Hey Subman, I was wondering where you had gone!
Anywho, I found that article pretty interesting. However, I also find it to be written by someone with far more interest in politics (and by politics I mean slinging $hit at the other side of the aisle) than the military. It ignores several things:
- The threat HAS gone away to a large degree. And like it or not, the predominant mission of the US military will be beating up third world countries. But even so...
- ...China. The ONLY threat that comes close to needing a Cold War style force structure is China. BUT. Why are we still building platforms to Cold War specs? The author lauds systems like the F-35 and F-22, but the fact is these platforms were spec'd with a WWIII European battlefield in mind. And while the threats may be similar, the distance to targets will be anything but. We are building platforms to fight WWIII in Europe, but the fight will be much more akin to the IJN defending territory thousands of miles away from home. And BTW, the Mitsubishi Zero had a better combat radius than the F-35 does.
The author hits the left for blindy tearing our military apart. Which is true, to an extent. But I have to hit the right for blindly funding the military to fight a scenario which disappeared nearly 20 years ago. Being strong on defense should not mean blindly dumping money into a Cold War era force structure. No matter how many shares you own of Lockheed Martin.
PD
And as a disclaimer, I consider myself an extreme moderate.