Showing posts with label defense-budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label defense-budget. Show all posts

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Defense Budget Leaves U.S. Vulnerable

A defense budget that concentrates the money on big-ticket, conventional warfare equipment and programs is taking resources away from the U.S. militarys ability to fight the most likely current and future threats. Expensive programs such as the F-35 fighter jet are a big part of the defense budget. However, today's and tomorrows conflicts will most likely be of a "hybrid nature". Our potential enemies in the world can't successfully take on the U.S. conventional forces (other than China or Russia). So the more likely course of action for these state and non-state actors is an unconventional approach (insurgency, terrorism, hybrid warfare, proxy warfare, political warfare, etc.). These non-conventional threats are represented by insurgents (Islamic State in Afghanistan and Iraq), terrorists (Somalis carrying out attacks in Kenya), and state-actors (Russia conducting "political warfare" or "proxy warfare" in the Ukraine). The United States has military organizations that are trained for the unconventional fight - and we need to resource these organizations at the appropriate level. Stuart Bradin, president and CEO of the Global SOF Foundation and a retired Army Special Forces colonel with over 30 years military service, provides us his thoughts on this topic in "Defense budget leaves US vulnerable to current, future threats", The Hill Congress Blog, April 1, 2015.