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U.S. Defense Secretary Hagel has proposed the first concrete response to threats from China to launch wars over Chinese claims to islands in the possession of U.S. treaty allies.

Hagel has announced plans to slash the United States Army to a level that is one third ( measured in terms of percentage of the U.S. population ) as large as the Depression Era, pre-World War II, U.S. Army.

Hagel has also announced the most proven, most feared and most survivable air craft in the U.S. inventory, the two engine, armored, A-10 "everything killer" will be eliminated from both active duty and reserve units. The unproven, massively over budget, short range, much less survivable, F-35, single engine fighter will be the only air craft the United States will manufacture. The long range, two engine, air supremacy F-22 fighter production line was previously shutdown and and the production line destroyed.

Anti-Missile Navy cruisers will be semi-retired and building of their much less capable replacements ( destroyers, not cruisers ) will be slowed to two a year.

Replacements for the 30 year old, and continuing to age, SSBN strategic missile submarines will not be designed or built, and replacements for retiring SSNs ( anti-ship ) attack submarines will be limited to 2 per year. The previous design for a replacement SSBN was canceled and no money has been allocated to begin designing the "better technology" submarine which was the justification for killing the previous replacement design that was nearing the production stage.

This is actually a brilliant strategy. The Chinese will be tempted to delay their attacks until the United States has completely disarmed, rather than attacking immediately while President Obama is still in office, and is still in a position to order the U.S. Military surrender early and often. This confusion and grid lock on the part of the Chinese may delay the actual attack until after the mid-term elections in the U.S. which is all Obama rally cares about foreign policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/po ... level.html

This would be a brilliant strategy of the Chinese. It makes one wonder if they are not already behind some of these decisions.

the A-10 is a brilliant fighting platform. It is one of the most difficult to shoot down due to its ability to fly at high speeds at very low altitudes and its anti aircraft counter measures are spectacular. It will kill anything in its path. Nothing on wheels or tracks can survive its attack. The Helicopter gunship Apache and Cobra are pretty damn scary as well. Probably see those mothballed soon and replaced with armed drones.

As a former ground operator, nothing was more terrifying than gunships. you cannot hide from them now with the technology on board them.

O-train will castrate our ability to fight.

2nd amendment is our last hope.

cheers

sy

However much I wish I could blame all of this on Obama and say this wouldn't be happening under a Republican president, I can't. Withdrawing from the world and cutting our military is his most popular policy. Nobody wants to fight another conflict.

After the Vietnam War, the Democrats become the most hawkish party, while the Republicans were in favor of a stronger foreign policy. It was an area where they thrived, but it backfired enormously this time around. Supposedly, we want to take a leading role in the world; we just don't want to do anything to keep it. When I hear people spouting about how we don't have to worry about any other nation, that we'll be superior in every way for decades to come, it doesn't sound like optimism. It sounds a lot more like willful blindness.

When I was history class and we were covering WWII, I was never able to understand how we could possibly have been so blind to the intentions that Germany and Japan had, why we didn't do anything earlier, why we didn't prepare ourselves for another conflict. However, I understand it now.