The Beginning of the End of Empire

The economic realities of 21st century america have come home to roost on the US military. Tomorrow the Pentagon will announce plans to slow defense budget growth by reducing ground forces while boosting naval and air assets. That might be believable if one actually thought that ships and planes were cheaper than men. No sane person would ever believe such an idea.

We'll hear two major themes tomorrow. Instead of the US military decades long policy of being able to fight and win battles on two fronts, the military will shrink to a one front entity. And the battle better be in Asia because that's where the military will focus it's limited efforts. Europe, Africa and Latin America will have to look after themselves.

Ships are very expensive so I don't expect to hear about many more coming online. Most likely we'll hear of upgrades that "increase capability". What I expect to hear about is dramatic increases in drones to remotely patrol to gather intelligence and kill targets.

Effectively, the US will deploy SkyNet for global strategic defense. But what about tactical defense or offensive US forces? Apparently that's where National Guard and Reserve forces will come into play. These changes would limit, if not rule out altogether, many types of operations in the future. An Iraq style invasion would take much longer to put together, if not rule it out completely, because of mobilization and training issues.

Feel safer?