It’s official. The leadership of this country including the major media outlets have lost their collective minds. Yesterday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the House Armed Services Committee that if sequestration continues, they could not say with confidence that the U.S. military could successfully handle even one serious conflict!
Not a war on the Korean Peninsula, a conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, the defense of Japan or Taiwan from attack or even meet our obligations under the NATO Treaty to defend Europe.
According to BreakingDefense, “each of the Joint Chiefs was asked by Rep. Randy Forbes, chairman of the HASC seapower and power projection forces subcommittee, if they could execute the military’s basic Strategic Planning Guidance, which requires that U.S. forces be able to handle one enemy and to deter another. Down the line he went. Odierno: no; Greenert: no; Welsh: no. Amos, yes, but.”
So the Army, Navy and Air Force leaders all said they will not be able to meet the basic requirement for the U.S. military. The Marine Corps Commandant, General Amos said “yes, but”; however his service’s mission is so different from the rest. Moreover, without adequate support from his brothers in arms, the yes is irrelevant.
Was this story on the front page of the nation’s major newspapers? No.
Was it a lead story by the morning television news programs? It was not.
Did talk radio bring it up? Not as far as I could tell, channel surfing today.
America is disarming and no one, including the Commander in Chief, seems to care. Remember, sequestration was a White House idea. When his military commanders tell Congress they will not be able to defend this country if sequestration continues, you would think it would be worth at least a mention by President Obama. Nope.
Actually, this is not quite true. Our current and future enemies care. They are waiting for us to sink into the depths of budget insanity. Then they will have clear paths to achieving their goals, be it reunification of the Korean Peninsula on Pyongyang’s terms, dominance by Beijing of Asia, control of the strategic Persian Gulf by Iran or the recreation of the Russian empire.
Our current allies care. Don’t think for minute that Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Taiwan and half a dozen other countries won’t see the collapse of the U.S. military and the de facto termination of U.S. security guarantees as reason enough to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Northeast Asia alone could have five or six nuclear powers before the decade is over. That should give everyone in Washington a warm feeling, right?
By the way, if the U.S. military cannot say with confidence that they could win even one major conventional conflict that would leave this country with only two options: surrender or nuclear deterrence. We would have to go back to the bad old days of Massive Retaliation. It means modernizing aging and obsolescing strategic and theater nuclear forces, abandoning current arms control agreements in order to increase both the size and sophistication of our new nuclear force structure and living again under the sword of Damocles.
Anyone want to talk about what the Joint Chiefs just said? Anyone care about the impending implosion of the U.S. Military? Anyone want to end the madness and find a solution to sequestration? Apparently not.
