The Beneficence of Our Leaders: National Defense Authorization Act and Signing Statements

How Laws are Made

Bill into Law

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Scottish Independence

Scotland may be having a referendum for independence from the United Kingdom. 
This is a slice of perspective with a side of Old World's sobering wit.

Occupy Wall Street: How it Will be Remembered

Presented by Epipheo

The Development of the Modern Political Debate

American Military: Cutting Increases in Spending

The American Government is in the process of trying to cut $450 billion in spending.


How much and what programs would you cut?
Good news the N.Y. Times is here to help with this interactive article

The Future Military: Your Budget Strategy

American Military Changing Strategy: Defense Strategic Review

President Obama started off the discussion on forward defensive strategy in the Pentagon today, something unprecedented. This came at a time when our government is looking to reduce costs everywhere.

It seems that while now may have been the time to rethink military strategy anyway (with the withdraw from Iraq and deescalation of Afghanistan) the budget debate has forced this transition to the political forefront.

• The Strategy Review has included the President for the first Time

Obama noted that while the projected military spending will decrease the overall military budget will continue to increase (just at a reduced rate).

The new military strategy going forward for the United States includes $478 billion in cuts over the next 10 years and will, in Panetta's words, cause "some level of additional but acceptable risk."

Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary and former Head of the CIA, followed up the president's somewhat political announcement with more detail.

"Four Over Arching Principles":

1. "We must maintain the world's finest military, one that supports and sustains the unique global leadership role of the United States"
2. "We must avoid hollowing out the force, a smaller, ready and well equipped military is much more preferable to a larger ill-prepared force that has been arbitrarily cut across the board.
3.  "Savings must be achieved in a balanced manor, everything must be on the table including politically sensitive areas that will likely provoke opposition from parts of the Congress, from Industry, and from advocacy groups. That is the nature of making hard choices."
4. "We must preserve the quality of the all voluntary force, and not break faith in our men and women in uniform or their families. 

-The US force: will

• maintain its capability across the board
• be smaller and it will be leaner but its greater strength is that it will be more flexible, more agile, ready to be deployed more quickly, innovative, and technologically advanced 

-The Emphasis will shift to the Broader Middle East and the Pacific


-The United States will expand its allies and partners and will invest in NATO

• more of a partnership role like that shown in Libya and Latin America
• emphasis on rotational deployments

-Must maintain its Capability to Confront several Conflicts at the Same Time

• requires greater flexibility to quickly deploy anywhere
• how we defeat the enemy will vary across conflicts
• as a global force our military will never just be responsible for one thing

-Build up the Defenses of our partners and our Allies to more effectively defend their own interests and territory

• better use of diplomacy, development, and security force assistance

-Upon the withdrawal from Iraq and the ongoing downsizing of operations in Afghanistan:

• The Army and Marine Corps will no longer need to be sized to support the kind of large scale long term stability operations that have dominated military priorities and forces over the past decade

-Protect and in some cases increase our Special Operation Forces

• increase new technologies: like ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and unmanned systems in space and in cyber space as well as the capacity to quickly mobilize if necessary

-Reversibility in Downsizing Ground Forces

• maintaining a healthy National Guard and Reserve
• maintaining experienced cadre of NCOs and mid-grade officers
• maintaining defense industrial base
• different from the Cold War, the post-cold war of the 1990s, and the forces of the last decade that was built to engage in large scale ground wars

This broad strategy will be the frame work in evaluating specific programs. In some cases we will devalue projects that are no longer deemed to be of high importance. But in other cases

"we invest in new capabilities maintain a decisive military edge against a growing array of threats."

There is no question that we have to will have to make some trade offs and that

 "we will be taking on some level of 

additional but acceptable risk."

We will consolidate our duplicative operations and will reduce waste. But budgetary reductions of this magnitude will inevitably effect the size and capabilities of our military.

Conclusion:

I believe that in many ways that we are at a crises point but that in every crises there is opportunity. Out of this crises we have the opportunity to end the old ways of doing business and to build a modern army for the 21st century that can win today's wars and successfully confront any enemy  and respond to any threat and any challenge for the future.