEVER protected military spending. (It should have, but it has never done so.) (See below.)

3) “The GOP’s foreign policy can be summed up in two words: permanent war.”

Another blatant lie. The GOP has never supported permanent war. It  (except a few neoconservatives like John McCain) does not advocate intervening in Syria or resending American troops to Iraq, and supports withdrawal from Afghanistan. Heck, McCain supports withdrawing them from Afghanistan BEFORE the stated 2014 deadline if nothing can be accomplished there (which it can’t). By contrast, the Obama Admin is now mulling keeping a large number of American troops in Afghanistan well past 2014, perhaps forever. Who is the party of permanent war here?

4) “Nevertheless, Republicans remain locked in the past, determined to paint their Democratic opponents as weak irrespective of the facts — such as Obama intensifying the Afghanistan war.”

The FACTS are that the Democrats, including Obama, WERE and ARE very weak on foreign policy. They support, and to a large degree, have already orchestrated, massive defense cuts. They support America’s unilateral nuclear disarmament, and Obama has already taken big steps toward that, by a) signing a unilateral nuclear arms cuts treaty with Russia that allows Moscow to ENLARGE its arsenal, b) cancelling the development of any new American nukes; c) cutting America’s nondeployed arsenal unilaterally; and d) sabotaging the modernization of the few nuclear weapons and delivery systems America maintains. Obama has also been cravenly appeasing Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and Latin America’s communists such as Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez, with disastrous results. Miring America deeper in a quagmire like Afghanistan is a sign of stupidity, not toughness.

5) “Thus, excepting the redoubtable Rep. Ron Paul, during the primary debates the Republican contenders, most of whom had never been anywhere near a military installation let alone worn a uniform, did the foreign policy equivalent of the Maori Haka…”

LIE. Rick Perry has served in the USAF as a C-130 pilot, flying these aircraft around the world, and Newt Gingrich, as the son of an Army soldier, grew up on military bases in the US and abroad. And no, Republicans did not do “the foreign policy equivalent of the Maori Haka” during the debates.

6) “Mitt Romney spent five years, from his announcement until the final debate, simply shouting “we’re number one.”

LIE. Mitt Romney articulated far more than that during his campaign. He outlined a clear foreign policy with regard to Russia, China, Iran, and Latin America, and a clear defense policy: investing a modest 4% of GDP in defense, building up the Navy (specifically, submarines, frigates, amphibious ships, destroyers, and naval strike aircraft), keeping an 11-carrier fleet, speeding up Next Generation Bomber development, and reversing the cuts to the ground force. Agree or disagree with these policies, he did articulate specific policy choices.

7) “Although the Republican nominee did his best to avoid stating a clear position, at times he seemed to believe that the U.S. should have stayed in Iraq forever, over the objection of the Iraqi government, and be prepared to stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary for undefined “victory,” which likely would be forever…”

LIE. Mitt Romney never said that. He actually agreed with Obama’s deadline for withdrawal (2014). Now the Obama Admin is mulling  keeping American troops in Afghanistan well past 2014, maybe forever.

8) “That also means tying military outlays to security challenges, not an arbitrary share of GDP.”

But the US military budget is ALREADY tied to security challenges and threats, not to any arbitrary share of GDP like Mitt Romney wanted. It is, moreover, tied to a specific (if highly imperfect) strategy the DOD devised a year ago to (more or less perfectly) protect American interests around the world while conforming to the budgetary limitations of the Budget Control Act. It is needed to finish the war in Afghanistan and to protect America from foreign threats, including Putinist Russia, Communist China, North Korea, and Iran. It is not bloated at all. Virtually everything in the base defense budget and in the DOE’s national-security budget pays for the troops, units, weapons, installations, and programs that the military needs to protect America.

9) “Why should Americans spend as much as the rest of the world combined on “defense” when that means subsidizing rich allies, engaging in foolish nation-building, and launching military actions that create more enemies than they kill?”

The US does NOT spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. The US spends only 41%, and that’s only if one accepts SIPRI’s woefully understated figures for China’s and Russia’s military budgets. If one rejects them and understands that China and Russia spend much more on their militaries than SIPRI claims, America’s share of the world total falls far below 40%. China’s real FY2012 military budget was between $160 bn and $250 bn according to the DOD, not the mere $143 bn that SIPRI claims. And that’s without accounting for PPP differences.

The US is NOT subsidizing rich allies (see below). As for engaging in foolish nation-building and launching wars, spending as much on the military as today does NOT automatically lead to such policies and does NOT have to lead to them. Spending a lot on the military does not mean that you have to conduct nationbuilding projects or get involved in wars of no relevance to American interests. Bandow is merely trying to scaremonger people into thinking that current defense spending levels mean that America will inevitably be drawn into new wars. This is utter garbage, as is the entire rest of his ridiculous screed. Spending a lot on defense does NOT have to mean that you’ll be drawn into irrelevant, unnecessary wars or nation-building projects; whether you get drawn into them depends SOLELY on whether you decide, freewillingly, to do so. Under Ronald Reagan, the US spent more on defense than it currently does, yet, Reagan (as Bandow himself recognized) generally refused to draw America into unnecessary wars, the failed excursion into Lebanon being the sole exception.

10) “There can be no sacred cows if the budget crisis is going to be resolved.”

But the US military budget has NEVER been a sacred cow, including during the last 4 years. During the last 4 years, Republicans agreed to numerous defense cuts, including the massive program killings of 2009 and 2010 (saving $330 bn), the ratification of the New START unilateral disarmament treaty in 2010, the Gates Efficiencies Initiative of January 2011 ($178 bn), and the massive defense cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act ($487 bn in the first tranche alone). Any claim that the defense budget is, or has ever been, a “sacred cow” is a blatant lie.

In fact, the DOD is so far the ONLY government agency to have contributed ANYTHING to deficit reduction.

Moreover, defense cuts are NOT necessary to balance the federal budget, as proven by the budget plans of Chairman Ryan, the Republican Study Committee, Sen. Toomey, and Sen. Lee.

OTOH, even deep defense budget cuts will utterly fail to even make a dent in the defense budget; even eliminating the military budget ($645 bn in FY2012) entirely would fail to even halve the budget deficit.

11) “On international issues Republicans need to rediscover the value of peace. For most of the campaign Mitt Romney channeled George W. Bush and John McCain. Yet conservatives once believed in peace. They opposed wasting lives and money on dubious international crusades; they understood that war threatened economic prosperity and social stability. If war became necessary they wanted to win and end it, not turn it into a permanent condition.”

But to have peace, it is necessary to have a strong defense – THE strongest military in the world. Yet, America’s edge is steadily sipping, and the defense cuts Bandow proposes would cause America to lose it even faster than will otherwise be the case. This will bring about war, death, and destruction, not peace. Of course, the US shouldn’t waste men or money on dubious “international crusades” or nationbuilding efforts, and wars need to be won and ended swiftly. But keeping the peace requires having THE strongest military in the world – and with Bandow’s defense cuts, that would be completely impossible. And BTW, George W. Bush was the one who signed the 2008 agreement with Iraq providing for the withdrawal of US troops from that country by 2011.

“Indeed, Ronald Reagan was horrified by the prospect of nuclear war and refused to be sucked into nation-building in Lebanon.”

But Ronald Reagan understood (probably better than anyone but yours truly) that keeping the peace requires America to have the strongest military in the world, and he built such a military after 12 years of disastrous defense cuts, disregarding peaceniks, pseudoreformists like POGO hacks and isolationists like Bandow and his CATO Institute buddies. Under Reagan, the Air Force got its first strategic bomber since 1962 and its first ICBM since the Minuteman-III, while the Navy built a new fleet of SSBNs and SLBMs and several new nuclear warhead types were designed and produced; development of the B-2 stealthy bomber was continued and 132 were planned to be bought, while the US military also deployed Pershing and GLCM missiles to Europe. THAT was what kept the peace and prevented nuclear war during the Reagan years. And sadly, Reagan DID initially get sucked into nationbuilding in Lebanon – a disastrous blunder that cost America 241 troops. To his credit, he reversed that mistake quickly. Moreover, Ronald Reagan DID intervene militarily when American interests required it. He was no isolationist, unlike Bandow. Listen to Ronald Reagan himself.

12) “The GOP also should insist on international welfare reform. For more than six decades Washington has subsidized the defense of Asian and European allies. All are now prosperous and populous. Indeed, the Europeans collectively have a larger GDP and population than America. It’s time for Republicans to admit that the party is over. The U.S. should spend less while its friends spend more — and they will do so only if the U.S. spends less. “

Those are also blatant lies, as well as destructive policy proposals. Firstly, contrary to Bandow’s utterly false claims, the US would need to spend on defense as much as it does now (which isn’t really much, BTW – just 3.47% of GDP for the base defense budget) even if it were not defending any allies. That’s because all of the troops, equipment, and defense programs that the DOD has or plans to hire/buy would be needed to defend America itself even if the US were not defending any allies. All of the US military’s current nukes, ships, planes, ground vehicles, and troops would be needed to defend America itself even if it weren’t defending any allies.

Secondly, defending America’s allies is in America’s own national interest. If crucial allies like Japan, South Korea, or Persian Gulf allies are attacked (or succumb to) China, North Korea, or Iran, that would pose a huge threat to America’s own national security. (Threats to US security don’t stop at America’s borders, contrary to what isolationists claim).

Thirdly, many of America’s allies are poor (e.g. Central European allies like Poland, as well as some Asian allies like Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam), and none of America’s European allies nor Japan could be called “prosperous” at this time – they’re all suffering from even worse economic problems than the US, due to the global economic crisis. They have even lower economic growth rates, lower GDP per capita, higher unemployment, and in many cases, higher debt-to-GDP ratios than the US. They’re not prosperous today. If they are, the US is booming economically.

They will not spend more on defense even if the US spent less and withdrew its defense commitment – because they can’t afford to, as they have even worse economic problems than the US.

And there’s a big difference between relatively wealthy Western European countries like Britain and France and poor Central/Eastern European countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania (as well as poor Asian allies like Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam). The former could, in theory, assume more of the defense burden, the latter cannot, because they are POOR. Yet, these poor Central European states are actually America’s staunchest and most loyal allies, and at the same time, they face a direct threat from an aggressive, KGB-run Russia. Dumping them and leaving them to fend for themselves would not only bad for America’s national interests, it would be immoral. It would be a heinous betrayal.

Cutting America’s own defense spending will not change this. It would only make matters worse by giving defense cutters across the Atlantic another excuse to cut their own countries’ defense budgets: “America is cutting its defense budget, so we can afford to do the same!”

13) “This doesn’t mean “isolationism,” the all-purpose swear word against a traditional, constitutional foreign policy.”

It IS isolationism, no matter how hard Bandow tries to deny that. Isolationism is about dumping America’s allies, withdrawing all US defense commitments to all allies, and retrenching behind oceans in the vain hope that the crocodile won’t come to eat us. It’s the same old tired policy as the one the US tried before the attack on Pearl Harbor, with disastrous results. It’s the same old policy that led to WW2, with 60 million dead people and the destruction of two continents, and to the Korean War, which led to the destruction of the entire Korean Peninsula and the deaths of millions of people (including over 50,000 American troops).

The foreign policy that Bandow advocates is not “traditional” or “constitutional”, either. Isolationism, while practiced during the 1920s and the 1930s, is NOT a traditional American policy – the US has a long history of going to war abroad and intervening abroad going back to the days of Thomas Jefferson (at the shores of Tripoli). Then came the War of 1812 (started because the then War Hawks wanted to conquer Canada, NOT because of impressment as is usually claimed), threats of war to Britain over Oregon, the Mexican-American war (started because Southern planters wanted to conquer more land), the supply of weapons to France in 1870-1871, and the Spanish-American War.

The policy that Bandow advocates is not “constitutional”, either. Defense cuts are a dereliction of the federal government’s Constitutional DUTY to provide for the common defense, as well as the dereliction of the treaty duty to defend America’s allies. Treaties validly ratified by the Senate are the supreme law of the land, second only to the US Constitution.

Providing generously for America’s defense is not merely constitutional, it’s a Constitutional DUTY of the federal government.

14) “For instance, if Republicans want to promise a more prosperous future, they should promote free trade internationally.”

Also utter garbage. Free trade is yet another liberal policy which has brought nothing but damage to the US. It has caused the US to lose tens of millions of jobs (shipped overseas) and to run chronic, huge trade deficits with countries with which it used to have trade surpluses… until it signed free trade agreements with them or granted them Most Favored Nation status.

Pat Buchanan has chronicled this national suicide through free trade well.

Before 1993, when NAFTA was ratified, the US had a trade surplus with Mexico. Now it has a record trade deficit with it, as lots of jobs have been shipped south of the border together with entire factories. Before the US ratified the Korea-US FTA, America had a trade surplus with Seoul. Now it has a trade deficit with it.

Since Congress granted China MFN status in the 1990s, America’s trade deficit with that country has now exploded to the largest trade deficit between any two countries in history. America’s trade deficit with Japan is the largest ever between the two.

Every country that ever became prosperous and a world power got that way because it protected and nurtured its industry: France under Colbert, Britain under the Acts of Navigation and into the first half of the 19th century, Germany under the Kaisers, the US in the second half of the 19th century, postwar Japan, and China today.

Protectionism is the policy of ascendant economic powers; “free trade” is the policy of descendant, declining ones.

15) Bandow claims that his policy would mean “peace” and that Republicans need to make a new commitment to “peace”. This is utter garbage. His policy of deep defense cuts and isolationism (dumping all of America’s allies and ignoring the threats posed by China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran) would gut America’s defense, pull the rug from under America’s allies, and in so doing, invite aggression against bo the US and its allies. By doing so, it would only lead to war, death, and destruction.

16) Bandow also wants Republicans to support even greater legal immigration, even though it’s a financial drag on taxpayers as much, if not moreso, than illegal immigration. The problem is not just illegal immigration – the problem is immigration, period. The vast majority of legal immigrants are lazy lay-abouts from the Third World who live on welfare (paid for by American taxpayers) and vote Democratic. (That’s why Ted Kennedy and other Democrats passed the current law in 1965: to import new Democrat voters.) The US needs to drastically REDUCE the annual rate of legal immigration (which is currently a million people per year).

Just as Americans ought to realize the perils of a welfare state by looking at Greece, they can easily realize the perils of unlimited immigration by looking at California.

As Ann Coulter rightly points out, massive immigration, both legal and illegal, has transformed California into a Third World country where whites are a minority and where no Republican can get elected statewide anymore. Not so long ago, this state produced great Republican Senators and Governors such as Richard Nixon, S. I. Hayakawa, Pete Wilson, and Ronald Reagan.

If Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two smart Republican women, one pro-life, the other pro-choice, can’t get elected statewide in California anymore, then it’s all over for the GOP in California.

Yet, Bandow is advocating that the GOP and America now commit national suicide by adopting an even more liberal immigration policy. If he gets his way, the entire country will have the electorate of California. And there will be no turning back.

Hispanic immigrants – indeed, immigrants in general – support a LARGER federal government with BIGGER “services”, according to Pew polls. This is not surprising, because the vast majority of legal and illegal immigrants come from socialist countries and have a socialist mindset. As conservative writer Selwyn Duke points out, their beliefs don’t change when they set foot on American terra firma. Thus, as Duke points out, the problem is not just “illegal immigration”; the problem is immigration, period.

In short, Bandow is lying (as always), and the policies he advocates are downright suicidal for the GOP and for the country. He advocates Republican and national suicide at home and abroad. Abroad, by gutting America’s defense, dumping all of America’s allies, handing these allies on a platter to aggressors, leaving the world for China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran to conquer and subjugate, and turning a blind eye to any aggression by these countries. At home, he wants the GOP and the US to continue committing national suicide by continuing and even expanding the suicidal policies of “free trade” and unlimited immigration.

Republicans must completely reject ALL of his snake oil. He’s not one of us. He’s not a Republican nor a conservative. He’s not even someone who wishes conservatives or Republicans well. He even explicitly says in the blurb and the ending of his article that the GOP deserved to lose this year to Barack Obama. He’s our enemy and needs to be treated as such.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/11/27/a-new-republican-agenda-for-th

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/us-navy-to-issue-draft-rfp-for-new-unmanned-strike-aircraft-before-years-end-378562/

Rebuttal of CATO’s/PDA’s “Defense Sense” defense cuts proposals

In May 2012, the CATO Institute and the extremely-leftist, Massachusetts-based “Project on Defense Alternatives” wrote and published a garbage pamphlet ridiculously titled “Defense Sense” (it should actually have been titled “Defense Nonsense”). In it, they have proposed deep, devastating cuts in military modernization programs across the board; cuts which, if implemented, would effectively mean completely cancelling the US military’s modernization and equipment recapitalization and saddling it with dwindling inventories of obsolete, ineffective, expensive-to-maintain, unsurvivable weapons. Here’s my rebuttal of their garbage proposals.

CATO and the PDA proposed, inter alia, to:

Cancel or at least delay the Long Range Strike Bomber program.

Despite their false claims that existing B-52 and B-1 bombers can fill the long-range strike role for decades to come, that is not true. That is a blatant lie (just like the rest of the claims they made in that pamphlet.) Their radar signatures are so big that they are easy to detect and shoot down – even for legacy Soviet air defense systems such as the SA-2/3/4/5/6, not to mention modern, 21st century Russian and Chinese air defense systems like the S-300 series, the S-400, and the HQ-9. (Modern IADSes have proliferated from Russia and China to Iran, Venezuela, Syria, and many other countries, and can effortlessly shoot down these nonstealthy bombers.) Moreover, the cost of maintaining old bombers (especially B-1s) is significant and rising due to their old age. A few years ago, the USAF considered retiring half of the B-1 fleet due to these costs.

That the B-52 and B-1 have decades of service lives remaining is irrelevant, as they are unsurvivable in any contested airspace, easy to shoot down even for legacy Soviet SAM systems like the SA-2 and SA-5,  and therefore utterly useless. Furthermore, projections of them serving until the 2040s are based on peacetime usage rates, not the wartime rates seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Even then, keeping these bombers in service, especially until 2045, will require costly upgrades.

These old nonstealthy bombers are also easy to shoot down and therefore unsurvivable in any environment except the most permissive ones, where the enemy is an insurgency or a weak country unable to contest control of the air. Yet, this kind of war environments is scarce and becoming even less frequent. Countries such as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela have advanced Integrated Air Defense Systems (imported and indigenous ones) and, in China’s, Russia’s, and Venezuela’s case, advanced fighterplanes.

These heavily-defended theaters will be those in which the USAF will be forced to operate in the future in almost any contingency. Yet, theonly current USAF bombers capable of surviving in such an environment are a handful (20) of B-2s. 20 aircraft are insufficient to deal with anyony but a trivial opponent, due to, among other things, the sheer number of sorties that would have to be generated in a conflict with China or Iran. And even they won’t remain stealthy forever: their stealth technology is 1980s’ vintage. By the 2020s or the 2030s at the latest, they will lose their ability to penetrate enemy airspace as well.

Today, neither jamming nor anti-SAM missiles are effective measures any longer. Modern SAM systems have radars too powerful to be jammed, even with the Navy’s Next Generation Jammer (let alone the ALQ-99), and anti-SAM missiles such as the AGM-88 HARM can be easily shot down by point-defense counter-PGM systems such as the Tor-M1 and the Pantsir-S1, both of which have been exported globally and protect long-range anti-aircraft SAM systems, as well the latter systems themselves.

This means that the only way to survive in any airspace defended by such systems is to be undetected, i.e. stealthy. This requires all-aspect, multi-band stealthy aircraft.

The B-52 and the B-1 stand zero chance of surviving in such airspace. They would be easily detected, even from a long range, by the radar of any air defense systems, even the most primitive ones such as the SA-2 and SA-3, and shot down mercilessly.

Jammers might jam the radar of legacy SAM systems such as the SA-2 and SA-3, but not that of modern systems like the S-300, S-400, S-500, Tor-M1, Pantsir-S1, and HQ-9. Moreover, passive anti-radar homing missiles, even variants of the SA-2 and SA-3 missiles, can home on the emissions of American jammers and thus shoot the aircraft carrying those jammers down, as the Viets repeatedly did during the Vietnam War. Moreover, all Russian and Chinese air defense systems except the SA-2 and the SA-5 are mobile, and can thus relocate in minutes rather than hours or days, and are thus even more deadly than they’d otherwise be, because they can employ “hide, shoot, and scoot” tactics. The S-300, S-400, HQ-9, SA-4, SA-6, SA-11/17, and SA-19 were built for such tactics from the start.

As Jamestown’s Dr Carlo Kopp writes:

“China’s air defense system is maturing into the largest, most capable and technically advanced in Asia, and will be capable of inflicting very heavy attrition on any aircraft other than upper tier U.S. stealth systems. Until the U.S. deploys its planned “New Generation Bomber” post-2020, the United States will have only 180 F-22 Raptors and 20 B-2A Spirit bombers capable of penetrating the PLA’s defensive shield. This may not be enough to act as a credible non-nuclear strategic deterrent.”

The only Western aircraft which can survive and prevail in such airspace are the F-22, the B-2, and the planned Next Generation Bomber (if its designers follow stealth shaping rules).

I am hardly the only person saying that the NGB is necessary. Successive SECDEFs from Rumsfeld to Panetta have said the same, as have the current CSAF and SECAF, their predecessors, their colleague Adm. Greenert, former LTG David Deptula, numerous former Air Force Secretaries, Chiefs of Staff, Generals, and other officials, and numerous outside experts from the CSBA[1][2][3], Air Power Australia, and the Heritage Foundation. (Please read their studies; they explain very well why the NGB is absolutely needed.) This requirement has also been validated by two successive QDRs – those of 2006 and that of 2010[4] – and by Secretary Gates, who started it and said that China’s A2/AD weapons will put a premium on America’s ability to strike from the horizon and demand a family of long range strike systems. As Gates rightly said in January 2011:

“It is important that we begin this project now to ensure that a new bomber can be ready before the current aging fleet goes out of service.  The follow on bomber represents a key component of a joint portfolio of conventional deep-strike capabilities – an area that should be a high priority for future defense investment given the anti-access challenges our military faces.”

More on why the Next Generation Bomber (AKA the Long Range Strike Bomber) is absolutely necessary here, here, here, and here.

End production of the excellent, proven V-22 Osprey rotorcraft

The V-22 is an excellent VTOL plane capable of flying twice faster and twice farther than any helicopter. It has served extensively in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. It has amassed over 150,000 flight hours. It is also much more survivable than helicopters – if you crash, you’ll likely survive. Its problems have been solved long ago.

Yet, POGO (following Barney Frank’s SDTF) demands that it be killed and says CH-53s and SH-60s can be bought instead. But these helicopters are NOT interchangeable nor comparable with the V-22.

Not only are they inferior to it (in terms of speed, range, and survivability), the H-60 is too small, too slow, and too light to do the V-22′s tasks (which include CSAR), while the CH-53K is too big and too heavy (indeed, when it enters service, it will be the US military’s heaviest helicopter ever). The CH-53 is also twice as expensive as the V-22 ($128 mn per copy, vs only $69 mn for a V-22), costs twice as much to operate as the Osprey ($20,000 vs $10,000 per flight hour), and it won’t be available until 2018. These 3 designs represent 3 completely different weight and duty classes of VTOL aircraft and are meant for different duties. Only a totally ignorant person would equate them and suggest they are interchangeable.

The Marines are, by the way, buying the CH-53K… but to replace their older CH-53 Sea Stallion heavy helos, not the V-22 or the CH-46 (the V-22′s predecessor). The CH-53K is designed for a totally different mission than the V-22.

The V-22 is an excellent, unmatched aircraft, as validated unanimously by all USMC leaders past and present, including the current Commandant, who is a Naval Aviator by trade. He, the expert, should be listened to – not anti-defense POGO hacks. It has proven itself in three wars in three different countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. (When an F-15E crashed in Libya, it was a pair of V-22s that rescued the pilots.) It underwent its baptism of fire in Iraq in 2007, during the fiercest fighting there. POGO’s claim that it is “neither cost- nor operationally-effective” is a blatant lie.

Most importantly, its primary users, Marine pilots, like it. Just listen to them. And watch this film about how the V-22 proved its mettle, proved itself to be far more capable and useful than any helicopter (its speed and service ceiling really matter in combat zones), and what the Marines say about it. Also listen to USMC Commandant Gen. James Amos, a Naval Aviator by trade, who has strongly praised the V-22 and urged its continued production. (Whom will you believe – a real Marine general or armchair generals?) Also listen to his predecessor, Gen. James Conway. More on why the V-22 is needed here, in my rebuttal of POGO’s similar (and similarly destructive) defense cuts proposals.

Cancel the Marine variant of the F-35, cut the USAF’s and the USN’s procurement of their F-35 variants by half, buy obsolete “new-old” F-16s and F/A-18s instead

CATO and the PDA, like other anti-defense groups, falsely claim that F-16s and F/A-18 Super Bug aircraft can still perform air superiority and strike missions as well as the F-35. This is not true and has never been, and cannot ever be, true, as these aircraft are kinematically and aerodynamically quite inferior to the F-35, have a combat radius far shorter than the F-35 (in all variants), lack the F-35′s more powerful radar and DAS/IRST, and have huge radar signatures, while the F-35 is stealthy (for why stealthiness is important, refer the section on the Next Generation Bomber).

The F-16 and the Super Bug have NONE of the capabilities that the F-35 has.

Not turning capability, not agility, not thrust, not thrust/weight ratio, not speed, not range and combat radius, not stealthiness (and thus survivability), and not weapons possible for integration (the F-35 can, for example, be fitted with Meteor A2A missiles; the Super Bug cannot). The F-35 can perform 9Gs with a full combat load; the F-16 can do that only without external stores (i.e. missiles or fuel tanks), and the Super Bug can’t do that even WITHOUT external stores – the most it can do is 7.6Gs. And the Super Bug’s combat radius (350 nmi) is DECISIVELY inferior to that of the F-35B (450-500 nmi) and F-35C (650 nmi, making the F-35C the longest-ranged of the 3 F-35 models). Range and endurance are absolutely vital for strike aircraft, as is stealthiness, because it determines survivability, which is key to winning ANY war. If a plane is not survivable, it’s worthless – and that’s exactly true of the Super Bug. And as stated above, stealthiness is necessary for any aircraft due to the proliferation and sophistication of enemy air defense systems.

The “proven” Super Bug, like B-1s and B-52s, has “proven itself” only in permissive environments (Afghanistan and Iraq) where the only opponent is an insurgency unable to contest control of the air. It is useless for any war theaters in which the enemy is a country with advanced IADS and/or fighters. It’s not even fit for any real A2A combat (and has not partaken in any), because it’s not a real fighter, but rather an attack jet, and is decisively inferior against current and projected enemy fighters by all criteria. (For why it’s inferior to the F-35, see here.) In any combat against a J-10, JF-17, Flanker, Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, J-16, J-20, J-31, MiG-29, MiG-35, or PAKFA, the Super Bug would be slaughtered mercilessly.

And it doesn’t have the STOVL capability required to take off from and land on amphib ships and primitive airfields, which is an absolute non-negotiable USMC requirement, as confirmed by USMC Commandant Gen. Amos. There is no other STOVL aircraft in the market today. There is no substitute for the F-35B. Without the F-35B, the Marines won’t have their own air cover when disembarking from ships and the Nation will lose 50% of its carrier-based strike aircraft fleet when the Harrier retires. Furthermore, cancelling the F-35 would relegate Marine and Naval Aviation solely to COIN environments, emasculating these services and barring them from any contested airspace – the kind of environment American servicemen will face in the future.

Put simply, the Super Bug is not an alternative to, or even a substitute for, the F-35. It’s a facelifted model of an attack jet that first flew in the 1970s. The F-35 is a 21st century strike fighter. Both are strike aircraft with jet engines… and that’s where the similarities end.

By the way, the Chinese have copied the F-35′s design and plan to produce this aircraft for the PLA Navy and possibly also the PLAAF (as well as for export). If the F-35 is so bad, why is China emulating its design, planning to produce it for its Navy, and offering it for export (under the name of J-31)?

Cut missile defense investments and limit them to theater missile defense only

CATO and PDA propose to deeply cut spending on missile defense and to limit any procurement funding to theater missile defense systems only. This is ridiculous. While theater missile defense is important, homeland missile defense – funding for which CATO and PDA want the Congress to cut off – is even more important, as it is about protecting the US itself, not foreign lands and US troops deployed in those countries. That being the case, the isolationist CATO Institute should support prioritizing homeland missile defense. But it doesn’t. It wants that sector of BMD to be limited to RnD programs. This means that, for example, the East Coast would indefinitely remain unprotected against any ICBMs Iran might field in the future.

Dramatically slow down the procurement of the Virginia class

The Virginia class is necessary to replace old, aging, obsolete Los Angeles class attack submarines which are nearing the end of their service lifes and are too noisy to be viable (they are noisier than many submarine classes of America’s enemies, including the Russian Improved Akula and Severodvinsk/Yasen classes and the Chinese Type 095). The Russian Improved Akula and Severodvinsk classes are the quietest submarine classes in the world, excluding only the Seawolf and Virginia classes. (See the ONI graph below.)

Yet, CATO and the PDA want Virginia class procurement to be dramatically slowed down. They falsely claim that these subs only utility is to hunt down Russian submarines and that the Russian submarine fleet no longer exists. This is a blatant lie, because 1) the RUssian Navy has 67 submarines of all types, including over 30 nuclear-propelled submarines; and 2) the Virginia class can do much more than just hunting other submarines. It can also perform intelligence, land attack, SpecOps personnel deployment/recovery, UAV launching, underwater unmanned vehicle launch and recovery, demining, and fighting surface ships. It’s an enormously versatile platform useful for any operation. And cheap, at just 2.4 bn per copy.

Besides Russia’s submarine fleet, there is also China’s even larger (and rapidly growing) underwater fleet to monitor and sink if need be: 68 submarines of all types, almost as many as the USN has (70). China’s air independent propulsion conventional subs and Type 095 nuclear submarines are quieter than any submarine class in the world except the Seawolf, Virginia, Improved Akula, and Severodvinsk/Yasen classes. Iran has its own quiet Kilo class submarines (which are aided by the noisy waters of the Persian Gulf, just like Chinese subs are aided by the noisy waters neighboring its shores in the East and South China Seas, as well as in the Sea of Japan).

Slowing Virginia class procurement down would not only leave the USN with a dwindling fleet of obsolete, noisy LA class submarines with too few boats available for any missions, it would also make VA class procurement more inefficient, because ships (like other weapons) are cheaper to buy if bought faster and in larger quantities. So if the goal is to save taxpayers money, CATO’s and the PDA’s recommendation is the worst possible way to do so.

Slow down or cancel the procurement of P-8 Poseidon maritime aircraft

CATO and the PDA falsely claim that this aircraft is not needed and that its missions can be done by the old, propeller-driven P-3 Orion aircraft it is designed to replace. But they can’t, and the P-8 aircraft is absolutely needed. Here’s why.

•  The P-3 Orion entered service in 1963 and has been heavily used since then, first as an ASW/maritime patrol plane during the Cold War and the 1990s, and since 2001 as an ISR plane. The P-3 aircraft fleet is wearing out, nearing the end of its service life.
• The slow, propeller-driven P-3 Orion is obsolete.
• The aperture on the P-3 is also obsolete, and decisively inferior to the one used on the modern P-8 Poseidon (a modified Boeing 737).
• The P-3 fleet is dwindling, while the demand for fixed-wing ASW aircraft is growing and shows no signs of abating. The USN needs many P-8 planes, and it cannot afford to slow down their procurement, for that would cause the P-3 plane to shrink even faster.
• The EP-3 ELINT/ISR aircraft also needs to be replaced, and the only aircraft type that can do that is the P-8 Poseidon.

Cancel the construction of the Uranium Production Facility (UPF)

This facility is absolutely necessary to replace old uranium production facilities and thus to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to prolong the service lives of America’s current nuclear warheads, build new ones to replace old ones, and increase the arsenal if a future administration decides to do so. Cancelling UPF construction would be a huge step towards America’s unilateral nuclear disarmament; other countries are not going to forego HEU production.

 

These are just several of the destructive, highly damaging defense cuts that CATO and the PDA have proposed. Most of them are discredited, recycled defense cuts proposals borrowed from other anti-defense groups (and ones which I have already refuted thoroughly). In any  case, all of CATO’s and PDA’s defense cuts proposals should be completely rejected.

Evaluating the “strategic choices” of teams assembled by the CSBA

This past summer, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) assembled seven teams composed of 10 “defense insiders” each. These “defense insiders” were Congressional staffers from both parties and both houses of Congress, representatives of the defense industry, and representatives of several Washington think-tanks. (What think-tanks or who exactly was invited has not been disclosed.)

Each of the teams was asked how would it distribute $519 bn in additional defense cuts as an alternative to sequestration; in other words, how would they make cuts of size similar to the sequester’s, but in a targeted manner rather than the salami-slicing approach of the sequester mechanism.

The seven teams did take different approaches to this process. Two (Teams A and B) chose to reinvest most of what they could reinvest in air and naval capabilities, specifically, long range strike aircraft, submarines and unmanned submersibles, cyber capabilities, and Special Operations units. The other five teams also reinvested most of what they did reinvest in those capabilities, but on a smaller scale, and their cuts to ground units (in the active and reserve components of the Army and the USMC) were also smaller. Indeed, Teams C, D, and E did not make cuts or reinvestments as aggressive as those of Teams A and B, while Teams F and G spread their cuts roughly proportionally, in a traditional Pentagonesque fashion, which would result roughly in the same kind of military as today, just much smaller. In other words, they made the mistake of trying to recreate the force for yesterday’s wars, rather than building the kind of military needed for tomorrow like Team A did.

Of all teams, A and E did the best job. Team A avoided any cuts in air- or seapower, instead making deep cuts in the ground force and the number of DOD civilians, while Team E made only modest cuts in the USAF and the Navy. Both of them made only tiny cuts in America’s nuclear deterrent – and both compensated for it with new investments in the deterrent. Both of them made significant reductions in the ground force.

This is because these two teams likely recognized that in future wars, air- and sea-power, not ground troops, will play the decisive role. Accordingly, both of them spared the USAF and the USN from any deep cuts (or in Team A’s case, from any cuts at all) and chose to cut the ground force and DOD civilians instead. (It should be noted, however, that other teams elected to deeply cut ground troops and DOD civilians as well.)

However, such approach is not without risk, and even Teams A and E’s proposals are not without flaws. These are:

• The country could inadvertently be drawn into a new ground war in the future. The US should, of course, strive to avoid this, but someday, it may be unavoidable.
• All teams’ proposals cut the Marine Corps too deeply – some of them down to just 150,000 troops. That would make the USMC unable to handle even one major contingency, according to USMC leaders; moreover, USMC commandant James F. Amos has recently said that if he were to meet all requirements of Combatant Commanders, he would have to quadruple the Marines’ expenditionary units. Moreover, the Marine Corps offers a unique capability to fight simoultaneously on land, in the air, and at sea, and a unique amphibious assault capability, which other services don’t offer and cannot replicate.
• Their proposals might (details have not been released) cut ground force modernization too deeply.
• Their proposals might cut the F-35 program too deeply. While the F-35 program is not a priority, it is nonetheless more or less necessary to recapitalize the fighter fleets of three American services, which currently consist of obsolete, unsurvivable aircraft. OTOH, to be fair to the teams, the F-35 is stealthy only from some aspects and only in the S/X/Ku-bands and has a short combat radius (no more than 615 nm in the C variant’s case). It needs to take the back seat to long range strike capabilities.
• Their proposals cut, to various degree, missile defense systems.

Overall, while the purpose of this CSBA exercise and the resulting report was to show that deep defense budget cuts can be done safely, this exercise and this CSBA report have inadvertently done the opposite: they have demonstrated that additional cuts as deep as 519 bn USD cannot be done safely without significantly weakening the military.

For other rebuttals of the CSBA’s exercise and report, please see Heritage Foundation experts’ remarks here and here.

Rebuttal of the ACA’s newest blatant lies

The extremely leftist, pro-unilateral-disarmament Arms Control Association (ACA) has written yet another litany of blatant lies on its website, this time in the blog section, and the leftist DefenseNews magazine’s writers, as usual, blindly and foolishly reprinted the ACA’s blatant lies without any critical analysis.

The ACA falsely claims that the East Coast missile defense site, proposed by Congressional Republicans, the Institute of Defense Analyses, and the National Research Council, is unneeded and “makes little sense”. They falsely claim that

“This was a bad idea when the House proposed it this summer, and it’s a bad idea now.”

But they’re completely wrong. It was a good idea when the House proposed it this past summer, and it’s a good idea now. More to the point, it’s a NECESSARY policy. It’s necessary to protect the East Coast from future Iranian ICBMs, which Iran may have as early as 2015, according to US intel and DOD reports on Iran. Tehran has already demonstrated the capability to launch satellites into space; developing an ICBM is a logical next step. The US intelligence community and the DOD say that Iran will have an ICBM later in this decade and may have it as early as 2015 – just 3 years from now.

Concurrently, Iran, despite leftist organizations’ (such as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ and Arms Control Wonk blog’s) pious denials, is working on nuclear weapons, as evidenced by its development of uranium deuteride, a type of a neutron initiator. A neutron initiator has NO civilian applications. Its only usage is as a trigger for nuclear weapons.

Studying possible sites for interceptors, radars, and a command center, making the Environmental Impact Statements, getting funding for such sites passed by the Congress, and building such sites will take many years, so it is necessary to start the work on an East Coast missile defense site NOW, before it’s too late – before Iran obtains an ICBM.

But for the extremely leftist, treasonous ACA, protecting America by any means – whether by missile defense or with a nuclear deterrent – is “a bad idea” and “makes little sense”. They categorically oppose (and have long opposed) any kind of missile defense for the United States (but don’t oppose Russian and Chinese programs on the same subject) and they want America to deeply and unilaterally cut its own nuclear arsenal and fleet of delivery systems while other countries (Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan) continue to rapidly build up and modernize their nuclear arsenals. The ACA’s response? The US should just hope that Russia would be nice enough to cancel its nuclear buildup and modernization in reward for America’s unilateral disarmament.

The extremely leftist ACA ridiculously cites a recent (September) National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences report as supposed evidence that an East Coast missile defense site is unneeded, but the NRC/NAS report actually proves that such a site is necessary and explicitly calls for the construction of such a site (in lieu of the 4th phase of the Obama Admin’s European Phased Adaptive Approach, i.e. the SM-3 Block 2B missile). The NRC says that an East Coast missile defense site should be located in Maine or New York state and would be far more effective and at intercepting ICBMs than any site or any missile in Europe. Here’s what the report says (p. 5-27):

“In addition to FGA and VAFB, new sites, including a northeastern United States site such as Fort Drum, New York, or northern Maine; a far western site on Shemya, Alaska; and a European site in Poland, were studied. All of these new interceptor sites were assumed to be populated with the new GMD-E high-performance interceptors, as previously described, with communication links to the BMC2 system. In this regard, the first step in a deployment evolution (using GMD-E interceptors) would be a committee-recommended site for 30 interceptors in upstate New York or northern New England. The next step in the evolution would be a phased upgrade of the current interceptors at FGA and VAFB, with the new GMD-E interceptors. In addition, an Aegis system would be used to defend Hawaii (either a ship positioned near Kauai, Hawaii, or Aegis ashore on Kauai with an additional GBX radar and THAAD battery for second shot).”

I repeat: the NRC/NAS report recognizes the need for, and explicitly CALLS for the construction of, an East Coast missile defense site.[1]

The ACA also falsely claims that:

“Instead of Sen. Ayotte’s premature proposal to study possible deployment locations for missile defense sites on the East Coast, Congress needs to take a deep breath, look at how little the nation got for over $30 billion invested on the West Coast, and ask: ‘Haven’t I seen this movie before?’”

That is also a blatant lie. The nation has realized a huge benefit for the $30 bn invested in West Coast missile defense: 30 anti-ICBM interceptors in Alaska and California capable of and ready to intercept any ICBMs from North Korea (and even a small number of Chinese ICBMs). These interceptors are accompanied by radars and command/control centers. If North Korea launches an ICBM, and if this North Korean ICBM makes it close to the US this time, America will be able to shoot it down, thanks to the GBIs on the West Coast and the $30 bn invested in West Coast missile defense.

Had the ACA had its way, the entire West Coast would’ve been completely unprotected and defenseless and North Korea would’ve been able to blackmail the US with a missile attack on the West Coast.

Think about it, folks: The ACA has been wrong everytime it has opened its mouth. It has been wrong everytime it has commented on something. It was wrong about North Korea and the West Coast, and had it had its way, the West Coast would’ve been completely defenseless. But now, ACA says “trust us, we’re be right this time, there’s no need for an East Coast missile defense site.”

But they’re wrong again, as always.

Also think about this, folks: ACA is an extremely leftist organization which seeks America’s unilateral disarmament and ideologically opposes any kind of missile defense (and has opposed it for a long time; they’ve said that the US should not deploy any kind of missile defense systems even if they prove themselves to work as intended).

They have an incentive to lie. They have an incentive to deny or understate threats to US security and to deny the effectiveness and usefulness of missile defense systems. They are not credible and cannot be trusted.

On a positive note, the Senate has adopted an amendment by Sen. John Hoeven which (and this will irk the ACA and other treasonous organizations) states that the Senate believes that the US needs to continue to maintain a nuclear triad of ICBMs, SSBNs, and strategic bombers. The amendment states:

“It is the sense of the Senate that 1) the United States should maintain a triad of strategic nuclear delivery systems; and 2) the United States is committed to modernizing the component weapons and delivery systems of that triad.”

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121129/DEFREG02/311290006/U-S-Senate-Leaves-East-Coast-Shield-8217-s-Fate-Conference-Panel?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

[1] Donald Montague [ed.], Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives, National Academies Press, Washington DC 2012, p. 5-27.

Rebuttal of Veronique de Rugy’s latest anti-defense lies

The French libertarian Veronique de Rugy, who currently lives in the US and writes garbage for the GMU’s Mercatus Center, and who is totally ignorant about federal budgetary and defense issues, but nonetheless thinks she’s qualified to comment on them, has a strange habit of lecturing the American people and American policymakers about what US defense spending levels should be, how deeply and how fast to cut them, and by what method (her preferred method is sequestration).

But let’s leave aside the fact that she’s a Frenchwoman, not an American, and thus, America’s budgetary affairs are none of her business. (When was the last time an American think-tank employee lectured the French about what they should spend their money on?) Her claims about defense spending are utter garbage, and they’re so far off the mark that they’re laughably easy to refute.

At the same time, she continues to rehash her old lies and make up new ones, thus showing she’s not merely ignorant: she’s a compulsive liar who is deliberately lying about defense spending to mislead the public and the Congress.

An example of this is her latest screed for the libertarian “Reason” magazine, wherein she falsely accuses Republicans of accepting military Keynesianism (i.e. the belief that military spending creates lots of jobs) and makes utterly false claims about defense spending, speaking of:

“the impact that massive, ongoing Pentagon spending has on the economy…the permanent war economy—military spending now consumes roughly 20 percent of our budget, at a cost of over $700 billion including war spending…”

Quoting her, libertarian Senator Rand Paul, also a strident opponent of defense spending and a proponent of deep defense cuts, falsely claims that:

“It’s always sad when conservatives make liberal economic arguments: “It’s an article of faith among modern Democrats that employment and the overall economy depend on government spending. Although Republicans supposedly reject that premise, they make an exception in the case of military spending.”"

Garbage. We don’t say that because we believe in Keynesianism. We say that because a strong military marches on its stomach, or rather, on its budget: it depends on how much funding is provided for its troops, their training, bases, equipment, operations, and maintenance. Deep defense cuts result in a severe weakening of the military. That is an unavoidale fact.

Veronique de Rugy’s false claims about “the permanent war economy” and about military spending amounting to over $700 bn and consuming 20% of the federal budget are also utter garbage.

The US does not have, and has never had, a “permanent war economy”. America’s total military budget (which, in FY2012, amounted to $645 bn, not even close to the “over $700 bn” that de Rugy falsely claims[1]) amounts to only 4.22% of America’s GDP. Just four percent. And that includes war costs as well as the DOE’s defense-related programs.

This is the LOWEST share of America’s economy devoted to the military since FY1948, if one exempts the late Clinton years and the early Bush years. Throughout THE ENTIRE COLD WAR, excepting only FY1948, the US spent MORE on the military than today.

At the Korean’s War peak, the US spent 14% on the military; at the Vietnam War’s peak, over 9%; at the Reagan buildup’s peak, over 6%. So by de Rugy’s flawed logic, during the entire Cold War except FY1948, the US had a “permanent war economy” on a scale even larger than today. Of course de Rugy’s claim is utter nonsense; spending 4.22%, or even 6%, of GDP on the military does not amount to a”permanent war economy”.

Defense spending as a percentage of GDP from FY1940 to FY2011.

Military spending now accounts for only 17% of the federal budget (which is $3.699 trillion per year), NOT 20% as de Rugy falsely claims. Again, this is the lowest share of the federal budget devoted to the military since FY1948, excepting only the late Clinton years and the early Bush years.

At the peak of the Reagan buildup, a full 26% of the federal budget was devoted to defense; and in January 1961, when President Eisenhower delivered his “military-industrial complex” speech, over 50% – the absolute majority – of the federal budget was devoted to defense. Given that defense is the federal government’s #1 Constitutional duty, it is actually ridiculous that only 17% of the federal budget is devoted to the military while social spending consumes only 61%.

Given this Constitutional obligation, the federal government should be devoting a lot more of its budget to defense than it does. But it doesn’t. Defense gets only peanuts: 17% of the federal budget. And this share is set to shrink further, with or without sequestration.

 

 

Once again, all of de Rugy’s claims have been utterly disproven, and have been shown to be nothing more than blatant lies. Shame on her for propagating them, and shame on Sen. Rand Paul for spreading them. By doing so, he has shown that voters cannot trust a single word he says. Voters should take this into account before deciding whom to vote for in 2016.

Rebuttal of Dustin Siggins’ and Ezra Klein’s blatant lies

On November 20th, extremely liberal Washington Compost blogger Ezra Klein published a cretinous, completely wrong blogpost titled “The sequester’s defense cuts aren’t that scary, in one graph”. Therein, Klein falsely claims that the sequester’s defense cuts would be mild and would not gut the military:

“The defense cuts contained in the sequester would be a “disaster,” says Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Implementing them would “would risk hollowing out our force,” says Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. It would be a “crippling blow to our military,” says Sen. John McCain.

But not as bad a blow as the military has faced in the past. This graph comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and it shows real military spending since the Korean War (“real” in that the graph adjusts for inflation):

As you can see, the post-9/11 rise in military spending was larger than the rise during Vietnam and during the Cold War. And even if we implement every single cut in the sequester, the fall in spending would be less than the military experienced after Korea, Vietnam, or the Cold War.

Of course, almost everyone expects that the sequester will, eventually, be disarmed, and the actual cuts to the military will be substantially smaller than what you’re seeing on this graph. That means that despite the incredible build-up after 9/11, the fall in spending will be much less than it was after Korea, Vietnam, or the Cold War…”

He also claimed that nondefense discretionary spending will be “gutted” by the sequester and that it “doesn’t have nearly as much political protection.”

His claims are all blatant lies.

Let’s start with that utterly forged, completely wrong graph from the CSIS. It purports to show that US military spending rose above $700 bn in FY2009-FY2011 and that it will still be at $500 bn after sequestration, even in January FY2013, let alone later.

These numbers are completely wrong. Total US military spending, including GWOT and DOE defense-related program costs, NEVER reached, let alone exceeded, $700 bn at any point during the last 67 years. Never. It peaked at $688 bn in FY2011; in FY2010, it was $664 bn. Furthermore, if sequestration kicks in, the base defense budget will shrink to $469 bn in January 2013 and will stay below $500 bn for the remainder of the sequestration decade (and probably even afterwards), and even adding GWOT/OCO and DOE military spending does not bring the military budget up to $500 bn, let alone above it, especially given that these two items are ALSO subject to sequestration. (Yes, you read that correctly: war funding and funding for the DOE’s defense-related programs are ALSO subject to sequestration. Which means the DOD will have to cut base defense programs even deeper than otherwise just to pay the war bills.)

Here’s a CBO graph showing the REAL impact of sequestration. It utterly refutes the fake CSIS graph Klein posted.

Furthermore, the sequester’s cut to the defense budget – $66 bn virtually overnight, plus cuts to GWOT and DOE nat-sec budgets – would, collectively, amount to DEEPER defense budget cuts than those that followed the end of the Vietnam War or the Cold War, although not the massacre that followed the end of the Korean War. Furthermore, they will occur while over 60,000 American troops are still in harms’ way in Afghanistan.

Moreover, these deep defense cuts will have a devastating impact on an already overstretched, overused, depleted military which must now recapitalize and replace its worn-out, obsolete equipment after over 11 years of nonstop war while still deterring many threats and protecting America as well as its crucial allies. See here and here, for example, if you don’t want to listen to professional military leaders and to veteran budget manager Leon Panetta.

Klein’s claim that defense is “politically protected” is also a blatant lie, and a very popular one. The fact is that, as I have repeatedly proven here, Republicans are NOT protecting defense and have never protected it (although I wish they would). They’ve already agreed to Sec. Gates’ killing of over 50 crucial weapon programs in 2009 and 2010; to New START ratification (i.e. to unilateral cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal); to Sec. Gates’s Efficiencies Initiative, worth $178 bn; and to the $487 bn defense cuts mandated by the first tier of the BCA. Any claim that defense spending is “politically protected” is a blatant lie.

Finally, Klein’s claim that domestic spending would be “gutted” under sequestration is also a blatant lie, as documented by Dustin Siggins here. Moreover, under sequestration, defense spending would bear over 60% of the budget cuts burden, while domestic discretionary spending would get less than 40% of the slack and would see cuts of less than $40 bn per year, distributed over many agencies. That’s not gutting. Gutting is what defense will see under sequestration.

But Siggins, while smacking down Ezra Klein, made several lies of his own, and thus displayed once again his own ignorance of defense issues.

It’s funny that Siggins, while smacking down Ezra Klein, displays his own utter ignorance.

1) Firstly, it is not true that there is “massive fraud, waste, and duplication in the defense budget”. There is some of it (as there is in the budget of every federal agency), but not “massive” or “a huge amount”. If you have evidence, Dustin, publish it immediately or zip your lips.

And no, crucial weapon programs like the Next Gen Bomber, missile defense systems, the V-22, or the Virginia class are not “waste”.

The claim that there is “massive fraud, waste and duplication” in the defense budget is spread only by 1) those who want to make deep cuts in it, regardless of the consequences, and want to deliberately mislead the public into thinking that such cuts can be done safely; and 2) those ignorant people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

2) Contracting services need to be reformed carefully and skillfully, not “drastically”.

3) Ezra Klein’s graph is utterly false. It purports to show that US military spending rose above $700 bn in FY2009-FY2011 and that it will still be at $500 bn after sequestration, even in January FY2013, let alone later.

These numbers are completely wrong. Total US military spending, including GWOT and DOE defense-related program costs, NEVER reached, let alone exceeded, $700 bn at any point during the last 67 years. Never. It peaked at $688 bn in FY2011; in FY2010, it was $664 bn. Furthermore, if sequestration kicks in, the base defense budget will shrink to $469 bn in January 2013 and will stay below $500 bn for the remainder of the sequestration decade (and probably even afterwards), and even adding GWOT/OCO and DOE military spending does not bring the military budget up to $500 bn, let alone above it, especially given that these two items are ALSO subject to sequestration. (Yes, you read that correctly: war funding and funding for the DOE’s defense-related programs are ALSO subject to sequestration. Which means the DOD will have to cut base defense programs even deeper than otherwise just to pay the war bills.)

Here’s a CBO graph showing the REAL impact of sequestration. It utterly refutes the fake CSIS graph Klein posted.

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/rebuttal-of-rand-pauls-lies-about-defense-spending/defensebudgetaccordingtothecbo2-2/

4) The claim that “the aforementioned cuts to defense spending are essential to help the nation avoid a calamitous fiscal collapse, as well as better serve the troops…” is a blatant lie.

No, these cuts are not “essential” to avoid a calamitous fiscal collapse. The sequester’s defense cuts ($60 bn per year), or even its total cuts ($120 bn per year), would barely make a dent in the annual federal budget deficit ($1.3 trillion per year), and would thus do NOTHING to prevent a “calamitous fiscal collapse”. All that sequestration would accomplish would be to GUT the US military.

Which brings me to my next point: the sequester’s cuts would be a huge DISSERVICE to the troops and a huge damage to national security. I’m not exaggerating. Here is a holistic analysis of what sequestration would mean for America’s defense:

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/why-defense-sequestration-would-be-a-disaster-to-reiterate/

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/sequestration-is-even-worse-than-previously-thought/

http://zbigniewmazurak.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/why-defense-sequestration-must-be-repealed-faq/

But of course, as a non-conservative, Siggins doesn’t care.

5) To say that defense spending is “constitutional” is a vast understatement. Under the Constitution, defense is the #1 Constitutional DUTY of the federal government, which is obligated to do whatever is necessary to provide for the country’s defense. Anything short of that is a dereliction of duty.

6) Deep defense cuts are NOT necessary to balance the budget, as proven by the budget plans of Chairman Ryan, the Republican Study Committee, Sen. Toomey, Sen. Lee, and the Heritage Foundation.