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| 10% reduction in US Nukes -- Or, I got a few Iranian places to put them |
| 2006-02-04 |
| The Pentagon Friday announced plans to significantly increase special operations forces, expand psychological warfare and develop a program to counter biological terrorism as part of a new broadbased military strategy for the 21st century. The plan comes three days before President Bush sends Congress a 2007 budget that seeks a nearly 5 percent increase in Defense Department spending, to $439.3 billion, with significantly more for weapons programs, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Under the long-range plan, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon will increase special operations forces by 15 percent, including the establishment for the first time of a Marine Corps commando unit. And there will be a one-third increase - or a jump of 3,700 - in troops assigned to psychological warfare and civil affairs units. There also will be a new $1.5 billion program to develop medical countermeasures for bioterrorism threats. The plan will reduce the number of Minuteman III land-based nuclear missiles from 500 to 450, and calls for the conversion of a small number of nuclear missiles aboard Trident submarines to non-nuclear ballistic missiles. The long-range strategy document, more than a year in the making, outlines broad plans to reshape the military into a more agile fighting force better able to fight terrorism, in what the document calls the Long War, while still preserving the ability to wage large conventional wars. The review, which does not call for the elimination of any of the largest weapons programs, as initially expected, will guide how dollars are spent within the Pentagon budget. "Now in the fifth year of this global war, the ideas and proposals in this document are provided as a roadmap for change, leading to victory," said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a letter accompanying the document. This represents the second four-year review that Rumsfeld has led during his tenure heading the department. As part of the effort to shift the focus of the military toward more non-traditional terrorist enemies, the plan calls for doubling the procurement of unmanned aircraft, particularly for surveillance; calls for the development of a new long-range strike system, as a greater deterrent against future threats and stresses the need to build strong partnerships both with other nations and other U.S. government agencies. The plan also recommends reducing the number of Navy aircraft carriers from from 12 to 11, a proposal rejected by Congress last year. |
| Posted by:Captain America |
| #5 Anon5089 - see my quicky link/post (Pg 2) to the Navy's refocus on China - we are awake |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-02-04 16:24 |
| #4 DOD is reducing the old systems for division/corps/army level force-on-force ground wars to build up SOCOM on one end and high-tech capabilities on the other end of the spectrum. Makes sense to me. We don't need to put armies all around China and we have plenty of capability to do a MAD balance with China. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-04 16:18 |
| #3 Anonymous50898. The way I see it, we will never use nukes, at least not in the thousands. They are very expensive to maintain. Money spent on them, above a certain level, is wasted. Let's cut them back, dramaticly. Redirect the money into systems that will be used against enemies we do have. To my mind, these reductions are insufficient. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-02-04 16:05 |
| #2 Is it really the time to reduce nuclear deterrent and navy? I'm just a clueless jerk wondering, but even if the USA are currently needing an "agile" projectable army able to defeat guerilla, do Naton-building, etc, etc,... there is still China acting all imperial and busy anting up its own forces, most probably with your army in mind. Conventional forces, with tracked heavy armored vehicle, serious firepower (self-propelled artillery type), plenty of warships and nukes (theses would come in handy),... is what's needed there. How do you get the two together? Frankly, for the USA, the only real "military" threat from the Lions of islam is mega-terror (scary, but hopefully unlikely), and self-inflicted political defeat à la Viet Nam. There is still the "global djihad" thingie, but as in Europe's case (much more threatening, the USA are the ennemy, Europe is the prize), it is cultural, demographical, subversive,... not really a war, but a clash of collective will and popular lifeforce. Shouldn't China be recognized as the main strategical threat to you, and priorities assigned that way? Just askin', in my blissfully ignorant way. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-02-04 16:01 |
| #1 Under the long-range plan, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon will increase special operations forces by 15 percent, including the establishment for the first time of a Marine Corps commando unit. And what would one call Carlson's Raiders Also the idea of converting some of the Tridents to non-nuclear ballistic just does not make sense to me. Launch one and how do we know some body is not going to get itchy trigger fingers |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2006-02-04 15:47 |