What a difference a change in the administration makes. It is definitely felt in the defense world. I remember early on in my navy career going from ship to ship in the Mayport Basin looking for paper to make copies. If you found one that was in the right phase of decommissioning, you could score ink cartridges as well. That was during the Clinton years and warships were not a priority.
The Democrats view spending in general much differently than Republicans. It is easier to reallocate dollars that are already being taxed than try to justify raising taxes. So the priorities shift away from defense into social programs and back depending on the flavor of the administration.
This all ignores the the things that have already been bought, and the technology that needs to be updated, to either maintain the status quo, or gain an edge on the strategic stage. I use the word strategic in both the level, and type of warfare in this context. The reason for that is because the nation’s nuclear arsenal is on the chopping block again.
The Minuteman missile has been part of the backbone of the US Nuclear Triad for 50 plus years. So the normal questions are being raised, like do we upgrade, or replace the arsenal, but another option that is being considered is just doing away with it. From the AP:
The debate reveals a longstanding American divide. On one side is the view that ICBMs are indispensable to the strategy for deterring any adversary from attempting a nuclear attack upon the United States or its allies. A key piece of the argument is that ICBMs in their 400 underground silos in five Great Plains states act as a “warhead sink,” or sponge, to absorb the first blow in a nuclear war; the argument is that an attacker would need to expend so many weapons destroying these silos that he would see little chance of winning and thus would be deterred from attacking in the first place.
The opposing view is that ICBMs are overkill, given the large amount of firepower in the more elusive sea- and air-based segments of the nuclear arsenal, and that ICBMs make nuclear conflict more likely because an American president might feel compelled to launch one upon a warning of attack that turned out to be a false alarm. Once it’s launched from its silo, an ICBM cannot be recalled.
The “warhead sink” is an interesting point that is fairly obvious, but not often talked about. If we open the aperture a little more we can ask how many of the potential enemy’s warheads are dedicated to taking out that fixed threat? Would those be some of the same warheads that have supposedly been restricted by a treaty of some kind? So if we decide to abandon the ground based ICBM idea, are we freeing up enemy nukes to impact our cities? Something to ponder.
The last piece I will put in here is this. As a former doomsday plane driver and mission commander, I wonder if the political types at the top know the expense of actually doing something like this. It seems like a cost cutting measure, getting rid of expensive missiles. But beyond the hardware, has anyone looked at the assumptions that have been made that include those missiles? Global war strategies, diplomatic efforts, and even operational decisions have been made, and are being made, with those as a given. They have been part of the the assumption base for 50 years. It is going to take years alone just to define the edges of what a decision like this will do. And keep in mind, money is only part of the equation.