Gates has an epiphany on missile defense budget cuts

This is a great article. Too bad Gates is being reactive instead of proactiive. Closing Velocity is always finding information like this that you don't see in the Maimed Stream Media. Obama doesn't want to be accused of taking a mulligan.
Rees

from Closing Velocity
June 02, 2009

Gates At Greely: Saaaaay, On Second Thought, Maybe These GBIs ARE A Good Idea

Gates Inspects a Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) at Fort Greely, Alaska (photo credit)

As the ballistic missile threat to the US crisply materializes by the second, Secretary of Defense Gates begins to doubt his and Obama's spectacularly ill-tilled budget cuts to missile defense:

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has not ruled out pumping more funds into the nation's anti-missile defense budget if North Korea threatens the United States.

Gates was visiting Fort Greely which houses parts of the US anti-missile defense shield -- a land-based system with about 20 interceptors -- and said of Pyongyang that its "behavior has certainly alarmed people."

In the past Gates proposed slicing a billion dollars off the anti-missile system budget and freezing the development of interceptors at 30, instead of the 44 originally planned. But he indicated he might re-examine his proposal.

"My recommendation to the president was for the fiscal year 2010 budget, it's not a forever decision," the defense secretary said.

"And if capabilities in one of these rogue states should develop faster, or on a more worrisome way than anybody anticipates right now, then I think the way is opened in the future to add to the number of silos and interceptors up here."

Good thing it only took hectic North Korean missile and nuclear weapons testing to make Gates reconsider his stance. Geez.
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Perhaps We Should Reconsider The Missile Defense Cuts...

by Michael Ramirez
from Investor's Business Daily

National Review Pleads To Obama: Reverse Course On Gutting Missile Defense

from Closing Velocity
May 29, 2009

A good read on North Korea's nuclear test and how it should prompt an immediate course reversal by President Obama:

In the short term, the U.S. should do three things. First, reaffirm the strength of its alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other regional democracies. Second, work with these allies to squeeze North Korea’s finances through new sanctions and targeted asset freezes. (Locking down North Korean accounts at Banco Delta in late 2005 had a real impact on Pyongyang.) Third, boost funding for missile-defense programs and expand missile-defense collaboration in East Asia.

The Obama administration already is reassuring our allies and surely will pursue a fresh batch of sanctions. But it has sought to slash funding for the Missile Defense Agency and to scale back missile-defense implementation overseas. As former Clinton administration defense secretary William Cohen, hardly a right-winger or a fierce partisan, wrote yesterday in the Washington Times, “Cutting missile-defense funding at this critical juncture sends the wrong signal to both our adversaries and our allies. It would embolden North Korea, Iran, and other rogue states to pursue nissiles of increasing range. It would also confuse our allies and undermine their trust in America’s security guarantees.”

This administration already has learned to reverse itself when national security requires it. Changing course on missile defense is necessary, and it is urgent.

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Missile Defense: Video of Next Generation Missile Tracking Satellite Launch

Here's an update from Closing Velocity regarding the "Space Tracking and Surveillance System. And, as always, he provides a great video to watch.
Rees



Successfully launched by a massive Delta II yesterday from Vandenberg AFB, the Missile Defense Agency's experimental Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)-Advanced Technology Risk Reduction mission is the first step in greatly expanding our ability to track hostile ballistic missiles:

MDA officials were especially tight-lipped about the spacecraft, saying some aspects were classified. However, they did say the $400 million mission should extend for a year.

“MDA is pursuing a space-based sensor layer to detect missile launches, provide continuous target tracking, and pass track data to missile defense interceptors with the accuracy and timeliness necessary to enable successful target interception,” the agency said.

Currently, our missile defense satellite fleet consists primarily of Defense Support Program (DSP) launch detection birds --- but there's not much else up there to provide real-time high fidelity tracking once the hostile missile has left the pad. Ground based sensors like Thule and the SBX are currently the tracking workhorses. With STSS we'll get a brand new set of space-based eyes that will provide much earlier tracking data, and two more are scheduled to go up this summer:

The Vandenberg blastoff is a preview for a rocket launch this summer from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., carrying two STSS demonstration spacecraft for MDA.

Aaaaaand of course, there's something oh so morally wrong about defending ourselves:

The missile-defense launch brought a handful of protesters to Vandenberg’s main gate, Air Force officials said. The protest apparently lasted less than an hour.

UPDATE: For some hard core background on STSS, read this article.
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North Korea Threatens More Nuclear & Missile Tests - Hey, I'm just as shocked as you are

He's crazy like a fox.

Kim Jong-il is demanding an apology and he'll probably receive one. Hey, Obama's never met an apology he didn't like.

Let's see, you don't think Kim Jong-il's demand for, and his expection to receive an apology, just might have been influenced by Obama's recent World Apology Tour?

The dictators of the world see his weakness and are ready to push the envelope until Obama finally pushes back. The don't expect that to ever happen.
Rees

from Closing Velocity
by John McKittrick

Essentially saying to the world, "If you don't immediately apologize for condemning our ICBM test, we are going to test more ICBM's!":

North Korea threatened Wednesday to conduct nuclear and missile tests and start an uranium-enrichment program in addition to its existing plutonium-based one, unless the U.N. apologizes for criticizing its recent rocket launch, dramatically raising its stake in the worsening standoff over its atomic programs.

Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a statement the country "will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures" unless the U.N. Security Council apologizes immediately. "The measures will include nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles."

According to one analyst, missile preparations have already begun:

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the North appears to have already begun preparations to conduct nuclear and missile tests, given it is demanding "an unrealistic, unprecedented" demand—a U.N. apology.

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US Navy "Steller Daggers" Video

Closing Velocity always has the most incredible missle launch videos.
Rees

from Closing Velocity
by John McKittrick
April 17, 2009

Video: US Navy "Stellar Daggers" Missile Defense Test

New video from last month's first ever double intercept of a short-range ballistic missile and a cruise missile by the Aegis destroyer USS Benfold off the coast of Los Angeles:



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Why isn’t the F-22 Raptor part of a stimulus?

from Hot Air.com
April 13, 2009
by Ed Morrissey

The Obama administration has put together both a $700 billion stimulus package and a $3.5 trillion budget for the coming year, claiming that government spending will restart the flopping economy. Obama wanted to focus on “shovel-ready” projects to get ditch-digging started as soon as possible. However, the Pentagon tubed a program that not only had people already employed but also produced the kind of fighters that keeps America dominant in the skies. Hugh Hewitt wonders in today’s Washington Examiner why this shovel-ready project got buried:

The planes cost less than $150 million each to build. We can get 100 more F-22s for $15 billion. Given that our six-month deficit for the fiscal year under way is already scraping $1 trillion, what’s $15 billion for an extended run of unchallenged air superiority against existing and –crucially—unknown threats?

Did I mention that the F-22 is shovel ready? Remember all those jobs President Obama wanted to “create or save”? Evidently there is a category of jobs he doesn’t count among those worthy of retention –those on the national security shift.

Even if the Raptor wasn’t a guarantor of margins of safety for every American soldier, sailor or Marine operating below its shield, even then you’d have to conclude that the shuttering of its production line in an era of giant job losses was indicative of a remarkable, deeply ideological hostility towards defense spending.

The second coming of the Carter Administration is upon us, heralded by this almost wanton sluffing away of a weapon of unmatched capabilities and the simultaneous paring of missile defense appropriations.

The Carter reference, in this case, relates to Jimmy Carter’s cancellation of the B-1 bomber program shortly after taking office. I recall this quite clearly, as the Admiral Emeritus worked for Rockwell International, the prime contractor for the B-1, and would have lost his job had he transferred to that program as he had been planning. Carter decided to cancel the B-1 to focus on the new work being done in stealth technology, but Ronald Reagan reinstated it, convinced that America could walk and chew gum at the same time.

This seems like a similar circumstance. The question for the Pentagon appears to have been whether to buy more Raptors or wait for the F-35 Lightning II deliveries in a couple of years. The correct answer would have been to do both; buy more Raptors and keep 95,000 people employed, while waiting for the Lightning IIs.

Would it cost more money? Of course, but let’s put that in perspective. Fifteen billion dollars amounts to a whopping 2% of the total price tag for Porkulus. Unlike at least half of Porkulus’ spending, it would actually provide immediate work, saving existing American jobs. Not just any jobs, mind you, but hard-core, high-paying manufacturing jobs, the kind that politicians like Barack Obama laments when they disappear. I’d guess that many of them are union jobs, too.

Unlike most of the supposedly shovel-ready projects in Porkulus, this delivers a usable, valuable product that serves the government’s legitimate purpose of national defense. It doesn’t feed the pork-barrel demands of Congress, and most importantly, it’s a proven military system.

I wrote in February that the Raptor was a no-brainer for a government looking to provide economic stimulus. I got the “no brain” part right.
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Russia Test-fires ICBM - Mocks Obama Defense Cuts

Obama, nothing to see here. Move Along

from Reuters
Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman
editing by Mark Trevelyan
Fri Apr 10, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia successfully test-fired a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday as part of checks needed to extend its service life for up to 22 years, Russian media reported.

The Topol was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, nestled among the forests of northern Russia, and successfully hit the test site on Russia's Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka, 6,000 km (3,700 miles) to the east.

"This launch confirmed the time extension for the Topol group of missiles for up to 22 years," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Colonel Alexander Vovk of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces as saying.

Test launches of new missiles have become routine in recent years, and the Kremlin says the financial crisis will not discourage it from spending as much money as needed on defense. The Topol, which entered service in 1985, was last test-fired last October.

Russia has extended the highly mobile Topol's use way past the 10-year guaranteed operational life set by the manufacturer. It is designed to pierce anti-missile defense systems such as those that the United States has said it wants to build in Eastern Europe.

The RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead.
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The United Nations is a Joke...

I absolutely agree with everything he is saying about the United Nations. They are useless and have become an organization that is anti-American and anti-Israel. He definitely expresses his opinion with an exclamation point.
Rees

Obama and Gates Gut the Military - ACORN Yes! - F-22's No!

ACORN is an unconstitutional, federally funded arm of the Democratic Party. ACORN enables fraudulent registration and they directly campaign for the Democratic party.

Obama wants to stop building F-22's and also cut critical Missile Defense Systems. And to think they propose these type of cuts right after North Korea launched their ICBM that has a potential range of Hawaii and Alaska. Great decision Obama! Increase the budget for ACORN and decrease critical defense programs.
Rees

The secretary's new budget will leave us weaker to pay for the president's domestic programs.

from The Wall Street Journal
By THOMAS DONNELLY and GARY SCHMITT
April 8, 2009

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a significant reordering of U.S. defense programs. His recommendations should not go unchallenged.

In the 1990s, defense cuts helped pay for increased domestic spending, and that is true today. Though Mr. Gates said that his decisions were "almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books," the broad list of program reductions and terminations suggest otherwise. In fact, he tacitly acknowledged as much by saying the budget plan represented "one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity" -- the "necessity" of course being the administration's decision to reorder the government's spending priorities.

However, warfare is not a human activity that directly awards virtue. Nor is it a perfectly calculable endeavor that permits a delicate "balancing" of risk. More often it rewards those who arrive on the battlefield "the fustest with the mostest," as Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest once put it. If Mr. Gates has his way, U.S. forces will find it increasingly hard to meet the Forrest standard. Consider a few of the details of the Gates proposals:

- The termination of the F-22 Raptor program at just 187 aircraft inevitably will call U.S. air supremacy -- the salient feature, since World War II, of the American way of war -- into question. [Hey Obama - this decision will eliminate 98,00 jobs - my comment]

The need for these sophisticated, stealthy, radar-evading planes is already apparent. During Russia's invasion of Georgia, U.S. commanders wanted to fly unmanned surveillance aircraft over the region, and requested that F-22s sanitize the skies so that the slow-moving drones would be protected from Russian fighters or air defenses. When the F-22s were not made available, likely for fear of provoking Moscow, the reconnaissance flights were cancelled.

As the air-defense and air-combat capabilities of other nations, most notably China, increase, the demand for F-22s would likewise rise. And the Air Force will have to manage this small fleet of Raptors over 30 years. Compare that number with the 660 F-15s flying today, but which are literally falling apart at the seams from age and use. The F-22 is not merely a replacement for the F-15; it also performs the functions of electronic warfare and other support aircraft. Meanwhile, Mr. Gates is further postponing the already decades-long search for a replacement for the existing handful of B-2 bombers.

- The U.S. Navy will continue to shrink below the fleet size of 313 ships it set only a few years ago. Although Mr. Gates has rightly decided to end the massive and expensive DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer program, there will be additional reductions to the surface fleet. The number of aircraft carriers will drop eventually to 10. The next generation of cruisers will be delayed, and support-ship projects stretched out. Older Arleigh Burke destroyers will be upgraded and modernized, but at less-than-needed rates.

The good news is that Mr. Gates will not to reduce the purchases of the Littoral Combat Ship, which can be configured for missions from antipiracy to antisubmarine warfare. But neither will he buy more than the 55 planned for by the previous Bush administration. And the size and structure of the submarine fleet was studiously not mentioned. The Navy's plan to begin at last to procure two attack submarines per year -- absolutely vital considering the pace at which China is deploying new, quieter subs -- is uncertain, at best.

- Mr. Gates has promised to "restructure" the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, arguing that the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan have called into question the need for new ground combat vehicles. The secretary noted that the Army's modernization plan does not take into account the $25 billion investment in the giant Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles. But it's hard to think of a more specialized and less versatile vehicle.

The MRAP was ideal for dealing with the proliferation of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. But the FCS vehicle -- with a lightweight yet better-protected chassis, greater fuel efficiency and superior off-road capacity -- is far more flexible and useful for irregular warfare. Further, the ability to form battlefield "networks" will make FCS units more effective than the sum of their individual parts. Delaying modernization means that future generations of soldiers will conduct mounted operations in the M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles designed in the 1970s. Finally, Mr. Gates capped the size of the U.S. ground force, ignoring all evidence that it is too small to handle current and future major contingencies.

- The proposed cuts in space and missile defense programs reflect a retreat in emerging environments that are increasingly critical in modern warfare. The termination of the Airborne Laser and Transformational Satellite programs is especially discouraging.

The Airborne Laser is the most promising form of defense against ballistic missiles in the "boost phase," the moments immediately after launch when the missiles are most vulnerable. This project was also the military's first operational foray into directed energy, which will be as revolutionary in the future as "stealth" technology has been in recent decades. The Transformational Satellite program employs laser technology for communications purposes, providing not only enhanced bandwidth -- essential to fulfill the value of all kinds of information networks -- but increased security.

Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically.

The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.

Mr. Donnelly is a resident fellow and Mr. Schmitt is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They are co-editors of "Of Men and Materiel: the Crisis in Military Resources" (AEI, 2007).
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