BOHICA
Bend over, here it comes again.
http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/syrian-ops-mean-dod-budget-problems-cjcs-dempsey/
Syrian Ops Mean DoD ‘Budget Problems:’ CJCS Dempsey
By Colin Clark on September 26, 2014 at 3:53 PM
PENTAGON: The services’ draft budgets delivered to the Office of Secretary of Defense early this month are probably being shredded in light of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against the terrorist group known as ISIL.
“If you’re asking me, are we going to have budget problems, the answer is yes,” the president’s top military advisor told reporters this afternoon. Gen. Martin Dempsey said the 2015 Pentagon budget assumed that US military commitments would “level off or come down” and that Congress would allow the military to change pay, close bases, retire weapons and make other changes.
That hasn’t happened. “Commitments have gone up and the things that we were looking for in terms of flexibility have only very minimally been delivered.”
Those budget problems will doubtless become more expensive when the ground forces needed to destroy ISIL are built and then deployed over the next year or so. Dempsey made clear today there will be ground forces but they will probably be the famous “moderate Syrian opposition,” Iraqis and Kurds.
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Then there's the Sky Is Falling folks crying poor.
http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gop-dems-must-rebuild-military-readiness/
GOP, Dems Must Rebuild Military Readiness
By Mackenzie Eaglen on September 26, 2014 at 12:03 PM
This isn’t just a GOP cause. Increasingly, calls to rebuild America’s military strength are bipartisan. President Obama’s first term policy chief recently penned a piece with her counterpart in the George W. Bush administration seeking a return to defense budget levels of three years ago.
This is more than just an effort to turn off the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. Stating a desire to end sequestration is already up there with motherhood and apple pie in Washington circles—particularly after the launch of yet another US military operation in the Middle East. A planet simmering with crises is making the public much more aware that reductions in the military’s capacity and capability have gone too far in recent years.
But while many people inside the Beltway say they want to halt the cuts required by the Budget Control Act (BCA), several factors are conspiring to prevent this momentum from possibly leading to renewed American military strength. Due to both political realities and structural spending trends, simple budget relief will not be enough to reverse negative trends.
Rather, policymakers should begin to think about defense differently. They must stop swinging from one crisis to another, repeating the same up-down spending cycles during times of conflict and perceived peace. As defense spending vacillates, so too does global stability since US military retrenchment lowers the bar for conflict overseas.
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Why does this matter to you?
Check out that large slice of blue pie on the right.