Respect

President Obama did not attend the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  He and the First Lady paid their respects by going to the viewing and observing moments of silence beside the casket and Justice Scalia’s portrait.

QUESTION:  How do you feel about that?

"Lest we Forget." (Rudyard Kipling)

COMMENT SUMMARY:  The United States needs enough military strength to project power in situations where our foreign policy involves us in the affairs of other peoples and nations.  We are the target of hostility from abroad, whether deserved or not, and we need to be able to defend ourselves from attack.

MY COMMENT:  I think it is important to decide what we must defend against; and on whose behalf.  Since World War II, the United States has carried the burden of defense for the “free world” and much of the world that is not free.  I think it reasonable to expect our allies and “friends” to assume more of the responsibility for their own defense, or at least to reimburse us for it.  I think that getting support from other nations for the cost to us of their defense should be the first step toward funding our military and intelligence services.

I can’t describe all our national defense needs in detail here.  My view is that we have underestimated the challenges we face.  President Obama was elected with a mandate from the people to reduce our military commitments overseas, and he did; with the complicity of Congress.  Americans want peace, but peace at any cost is shortsighted.

I have training and experience that gives me some insight into military matters.  Although I am not an expert, I have enough general knowledge to provide an informed opinion.

Before the sequester our military was sized to fight small regional conflicts, one at a time.  When the need came to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, while troops were still stationed in Europe and South Korea, we had to rob Peter to pay Paul.  The result was that inadequate resources were allocated to both theaters of conflict.

We have done a good job with developing rapid reaction forces and special operations teams that can respond to emergencies around the world.  We have failed to utilize them properly in some cases, and we have been successful in others.  Our standing Army, Navy, Marines and Air force are too small to successfully oppose Russia or China, or both, in a major war or to respond to multiple regional conflicts simultaneously.

Russia and China have historically relied on overwhelming their enemies by numerically superior forces.  Additionally, they have learned from observing us in Iraq that they must improve their technological capabilities, and they have done so.  Our military is too small to fight a large scale war against Russia or China, or both.  They know it, and they are expanding their influence as a result; sometimes by force.  We need a large enough military to provide a credible deterrent that will eliminate the risk that they will start a war on the assumption that we will back down.  That is the high road to World War III.

We have relied on technology to enable our smaller military to defeat a larger force.  We have been somewhat successful, but we have become over-reliant on technology.  We are vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse attack and anti-satellite weapons, which could render our highly technical weapons systems inoperative by neutralizing our computers and satellites.  It is true that some of our systems have been “hardened.”  However, we remain vulnerable to attacks on our technology and to being overwhelmed by numerically superior forces.

Defense spending should correspond to what we need to defend ourselves.  Our government needs to set aside political squabbling and do a sober assessment of our security needs; now and in the foreseeable future.  Sufficient resources must be allocated to give the military the ability to accomplish its mission.  Much has been made of wasteful military spending, and controls should be in place to keep that in check.

There has been, however, a wasteful boom and bust relationship between spending during active hostilities, and spending when hostilities are concluded.  The size of our military was drastically reduced after the world wars.  The result was that we were not prepared to fight when the next war came along.  In the past we have had time to build up our military and deploy it before we were defeated.  Simply put, we can’t do that anymore.  Our modern military must be technologically superior in order to offset the advantage that our enemies have with larger forces, but it must be large enough survive a first strike and still prevail in a world war.

It is wasteful to build our military up, and then tear it down, only to have to build it up again.  It is wasteful to send our war fighters to the Middle East for multiple tours, and then kick them out when we bring them home.  We waste their valuable combat experience, and it is a disgraceful and callous display of ingratitude.

So what is the answer?  It is that we need to spend enough on defense to meet the challenges that we ask our military and intelligence services to meet.

There is another national defense, which does not come from military might or economic superiority.  It comes from behavior as individuals and as a nation that pleases Almighty God.  In his poem “Recessional,” Rudyard Kipling warns against trusting only in military power and forgetting God.  No nation can stand if God withdraws His protection from it.  Historically, the United States has governed itself according to Judeo-Christian values.  Now we are turning away from our historic moorings, and we are following the values of secular humanism, atheism, and personal convenience.  We have rejected the idea of absolute truth, and followed situational ethics.  The decline in our national fortunes is due, more than anything else, to turning our back on the God of the Holy Bible.