Is the Military Industrial Complex Getting Into Your Knickers?

[Mluther]

Back in the 50's, the military industrial complex would periodically caution the American taxpayer that the Commies were coming to rape and pillage the good old USA. Defense budgets swelled and we wound up in the Big Muddy aka Vietnam. Hyperactive hormones are dangerous in the bodies of young males or the dreams of old men. Fast forward 50 years and consider the current environment.

The Commies are too busy becoming Capitalist Pigs like the People's Republic of China, Russia and various other communist societies.

You should worry about the American Military Industrial complex that convinced DoD Secretary Peneta to go with the 11 aircraft carrier Navy and continuing the F35 fighter.

Based on the experience on the recently curtailed DDG1000 Zumwalt class destroyer that skyrocketed in cost from $750 million ship (OK You Old Navy Salts stop laughing. We are talking about 1997 dollars.) to $9.7 billion for the first destroyer and pledges by the contractor to reduce costs to $2.7 billion/destroyer for the next 41 destroyers. Logistics, training and operational costs is a closely guarded secret with words "It will save money" used to answer any question on out year costs.

Lucky for the taxpayers, the US congress did their job and reduced the total purchase of DDG1000s to 3 destroyers. It was amusing to see John “I am a War Hero) Kerry, Olympia Snow, Marty Meehan and Niki Tsongas whinning about the impact of canceling the DDG100 would have on the defense posture of the United States. The already high logistic and personnel training costs/ship will skyrocket to a number yet not disclosed by the Pentagon.

If the DDG1000 does not get your eye balls rolling, try the F35. A plane that is well behind its time, with skyrocketing costs ($200 million/plane) that is an easy prey to Soviet Air Defense systems. Drones are the wave of the future, cheap, higher performance envelopes and no grieving family members. Sounds like a winner to me. One more for the road.

The 11 aircraft carriers will require about 10 support ships/carrier and 100 F35s/carrier to make up a task force. At an estimated cost of $15 to 20 billion/aircraft carrier, $200 million/F35(100), and $ 3 to 5 billion/support ship(10)=20 + 20 + 50= $90 billion/task force in acquisition costs. Operational costs, training and logistics will cost about 20%/year or $18 billion annually. Hey! Sailors have to be fed and clothed plus jets require large amounts of jet fuel, bombs, missiles and bullets plus incidentals are not cheap. The cost of $6000 (1985 price) toilet seats does add up.

Cruise missiles fired from old style destroyers can provide the same destructive power for under $1 billion. They did an superb job in pulverizing Libya. Of course, each task force requires a couple of admirals and 30 to 40 Navy Captains and hundreds of lower ranking officers and 30 to 40 thousand sailors for staff. You are talking over 350,000 sailors to staff the carrier task forces- salaries, medical benefits, retirement benefits, etc. The 11 carrier US Navy will have the unemployment rate down below 4% by 2020. The US debt will be over $50 trillion dollars (2012 dollars) and happy times will be here again.

BTW Another porker is the Federal Research Centers such as MITRE, MIT Lincoln Labs, Natick Labs followed closely by the college professors at MIT, BU,BC, etc.

Federal Stimulus Funding beyond belief.

[Ghostdog]

Unfortunately in the future Peace will only be guaranteed with Superior Fire Power. While the "Military Industrial Complex" should be kept in check we should not be short sighted and think our future enemys will always be 3rd world cave dwellers. As far as Drones doing our fighting, it sounds good but they have a trouble discerning civilians from High Value Tragets. Using Robots to do your killing for you somehow just seems a little too Orwellian for me and could open the door for a retaliation scenerio that others could easily justify. We take out a High Value Target in a country (that we supposedly are not at odds with) and someone from that country sends in a drone to Washington DC for a Target they determine was of High Value to them. Do they have the same right to fly in a drone (to another country) to kill someone they think is their enemy like we seem to think is our right to do? Don't forget many people in many countries think we are murderers and their enemy too. No amount of negotiations or Nation Building will change their minds. Also another issue thats about to come up is many of our Drones are being controlled by civilian contractors which I believe is against the Geneva Conventions. Keep in mind some of our enemys also pocess the same drone technologies and are now honing them to match ours in each and every parameter. We in turn are now honing our newest platform which is a 14,000 MPH drone (called the Falcon) that can deliver a lethal blow anywhere in the world in an hour or less. We can sit back and act all uppity about how we will kick any foreigners ass if they dare rattle their sabers but it would take very little for an enemy to shut off our supply of oil from the middle east. Who is going to blink first? Its a tough question, especially when your enemy thinks dying immediately gets them to a better place with all sorts of benefits they don't get here on Earth. Throw into the mix another potential enemy that actually has a million War Fighters to waste in the hopes of over whelming you!

[Mluther]

Unfortunately in the future Peace will only be guaranteed with Superior Fire Power. ....

Superior fire power to DEFEND America lies in the Minuteman Silos, Nuclear Submarines and stand off airborne platforms with nuclear JDAMs missiles.

We do not need an 11 carrier Navy at an acquisition cost of $90 billion/carrier task force with an annual $18 billion operational costs/carrier task force or 1700F35.
The F35 is estimated to have an acquisition cost $200 million up from $35 million. 1700 F35s will have an acquisition cost of $340 billion with operational costs of $68 billion/year. At full deployment the 11 carrier task forces plus the 1700 F35s will cost upward of $266 billion/year(2012 dollars) to operate. That is some serious money, even when we carry a $1.2 trillion deficit for FY12.

I believe that Ron Paul has the right attitude keep America safe and let the rest of the world fight their battles and settle their differences without American blood or money being wasted.

On the same issue, I believe that we should closed down most of our bases in foreign countries. Sixty-six years after the end of WWII, the US has bases in Germany and Japan. Have some bases like in Diego Garcia, Philippines, Guam, Australia, Azores and Puerto Rico to support a 4 carrier Navy through 2050 then complete shutdown.

A penny saved is a penny earned. A trillion here and trillion there, pretty soon we are talking about some serious money.

[Ghostdog]

Superior fire power to DEFEND America lies in the Minuteman Silos, Nuclear Submarines and stand off airborne platforms with nuclear JDAMs missiles.

Unfortunately our enemys now have the technology to defeat the above mentioned systems. In many cases we simply handed the technology over to them, some was stolen and others just invented the needed technology from the training we supplied to them when citizens from their countries attended schools here. Very shortly (if not right now) a big ass Aircraft Carrier will be parked off the Gulf of Hormuz keeping the waterway open so we can continue to make the Saudis rich, our cars running and houses warm. A silo in North Dakota does no have the same effect. I would have no problem closing down the vast number of bases around the world. On another note we have no business being the Policeman of the world. Our War Fighters are there to break things and kill people. Nothing more and certainly not to Nation Build. Our own Nation could use a little Building!

[Amber]

On another note we have no business being the Policeman of the world. Our War Fighters are there to break things and kill people. Nothing more and certainly not to Nation Build. Our own Nation could use a little Building!

Ron Paul is the *only* candidate who feels this way (or has had the balls to say so publicly). I wish he had a shot at the nomination, though his numbers are
impressive for someone who has largely been ignored or dimissed by the media.

For Dems it's social programs and banks, for Republicans it's the MIC and banks (or a moon colony - someone's been watching too much Firefly and Terra Nova). The more troubling part of the Rep platform for me is the desire to strangle all of our freedoms in the name of keeping us safe from the big bad guy who is statistically less likely to harm us than some drunk asshole on the highway.

All but Paul want to piss taxpayer dollars away on programs which do nothing to help create real jobs for your average family-supporting middle income workers.

[Ghostdog]

The Media has a bad habit of ignoring or name calling (Kook, Whacko, Nut job) any candidate who either steps out of the party line, represents a 3rd party, has new revolutionary ideas or has the audacity to try and point out the truth. Ross Perot comes to mind! Looks like just about everything he said would happen did. I'm still waiting for the War Protesters to return and for the huge public outcry over Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act. I guess they were only objectionable when the POTUS was a Republican.

[Tony1941]

Unfortunately in the future Peace will only be guaranteed with Superior Fire Power. While the "Military Industrial Complex" should be kept in check we should not be short sighted and think our future enemys will always be 3rd world cave dwellers. As far as Drones doing our fighting, it sounds good but they have a trouble discerning civilians from High Value Tragets. Using Robots to do your killing for you somehow just seems a little too Orwellian for me and could open the door for a retaliation scenerio that others could easily justify.

Check these links out

Northrop’s Ultimate Weapons- X-47B

Currently a demonstration model, the X-47B is the future of U.S. Navy unmanned aviation.

Northtrop's X-47B UCAS
The X-47B is a tailless, strike fighter-sized unmanned aircraft currently under development by Northrop Grumman as part of the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program. Under a contract awarded in 2007, the company designed, produced and is currently flight testing two X-47B aircraft. In 2013, these aircraft will be used to demonstrate the first carrier-based launches and recoveries by an autonomous, low-observable-relevant unmanned aircraft. The UCAS-D program will also mature relevant carrier landing and integration technologies, and demonstrate, in 2014, autonomous aerial refueling by the X-47B aircraft.

Boeing’s Repertoire of UAVs

The past year has been a busy one for Boeing unmanned aircraft. Boeing received a contract to build two A160T Hummingbirds for the U.S. Marines. Boeing subsidiary Insitu Inc. received a U.S. Navy contract to develop its Integrator for the Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System program. Phantom Ray, a Boeing-funded prototype, successfully completed its first two flights at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The high-altitude, long-endurance Phantom Eye, another Boeing-funded prototype, was unveiled in St. Louis. Boeing expects more accomplishments with these and other unmanned aircraft in the coming year.

X-45 Joint Unmanned Combat Air System
The Boeing Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) X-45 is the first highly autonomous, unmanned system specifically designed for combat operations in the network-centric environment of the 21st century. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the U.S. Air Force, and Boeing have completed the first two demonstration blocks on the X-45A and are developing the X-45C. The X-45C will fly high-risk operational missions and deliver precision weapons on target. Controlled by either line-of-sight or satellite communications, the X-45 is highly adaptable to changing battle conditions.
Boeing began its unmanned combat aircraft program in 1998 and the following year, DARPA and the U.S. Air Force chose Boeing to build two X-45A air vehicles and a mission control station under the J-UCAS Advanced Technology Demonstration Program. During its first flight, May 22, 2002, the X-45A flew for 14 minutes at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, reaching airspeed of 195 knots and altitude of 7,500 feet. Flight characteristics and basic aspects of aircraft operations, particularly the command and control link between the aircraft and the mission-control station, were successfully demonstrated.
By the end of 2004, the two X-45As flew 35 test missions at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. The most significant X-45A test flights in 2004 included a precision weapon drop in April, when the X-45A demonstrator hit a ground target with a 250-pound inert near-precision-guided weapon released from its internal weapons bay, and the first unmanned, autonomous multi-vehicle flight in August under the control of a single pilot.
In October 2006, after 64 unprecedented flights and numerous firsts in autonomous combat aviation, the two X-45A unmanned combat air vehicles designed and built by Boeing in partnership with the DARPA and the U.S. Air Force were sent to two prominent aviation museums to be permanently displayed. One aircraft went to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and the other to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
"This is a fantastic honor," said Dave Koopersmith, X-45 vice president and program manager for Boeing Advanced Systems. "The X-45A made history and laid the groundwork for future unmanned combat aircraft with its 64 mishap-free flights. We take great pride that they will be displayed for the world to see at these museums."

Please note that some of these systems flew in 2005.

The F35 is not needed and either the X-45 or X-47 could save the Federal Government trillions of dollars and no more Military Funerals for aviators at least.
Either the X-45 or X-47 will do the job at an estimated cost of less than 10% of the cost of the F-35.

[Tony1941]

Unfortunately our enemys now have the technology to defeat the above mentioned systems.

Neither Russia or the PRC have developed a Star War missile shield to defeat any of the legs of the triad. The US has developed a limited Star Wars capability to protect the silo based missiles and command and control systems. The airborne and sea based legs of the nuclear triad are next to impossible to detect or attack.

The Soviet's do have an arsenal of SS-25s and SSN16s that could attack the US but the Reagan legacy of the Star War system for silo based missiles is in place.

[longbow shooter]

"...As far as Drones doing our fighting, it sounds good but they have a trouble discerning civilians from High Value Tragets."

Right now, our most serious threat (enemy) is radical islam. Even our human fighters have difficulty discerning civilians from high value targets. That's because the high value targets launch attacks from civilian neighborhoods. Israel has been dealing with this tactic for decades. Muslims launch rocket attacks from heavily populated neighborhoods and then accuse Israel of barbarism for killing civilians when, in fact, all they are doing is using defensive means to protect themselves. They cowardly hide among civilians and then scream and cry about civilian casualties when we (drones) take them out. They use collateral damage as a tool of war. We, with our Judeo/Christian values, hesitate to attack because of the civilian casualties that our consciences will not allow us to harm. It is the muslim way. They have no respect for life and long to sacrifice themselves for the cause of complete global islamic domination. We will never win the war against radical islam until we can come to terms with the fact that the only good muslim jihad warrior is a dead one. Bring on the drones and kill anyone who is foolish enough to stand in harms way.

[Ghostdog]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...-defense_N.htm