Obama criticizes a Cold War approach to defense

[SIG600]

Words

Reminds me of the phrase "better to be thought an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Your post is so full of holes I can see through to next week. Uneducated disposition at it's best. The liberals want nothing more than to cut funding down to the bare minimum of a fair fight for the other guy. The far right want it so lop sided we'll be bankrupt before war ever breaks out. Where's the middle ground?

 

[Full of LUV]

Really....

Reminds me of the phrase "better to be thought an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Your post is so full of holes I can see through to next week. Uneducated disposition at it's best. The liberals want nothing more than to cut funding down to the bare minimum of a fair fight for the other guy. The far right want it so lop sided we'll be bankrupt before war ever breaks out. Where's the middle ground?

Sig,
After nearly 20 years of active service, my love for my country, family and community allow me to see things as they really are.
Eisenhower said it best, when he said to fear the military industrial complex. You and your 375 hours of experience are blinded by generalizations where I am just validating what I have personally witnessed. How many f22s does it take to defend a country? How many carriers does it take to patrol the seas? How many 2.5 billion dollar bombers can we build before we bankrupt the nation?
I don't have the exact answers, but my experience is that the real number is irrelevant because it is what the congressman from whatever district has power to decide.
My assessment is that the US democracy can only be saved by absolute term limits across the board, otherwise we are well on our way to duplicating the rome's fate.
Luv

 

[Paradoxus]

Sig,
After nearly 20 years of active service, my love for my country, family and community allow me to see things as they really are.
Eisenhower said it best, when he said to fear the military industrial complex. You and your 375 hours of experience are blinded by generalizations where I am just validating what I have personally witnessed. How many f22s does it take to defend a country? How many carriers does it take to patrol the seas? How many 2.5 billion dollar bombers can we build before we bankrupt the nation?
I don't have the exact answers, but my experience is that the real number is irrelevant because it is what the congressman from whatever district has power to decide.
My assessment is that the US democracy can only be saved by absolute term limits across the board, otherwise we are well on our way to duplicating the rome's fate.
Luv

As much as it pains me to say it.....well said.

Make no mistake, I am a firm advocate of mounting an effective defense, however, Eisenhower was no simple fool. In my estimation, he put himself at grave risk to give such a dire warning.

We are now saddled with a prodigious military-industrial-government media complex that from this point will only become bigger. The corruption leading to the endless graft and spending over weapons development has long-since outstripped the need for as much. Now, millions of livelihoods depend on the development of more and more hardware that we simply do not NEED, to make matters that much worse.

Only the most ardent fools in this matter blindly follow the notion that we maintain the military resources to subjugate the entire planet. Somehow I don't think this was the intention of the founders, nor is it practical economically.

Elucidation: We do not need the bombers, the ultra-sophisticated stealth fighters, the carrier battlegroups, nor do we need an entire host of absurdly complex and expensive war machines that serve no other purpose other than instruments of graft and defense industry/government corruption.

That said, we do not need to further eliminate or nuclear arsenal. In an age of worldwide stand-off nuclear strike capability, it is enough deterrent to have the capability and will to smoke entire populations from our home continent. If the powers that be were truly serious about national defense, this would be the rational course of action.

Alas, they are not.

 

[pilotyip]

Ike Liked CV groups

Elucidation: We do not need the bombers, the ultra-sophisticated stealth fighters, the carrier battlegroups, nor do we need an entire host of absurdly complex and expensive war machines that serve no other purpose other than instruments of graft and defense industry/government corruption. Alas, they are not.

I am also a big fan of Ike; he was always concerned about excessive military spending. Particularly on Nuc Weapons. But He was also not afraid to tell China and Russia, "If I have to use Nuc's against you, I will use them, they are a weapon in our inventory with a defined capability, that is a commander's job". The Mil/Ind complex played on fear, the media joined and congress joined them, only Ike with his reputation as a complete military man was able to stand up to them and tell them it was not needed, and then veto it on top of congresses approval. In dangerous times he kept us out of many wars that other encouraged him to fight. On the CV battle groups, Ike liked the flexibility those groups gave him in bringing US presence to a region, he used them in Lebanon in 1958. It sent a clear message to the Russians we still had a very capable conventional force. He authorized the building the CV-59 class, but was against the Nuc CV’s.

 

[transpac]

If China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, what would we do?

Not a damn thing except make a weasel-worded protest at the UN.

 

[Mud Eagle]

If we just turn all of our swords into ploughshares, then everything will be all right. It's weapons, not human nature, that make humans disagree with each other.

 

[Paradoxus]

If we just turn all of our swords into ploughshares, then everything will be all right. It's weapons, not human nature, that make humans disagree with each other.

How about we turn our golden swords to plowshares and keep the trebuchets and ballistas.