In 1984, Winston and Julia learn that the real war is not the one between the three superpowers but the one waged by the ruling class against its own people in order to maintain power. Actual combat is limited and takes place along the periphery. The population is kept under control through economic deprivation. surveillance, propaganda and the Thought Police. So glad 1984 was a work of fiction.
The answer is to starve the Deep State. Abolish the income tax. Abolish the Fed to halt unrestrained borrowing. Restore the gold standard to prevent money from being printed out of thin air.
I do not think the entrenched forces or largely unconstitutional government will ever abolish the income tax or the Fed, so 1776 may be the eventual denouement.
Brilliant idea, now all we need to do is convince those in power to give up some of their power. Doesn't seem likely, but I guess it looked good in theory.
Which is why I get annoyed at the "all we have to do is X!" where X always equals talking those in power to decrease their power. Which is never going to happen, so that plan is retarded. Time to move on to practical plans, like yours of "tak[ing] by the collar." If that is a euphemism for lampposts, nooses, and meathooks, that is.
The US and Europe are run worse than Oceania. In 1984, Oceania was always allied with one superpower against the other. This administration has managed to unite Eurasia and Eastasia against us. Not that it really matters.
This budget proposal is during an election year when democrats are usually pilloried for lack of defense spending. I would be very dubious of out year spending on defense. The navy and marine corps will continue to shrink as the budget priorities shift more and more to domestic spending.
ALL HAIL SAINT VLADIMIR, SAVIOR OF (USELESS) EUROPEAN BILLETS!
Seriously, we need to keep the Super Hornet and Poseidon lines open, Congress. More go BOOM things as well. And Navy brass, some FACs or "equipped with" OPVs for presence, humanitarian, and littoral missions since we're slowing Burke and Constellation acquisition down...
A Navy pilot landed a C-130 aboard a carrier and made several takeoffs and landings. This was back in the late 1960s. Lots of mods to the airframe since then, but worth trying again. I’m picturing C-130s rotating between CVNs and short airstrips, loaded out with the new USAF roll off drone packs.
While on the topic of "queer" aircraft ops on carriers, were you aware of when U-2s operated aboard the Ranger to monitor French nuke tests in the Pacific...But she didnt have her air group embarked.
Ahh yes. CDR Flatley III, later RADM Flatley III who was the prodigy of VADM Flatley who with Jimmy Thatch revolutionized naval air tactics in the early days of WW2. The C130 as a COD though is the proverbial “juice isn’t worth the squeeze”. Not enough deck real estate and not enough leadership that is risk adverse. Good thought though.
The short answer is that we aren’t preparing for any war of significance. And we really don’t have the manufacturing capability or manpower to fight one if one starts up anyway.
How exactly are we defending everything? Where are the boots on the ground in Ukraine? We don't have troops on the ground in Israel, we basically pulled out of Syria, not to mention Iraq or Afghanistan, where we just up and left. We haven't done anything besides shoot down missiles and a few airstrikes in the Yaman-Red Sea conflict, and 2 ships have sunk, with several more hit and dozens of innocent merchant mariners killed. We aren't intervening in Hati, a tiny country only a few hundred miles away. Nicolas Maduro is still in power. A junta took over Niger and we did exactly diddly squat.
If we aren't standing up for human rights abroad, aren't defending democracy or sovereignty and aren't keeping the sea lanes open, what exactly are we protecting?
"So, that means … our top priority is the globe except for majority-Muslim nations and the continent on the planet with the most volatile mix of demographics, economics, and religious strife going in to mid-century - Africa?"
I was illuminating his point with a comment made by one of the Masters of War
Fair point, but that doesn't explain lack of action in Ukraine, Hati, or Venezuela. O yeah, and Myanmar is in a civil war as well, even if it doesn't make the nightly news anymore. I guess my point is that we there is nothing in the foreign policy spear that we are responding to appropriately to.
Haiti is a basket case and always will be. The only stable fix for them is colonization which the US doesn’t have the political will for, so the best course of action is simply to keep any more Haitians from invading the US.
Whatever happened to the Clinton Foundation? Amazing how Trump is being hounded despite paying back his loans with interest and Slick Willie skates free after taking money from poor people.
I fear the only strategy of our ruling class, maritime or otherwise, is how to get rich while managing our decline and keeping the citizenry contained.
All of the GOFO currently on active duty were promoted during the Obama years. All the competent officers and defense planners were fired or retired during his tenure, and the current "plans" are being written by Obama proxies. These are plans to LOSE any future conflict, and Dark Brandon is a puppet or figurehead for Obama.
We need to fire or retire all or most of the current GOFO, and rebuild the military from the O5/O6 ranks in order to have a prayer that the United States might still exist in 2030.
I'm not sure I agree with your premise for the cause, but it is defiantly curious that they don't seem to be asking for a lot more.
Back to your premise, I'm not sure that every officer is handpicked by the administration even if they do have to be "appointed" to their positions by the president.
I would suggest that you don't understand how these promotions above 06 actually work. They are groomed and promoted due to their demographics and political reliability more than anything else. Real warriors have no political agenda and prize their enemy's defeat above all. That was clearly not an appreciated virtue in Obama's day and less so now. Gilday, Milley, Berger, Brown, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
While largely true, Pr. Obama is not making any policy decisions either. Someone put him there with Valery Jarret as a handler, and the people running her, Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, and the rest are still calling all the shots.
Timing. Timing. Timing. Yesterday, I used an online simulator to plan our get-out-of-Dodge route in case the most likely target nearest us gets nuked. Depressing thought, but I spent my at-sea days in Operations, making planning a natural part of my life.
a small one of the many reasons we're relocating. I'm stuck on a peninsula with three ways off, two of them bridges, the third a two lane road. I have the second biggest shipyard in the navy four miles away, and the largest collection of nuclear weapons in the US fifteen miles away in another direction... which is to say, if it goes fun colored, I'm fucked.
For your research, I strongly endorse BetterPlaces.net as a data source. Before we retired, we identified three general locations, and then used app.traveltime.com to make Venn diagrams based on our primary criteria. Better places.net then let us cross check census data, crime stats, etc. to zero in on the county we now live in. Best of luck. Correct to BestPlaces.net
When I bought property out on Washington State's Kitsap Peninsula, I made sure it was outside the 1 megaton "light damage" radius from Bremerton, Bangor, JBLM, and Olympia.
Indeed. I checked that too. Airbursts don't cause much fallout, and besides, the prevailing winds are SW->NE, so my 5 acres is almost always out of the cone from the mentioned targets.
I remember when Kim Jong was spouting about launching on the west coast. I figured it was unlikely, but Portland WAS an in range target. So i spoke with the ex wife about gathering kids and some area escape plans (we're in Vancouver), rally points, etc. With E/NE winds id figured on rolling north to Longveiw, then heading to the coast for a vacation of undetermined length...
Was thinking we could help our sub maintenance problem along and also jump start AUKUS- just give the Aussies the USS Boise "as-is". Any other boats thatve been pierside so long they lost their certs? Maybe theyll take two??
What gets me is we already invested something like half a billion to get the industrial base so it could build 3 SSN per year by FY2025. Can we get an update on that money please?
A very cogent and sobering analysis. With respect, I think things are even worse. Figure in inflation and this request is actually a defense cut. I also understand that the Columbia build is slipping at least a year. Yet "We" want to forgive college loans on the public--i.e. taxpayers. "We" want to fund free healthcare for all, including illegal aliens. I watched a leading Democrat from California (but I repeat myself) state openly that their aim is to reduce defense funding so as to make room for domestic spending (i.e. welfare). We have jackasses behaving like ostriches.
You bring up healthcare. As a nation we spend more than anybody else, but, have poorer outcomes than nations who pay less. If our high cost resulted in good healthcare then great, but that's not the situation in the US.
Tell elderly voters we're not wasting money on them, and see how that works. A lot of the difference in spending is 1. Treatment (or not treating) of ailments for the geezers. 2. We pay from RNs on up more money on average. Things we aren't going to change.
Actually, once you control the data for differences in how live births are recorded, violence in inner cities and automobile crashes, our system looks pretty good. I am unaware of large numbers of Americans leaving the country to experience the joys of socialized medicine in Europe, or for that matter, Canada.
The issue in the US is that we claim to have a free market system, when in actuality we are all captives of the insurance companies. There is no competition for health care because you have to go through the insurance company, and there is rarely a choice. Frankly, I'd rather the government screw me out of needed care than have a for-profit insurance company screw me out of needed care.
I don't want the government doing anything a private company can legitimately do. Go to your local DMV for example., or the VA. If you actually have a job and keep at it, most companies provide health insurance, which varies in its quality. Me, I've got Medicare and TRICARE for life with VA as a back up. I am perfectly content. My neighbor, a retired Merchant mariner, has Exxon. His wife has severe issues, but they are very happy with their care. My daughter is on Obamacare, and she is content. Where government does it, they always screw it up---check out the UK or Canada or Italy or Denmark. In all of those places, the government provided care ranges from mediocre to you only go there to die. In all of those cases there is also exceptional medical care available--but it is private. Our current "Administration" keeps trying to convert the US to a single payer plan which they advertise as "Medicare for all". Of course such a conversion will very quickly devolve to "Medicaid for all" and we'd be just like the UK--which is what I suppose they have in mind. No thank you.
I’m gonna stop commenting because this is not a healthcare policy blog. One of the previous posters hit the nail on the head when he said it’s the cost of end-of-life care.
You can say no thank you because you’re in a good situation. I’m stuck in the crappy healthcare that my employer provides. My only choice is to buy a policy from a worse company than the one I’m with now.
Cutting the uniformed Pentagon staff by 75% and DoD-wide civilian staff by 85% would be a good start. Of course, that would be starting at the senior ranks and working down from there.
I'm seeing several comments hypothesizing that we are a purposefully or actually planning to loose the next war. There is certainly a big gap between the rhetoric coming out of all quarters about defense, and the policy coming out of those same offices.
I wonder if the Thus the aforementioned "slip" is between what the politicians believe and what the "machine" (all the unelected political people like staffers, lobbyists and campaign advisers) that actually writes the nitty parts of the laws and raise funds for campaigns think. I imagen that if you chatted with them over a few beers (when they are not performing) you would find that the politicians themselves are actually fairly ideological, and not the sinical political animals they are made out to be. In that framework, much of the sinical self-dealing probably emanates from the "machine" that needs to keep the politicians in power for its own survival.
I'm not a politicians and have not spent time in Washinton so I don't have any first hand experience, but I would love to hear what people think about this
This boils down to a huge shortfall in the MOST important area - answering the following questions:
1. What actions do we need to do? (Requirements)
2. What do we have on hand to perform those actions? (Capabilities)(Across the DOTMLPF-P)
3. What do we NOT have on hand to perform those actions? (Gaps)(Across the DOTMLPF-P)
The deficiency lays in the default strawman mentality, that if we buy more 'stuff' it will fix the gaps. But even that default mentality is skewed starting at the Congressional appropriations level, and through Joint and Service (and even COCOM shaping of investments) as people pursue and double down via their devotion to pet projects that may or (no longer) may not provide any military utility.
Its further messed up as Services and Commands consistently FAIL to conduct objectively based Military Utility Assessments, or produce analytically derived DOTMLPF-P Change Recommendations. that are only being implemented based on myopic and biased Command Directives and Guidance/ Intent, rather then any objective and thorough understanding of potential adversaries/ operational environments.
So we continue to pursue Measures of Performance that can be quantified by throwing money at whiz-bang technology development of dubious outcome (Via things like RDER and Replicator). Rather then focus on Measures of Success that fall into the portions of DOTMLPF-P that are hard to articulate but are easy to see when they Succeed or Fail. Such as our People, inherent and gained Knowledge/ Education/ Training, disciplined implementation of training that produces the right gains, and ensuring the baseline tools/ capabilities are resourced and maintained and functional.
Ultimately the 'analysis' being conducted on justifying those quantified "Measures of Performance" is heavy on collation and regurgitation of data points. And the worth of a proposed gap filler is more valued by the amount of data generated and available to justify its existence. The system (of systems) and architecture-based analysis approach favored by the Joint Staff and Service headquarters staffs seems to attract an awful lot of people who would likely test out somewhere on the autism/ Asperger's spectrum. They can generate and requote a lot of data and pictures (from existing data), but are hard pressed to clearly/ cogently articulate any analysis to explain what the data means. Or produce recommendations worth a strategic or operational advantage.
Awesome as usual. Well I don't know what we are preparing for but sure seems to resemble something along the lines of "Hey Taiwan... yeah about that promise we made way back when???... well this is one of those 'that was then... this is now' " kind of situation.
In 1984, Winston and Julia learn that the real war is not the one between the three superpowers but the one waged by the ruling class against its own people in order to maintain power. Actual combat is limited and takes place along the periphery. The population is kept under control through economic deprivation. surveillance, propaganda and the Thought Police. So glad 1984 was a work of fiction.
It's been said that the answer to 1984 is 1776. I wonder …
The answer is to starve the Deep State. Abolish the income tax. Abolish the Fed to halt unrestrained borrowing. Restore the gold standard to prevent money from being printed out of thin air.
I do not think the entrenched forces or largely unconstitutional government will ever abolish the income tax or the Fed, so 1776 may be the eventual denouement.
Brilliant idea, now all we need to do is convince those in power to give up some of their power. Doesn't seem likely, but I guess it looked good in theory.
They will never give up their power. They need to be taken by the collar and thrown out.
Exactly.
Which is why I get annoyed at the "all we have to do is X!" where X always equals talking those in power to decrease their power. Which is never going to happen, so that plan is retarded. Time to move on to practical plans, like yours of "tak[ing] by the collar." If that is a euphemism for lampposts, nooses, and meathooks, that is.
Being a neocon means never having to say you’re sorry.
Except 1776 obviously didn't work last time, at least not for very long.
It worked for ~170 years or so. That's not bad.
“1984” was never intended to be a training manual, but here we are.
The US and Europe are run worse than Oceania. In 1984, Oceania was always allied with one superpower against the other. This administration has managed to unite Eurasia and Eastasia against us. Not that it really matters.
This budget proposal is during an election year when democrats are usually pilloried for lack of defense spending. I would be very dubious of out year spending on defense. The navy and marine corps will continue to shrink as the budget priorities shift more and more to domestic spending.
And defending prostate, yet to recover from the war Western Europe.
Wait--whose prostate?
Given European demographics, prostate security is an issue that we cannot ignore.
but only for AMABs...
or to paying interest
ALL HAIL SAINT VLADIMIR, SAVIOR OF (USELESS) EUROPEAN BILLETS!
Seriously, we need to keep the Super Hornet and Poseidon lines open, Congress. More go BOOM things as well. And Navy brass, some FACs or "equipped with" OPVs for presence, humanitarian, and littoral missions since we're slowing Burke and Constellation acquisition down...
And reopen the C-17 line soonest!
A Navy pilot landed a C-130 aboard a carrier and made several takeoffs and landings. This was back in the late 1960s. Lots of mods to the airframe since then, but worth trying again. I’m picturing C-130s rotating between CVNs and short airstrips, loaded out with the new USAF roll off drone packs.
vid of that...
1963 aboard the Forrestal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGy2ppViCck
But notice the deck is completely empty. In an operational setting, what do you do with the embarked air group?
Ward Carroll interviewed Flatley a couple years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1frJ2V8LTEs
While on the topic of "queer" aircraft ops on carriers, were you aware of when U-2s operated aboard the Ranger to monitor French nuke tests in the Pacific...But she didnt have her air group embarked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8HMPMYL19E
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0201spyplane/
I may have not expressed myself clearly. I am not suggesting regular C-130 missions; but every commander needs options.
Ahh yes. CDR Flatley III, later RADM Flatley III who was the prodigy of VADM Flatley who with Jimmy Thatch revolutionized naval air tactics in the early days of WW2. The C130 as a COD though is the proverbial “juice isn’t worth the squeeze”. Not enough deck real estate and not enough leadership that is risk adverse. Good thought though.
Also....In 1963, the USN had 15 CVAs, and q0 CVS's...
So, lots of decks available to do different things.
What are we going down to? Maybe 8 deployable decks in the next couple years?
The short answer is that we aren’t preparing for any war of significance. And we really don’t have the manufacturing capability or manpower to fight one if one starts up anyway.
"He who defends everything, defends nothing"
- Frederick the Great
How exactly are we defending everything? Where are the boots on the ground in Ukraine? We don't have troops on the ground in Israel, we basically pulled out of Syria, not to mention Iraq or Afghanistan, where we just up and left. We haven't done anything besides shoot down missiles and a few airstrikes in the Yaman-Red Sea conflict, and 2 ships have sunk, with several more hit and dozens of innocent merchant mariners killed. We aren't intervening in Hati, a tiny country only a few hundred miles away. Nicolas Maduro is still in power. A junta took over Niger and we did exactly diddly squat.
If we aren't standing up for human rights abroad, aren't defending democracy or sovereignty and aren't keeping the sea lanes open, what exactly are we protecting?
Did you read Sal's post?
"So, that means … our top priority is the globe except for majority-Muslim nations and the continent on the planet with the most volatile mix of demographics, economics, and religious strife going in to mid-century - Africa?"
I was illuminating his point with a comment made by one of the Masters of War
Fair point, but that doesn't explain lack of action in Ukraine, Hati, or Venezuela. O yeah, and Myanmar is in a civil war as well, even if it doesn't make the nightly news anymore. I guess my point is that we there is nothing in the foreign policy spear that we are responding to appropriately to.
Haiti is a basket case and always will be. The only stable fix for them is colonization which the US doesn’t have the political will for, so the best course of action is simply to keep any more Haitians from invading the US.
While it might be true, its really hard to just let people dyeing en-mass a few hundred miles away.
We intervened in Haiti in 1994. Nothing changed. Nothing accomplished.
Clintons got richer...
Whatever happened to the Clinton Foundation? Amazing how Trump is being hounded despite paying back his loans with interest and Slick Willie skates free after taking money from poor people.
Sadly it's not amazing, but predictable
Its all about avoiding hordes of refugees. This is more of they why behind much of U.S. policy in many places. We don't need a Nigeria collapsing.
Bill and Hill made a lot of money on that deal; that's not nothing.
Concentrate on just one of the three.
The only boots on the ground we SHOULD have at the moment are defending our exposed southern belly, but that is most assuredly not a priority.
We aren't standing up for our Constitutional rights here; why the heck would we abroad?
Ah! Trick question. We're not preparing for any war, exactly.
If the US again had a maritime strategy that directly informed the operations, size and force design of the fleet there would not be these problems.
I fear the only strategy of our ruling class, maritime or otherwise, is how to get rich while managing our decline and keeping the citizenry contained.
All of the GOFO currently on active duty were promoted during the Obama years. All the competent officers and defense planners were fired or retired during his tenure, and the current "plans" are being written by Obama proxies. These are plans to LOSE any future conflict, and Dark Brandon is a puppet or figurehead for Obama.
We need to fire or retire all or most of the current GOFO, and rebuild the military from the O5/O6 ranks in order to have a prayer that the United States might still exist in 2030.
I'm not sure I agree with your premise for the cause, but it is defiantly curious that they don't seem to be asking for a lot more.
Back to your premise, I'm not sure that every officer is handpicked by the administration even if they do have to be "appointed" to their positions by the president.
I would suggest that you don't understand how these promotions above 06 actually work. They are groomed and promoted due to their demographics and political reliability more than anything else. Real warriors have no political agenda and prize their enemy's defeat above all. That was clearly not an appreciated virtue in Obama's day and less so now. Gilday, Milley, Berger, Brown, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
While largely true, Pr. Obama is not making any policy decisions either. Someone put him there with Valery Jarret as a handler, and the people running her, Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, and the rest are still calling all the shots.
I assure you, Valerie Jarrett and Susan Price and Jake Sullivan are merely the fingers on Obama's hand. They do NOTHING that Barry hasn't ordered.
He's intelligent but not that smart. I think he's been groomed his entire life to fulfill a role
More like a claw than a hand.
We're planning to lose, boss. That's what we're planning.
Timing. Timing. Timing. Yesterday, I used an online simulator to plan our get-out-of-Dodge route in case the most likely target nearest us gets nuked. Depressing thought, but I spent my at-sea days in Operations, making planning a natural part of my life.
a small one of the many reasons we're relocating. I'm stuck on a peninsula with three ways off, two of them bridges, the third a two lane road. I have the second biggest shipyard in the navy four miles away, and the largest collection of nuclear weapons in the US fifteen miles away in another direction... which is to say, if it goes fun colored, I'm fucked.
For your research, I strongly endorse BetterPlaces.net as a data source. Before we retired, we identified three general locations, and then used app.traveltime.com to make Venn diagrams based on our primary criteria. Better places.net then let us cross check census data, crime stats, etc. to zero in on the county we now live in. Best of luck. Correct to BestPlaces.net
Nice. We have some ideas, but I want to see how this points us as well.
That link doesn't work. Takes me to a "this domain for sale" site.
Sorry. Try BestPlaces.net. Best, not better, since best is better than better.
Avoiding national-level targets was not our first goal, though avoiding large cities was.
Also https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
When I bought property out on Washington State's Kitsap Peninsula, I made sure it was outside the 1 megaton "light damage" radius from Bremerton, Bangor, JBLM, and Olympia.
Fallout was one of my considerations.
Indeed. I checked that too. Airbursts don't cause much fallout, and besides, the prevailing winds are SW->NE, so my 5 acres is almost always out of the cone from the mentioned targets.
I'm in West Bremerton right now.
I remember when Kim Jong was spouting about launching on the west coast. I figured it was unlikely, but Portland WAS an in range target. So i spoke with the ex wife about gathering kids and some area escape plans (we're in Vancouver), rally points, etc. With E/NE winds id figured on rolling north to Longveiw, then heading to the coast for a vacation of undetermined length...
I figured if they were going to launch nukes, the entire Puget Sound region would get pasted pretty well.
Was thinking we could help our sub maintenance problem along and also jump start AUKUS- just give the Aussies the USS Boise "as-is". Any other boats thatve been pierside so long they lost their certs? Maybe theyll take two??
What gets me is we already invested something like half a billion to get the industrial base so it could build 3 SSN per year by FY2025. Can we get an update on that money please?
A very cogent and sobering analysis. With respect, I think things are even worse. Figure in inflation and this request is actually a defense cut. I also understand that the Columbia build is slipping at least a year. Yet "We" want to forgive college loans on the public--i.e. taxpayers. "We" want to fund free healthcare for all, including illegal aliens. I watched a leading Democrat from California (but I repeat myself) state openly that their aim is to reduce defense funding so as to make room for domestic spending (i.e. welfare). We have jackasses behaving like ostriches.
Our representatives in D.C. are the dystopian government we warned about.
Truth.
You bring up healthcare. As a nation we spend more than anybody else, but, have poorer outcomes than nations who pay less. If our high cost resulted in good healthcare then great, but that's not the situation in the US.
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
― P.J. O'Rourke
Tell elderly voters we're not wasting money on them, and see how that works. A lot of the difference in spending is 1. Treatment (or not treating) of ailments for the geezers. 2. We pay from RNs on up more money on average. Things we aren't going to change.
Actually, once you control the data for differences in how live births are recorded, violence in inner cities and automobile crashes, our system looks pretty good. I am unaware of large numbers of Americans leaving the country to experience the joys of socialized medicine in Europe, or for that matter, Canada.
The issue in the US is that we claim to have a free market system, when in actuality we are all captives of the insurance companies. There is no competition for health care because you have to go through the insurance company, and there is rarely a choice. Frankly, I'd rather the government screw me out of needed care than have a for-profit insurance company screw me out of needed care.
I don't want the government doing anything a private company can legitimately do. Go to your local DMV for example., or the VA. If you actually have a job and keep at it, most companies provide health insurance, which varies in its quality. Me, I've got Medicare and TRICARE for life with VA as a back up. I am perfectly content. My neighbor, a retired Merchant mariner, has Exxon. His wife has severe issues, but they are very happy with their care. My daughter is on Obamacare, and she is content. Where government does it, they always screw it up---check out the UK or Canada or Italy or Denmark. In all of those places, the government provided care ranges from mediocre to you only go there to die. In all of those cases there is also exceptional medical care available--but it is private. Our current "Administration" keeps trying to convert the US to a single payer plan which they advertise as "Medicare for all". Of course such a conversion will very quickly devolve to "Medicaid for all" and we'd be just like the UK--which is what I suppose they have in mind. No thank you.
We'll all get the same level of healthcare as the US government's provides that has the catchphrase 'don't get sick after June".
I’m gonna stop commenting because this is not a healthcare policy blog. One of the previous posters hit the nail on the head when he said it’s the cost of end-of-life care.
You can say no thank you because you’re in a good situation. I’m stuck in the crappy healthcare that my employer provides. My only choice is to buy a policy from a worse company than the one I’m with now.
I think we have Communist foxes behaving like foxes in our hen house.
Less stuff, fewer billets. Just where is the money going?
Just out of curiosity, is the USN GS/WG manpower component growing?
https://news.usni.org/2024/03/11/fy-2025-budget-navy-to-plans-shrink-sailor-end-strength
I'm assured things will get better when we hit two Admirals per ship.
We were at one flag officer per ship 50 years ago.
And the Navy has gotten so much more focused, capable and better led than those dark days of April 1945 when it was 25 ships per Admiral. Right?
Cutting the uniformed Pentagon staff by 75% and DoD-wide civilian staff by 85% would be a good start. Of course, that would be starting at the senior ranks and working down from there.
Up a few thousand on the civilian side, iirc.
"Many a slip between the cup and the lip."
I'm seeing several comments hypothesizing that we are a purposefully or actually planning to loose the next war. There is certainly a big gap between the rhetoric coming out of all quarters about defense, and the policy coming out of those same offices.
I wonder if the Thus the aforementioned "slip" is between what the politicians believe and what the "machine" (all the unelected political people like staffers, lobbyists and campaign advisers) that actually writes the nitty parts of the laws and raise funds for campaigns think. I imagen that if you chatted with them over a few beers (when they are not performing) you would find that the politicians themselves are actually fairly ideological, and not the sinical political animals they are made out to be. In that framework, much of the sinical self-dealing probably emanates from the "machine" that needs to keep the politicians in power for its own survival.
I'm not a politicians and have not spent time in Washinton so I don't have any first hand experience, but I would love to hear what people think about this
This boils down to a huge shortfall in the MOST important area - answering the following questions:
1. What actions do we need to do? (Requirements)
2. What do we have on hand to perform those actions? (Capabilities)(Across the DOTMLPF-P)
3. What do we NOT have on hand to perform those actions? (Gaps)(Across the DOTMLPF-P)
The deficiency lays in the default strawman mentality, that if we buy more 'stuff' it will fix the gaps. But even that default mentality is skewed starting at the Congressional appropriations level, and through Joint and Service (and even COCOM shaping of investments) as people pursue and double down via their devotion to pet projects that may or (no longer) may not provide any military utility.
Its further messed up as Services and Commands consistently FAIL to conduct objectively based Military Utility Assessments, or produce analytically derived DOTMLPF-P Change Recommendations. that are only being implemented based on myopic and biased Command Directives and Guidance/ Intent, rather then any objective and thorough understanding of potential adversaries/ operational environments.
So we continue to pursue Measures of Performance that can be quantified by throwing money at whiz-bang technology development of dubious outcome (Via things like RDER and Replicator). Rather then focus on Measures of Success that fall into the portions of DOTMLPF-P that are hard to articulate but are easy to see when they Succeed or Fail. Such as our People, inherent and gained Knowledge/ Education/ Training, disciplined implementation of training that produces the right gains, and ensuring the baseline tools/ capabilities are resourced and maintained and functional.
Ultimately the 'analysis' being conducted on justifying those quantified "Measures of Performance" is heavy on collation and regurgitation of data points. And the worth of a proposed gap filler is more valued by the amount of data generated and available to justify its existence. The system (of systems) and architecture-based analysis approach favored by the Joint Staff and Service headquarters staffs seems to attract an awful lot of people who would likely test out somewhere on the autism/ Asperger's spectrum. They can generate and requote a lot of data and pictures (from existing data), but are hard pressed to clearly/ cogently articulate any analysis to explain what the data means. Or produce recommendations worth a strategic or operational advantage.
Awesome as usual. Well I don't know what we are preparing for but sure seems to resemble something along the lines of "Hey Taiwan... yeah about that promise we made way back when???... well this is one of those 'that was then... this is now' " kind of situation.
If failure to plan is planning to lose, what is planning to lose? Asking for a friend...
treason, in some times and places