Navy to Expand Fleet With New Enemies in Mind

with what money? pray tell?


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11221.htm


The Navy wants to increase its fleet to 313 ships by 2020, reversing years of decline in naval shipbuilding and adding dozens of warships designed to defeat emerging adversaries, senior Defense Department officials say.

The plan by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who took over as chief of naval operations last summer, envisions a major shipbuilding program that would increase the 281-ship fleet by 32 vessels and cost more than $13 billion a year, $3 billion more than the current shipbuilding budget, the officials said Friday.

-snip-

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, which is home to major shipyards, endorsed the Navy proposal when told about it recently and called on President Bush to finance it in next year's budget.

"Military requirements should drive the budget, not the other way around," Ms. Collins said. "I hope that the Navy's requirement for a fleet of 313 ships will be matched with adequate funding in the president's budget to achieve that goal over time."
-snip-
---------------------------------


"Military requirements should drive the budget, not the other way around,"

so says Susan

is that how Mainers think?

the Navy new enemy is China. are you laughing out loud. can you just see the bushgang giving up all that business with China to go to war with them?

the Navy wants more ships to protect oil and gas tankers for the corporations

China? Are they joking? This is just pork barrel politics. The maine senators want to keep their shipyard open, so of course they are for it. Everyone else has their hand in the till, why not maine?

they, more so than the other branches, are still set up to fight a war with the USSR.

Barring a massive change to foreign policy, they do need more ships. They need vastly less expensive ships, but more of them.

Even if they took my advice and became a purely defensive force, with occasional sea lane patrols, they'd need to change their stock of ships. They need smaller coastal boats rather than deepwater cruisers and a/c.

A good site for knowledgeable critisism of military spending is www.g2mil.com it's a subscription site, but it's got a few good free articles.

The USN, and more importantly, the USA would be better served with a smaller, more balanced fleet staffed with career officers and men.

they will build new ships and keep old ships and build big ships when they need small fast modern ships. And yes if the mission remains: conquer the world and suppress all opposition, we not a lot more ships planes boats and bodies to throw into the chum.

I assumed they were going to beef up the brown water fleet so they could patrol our domestic rivers and lakes and attack Americans.

from his post:

"This is not a fleet that is being oriented to the Chinese threat," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center in Arlington, Va. "It's being oriented around irregular warfare, stability operations and dealing with rogue states."



By "rogue states" the capitalists mean those countries whose population choose a path other than that of slaves of Wall Street. This is nothing more than plans for an imperial navy to enforce gunboat diplomacy.

As long as our shipyards are busy, why should we care that the ships they build are used to murder and oppress people in Latin America and elsewhere? We should care because a permanent military and a large armaments industry are a threat to our liberties at home and to peace throughout the world.

President Eisenhower warned of the dangers to our democracy posed by the military-industrial complex in his Farewell Address to the nation:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/speeches/eis...

with an inland country?

n/t

loaded with white phosphorus.