OBAMA IS DOING WHAT OUR ENEMIES CAN'T DO - DESTROY AMERICA

Submitted by: Kathy Hawkins

Obama Demolishes Navy Tomahawk, Hellfire Missiles to 0 by 2016: No Replacement – Admirals Silent

by Maggie

U.S. Navy Admiral  Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. defense ability in the Asia-Pacific region. Locklear explains the greater risks today and the Navy's key focus on North Korea. As you read his threat assessment and his answer, keep in mind that our Tactical Tomahawk and Hellfire missile programs are scheduled to be dead -- completely decimated -- by 2018, with no replacement on the horizon until 2024 to 2028; first budget cuts reducing orders, then no orders, then empty arsenals by 2018.

A U.S. Navy Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile is test fired from the USS Donald Cook, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, in this Jan. 17, 2007 photo. Photo Credit: U.S. Navy

Locklear cites "transnational" threats, "growing challenges to freedom of action in sea, air, space and cyberspace," large humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, territorial disputes, and an "unpredictable North Korea." Locklear agreed with a panel members assessment that "China's efforts are underway to change the balance of power in the Western Pacific," and that "China's maritime strategy is pretty clear."

Admiral Locklear says

"We have done this against a backdrop of continued physical and resource uncertainty and the resultant diminishing readiness and availability of our joint force," Locklear added. Source: Navy.com

Yet I can not find a single high-ranking military officer of any branch talking about the loss of the Tomahawk and the Hellfire missiles, the U.S. Navy's "major land strike missile." Maybe some dissents or approvals are hanging in the blogosphere but I haven't found them. 

Indeed, March 2011 saw the 2,000th GM-109 Tomahawk fired in combat, from USS Barry [DDG 52]. The missile typically flies at 50 – 100 feet above ground using terrain-following radar, and navigates to its targets using a combination of GPS/INS, computer matching of the land’s radar-mapped contours to the missile’s internal maps (TERCOM), and final matching of the target scene (DSMAC). Once on target the missile can fly a direct horizontal attack mode, trigger preprogrammed detonation above the target, or use a pop-up and dive maneuver. CEP is often described as being about 10 meters. Source: Defense Industry Daily

Variants of the Tomahawk are also launched from submarines. A plan for a successor to the Tomahawk was scrapped in the FY 2014 budget. This article refers to "The 2019 Evolution:" 

...the Navy opted to drop the interim capability. Instead, they’re moving ahead with OASuW’s main xGM-84 Harpoon missile replacement program for air and sea launch, using the LRASM derivative of Lockheed Martin’s subsonic but stealthy AGM-158B JASSM-ER.

In what is referred to a "Plan B," and a "recertification cycle," the Tomahawk's evolution was planned to be an extension of the "15-year warranty and a 30-year service life," to include missile "upgrades."

Under consideration for upgrades, was the ability for the Tomahawk to "acquire targets on its own and hit them, even if the target is moving or has moved." No doubt this will be a requirement for whatever comes in the next ten to 14 years when we are sans Tomahawks and Hellfires.

It's a bit like announcing we are leaving Afghanistan and giving the Taliban a heads-up that if they only wait long enough...

Stick With The Tomahawk, Forget LRASM [Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile...

Even during times of intense budgetary pressure, America has an obligation to invest in next-generation weaponry. But newer isn’t necessarily better.

In America’s culture of optimism and innovation, there is always the desire for the better mouse trap. Sometimes, traps are needed to catch rats and not mice, so the mouse traps must be replaced. Sometimes, the existing traps can be modified to more than do the job against the actual threat they face. But we must be intellectually honest and ask, “Can what we have already get it done?”

Such is the case with the Tomahawk missile. Designed in the 1970s and improved since, Tomahawks provide vital American strategic projection. Over 2,000 missiles have been launched in combat from 1991 to present. America has defeated threats in Desert Storm, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sudan, at clandestine terrorist locations, and most recently in Libya. Over that time, they have proven uniquely reliable and versatile.

With current Tomahawks, known as “Block IV,” missions can be planned in an hour. Once the missile is launched, controllers can alter its trajectory, change its target, or even direct the missile to loiter in the air for hours at a time. Tomahawks can strike across land, water and any environment over 900 miles from their launch points –that’s more than the distance from Washington, DC to Atlanta. The US can conduct strikes in heavily guarded airspace without directly endangering American military personnel. They are also used by our closest allies.

Pivoting to LRASM could be a costly and strategic mistake. It could unnecessarily increase military expenses during a time of severe budget cuts.

LRASM is years away from proving itself, and LRASM-like missile programs have a pretty poor track record. LRASM closely resembles the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), a weapon with a long history of failed test launches. Read more at Breaking Defense

The Details of Current News:

Last year the U.S. Navy planned to purchase 980 Tactical Tomahawk missiles. This week it was revealed that Obama's 2015 budget cuts the Tomahawk from 196 in 2013, to 100 in 2015 and zero in 2016. The Tomahawk arsenal will have a zero inventory by 2018, with nothing planned to replace it. The dollars cut by heading toward a zero arsenal of both the Tomahawk and the Hellfire missiles will instead be "reinvested" in an "experimental missile" scheduled for, perhaps, 10 years in the future. A current acquisition of Hellfires for 2015 will be cancelled if the cuts go through.

Lack of funding is not the problem. Plugging the funding into new missiles is the plan, or plugging the funding into something, somewhere -- might also be an alternate plan.  If Democrats stay in power, we might get ten-years-out and arsenals could remain empty, just sayin.'

The U.S. Navy relied heavily on them [Tomahawks] during the 2011 military incursion into Libya, where some 220 Tomahawks were used during the fight.

Nearly 100 of these missiles are used each year on average, meaning that the sharp cuts will cause the Tomahawk stock to be completely depleted by around 2018. This is particularly concerning to defense experts because the Pentagon does not have a replacement missile ready to take the Tomahawk’s place.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Cropsey said that if someone were trying to “reduce the U.S. ability to shape events” in the world, “they couldn’t find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It’s breathtaking.” Source: Adam Kredo at Free Beacon

An Obama budget has yet to be passed in the history of his presidency, so we'll see what happens, but if nothing else, this shows the dangers of a tyrant's wish list, a reckless disregard for our country's safety:

This isn’t reducing America’s ability to project power around the Globe, this is leaving us without the means to defend ourselves.  Along with the purposed decommissioning of the A-10 (the Warcraft that destroyed Saddam’s Armour) this is striking from the hands of our protectors every weapon that they depend upon.  If Putin decides to take back all the old Soviet territory in Eastern Europe what is the US Military supposed to use to stop him?  Source: On the North River, read more here.

Funding is available for the Tomahawk and Hellfire. This is not a product of sequestration; it is a product of something dark and deceptive. We can't get away from that conclusion, because in four years or less, we are left with nothing to take up the Tomahawk mission. Those who stalk our defense capabilities have received the memo,

URL: http://wp.me/p1cuXL-et8

SOUNDING THE ALARM: Obama doing to the U.S. military what no enemy on Earth could do

by Alan Caruba

I began March with a look at the way President Obama is undermining the U.S. military and did not think I would have to return to this topic for a while. I was wrong.

A March 25 article in The Washington Timeswas titled “Obama to Kill Navy’s Tomahawk, Hellfire Missile Programs in Budget Decimation” and on March 21, The Wall Street Journal published a commentary,“America’s Incredible Shrinking Navy.” When you add those to The New York TimesFebruary 23 article, “Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level”, you’ve got sufficient reason to begin to realize something very ominous is occurring.

This concern is heightened by the way dozens of high ranking officers are, in the view of some observers, being purged. A number of retired generals are speaking out about it. One of them, retired Army Major General Paul Vallely has charged that Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.” Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady agrees saying, “There is no doubt he is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.”

The world, over the course of human civilization, has always been a dangerous place. Much of the history of mankind is a history of wars, large and small. In the last century the U.S. military was involved in two world wars, a Korean conflict, a war in Vietnam, and the Gulf War to drive out Hussein’s Iraqi forces after he invaded Kuwait.

The Russian seizure of Crimea in the wake of the protests that has left Ukraine in disarray has put all of Europe on edge and raised questions about the readiness of NATO. A look around the world sees China increasing its military strength, particularly at sea.

The Middle East to include much of northern Africa is a hotbed of turmoil. And, of course, Iran continues to contribute to it, aiding Syria’s regime along with the Russians, supporting Palestinian terror organizations that threaten Israel, while pursuing its own nuclear weapon capabilities.

This would hardly seem a good time to undermine U.S. military capabilities, but that is exactly what is occurring thanks to President Obama.

The Washington Times reported that “President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.” The Tomahawk missile program, under Obama’s 2015 budget proposal, would be completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016. Seth Cropsey, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower, said “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Writing in The New York Times, Steve Cohen, a former director of the U.S. Naval Institute, noted that “The Navy is supposed to be ‘forward deployed’ to provide the president with tools powerful enough to deal with potential threats and trouble spots.” For decades since the end of World War Two the U.S Navy has patrolled the world’s sea lanes to protect trade between nations, but Cohen said, “The rest of the world isn’t unpatrolled, but it is under-patrolled” noting that “Some 90% of the world’s trade moves by sea. Much of that can be disrupted by attacks on a handful of choke points readily apparent to pirates, terrorists, and rogue nations.”

“With the U.S Navy arguably at its smallest since 1917, we don’t have many ships that are actually at sea. Only 35% of the Navy’s entire fleet is deployed, fewer than 100 ships.”

U.S. air power has been under assault as well by the Obama regime. In June of last year, David A. Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general and senior military scholar at the Air Force Academy, warned that “In the Air Force alone, more than 30 squadrons are now grounded, along with aircrews, and maintenance and training personnel.” Less than a year ago “The graduate schools for Air Force, Navy and Marine combat aviators” had been cancelled. “Equipment testing and upgrades to F-22s, F-15s, F-16s, and other aircraft have been delayed.”

In September 2013, the commandant of the Marine Corps, James F. Amos, warned that cuts to the nation’s defense and security spending that occurred from 1990 to 2001, reduced its total active-duty strength by 32%. In 2001 the Corps totaled approximately 172,000 Marines, down from 197,000 in the 1990 Gulf War. When 9/11 occurred, the Marines “found themselves short of critical capabilities in intelligence collection and analysis, in communication and in mobility on land, sea and in the air.” These days the Marines are facing further reductions.

It will be up to Congress to eliminate the sequestration cuts and the Obama regime proposals to ensure that the U.S. military is restored to a state of readiness. If it rubber stamps the reductions that have been occurring for more than a decade, the ability of the nation to respond to an attack on our homeland or any of our allies will be highly limited.

You can be sure that those nations unfriendly to our future are fully aware of this and the defeat of our armed forces could occur on the battlefield because it has already occurred here.