TOPICS
TOPICS
Joint Chiefs chairman says Defense budget strikes right balance
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the fiscal 2010 defense budget request on Monday as striking the right balance between conventional and unconventional war-fighting.
The detailed budget, which is expected to be sent to Capitol Hill this week with the rest of the Obama administration's fiscal 2010 spending plan, has "a level of quality, comprehensiveness and [is] strategically driven, unlike any of the ones I have worked on before," Mullen told a luncheon audience at the Navy League's annual symposium at the National Harbor convention center.
The nation's top military officer noted Defense Secretary Robert Gates' description of the fiscal 2010 budget as containing 50 percent funding for conventional war capabilities, 10 percent for irregular conflict and 40 percent for capabilities that go both ways. "What I see, as a senior military officer, is balance," Mullen said.
The first priority is to "take care of our people" and their families, added Mullen, who said the top operational priority is to "fund the wars we're in." The nation cannot send its young men and women into combat "without giving them the best equipment we can," he said.
COMMENTS
- The time is long overdue when somebody needs to relate the defense program with the actual threats we face. For decades the defense establishment has been chasing its own technological tail. It has been preparing to fight WW III and the battle of Kursk. It has been heavily victimized by the technological inflation curve on top of the basic inflation curve. The time has come to stop buying weapons that are irrelevant to the threats we face and will face for at least 25 years to come. They have been "reforming" defense acquisition for the past 40 years to little result. Perhaps the true reform is to avoid the technological inflation curve until a threat appears. Meanwhile I would focus on infantry weapons and the survival of riflemen. Don Jones Posted May 7, 2009 3:29 PM
- Wow, Dan the MIG 30. It is so new that I can't find any info on it. Even globalsecurity.org doesn't know about it. What is your source? But I understand why you are worried about Russia. After all, they spend around $50b while we are trying to get by on $623b. It is easy to see that they can easily overtake the U.S. in military capabilities. Kurt Posted May 6, 2009 3:40 PM
- Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen have chosen the correct path. The path may require occasional repairs along the way, but it is in the right direction. Bravo! Rick Posted May 6, 2009 12:35 PM
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