Gingrich: We Are At The Edge Of A Catastrophe

The United States needs a dramatic increase in defense spending as well as a massive overhaul of its national security decision-making process in order to avoid a catastrophe, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Monday.

“[We need] a national security budget and a homeland security budget driven by meeting the capabilities of our opponents, not by meeting their intentions. We are today running very big risks in the name of saving a few billion dollars that may end up killing several million Americans. The time to fix that is before the disaster happens,” said Gingrich.

He described several threats to national security such as nuclear, biological, and cyber attacks, as well as electromagnetic pulse attacks that could wipe out most of the country’s electrical structure. Gingrich stated that the U.S., like Japan, should start militarizing outer space in order to protect the massive amounts of communication technology orbiting the Earth.

Gingrich also criticized the federal government's inability to act decisively and quickly, explaining that bureaucracy hinders the country's ability to move at the speed of the modern world or sustain its defense system.

“We have been the most fortunate generation in history...We are still today the richest, freest, and safest people in the history of the world. That will only remain true if we have the courage, the discipline, and the foresight to insist on the kind of changes we need in order to maintain safety as the highest single value of the American people, a base on which you can then build prosperity and freedom,” said Gingrich.

Soldiers Silencing the Critics

By Courtney Ann Jackson- Talk Radio News

Since World War II, the success of American soldiers in actions abroad has preserved freedom for millions of people, according to former Republican Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney. At a Heritage Foundation event Monday, Romney noted the upcoming 65th anniversary of D-Day and said American soldiers have shouldered the burden of defending freedom since World War II. The event was meant to commemorate those who served and to criticize the Obama administration for cutting funding from the Defense Department budget.

“Because of what America did in the 20th century, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who now live in freedom-who, but for the price paid by the United States, would have lived in despair. I know of no other such example of national selfishness in the history of mankind. That is why America is the hope of the earth.”

The broad military plans of the Obama administration are also troubling to Romney, who was a 2008 presidential candidate. He is concerned that Obama will look to the military budget for the largest cuts in the process of reforming the financial system.

“ The right way to scale America’s defense budget is to add up the requirements for each of our missions, beginning with strategic defense,” he said.

He laid out other defense missions that he felt the U.S. should be focusing on such as: fighting and winning land wars and counter-insurgencies and providing counter-insurgency support for nations under threat from Jihadists.

“We cannot allow the economic crisis to conceal the very real threats to our nation’s security. We cannot ignore the intentions of competitors who would replace America’s leadership with their own, and set back the cause of freedom,” Romney said.

The demands of all U.S. defense missions involving U.S. soldiers are not covered in Obama’s planned cuts for the department, Romney said, do not equal budget cuts. He believes a $50 billion increase in the modernization budget is needed. He noted that Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also repeatedly said that is a necessary increase.

He concluded by saying, “Providence has blessed us and trusted us to safeguard liberty; in a time of confusion at home and challenge abroad, let ours be the voice of clarity and good sense-confident in our cause, and faithful in the care of freedom.”

What is the future of combat systems?

By Suzia van Swol-University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News Service
Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said that “for over nearly eight years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan we’ve watched with pride and gratitude the magnificent performance of America’s land forces,” and that we have not done enough to support our ground forces transformation or to prepare them to meet future threats.

At the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the current and future goals of the U.S. military land power, Lieberman said that it is the intent of these hearings to identify requirements for land and air power as part of the committee’s primary responsibility to authorize funding for the programs for air and land power that they conclude are necessary to provide for the common defense.

Lieberman said that the question we need to ask is, “What is the future of the future combat systems program?” He said that the defense budget faces pressure because of the need to reset the equipment that has been used in our ongoing wars while also shifting new resources to support the fight in Afghanistan.

Andrew Krepinevich, President for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said that “what we need is a rebalanced army, but the kind of army that we are looking at right now is in my estimation far too rebalanced and oriented on traditional conventional military operations.”

Thomas Donnelly, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, said that administrations of both parties have wanted to preserve American leadership in a global sense. Donnelly said that “the outcome of this war is critical to us” and “the primary instrument that we have to achieve that success is our land forces.”

Donnelly says that we need to have an active duty army that is somewhere about the size that it was at the end of the Cold War, which was approximately 780,000.

Secretary Gates: Combat troops out by August 2010, all troops out by 2011

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Following President Barack Obama’s address at Camp Lejeune, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hosted a conference call where he discussed Obama’s strategy to end the war in Iraq.

In his opening comments Secretary Gates said: “The atmosphere here at Camp Lejeune for the speech was very warm, very enthusiastic and I would also say that the welcome has been pretty extraordinary.”

“On the substance I am obviously very supportive of the option the President has chosen and the decision he has made as is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Frankly, this is where both the Chairman and I thought this should come out and it was a very thorough and deliberative process where a lot of different options and a lot of different analysis were examined,” said Gates.

Asked about Obama’s statement that all troops would be out of Iraq by 2011, Secretary Gates said: “Under the terms of the status of forces agreement which is what we are operating under now all U.S. forces must be out by the end of 2011. It will require a new agreement, a new negotiation, almost certainly at Iraqi initiative to provide for some presence beyond the end of 2011. So in the absence of that agreement and the absence of that negotiation, for such an agreement, it is in keeping with the sofa to say definitively that we will be out by 2011.”

Asked what would happen if Iraqi forces asked for the U.S. military to remain in Iraq to assist with training and strengthening, Gates said: “It’s a hypothetical the Iraqis have not said anything about that at this point...My own view would be, that, we should be prepared to have some very modest size presence, for training and helping them with their new equipment and providing perhaps intelligence support, beyond that.”

In his address Obama said that all combat troops would be out of Iraq by August 31, 2010. Asked whether the remaining non-combat troops would have combat capability, Gates said: “Those that are left will have a combat capability...there will be target counter-terrorism organizations, there will be continued embeds with some of the Iraqi forces, training capacities...but the units will have gone and the mission will have changed, so the notion of being engaged in combat, in the way we have been up until now, will be completely different.”

Former United Kingdom Secretary of Defense Talks About Transatlantic Security Post-Bush

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Former UK Secretary of Defense, Rt. Hon Des Browne, Minister of Parliament (MP), spoke today about "Transatlantic Security Post-Bush," at The Center for American Progress.

In his statement to the audience, Des Browne MP covered a number of issues affecting the transatlantic community.

With regard to his thoughts on how The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should move forward, Des Browne MP said: "I think there is an agreement across the alliance that it need to transform and by that I mean that it needs to equip itself to operate in environments in which we need to deploy our forces and support them for an extended period of time, in order to provide the security that we need to avoid conflict."

Speaking about the situation in Afghanistan he stated: "I think as far as Afghanistan is concerned what we need to do is recognize that Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran to name some, have an interest in the stabilization in Afghanistan, they are already involved and we just need to engage them."

On the subject of how President Obama has been received in the United Kingdom and Europe Browne said: "The big advantage Obama has is that he is already immensely popular in Europe and that includes the United Kingdom...What he needs to do, like all leaders, is he needs to deliver on the promise that he generates and the expectations...Our responsibility is to ensure that the inevitable disappointments and there will be some don't undermine the promise of his election. So we need to support him. That is the point I am making today and that was the point his Vice-President was making in security terms to the countries of Europe."

When questioned about the Iraq war Browne ended by saying: "As far as Iraq is concerned, I think there is now a consensus that we have reached the stage where Iraq's own ability to provide security and governance for their country is such that we can begin drawing down our troops...there seems to be a consensus emerging round about a date about 2011 and I don't think there is any dispute about that any longer."

Browne also expressed a desire for the rest of Europe to seriously consider following the UK example and take prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

"The closure of Guantanamo Bay generates the immediate consequence, of what does one do with the 200 plus occupants of that part of the island of Cuba?" he concluded.