When this news broke on FOX on Monday, I literally shouted at the TV and exclaimed: “We just screwed Taiwan and any other nation that had any hope of our intervention on their behalf and…..China, Iran and N. Korea just got the message….. “go for it””
Under the proverbial bus and rolled over the body of allies multiple times.
AFG was just the warmup to our declaration of a failed DoD and Dept of State and the Biden administration.
Blithering idiot is basically killing any deterrence against China and telling them, "yep, we're stretched too thin, so go ahead and take Taiwan". Or at least, when you decide to take Taiwan, start up some mess elsewhere and we won' be able to respond.
We can't build ships fast enough. But we do have enough ships, planes, and bombers to get it done at range if we need to...provided we have the missiles. First priority has to be building LOTS AND LOTS of missiles to put on the shelf - all maritime and air launched versions of LRASM-ER/JASM-ER, AIM 260, etc. Next is make sure we can deliver them with whatever aircraft we can bring on the front line immediately, supplemented by what we can build before THE DATE, and then do the same with shipbuilding - and that means getting Japan, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, and British/European shipbuilders involved in a joint effort to turn out a bunch of hulls on short notice.
Contracts be damned. China is waging war by any other means to prep the battlefield and we need to go on at least a pre-War preparation development push. We have time, maybe, but it is short - shorter than Reagan had - to rescue things.
You may remember that all it took for North Korea to invade the south was a State Department omission of South Korea on a list of countries we would defend. And how many killed? All it took was a similar State Department slip of the lip for Iraq to invade Kuwait. This statement goes waaaaaay beyond those mistakes. In the world of those fair-haired diplomats, who never have to face the pointy end of the spear, all you have to do to kill a country outright is to suggest weakness. I believe this was intentional. Either that, or it was malfeasance of office and the entire team of Winken, Blinken and Nod should be forcibly removed from office and deposited in a jail of your choice. I also believe that it is part and parcel of the current administration's goal to erase the United States from international importance. But of course, no one in DC ever has to pay for their crimes, so there's that....
DoS continues to face a rapidly changing world after having its budgets gutted and its global insights subsequently limited over multiple administrations. There has been too little digital modernization too late, and I chalk this up to Blinken doing his best to set expectations for State, not the whole NatSec community. Why would he admit how far behind his agency is?
DoD posture is steadfastly “ready to fight tonight” in every venue where I hear the flags speak. They are much further ahead, though not as ready as any of us would like.
Blinken is dealt a tough hand, and I’m not as worried as others about that. But I agree the chances of adversary aggression or miscalculations go way up the more he shows he is not in lock-step with Austin, DoD, and the military-industrial complex.
If Blinken had a comparable asset like the DIB, we’d be having a different conversation, and so would he. To be the #1 cabinet official and yet be so undermanned is the primary problem here, as I see it. Many other issues flow from that.
I dunno...I watched that 18 second video of Secretary Blinken and if I have any gift for reading body language, divining voice inflections and parsing words to determine sincerity, honesty, wisdom and self-confidence I am going to have to say that Blinken nails it...like Jell-O to a wall with a railroad spike.
Blinken might be stepping out of his lane and into Austin's but if he was my LPO I'd follow him to Hell (his likely destination anyway) or back to the chow line for a second helping of meatloaf and creamed corn. Open your eyes, shipmates. Blinken is probably Biden's best Cabinet pick. You just have to get past the clown shoes they all wear. ...One more thing. Or maybe two. Don't be taking what he says out of context or without consideration of any meds he may be taking. And who would you rather have in his job right now? C'mon now. John Kerry? Hillary Clinton?
We had a brigade sized force in Afghanistan when we surrendered. That it. Don’t tell me it was a major investment in troops and equipment.
So when the prc roll into Taiwan are we pulling out of other commitments like kfor, sfor, Sinai, and Korea? Since 1942 we have designed, funded, and maintained a military to fight 2 opponents simultaneously. Wtf happened?
What happened is that the America that fought WW2 doesn’t exist anymore. Mass third world immigration, decades of neoliberal financialization and outsourcing, and a triumphalist hubris post Cold War have combined to produce a U.S. empire that is riding on that former nation’s laurels with little of the substance underneath.
Austin is getting paid by Raytheon et al while SECDEF.
Blinken is probably just making a gaffe, that is he told the truth.
The worlds biggest Defense budget did budget $421 million for land artillery in FY22, just under 80,000 shells. 4 days of RuAF expenditure. It is estimated it could double production to 160K shells= 8 days. OTOH Austin is rich, everyone in DC is rich, and the military is humbled- a consistent policy of DoS since Korean war. Oh its not said, it’s Done .
It's almost certainly a combination of all three. He knows nothing about defense capabilities (other than what he hears at Cabinet meetings), so far Ukraine policy *has* been a policy disaster -- see the European economy, inflation, global bifurcation, etc. -- (so, yes, he is obfuscating), and we very much have sold our industrial base overseas since 1992 (in which he played a part along with the rest of the smart people [TM]), so we clearly aren't ready for anything other than imperial policing with expensive, boutique weapon systems.
The entire Biden administration is in disarray & none of the department heads know what they are doing. There is a master puppeteer pulling the strings of the administration. Who ever it is is no friend of the United States.
But the reasons why are so multitude that it would be difficult to pick just one.
If it's to protect a policy than I would suspect it's decades of utterly incompetent budget cuts made just for the sake of cutting budgets in a mistaken belief that there would be a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. And a whole series of budget disasters (DDG-1000, F-22, LCS, etc.).
IOW's "...laden with waste, fraud, and a bloated workforce..."
We are quite capable of supporting multiple allies in small or medium wars. But that would require both competent leadership and a chainsaw detail for cutting the red tape.
When this news broke on FOX on Monday, I literally shouted at the TV and exclaimed: “We just screwed Taiwan and any other nation that had any hope of our intervention on their behalf and…..China, Iran and N. Korea just got the message….. “go for it””
Under the proverbial bus and rolled over the body of allies multiple times.
AFG was just the warmup to our declaration of a failed DoD and Dept of State and the Biden administration.
Blithering idiot is basically killing any deterrence against China and telling them, "yep, we're stretched too thin, so go ahead and take Taiwan". Or at least, when you decide to take Taiwan, start up some mess elsewhere and we won' be able to respond.
We can't build ships fast enough. But we do have enough ships, planes, and bombers to get it done at range if we need to...provided we have the missiles. First priority has to be building LOTS AND LOTS of missiles to put on the shelf - all maritime and air launched versions of LRASM-ER/JASM-ER, AIM 260, etc. Next is make sure we can deliver them with whatever aircraft we can bring on the front line immediately, supplemented by what we can build before THE DATE, and then do the same with shipbuilding - and that means getting Japan, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, and British/European shipbuilders involved in a joint effort to turn out a bunch of hulls on short notice.
Contracts be damned. China is waging war by any other means to prep the battlefield and we need to go on at least a pre-War preparation development push. We have time, maybe, but it is short - shorter than Reagan had - to rescue things.
You may remember that all it took for North Korea to invade the south was a State Department omission of South Korea on a list of countries we would defend. And how many killed? All it took was a similar State Department slip of the lip for Iraq to invade Kuwait. This statement goes waaaaaay beyond those mistakes. In the world of those fair-haired diplomats, who never have to face the pointy end of the spear, all you have to do to kill a country outright is to suggest weakness. I believe this was intentional. Either that, or it was malfeasance of office and the entire team of Winken, Blinken and Nod should be forcibly removed from office and deposited in a jail of your choice. I also believe that it is part and parcel of the current administration's goal to erase the United States from international importance. But of course, no one in DC ever has to pay for their crimes, so there's that....
DoS continues to face a rapidly changing world after having its budgets gutted and its global insights subsequently limited over multiple administrations. There has been too little digital modernization too late, and I chalk this up to Blinken doing his best to set expectations for State, not the whole NatSec community. Why would he admit how far behind his agency is?
DoD posture is steadfastly “ready to fight tonight” in every venue where I hear the flags speak. They are much further ahead, though not as ready as any of us would like.
Blinken is dealt a tough hand, and I’m not as worried as others about that. But I agree the chances of adversary aggression or miscalculations go way up the more he shows he is not in lock-step with Austin, DoD, and the military-industrial complex.
If Blinken had a comparable asset like the DIB, we’d be having a different conversation, and so would he. To be the #1 cabinet official and yet be so undermanned is the primary problem here, as I see it. Many other issues flow from that.
I dunno...I watched that 18 second video of Secretary Blinken and if I have any gift for reading body language, divining voice inflections and parsing words to determine sincerity, honesty, wisdom and self-confidence I am going to have to say that Blinken nails it...like Jell-O to a wall with a railroad spike.
Blinken might be stepping out of his lane and into Austin's but if he was my LPO I'd follow him to Hell (his likely destination anyway) or back to the chow line for a second helping of meatloaf and creamed corn. Open your eyes, shipmates. Blinken is probably Biden's best Cabinet pick. You just have to get past the clown shoes they all wear. ...One more thing. Or maybe two. Don't be taking what he says out of context or without consideration of any meds he may be taking. And who would you rather have in his job right now? C'mon now. John Kerry? Hillary Clinton?
We had a brigade sized force in Afghanistan when we surrendered. That it. Don’t tell me it was a major investment in troops and equipment.
So when the prc roll into Taiwan are we pulling out of other commitments like kfor, sfor, Sinai, and Korea? Since 1942 we have designed, funded, and maintained a military to fight 2 opponents simultaneously. Wtf happened?
What happened is that the America that fought WW2 doesn’t exist anymore. Mass third world immigration, decades of neoliberal financialization and outsourcing, and a triumphalist hubris post Cold War have combined to produce a U.S. empire that is riding on that former nation’s laurels with little of the substance underneath.
Doesn’t anybody know the name of This Town?
DC exists for DC.
Austin is getting paid by Raytheon et al while SECDEF.
Blinken is probably just making a gaffe, that is he told the truth.
The worlds biggest Defense budget did budget $421 million for land artillery in FY22, just under 80,000 shells. 4 days of RuAF expenditure. It is estimated it could double production to 160K shells= 8 days. OTOH Austin is rich, everyone in DC is rich, and the military is humbled- a consistent policy of DoS since Korean war. Oh its not said, it’s Done .
Blinken is being honest.
"Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;"
I think that may describe the situation in which we currently find ourselves.
It's almost certainly a combination of all three. He knows nothing about defense capabilities (other than what he hears at Cabinet meetings), so far Ukraine policy *has* been a policy disaster -- see the European economy, inflation, global bifurcation, etc. -- (so, yes, he is obfuscating), and we very much have sold our industrial base overseas since 1992 (in which he played a part along with the rest of the smart people [TM]), so we clearly aren't ready for anything other than imperial policing with expensive, boutique weapon systems.
The short answer to your last question; we aren't.
The entire Biden administration is in disarray & none of the department heads know what they are doing. There is a master puppeteer pulling the strings of the administration. Who ever it is is no friend of the United States.
The odd, strange,and sad thing about this, is that they actually believe they are doing a superb job.
Blinken is lying.
But the reasons why are so multitude that it would be difficult to pick just one.
If it's to protect a policy than I would suspect it's decades of utterly incompetent budget cuts made just for the sake of cutting budgets in a mistaken belief that there would be a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. And a whole series of budget disasters (DDG-1000, F-22, LCS, etc.).
IOW's "...laden with waste, fraud, and a bloated workforce..."
We are quite capable of supporting multiple allies in small or medium wars. But that would require both competent leadership and a chainsaw detail for cutting the red tape.