AUS House of Representatives soundly defeat amendment to bill the would reduce defense spending by ten percent

(July 22) An amendment to make an across-the-board ten percent reduction to Pentagon spending levels authorized in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was overwhelmingly defeated by members of both parties.

The vote

Details of the vote can be found here. The actual amendment can be found here.

The US House of Representatives voted 324 against and 93 in favor of an amendment that would have reduced the spending authorization for the 2021 Pentagon budget by ten percent. The amendment did not specify what to cut but only that the US Congress should make across the board reductions. The amendment was offered by Representative Mark Pocan a Wisconsin Democrat.

All 185 Republicans voted against the amendment but so did most Democrats 139. Only 92 Democrats voted for the amendment along with Independent libertarian Justin Amash.

Why the cut could be justified

Many would argue that the US is by far the world's most powerful nation militarily. It could easily spend less than the authorized $750 billion and yet stay safe. The $75 billion dollars could be used to meet many other pressing needs such as repairing ageing infrastructure. The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will require extensive expenditures.

Having to cut the budget would force the Pentagon to look for administrative bloat, more closely evaluate the costs and benefits of programs and even evaluate missions to see if they are worth continuing.

As a recent article notes money is being spent on the military when other areas are underfunded: "At a time when health workers have struggled to find masks and protective gear, the Pentagon has so many extra trucks, guns, and other gear, it hands the surplus out for free to police departments — who then use it whether they need it or not, much like the Pentagon itself."

The Pentagon does not even know where all its money is spent. However, other areas such as public health, medical research, education, housing and infrastructure lack financial resources and are chronically and severely underfunded. In the appended video Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont argues for reducing the US military budget.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

US House Committee presents defense bill of $696.5 billion

(June 27) The House Armed Services Committee has unveiled a new military spending bill of $696.5 billion just a few days after chair Marc Thornberry announced that there was to be a bill of $640 billion.

This new bill is actually supposed to be a cut from the previous bill. The new bill includes $75 billion in funds for Overseas Contingency Operations(OCO) that would have had to be added to the earlier bill. The argument is that the new bill is actually just $621.5 billion. It would have been clearer if it had just been explained that the earlier bill needed to increased by adding in more money for the OCO. The OCO spending is real enough.

President Trump had proposed spending $603 billion before OCO expenditures were figured in, lower than the Armed Services Committee proposes. President Trump was bragging he was the most pro-military president. Yet many Congressmen complained that even more funds were needed and this is reflected in the $696.5 billion now being requested. There will probably be even more amendments to the bill before it is finally passed through Congress adding even more to the total amount.

According to the sequestration amounts the cap on spending should be $549 billion but lawmakers are adept at circumventing the sequestration rules meant to cap overall government spending when they apply to the military. Thornberry has cited sequestration as a reason for why military spending needs to be so large at present. In the past though when caps have been reached often "emergency" spending bills have been introduced helping to mitigate the effects of sequestration and bring military spending above the caps.

The bill would add 17,000 soldiers to the Army, more than requested in Trump's budget request. There would be 10,000 for active duty, 4,000 for the Army National Guard, and 3,000 for reserve. The bill sets a 2.4 percent pay raise as compared to just 2.1 percent requested by the Trump administration.

The bill also provides the US Navy five more ships than Trump had requested including one destroyer, two Littoral Combat ships, one amphibious dock landing ship, and one Expeditionary Support Base. The bill also adds to the 289 aircraft requested by the administration, including 17 more F-35s, 8 more F/A-18s. In all, there would be 87 more aircraft then requested.

The bill also adds $2.5 billion more for missile defense expenses beyond the $9.9 billion asked by the Trump administration. The extra money is to be spent on research, development, and procurement. Congress appears to be more hawkish on military spending than the Trump administration.

Americans disagree on best level of defense spending

As airstrikes against Yemen reached an unprecedented level over just two days, the Pentagon is quietly ordering new commando deployments to the Middle East as well as North Africa,

US counter-terrorism officials told ABC news of the new developments. The moves may be a sign of Trump's promise of a more aggressive counter-terrorism campaign. In late January, the Trump administration launched the first known commando operation with ground forces in Yemen in the last two years. Although Trump called the raid a success because it collected valuable intelligence, a Navy Seal was killed and several wounded. Many civilians were killed including women and children and a helicopter had to be destroyed. Critics have even questioned whether the main aim of the raid was even achieved as discussed in a recent Digital Journal article. In just the last few days there have been over thirty airstrikes on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAM) targets in Yemen.

A 20-year veteran of secret military operations told ABC news that authority had been given to broaden counter-terrorism operations recently: "Authorities have changed in special operations' favor with the new administration. We're doing work on the bad guys." Retired Army Special Forces Colonel Mark Mitchell said that chaos and lack of any functioning government has meant there is little pressure on AQAP. AQAP also fights against the Houthi rebels and hence the western and Saudi supported Hadi government headquartered in Aden will not attack AQAP while they are attacking the Houthi rebels. AQAP however has attacked Hadi forces as well. Mitchell said: "The increased counterterrorism operations are compensating for the absence of a Yemeni counterterrorism capability and highly restricted operations under the Obama administration." Some special forces members think that they will see more action under the Trump administration. Speaking this week Trump said: "We are going to have very soon the finest equipment in the world, we will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and if required to fight war and only do one thing and do you know what that is, win, win, we’re going to start winning again." While the commando raid is still claimed to have produced a great deal of valuable intelligence, none of the recent raids was based on any new intelligence from it. The more than thirty raids had long been planned and did not use any of the newly garnered intelligence. Apparently the intelligence gathered in the commando raid included many telephone numbers and some intelligence on AQAP leadership and activities but nothing that would be useful for airstrikes.

Scott Mann, a retired senior Green Beret officer said: "It is good to see the Trump Administration increasing pressure on ISIS and AQ senior leaders through air strikes and surgical ground strikes by some of our nation's most elite forces. But after 15 years of unilateral counterterror strike operations, our leaders must learn that 'cutting the head off the snake' is not how you defeat violent Islamist extremists." Mann said that the US must deploy "expeditionary diplomats" who are willing to take risks and engage local populations who then would help crush AQAM and the Islamic State.

US House of Representatives passes $619 billion defense bill

The U.S. House easily passed a defense policy bill to the tune of $619 billion. It will fund operations in Afghanistan, against the Islamic State (IS) and also halt reductions in military manpower as well as fill gaps in military readiness.

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, 375 to 34 making it immune from any presidential veto. The Senate is expected to deal with the bill, the National Defense Authorization Act next week. It is expected to pass and be sent on to President Obama.

The legislation worked on over months by House and Senate Armed Services Committee adds a total of $3.2 billion over what the president had requested, to remedy what were considered to be readiness shortfalls. Also added, was a $5.8 billion request for more troops in Afghanistan and for increased operations against IS in both Syria and Iraq. The new bill also provides $59.5 for the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).

The new bill also gives troops a 2.1 percent pay raise as compared to just 1.6 percent requested by the Obama administration. Democratic member of the committee from Connecticut, Joe Courtney, said: “A transition is inherently fraught with risk, and to the extent that you can eliminate risk, like military pay and procurement programs, getting this done is a very positive development." The number of additional troops was upped as well. The Army will get 476,000 troops, 16,000 more than requested. The Marines will get 185,000, which is 3,000 more than requested. The Navy remains at 323,900 troops. However, weapons programs such as additional F-35 jets, F/A 18 Super Hornets and a Littoral Combat Ship were left out of the final version of the bill. Another proposal that was scrapped was a requirement that women register for the draft. This omission was largely symbolic since military service at present in voluntary.

Most Democrats supported the bill. Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said: "We put together an excellent product. It prioritizes the men and women who serve in the military to try to make sure that we provide for them all the training they need and all the support they need, so that when we ask them to do something they are trained and ready to do it." As in previous bills there is a provision that bars prisoners at Guantanamo from being transferred to the US. This will likely ensure Obama will not be able to close Guatanamo before his presidency ends.

The White House has not said whether Obama would attempt to veto the bill. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said: “We haven't seen the text of it, but we'll obviously review it. That may take a little time, but once we've reached a conclusion about whether or not the president will sign it, we'll let you know.”

Prompt Global Strike Program expensive and dangerous

As the article points out, this whole project is a Rumsfeld throwback. There seems to be very little discussion of this among all the talking heads of the mainstream media. Not only may the missiles be mistaken for a nuclear attack but it seems rather ludicrous to be using these against terrorists. The fight against terrorism costs a tremendous amount for what is achieved. Terrorists ruin multi-million dollar vehicles with 15 dollar IED's now very expensive weapons are being used to attack very small groups of terrorists apparently. No doubt many potential U.S. enemies will wonder if all of this has anything to do with terrorism. They will start their own programs to counteract the weapons beginning a new arms race. This is the legacy of the Nobel Peace Prize President who is following in the footsteps of Rumsfeld. This is from wired.com.

How To: Risk World War III, and Blow Billions Doing It
By Noah Shachtman
The Pentagon’s plan to fire ballistic missiles at terrorists isn’t just a nuclear Armageddon risk. It’s a ludicrously expensive way to accidentally start World War III: each weapon could cost anywhere from a few hundred million to $1 billion.

The Defense Department wants to spend about $240 million next year on the controversial “prompt global strike” project. Eventually, it could lead to weapons that could strike virtually anywhere in the planet within an hour or two. (Here’s an interview I did with Rachel Maddow on Friday about the plan.) But that quarter-billion would be the tiniest of down payments.

“There are no accurate cost estimates for the program, largely because the technology is unproven,” writes Joe Cirincione at ForeignPolicy.com. His back-of-the-envelope calculation: $10 billion for 10 conventionally-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, meant to strike at terrorists on the move. “Each missile with its tiny payload could easily go over $1 billion each.”

Official price tags are a little lower. The Air Force figures a single demonstration of such a missile might eat up $500 million. Follow-on weapons missiles might only cost $300 million apiece, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz guessed at a recent House subcommittee hearing. But Schwartz isn’t at all sure such how much use there’d be for a budget-buster like that.

“There is a place, I think, for that kind of capability. I don’t think that that’s the sort of thing you would use broadly, because you know, fundamentally what you don’t want to have is a 300 — let’s just say, a $300 million weapon applied against a $30,000 target,” Schwartz recently told a House subcommittee.

Critics like Cirincione (and me) are worried such conventional ICBMs would look to Russia and China like nuclear launches — risking an atomic response every time one of the weapons was sent into the sky. Defenders of the prompt global strike effort note that the missiles would be based far from America’s nuclear arsenal, and would follow different flight paths. So the risk of one of these missiles touching off an atomic showdown are very small. “Nuclear in one place. Conventional in another. This isn’t a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” notes the National Space Studies Center’s blog.

Maybe the U.S. can put enough safeguards in place to persuade Moscow and Beijing that America’s conventional ICBMs aren’t nukes. (And maybe, as commenter “Almanac” notes, the Russian and Chinese radars are functioning well enough to tell the difference.) Maybe. But what happens other countries follow our lead, and start assembling their own conventional ballistic missile stockpiles? Will Pakistan and India be able to assure eachother that their intentions are pure? How and Israel and Iran? Perhaps a unipolar planet can survive an American global strike arsenal. A multipolar planet — that’s less likely.

Prompt global strike first came to prominence during Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure at the Pentagon. Back then, the Defense Department had a knack for spending outlandishly on far-fetched programs: laser-equipped 747s, lightning guns, quarter-weight tanks that could stop bombs with data. Under Bob Gates, the culture has shifted a bit. Common sense, wartime relevancy, and fiscal restraint now figure more prominently in weaponeering. And that’s what makes the embrace of prompt global strike such a mystery. It’s a Rumsfeld throwback - risky, willfully ignorant of how the world works, and ridiculously expensive.

[Photo: Wikimedia]



Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/how-to-risk-world-war-iii-and-blow-billions-doing-it/#ixzz0mP3XpViA

Which companies win and lose in the US defense budget?

Some of the biggest players such as Lockheed do not fare all that well whereas a lot of niche players that provide for new hi tech weapons such as drones will s oar into the stratosphere! It is clear that far from suffering from the recession the defense budget is enjoying a surge. This is from Reuters.


Which defense firms will get lift from budget?
Karen Jacobs
ATLANTA

On Monday, President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2011, including a 3.4 percent rise in the Pentagon's base budget plus billions more to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Defense stocks, which have been clouded by concerns that growth in U.S. spending will slow in coming years, headed lower on Wednesday after two straight days of gains. The Standard & Poor's Aerospace & Defense Index was off a modest 0.2 percent in afternoon trading.

Analysts say niche companies will benefit more than others as the Obama administration seeks to fight new enemy threats while traditional weapons programs face more scrutiny.

BUY SPECIALTY

Small companies that provide next-generation systems and upgrades for unmanned systems and products that gather or monitor intelligence are poised for success, said Michael Ciarmoli, an aerospace and defense analyst with Boenning & Scattergood.

"That portion of the budget seems to be insulated," Ciarmoli said. "Seemingly, these companies are in the sweet spot."

His top picks for 2010 include Comtech Telecommunications (CMTL.O), a provider of mission-critical tracking networks, satellite company Orbital Sciences (ORB.N) and FLIR Systems (FLIR.O), which makes cameras used in unmanned spy planes.

Patrick Murphy, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said the latest budget request provided upside for so-called "Army plays," prime contractors such as missile maker Raytheon Co (RTN.N) and L-3 Communications (LLL.N), which provides products that detect explosives.

"With this budget, the Obama administration and (Department of Defense) are clearly recognizing that defense spending needs to stay high," Murphy said.

SLOWER GROWTH FOR SOME BIG PLAYERS

Companies in FBR's coverage space that fared the worst because of the budget were industry leader Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and AeroVironment (AVAV.O), the firm said.

Peter Arment, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech, said growth would slow for some big contractors because of a flat outlook for weapons-modernization spending.

Broadpoint AmTech maintained a "buy" on Raytheon, but said it was still on the sidelines for General Dynamics (GD.N) and Lockheed, which faces pressure over its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the world's largest military aircraft program.

This week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he would dock Lockheed $614 million in performance fees because the F-35 program's performance had not met expectations over the past two years. Gates also replaced the Pentagon's manager in charge of the program.

"Lockheed is highly respected and we certainly think its valuation is very cheap," Arment said. But, he added, "The JSF has slipped in terms of timing and we're not seeing the earnings progression that we'd like to see."

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs. Editing by Robert MacMillan