Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Losing Common Defense

By Douglas V. Gibbs

My connections to the military remain intact.  As a veteran, I maintain relationships with a number of folks still on the inside.  They tell me the military is being changed, infiltrated and manipulated.  Recruiters are being told to actively recruit gays, and our military is losing, in terms of numbers, troops and equipment at an alarming rate.  According to The Heritage Foundation, the devastation is so great, under Obama, that the United States Military is only "marginally able" to defend the nation.

At current capacity, handling more than one major conflict at a time may not be something today's military is capable of juggling.

The consistent decline in funding, and the resulting reduction in the size of the overall force are putting our military under significant pressure.  The result is that the U.S. military is only marginally able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests.

The Army is currently being reduced from 570,000 soldiers to 440,000 or lower, and the Navy is now below a 300-ship force, with a fleet of only 284 sea going vessels, making the Greatest Navy in the World only “marginal” in military power.  Heritage Foundation's report judges the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to all be "marginally" capable, while the Air Force maintains a "strong" designation in capabilities.

Not counting overseas war costs, the Pentagon’s budget has dramatically dropped under Barack Obama, from $527 billion in 2010 to about $496 billion in each of the last three budgets.

We are on our way to becoming a regional power, rather than a super power, a reduction in capabilities being closely gauged by nations like Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, as well as groups like ISIS that are eager to bring the Islamic Jihad to American Soil.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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