Defense

As an officer in the U.S. Air Force, my life is dedicated to the defense of this nation and many, if not most, aspects of this blog are defense-related. I believe that we are living in the most critical time in our nation's history and believe that what we do over the next 2-3 decades will determine whether this nation will maintain its primacy in the world for the remainder of the century.

National defense is the primary and single most important duty of the government. Without a strong defense, our nation's independence and survival, and the civil and economic liberties that stem from it, are in question. One of our most important Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, stated that

"It had been said that respectability in the eyes of foreign nations was not the object at which we aimed; that the proper object of republican Government was domestic tranquility and happiness. This was an ideal distinction. No Government could give us tranquility and happiness at home, which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad."

I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, as did our ancestors. With our rise to hemispheric hegemony as a result of the Spanish-American War and global hegemony as a result of World War II, the U.S. has had its dominance challenged many times, most recently by the Soviet Union. However, after its fall the U.S. became complacent and our politicians became obsessed with dividing up the "peace dividend" at the expense of our military might. With the increasing strength of radical Islam and its continued attacks upon the West, the rapid rise of China following the reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, and the growth of regional blocs attempting to resist U.S. influence, our hegemony may now be in question.

Many measures, some radical, must be taken to ensure that our hegemony is never called into question again. They should be based upon the following principles:

- Technologically, our military must always be at least two generations more advanced than that of our nearest peer competitor. Many say that we should spend our money elsewhere, since we are already one generation ahead of everybody and that, as a result, nobody can touch us on the technological front. This is a false notion, because if money and research is held back for too long, our competitors will have caught up to us and instead of us being one-step ahead in the game, we'll be evenly matched. Once that happens, it becomes a constant struggle to keep up and the enemy will have many more chances to get ahead, at which point we fall behind. Once that happens, it is near impossible to catch back up, short of a miracle happening, and the odds will begin to stack against us. We must never allow ourselves to get into this situation. In the words of Robert Heinlein, "the most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment; good, but not good enough to win."

- Rapid global mobility must be the conceptual basis of all future military developments and logistical models. In order to have this, we need much greater strategic and operational airlift capabilities. Future military developments must also utilize lighter materials to minimize reliance upon sealift. For technology that is simply too heavy for airlift and requires sealift for transport, more forward operating locations and supply facilities must be distributed over the world so that such material may be stored there, thus minimizing the amount of precious time required to deploy it. Strategic chokepoints must also be heavily protected to ensure that they remain open to sea traffic.

- A large and technologically advanced Navy is the key to global hegemony in this increasingly interdependent world. Our Navy must have complete dominance in every ocean, bar none.

- Space dominance is the key to the future and the sooner we deploy space-based weapons, the more secure our hold on it will be. This includes a comprehensive missile defense system capable of defeating ballistic missiles from launch-phase to terminal, and offensive weapons platforms to defeat enemy satellites and ultra-rapid space-to-ground first-strike capabilities with conventional weapons.

- Full spectrum dominance is the great unifier; we must maintain the capability to defeat any enemy, of any persuasion, utilizing every method of warfare, on any and all battlefields.

- STILL IN WORK -