PRINT
EMAIL
COMMENT
DEL.ICIO.US
DIGG
OUR PREMIUM CONTENT
The Kiplinger Agriculture Letter
The Kiplinger California Letter
Kiplinger's Biofuels Market Alert
Kiplinger's Retirement Report
SUBSCRIBER HELP
CURRENT LETTER
What to Do
With Investments Now
PREVIOUS ISSUES
An expert on modern warfare and strategic assessment, the Middle East and the politics of energy, Anthony H. Cordesman has held numerous senior positions in the Defense and State departments over the past 30 years. He is currently at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and is a military analyst for ABC News.There are a multitude of things the American public ought to hear the presidential candidates discuss in detail but don't. However, it should be more than a little unnerving that among those unspoken topics are the decay of the military and utter absence of national security strategy, planning and budgeting. There is, astonishingly enough, no actual budget for fighting the wars that the United States is involved in. There is no real plan in place for replacing equipment and supplies depleted in those wars. There is little connection between long-range national security goals and weapons programs. Procurement programs are an undisciplined and over-budget embarrassment.
"There is no clear or coherent plan, program or budget that reflects the fact the nation is at war and no credible mix of force plans, modernization plans and procurement plans for the future," warns Anthony Cordesman, a respected national security analyst with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. "...No hard choices have been made." And it will all fall on the next president to fix -- and likely take him or her a full term to turn things around.
Cordesman finds the situation -- and the lack of attention being paid to it in an election year -- so alarming that he has written a 130-plus page briefing that he intends to keep updating throughout the year as information and new ideas emerge. He doesn't blame any one administration for the mess -- but he does blame current officials, and a Congress content to go along with them, for a budgeting, planning and procurement process so poorly conceived and executed that words and phrases such as "absurd", "no credible plan" and "liars' contest" crop up throughout the report.
Cordesman does find an occasional ray of sunshine in the situation. While an honest defense budget would likely be 20%-30% higher than current spending requests, fully funding programs would not "place an unacceptable national security burden on the nation's economy and federal/public spending," he says, arguing that the cost would be lower than it was during the Cold War. But then Cordesman's forecast grows gloomy again: "There will, however, be sharply growing pressure on the federal budget from rising mandatory spending and entitlements costs, and national security spending -- like all discretionary spending -- will come under growing pressure."
POSTED BY: Nomen (May 16, 2008 01:46 PM)
Given that all three Presidential candidates are already part of the corrupt Washington scene,it is nothing but wishful thinking that the next President will straighten out anything.
While American companies are rushing every new technological breakthrough out of the country to maximize profit with the blessing of Washington how can there be any technological superiority to provide security? The illegal immigrant problem has only shown how insecure our borders are and how cheaply many of our businessmen and most of our government officials will sell out their own country for a few pieces of silver.
No one in government seems even remotely interested in defending the sovereignty of our Nation.
POSTED BY: cashpoor (May 16, 2008 06:42 PM)
See they may not "seem" to have a plan to refresh America after the "global war on terror". But they do, its called the Amero dollar, and sending our liberty bell off to China for recycling. Welcome to the NWO people, wake up! This has been in the books for a long time, stop pretending its not true.
POSTED BY: MS (May 17, 2008 06:53 PM)
Thank you for pointing out a serious economic threat to this country that almost no one wants to hear about.
E-Mail Article
Print Article
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
