Observing the Republican candidates for the Republican nominees–less Ron Paul who is the only honest serious person in the bunch–has been a very troubling experience.
Indeed, Senator Santorum has been so outrageously dishonest (we know he knows this stuff) that he inspired a special YouTube slam that was rapidly circulated by attentive Ron Paul admirers. You can see that VIDEO at YouTube (2:35).
There is a great deal of substance elsewhere within this web site, for example, at Governance Fundamentals. Here we provide a very fast overview of the reality that most politicians would rather not discuss: our own worst enemy is a corrupt Congress and a corrupt Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC), the same one President and General Ike Eisenhower warned of in his departure address.
FACT: 4% of our national security force (the infantry) takes 80% of the casualties and receives 1% of the Pentagon budget.
FACT: The Pentagon is optimized for “big war” and is very ineffective at small wars, stabilization & reconstruction, and homeland defense.
FACT: The Pentagon focuses only on high-level threat to humanity #4, Inter-State Conflict, and #9, Terrorism, while depriving the government and public of funds needed to address the other eight high-level threats:
#1 Poverty
#2 Infectious Disease
#3 Environmental Degradation
#5 Civil War
#6 Genocide
#7 Other Atrocities
#8 Proliferation
#10 Transnational Crime
Review: We Meant Well – How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People
FACT: The US military has at least ten times too many Generals, Admirals, and Senior Executive Service (SES) officers. It has become a bloated palace of mirrors, what one reformist calls “Versailles on the Potomac.”
Winslow Wheeler: US Generals/Admirals Corrupt & Bloated — Panetta Reverses the Token Cuts by Gates
FACT: The US military policy system is disconnected from reality and driven by political ideology and domestic politics rather than intelligence and integrity.
Review: Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy – Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform
FACT: The US military acquisition system is completely dysfunctional, unable to design, contract for, test, and operate a complex maritime, aviation, or ground system. This is completely apart from the corrolary fact that what the military chooses to build is defined by the MICC for profit, rather than the needs of the public and the infantry.
FACT: The US military costs the public twice as much of the annual budget as the government reports. Below is a comparison of the difference.
FACT: For one third of what we spend each year on war, we could create a prosperous world at peace.
Below are just a few substantive references. The bottom line is that the only two candidates for president that understand national security and are honest in speaking to the public about it are Ron Paul and Robert Steele.
1998 Information Peacekeeping: The Purest Form of War
1998 JFQ The Asymmetric Threat: Listening to the Debate
2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making
2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security
2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008 U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century
2008: Creating a Smart Nation (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2009 Fixing the White House & National Intelligence
2009 Perhaps We Should Have Shouted: A Twenty-Year Retrospective
2011 Thinking About Revolution in the USA and Elsewhere (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
Bob Gates, Chief Maintenance Clerk, Talks Crap — and the Wall Street Journal Goes Along…
Chuck Spinney: Can USA Move Beyond 9/11 Pathology?
David Isenberg: Jim Clapper Claims Transformation — Robert Steele Comments on Each Misrepresentation
Defense Science Board to DoD: Get Brain + RECAP
DefDog: Over-Stating China – Close Down PACOM + RECAP
Marcus Aurelius: 5 Ways 9/11 Transformed US Military
Marcus Aurelius: SecDef to McCain on Sequester + RECAP on DoD Fraud, Waste, & Abuse
Newt Gingrich, Vice-President for Global Engagement–Waging Peace [Newt has since been found wanting, a replacement is being crowd-sourced, see Coalition Cabinet pages]
Obama in a Strategic & Intellectual Vacuum
Reference: CJCS & Frog 6 Strategic Guidance Side-by-Side (Each is Six Pages)
Reference: Cutting the Defense Budget + RECAP
Reference: Strategic Analytic Model for Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Robert Steele: Global Trends 2030 – Gaps + RECAP
Troops or Contractors: Loss of Defense Integrity
USA National Military Strategy 2011 + RECAP
