The U.S. Defense Budget is Unsustainable

Sustainability is the new watchword. Well, that and "Green". Sit through commercial TV for an hour or so and you will see what I am talking about.

Here is something that is not sustainable under any circumstance: Last year total military expenditures totaled $626.1 BILLION, a number that is greater than the COMBINED expenditures of the next 168 largest sovereign nation military budgets.

The U.S. Navy should be renamed the "U.S. Petroleum Protection Force" as the Navy's job is primarily to maintain security for the floating oil inventory held in world's tanker fleet. If you added the cost of tax payer money for this fleet gasoline is already well over $6 per gallon in the U.S.

The following is from J.R. Nyquest's excellent website:

"Whatever your opinion of the War in Iraq, the most strategically significant result of the war has nothing to do with Iraq. Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has admitted that the U.S. military commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan “may have undermined the military’s ability to fight wars against major adversaries….” The U.S. military has changed its focus, losing sight of the real enemy – the most dangerous enemy of all.

The danger from Russia and China is not well understood. To complicate matters further, there is a new, rising incompetence in Washington. There is blindness in the governing class, a lack of understanding, an unwillingness to work with facts, a falsification of meanings, and fatal disregard for historical truth. Enemies are not recognized as enemies. Subversion is not recognized as subversion. Madness goes about in the guise of political correctness.

There are, of course, flashes of truth and moments of recognition. On the night of the Feb. 5th presidential primary, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told an interviewer that he feared America could lose the economic wherewithal to sustain its armed forces. The interviewer completely ignored the senator’s statement. It wasn’t something journalists are ready to take seriously. Even so, the senator offered up a warning. He had begun thinking about the military budget and the prospect of declining revenues. You might say that the “writing is on the wall.” The U.S. dollar is falling, the banks are in trouble, the stock market is ready to tumble, the housing bubble is bursting. What will happen to the economy? What will happen to the military?

In recent testimony, National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell told Congress that Russia, China and OPEC could use their growing financial power to advance strategic goals damaging to U.S. national interests. According to McConnell, American intelligence was concerned “about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends.” In other words: The enemy has cash, and cash can buy people and companies. " J.R. Nyquist

Senator Hatch, however you view his politics, can count. In the absence of energy inputs, the U.S. will simply be unable to sustain a military budget anywhere close to its current size and scope - which is not enough, at this moment, to protect the nation from a coordinated effort of our largest "competitors".

Why did no one in the Mainstream Media scratch their head when President Bush was rebuffed by Saudi Arabia? They were too busy scratching their politically correct butts.

The combinations and permutations of various outcomes to the U.S. energy crisis will be powerfully felt in our nation's politics in the very near future.


Yours for a better world,


mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com