There are always two things that can be counted on in any new Pentagon budget. It will demand hefty increases because of a sudden new threat, and it will be far above any of the nominal “caps” on military spending that are in place. The 2017 budget looks to follow that track record.
Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord is laying out all the key points, with Russia as the “new” threat, built entirely around a stalled civil war in neighboring Ukraine and faulty predictions from last year that this was going to mean a full-scale Russian invasion of Europe.
But as with so many Pentagon budgets of the past, new doesn’t have to mean “real,” but the “reshaping” of any budget will forever and always mean dramatic increases. The preliminary new budget request will be $13 billion above last year, and $35 billion above the oft-ignored budget caps.
None of this is unexpected, of course, Pentagon officials have been making the rounds in Congressional testimony for months hyping Russia as an “existential” threat to the US, and it’s always been with a wink to the idea that it was going to score them billions in increased funding.
The War on Terror was a holding action until the Russia and/or China could justify the scare tactics for the things they really wanted. They don't just want infantry gear and lots of bullets and VA medical needs, they want high tech stealth stuff for industry, planes and ships and missiles.
Exactly. It is too easy to estimate the real cost of producing a rifle, toilet seat or coffee pot. A large proportion of the cost of these products is paid as wages to working class Americans.
Defense procurement is a fairy tale combination of "Jack and the bean stalk" and the "Emperor's new clothes".
The differences are Jack's cow is the American taxpayer; always ready to dump huge sums of money into outwardly ordinary "magic" weapons. The Emperor's new clothes are "invisible stealth technology"; you can see the airplane/ship etc. but trust us, it's invisible.
Magic is the essential element in defense contracts because how else can you justify the huge sums of money paid for seemingly ordinary things? R&D – who knows what it will cost and whether its even possible – the best way to hide any amount of bribes and graft.
There are now unconfirmed reports the grandson of a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was teased during recess by "a certain littlle Magillicudy girl" (the NSA knows who you are Kimmy) earlier this week and the Pentagon is requesting 6 billion dollars in added funding for playground busting ordinance to deal with this "emerging threat".
When asked if the drone borne weapons deployed so successfully against innocent wedding parties in Afghanistan wouldn't work, a Pentagon spokesman draped himself in an oversize American flag and asked reporters to "Think about the children."
Considering Nuland was the Catalyst of the Ukraine debacle funding Neo Nazis who on overthrowing an Elected Government that was due to go to the polls a few months later anyway, this sia s ad state of affairs! On overthrowing the Government the first thing the fools said was that they were going to get rid of the Sub human Russian Speaking scum living the East! They were words of Genocide and the Easterners took them as thus! Now correct me if I am wrong (I am NOT) the United States excuse for being able to bomb Syria is that they are combatting ISIS who are committing Genocide, the ONLY UN excuse for waging war across a foreign border except for genuine self defence! So have the Russian activities been unlawful…….don't think so! distasteful maybe, but less so than The Neo Nazis activities!
Just think every major conflict on the planet at the moment have a US covert operation attached to it from the funding of the Ukraine overthrow (TWICE) to the funding of ISIS in an attempt to overthrow Assad! Americans, Politicians and Pentagon especially get these plans and forget who actually fills the vacuum!
In Syria will it be ISIS if so where will they go next on their rampage, 60 miles to Jerusalem……….30 miles to Armageddon!
Anyone found contributing to 'tension' with Russia should be asked where he put his bomb for the rest of his life. Upside-down, perhaps.
The basis of the "existential threat" could be an analysis that sees Russia as trying to surround the US, rather in the way NATO surrounded the Soviet Union. Putin seems to want to use "energy blackmail" to re-create the Soviet Union as an oligarch-run gangster state, destroy the EU and absorb its Member States into his "Eurasian Customs Union", naturally, under Russian domination, and get a stranglehold on China. At that point, he has de facto control of a territory stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar to the North Pole, facing North American accross the Arctic and then down the coast of Asia to the South China Sea, thereby surrounding the US on three sides. It's a totally crazy idea and it wouldn' work in a million years. Neither China nor the EU are going to let Russia bully them. But it's precisely the kind of crazy pipedream that the dreamy, mystical Russians love and that has caused Russia to lose wars over the centuries. As late as World War One, they were dreaming of getting control of Constantinople!
Cha CHING!!!!!!!!! Cha CHING!!!!!!!! Follow the money!
Pentagon Sees Russia Tensions ‘Reshaping’ Military Budget
Pentagon talks uplatest to get ever bigger Military Budget…