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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Mon Mar 3, 2014, 09:13 AM Mar 2014

Budget Realignment Reflects Pentagon’s Vision of Covert and Endless War

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/03-3


Despite some cuts and savings, the United States will continue to carry a defense budget which exceeds that of the next 10 countries combined. (Photo: US Marine Corp/File)

The Pentagon’s budget proposal for next year was announced last week by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. In an interview with The New York Times, Hagel argued that to meet today’s national security needs, the Department of Defense (DoD) must shift its focus and capabilities away from “fighting grinding ground conflicts” and towards “new arenas of combat.” To achieve these ends, the budget calls for a realignment of the military that would reduce the total number of ground troops to its lowest level since 1940 and discontinue some military equipment deemed obsolete or unnecessary. According to Hagel, current levels of both assets are “larger than we can afford to modernize and keep ready.” The proposed budget also includes reductions in personnel benefits and base services, as well as base closings. The targeted cuts, however, are only one aspect of the budget. The other involves the new sources of priority spending.

The budget plan includes a call for greater expenditures on computer-based technologies and special operations. The Nation’s Bob Dreyfuss reports that the “cuts would fund new projects including cyberwarfare capabilities, $1 billion for a more fuel-efficient jet engine, and plans for a new Navy surface ship.” Despite the cuts to traditional aspects of the military, the DoD has no plans to shrink or limit programs that would undermine America’s ever-growing hegemonic objectives. Dreyfuss writes, “Major weapons systems that might have been cut were sustained, the US special forces units are being increased substantially from already high levels” and “the US Navy would maintain all eleven of its aircraft carriers.”

According to National Priorities Project, a nonprofit, non-partisan federal budget research organization, even as Hagel is requesting “cutbacks in a number of military programs, the Pentagon isn’t planning any major reductions in spending any time soon.” While the cuts translate to savings in specific areas, “the new Pentagon budget does not project a commensurate decline in spending.” In fact, the United States will continue to carry a defense budget which exceeds that of the next 10 countries combined.

In a blog post titled “New War Budget and Strategy Announced by Obama Team,” Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, points out that the Pentagon’s approach “actually calls for an increase of more than $115 billion for war making” and “for 'sustaining' the Pentagon's nuclear triad - air, ground, and sea delivery systems of nuclear weapons.” Furthermore, this budget would bring about “an increase in drones and robotic forces as well as significant expansion in cyber warfare capabilities.” Gagnon warns that “We will see an expansion of US 'hidden' wars in the near future and the Obama budget reflects this reality.”
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Budget Realignment Reflects Pentagon’s Vision of Covert and Endless War (Original Post) xchrom Mar 2014 OP
This needs to stop!! newfie11 Mar 2014 #1

newfie11

(8,159 posts)
1. This needs to stop!!
Mon Mar 3, 2014, 09:16 AM
Mar 2014

All we are doing is creating enemies. Enemies that someday will have their own drones.
It's time to stop feeding the MIC!

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