PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - USAF to buy F-15X?
View Single Post
Old 24th Dec 2018, 14:51
  #16 (permalink)  
SASless
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Downeast
Age: 75
Posts: 18,267
Received 467 Likes on 191 Posts
I was wandering around the many miles of corridors in the five sided wind tunnel during the Reagan years when SecNav John Lehman convinced him he needed a 600 Ship Navy.

I did find being in the immediate presence of Lehman quite often in a "Fly On The Wall" circumstance to give me an unusual perspective.

We built that Navy for the most part, and as predicted by sober thinking folks.....found we could afford it, man it, or sustain it over the long term.

I have watched some. really stupid decisions being made by all concerned over the years...Congress, Civilian Leadership, Military Leadership....and Presidents.

I fully agree with what you suggest is yet another chapter in a continuing saga.

Did not Eisenhower warn us about the evil the Military-industrial Complex poses to our Nation?

I specifically recall attending classified briefings by a group from US Navy Intelligence, where various staff dressed and spoke as if they were members of the Russian Navy.

I got the distinct impression the message was the Russian Menace was being over blown to the public, that the real analysis of the Russian Naval Strategy showed them to be "defensive rather than offensive" and that our conduct of naval operations was perhaps more provocative than need be to meet our intelligence gathering operations and Freedom of Navigation Ops.

Sadly, politicians like to see DOD money and other Federal Money pouring into their Districts....so they can brag about bringing home the Bacon.

Some industries require strategic investment in order to maintain the ability to provide War Time growth and production capability.

Other times....it is just plain graft and corruption that drives spending decisions.

Add in the mix the absolute bitter division we are seeing in our politics and the future does not look very promising.

We have squandered many Trillions upon Trillions of Dollars in needless wars and conflicts, failed to wage those wars properly by defeating the enemy and packing up our kit and returning home immediately afterwards.

We stayed in Europe after WWII, Korea after that War, and Iraq and Afghanistan afterwards as well.

I like to look back to the Roman Empire on this .... did they not do the same thing.

Perhaps we should look to history with open eyes and minds.
SASless is offline