Why is it that the Democrats are always eager to keep the military underfunded and using ancient equipment? It’s as if they want to weaken our military and prevent us from being able to effectively defend ourselves.
Seeing as how the entire world has seen how weak our president is, we cannot afford to take any chances. Every time Biden opens his mouth, he could be damaging our relations with foreign countries yet again. Just look at what we did to Afghanistan…and they were our allies.
The Secretary of the Air Force has made it clear when speaking to Congress. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a speech, “help us to focus on the one fight – the strategic competitive fight – we must win.” He went on to explain that all of the legacy systems in place are incapable of fighting against China or Russian.
The well-resourced and strategic militaries that are out there belong to our foes. “Our one team cannot win its one fight to deter China or Russia without the resources we need and a willingness to balance risk today to avoid much greater risk in the future.”
The easiest translation of this speech is that we need new military equipment if we’re ever to win a fight against Russia or China.
There’s a problem, though. Congress is made up of a Democratic majority – and Democrats are notoriously up for cutting funds from the military. Additionally, many love the idea of socialism and understand that turning Russia or China into an ally could help to move the country in that direction.
Will Congress sabotage us so that we easily fall to a foe?
Kendall is aware of the political constraints that are in place. He knows that the U.S. military must be ready for anything – and in order to move forward, he’s prepared to work with Congress.
The AF Secretary has had his work cut out for him since taking office. He overhauled the entire services’ budget for the Air Force and Space Force. Then, he had to submit that budget to the Office of the Secretary of Defense only two days later.
The problem with the budget is that it doesn’t comply with the congressional direction where he would have to retain certain numbers of legacy aircraft.
Yes, Congress actually wants us to retain legacy aircraft – the same aircraft that is old, is constantly in need of repairs, and that would not help us to win a fight against one of our more strategic foes.
While we have to work within the confines of a budget, we also have to make the decision that we must modernize our fleet to get to the next generation of aircraft. This shouldn’t even have to be a discussion. What we spend on maintaining aging planes could easily be invested in getting new planes.
It really begs the question of whether Congress is sabotaging the military on purpose. Do they want us to lose to China if we actually had to go to war with them?
Budget proposals have been put in front of Congress by the Air Force for the past several years. There have been requests to retire various inventories of A-10s, Global Hawks, and KC-10 tankers.
Many in Congress understand that there’s a significant threat coming from China. Yet, Kendall has to continue to argue that the aging fleets are “consuming precious resources we do need for modernization.” No other country would settle for antiquated planes. Yet, the liberals would rather spend $3 trillion to fight climate change than to prepare us effectively for battle.
