Mystery of the US "Defense" Strategy

With sound bites like "premptive defense" and "kinetic military action" it is getting harder and harder to take our "strategy" seriously. While I am a firm believer in not holding back and striking without warning, our defender's sound like a preschooler fighting a bunch of preschoolers.

There's one thing I learned the hard way that I shall not soon forget that these 'professionals' should do well to consider. When you spend most of your time trying to concieve of every way to defeat your enemy and then spend the rest convincing him you'll do it, they stop taking you seriously. It's called many things, like "writing checks with your mouth your *** can't cash."

There was a legend in martial arts who went 23-0 in competition and due to a previous injury he would never throw his bad leg into a kick, except his retirement match. It stunned the crowd, and it was a great way to finish the career, but what's the lesson?

Never let the enemy know anything, make him question what he does know, and if he doesn't question it make him pay for complacency as a bonus, not a strategy.

What's our strategy? We aren't revealing our technology but we are pretending we are stretched thin and unable to achieve victory. You ask for money to fund your operations and cry when your budget is cut. Why is the defense budget not classfied, but minor things are? Is our military coaxing, or coercing? Are thy incompetent?

So, there are two logical conclusions. We are truly broke, or we are saying "try me, I dare you", my question is, why? Neither answer is acceptable as a US citizen and reluctant taxpayer.

Any help?

Well I did see General Wesley Clark the one who ran for President on CNN the other day. He was talking about the 17 to 19 percent jump in the economy and how the unemployment disappeared when the United States got involved in The World War. Is that hinting at how to save the economy?

i know i'll probable get many bad mouthings for this but the real solution is another cold war. it keeps everyone in check and all the little countries like pakistan, syria, venezuela, and so on and so forth know there place and stay there instead of making waves that bring the heat from said superpowers. anyway my point is the fact that there IS only one superpower and that's the problem. i am an american and i love my country but we cannot be a truly great nation without another superpower to face off against and put everything back on the right track because no countries completely agree with any other and that is the inherent problem in our world, everyone wants to be the boss and no one really wants to work together UNLESS it's beneficial to them.

well that should get the nay sayers and yay sayers going

"Why is the defense budget not classfied,"

The budget we see is like an iceberg. Why would we assume that is all there is to see?

Originally posted by jcord
"Why is the defense budget not classfied,"

The budget we see is like an iceberg. Why would we assume that is all there is to see?

Very often things in the defense budget are not classified because in most cases Congress has to approve the money for this or that. How can they possibly go back to their districts and say "I got a great DOD project that will be helping you get jobs in several areas, just take my word for it". No. It for the most part comes down to economics, in actuality commerce. But what a lot of people don't realize is the really huge Black and Grey budgets.The "grey" budget are items where the money is listed and the audit trail is trackable, to a point. For example a company may have X amount of money to develop new radio's for the military, but with in that company some funds may be used to develop something very specific, a terra hertz frequency transmitter-chip that would only be incorporated in the radio if used for special opps. or the intelligence agencies. The basic radio is the same for say the Army, and Marines. But for special functions you can pop this chip into the same radio, and it becomes a lot more interesting. Thats not the best explanation but is an example of what we call "grey budget items" In other words hidden in plain sight.

The black budget items are something in another universe. Very often there are large expenditure's that have to be kept secret and I can't go into that. But one interesting aspect of the black budget is very often the money can come from well connected and very rich private individuals. There is nothing on paper (called NOP) and deals are made with a handshake. I'll give you a well known example. In the early 1970s the US wanted to recover a sunken Russian sub, and to do it would need to build a dedicated ship for just that mission. Now it has to be built at one of our larger shipbuilding yards and you can't hide 10,000 guys working on something that big.

So, Nixon approved of the ship that was called the "Glomar Explorer". It was said to be an attempt to mine minerals from the sea bed, not an unreasonable cover story. And it was paid for personally by that eccentric genius, Howard Hughes. He paid for almost all of it. Not a bad deal for the taxpayers. That kind of "thing", though rarely so pricy happens all the time.