REBUILDING OUR MILITARY

Today's military is more reliant upon technology than numbers...

I worry that such reliance on technology in the event of such a potentially devastaing threat as an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) would put us back to the stone age destroying our economy and our safety with greater simplicity than any man made virus or weapon of mass destruction ever could.

It is essential that our military and the wonderful young men and women serving our country still be trained on the fundementals of land and sea navigation using  low tech approaches such as maps and compasses, that they be able to call in artillary and air strikes low tech methodologies using maps and grids and not being reliant upon technology that could be destroyed leaving our soldiers with no back plans or abilities to operate.

Reliance on technology is extremely dangerous especially when people forget how to do things the way we did ten, twenty, fifty or even one hundred years ago. While technology is wonderful not being taught how to do things should technology fail us is way too dangerous. 

It is critical that we continue to teach our troops both the old school methods as well  as with using high tech approaches by doing so then and only after  both methodologies have been mastered can we consider our forces truly well trained.

In addition we a nation can not continue to afford Two Billion dollar a piece bombers and Mutibillion dollar a piece ships when the majority of the world posess affordable missiles and torpedoes that when used on less expensive platforms in numbers are capable of destroying our ships and planes.

I can not help but think that history has a way of repeating itself and that our military finds itself taking the same dangerous mentality as our former enemy Germany did during WWII having few numbers of quantity by focusing solely on quality and not taking hedence on Stalin's philosophy that quantity has a quality all its own. 

I ask how badly would our abilities to carry out our policies be effected if we were to lose a single carrier, B2B or Ohio class submarine? I remind you that during the Reagan administration we had a six hundred ship navy comprised of ships of all different classifications to include patrol craft, corvettes, fast frigatets, fast attack and Ohio class submarines, destroyers, cruisers, four Iowa class battleships armed to the teeth and fully modernized, and both nuclear and conventionally powered  carriers.

Respectfully our navy has traded in 70 guided missile fast frigates, tens of patrol craft and frigates as well as our battleships for 10 carriers, 58 subs, less than a hundred cruisers and destroyers leaving us a fleet of less that 250 vessels with the average cost per ship exceeding $2.0 Billion.  Even our attempt to build "cost effective" littoral vessels fiascally ended with again a multi billion dollar a piece vessel instead of a cost effective vessel.

I ask what is the purpose of continuing to build next generation "Nimitiz" class carriers capable of carrying 90 aircraft when only 45 planes will be deployed?  Would we not be better off having smaller nuclear carriers like France's DeGaulle class  which is nuclear and capable of carrying sixy aircraft at a cost of literally one fifteenth cost of a new Ford class carrier?  Would we not be better off in the event of having to deploy to more than one hot spot while protecting or nation's shore at the same time having thirty carriers for the price of two? What would happen if we were to lose one of our carriers I ask let alone one of our thirty B2s? With the advent of stealth technology would we not be better off having thirty or forty small nuclear carriers carrying hundreds of some variant of the F22 or F35 with a battle group of dozens of small specialized ships able to perform specific duties rather than ten carriers protected by five to ten ships each so expensive that if lost would represent an inability to project fire power and policy? I remind you all that we won WWII not by having the best equipment money could buy but by having superior quantities of equipment.  In the end if we were to face a long protracted global war our reliance of technology and our loss of manufacturing would put us back to a situation we faced on 8 December 1941!