I have a rundown of a list of my friends and associates around the country and something quickly jumps out. A large percentage of the group residing in the old Confederacy states (especially Virginia) is prepared to the max, and I mean the super max. Most have me beat by a long shot because they are ranchers or farmers and have the space, the land mass, to get the personal security job done right. And get it done they have.
I have written that heading to a remote location is not doable for most because most Americans do not possesses the skill set of my Virginia-based rancher and farmer friends. And Dick Young is in the same boat. I want to live on my island and have been addressing my weaknesses to the best of my ability. And there are, as I have written, a handful of benefits to my island base, including a powerful, at-hand military presence, an inability for big city hordes to get to the island, and docking facilities and airfields for receiving needed food and other necessities of life. Conversely, my northern friends and associates are almost to a one totally exposed, unprepared, and fully vulnerable. Also not surprising, many look at my views with a fish eye. To some extent this is because most are in no shape at all to improve their security positions much. Yikes! How are you set?
My friend’s preparation in VA:
 
 
 
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Last week on the Helen Glover Show, I laid out three steps to get Rhode Island back on track: 1) reduce the 7.5% expected rate of return on the state’s pension plan, 2) become a right-to-work state to protect Rhode Islanders from being forced to pay expensive union dues, and 3) eliminate the state’s income tax.
In the past, regarding Rhode Island’s pension problems, I’ve been a pretty harsh critic of General Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s reform plans. Since then, she’s received national attention and a nice write-up by Time. She has put more time on the clock for Rhode Island to sort out its pension mess, and she deserves the credit she’s receiving. But my focus is on the pension numbers, not politics. The treasurer has made as much progress as she could politically, and that’s good. But a 7.5% expected rate of return on pension fund assets will cause the state’s unfunded liability to continue to expand each year that assumption is not met. Taxpayers will be on the hook to bridge the gap—states can’t print the money. But with taxpayers tapped out, benefits will have to be cut, most likely on a means-based scale.
Pensions invest as a balanced mutual fund does—in stocks and bonds. Today, the dividend yield on the Dow is 2.5%, and the five-year Treasury bond yield is 0.72%. A 50-50 split would yield 1.62%. That’s what I would consider a reasonable “assumed” rate of return. Some will cry that I’m forgetting about price appreciation. Well, I’d point out that prices over the last 10 years have been pretty much flat. And I’m also not interested in selling stock to some sucker for a higher price. If—and that’s a big if—there’s appreciation, I’d save it for a rainy day.
I’m even more conservative than the Mercatus Center, which crunched the numbers with long-term Treasuries yielding around 3%. Before Raimondo’s reform, Mercatus blew the unfunded liability out of the water. My numbers would almost double theirs. So Gina Raimondo, though she deserves credit, needs to keep the reform going, because this issue has certainly not left the state.
Rhode Islanders’ Right to Work
Rhode Island should be focused on becoming a right-to-work state. Instead, politicians are worrying about losing casino revenue to Massachusetts. You can see the rust falling off of Indiana, which is now the 23rd right-to-work state and first in the rust belt. The right to work is the WD-40. Rhode Island would be a job hub if it became right-to-work. Imagine how it would compare to the region—all forced-union states: New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine? Where do you think local manufacturers would invest in new business? Rhode Island could be the Hong Kong of New England.
Eliminate the Income Tax
Oklahoma is a state that has seen the benefits of being right-to-work and is moving towards becoming tax free. As Phil Kerpen at National Review Online writes in “Oklahoma Leads on Income-Tax Repeal”:
The record is clear. Over the past decade, non-income-tax states have seen 59 percent economic growth, versus just 38 percent for high-income-tax states. Job growth has been 4.7 percent in the non-income-tax states, while high-income-tax states actually lost 2.9 percent of their jobs. Population growth is the same story, up 12.3 percent in the non-income-tax states and just 3.8 percent in the high-income-tax states. Perhaps most interestingly, non-income-tax states are seeing more rapid growth in state and local tax revenue, as the high-income-tax states are undermining economic performance and, as a consequence, depressing revenues.
This would be a shot in the arm to small business owners who pay taxes at their individual rate as a Subchapter S corporation.
A Barbell Solution
Another workable solution for Rhode Island’s economy is what I refer to as a barbell strategy. On one end of the barbell are the children and young adults, and on the other end are the retirees. Both of these demographics are fleeing Rhode Island, taking their money and their potential with them. Parents of young children want a good education for their kids, and young graduates want employment. What is Rhode Island offering them that they can’t get more of somewhere else? Retirees worry about outliving their money and will move to keep more of it in their pockets. Why settle down for your golden years in a state that sees you simply as a revenue stream?
There’s no reason why Rhode Island can’t follow New Orleans on reforming education. After Katrina, New Orleans became the number one charter-school zone in the country, with 80% of its students enrolled, and the city is pushing for 100% by next year. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wants the entire state to follow New Orleans’s lead. Rather than waste its money on ineffective and bureaucratic public schools, Rhode Island could help towns fund charter schools that do a better job and leave no pension debt behind for taxpayers to clean up. And teacher tenure would be merit based, eliminating the current bureaucratic bloat that rewards teachers based on seniority, not proficiency.
To keep retirees in the state, Rhode Island lawmakers ought to get rid of the estate tax. Who wants to pay to die in Rhode Island when they can do it for free in Florida? Also, get rid of the tax on social security and pension income so retirees don’t move away the minute they stop working. Retirees have access to disposable income they have been saving all their lives to spend on fun after retirement. The state needs that type of spending to support galleries in Providence, restaurants in Newport, and charter fishing trips along the coast. This barbell strategy could help right away and would give a significant boost to Rhode Island’s economy.
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We have continuously been critics of the sustained war in Afghanistan. After the first phase of the invasion, al Qaeda had left the country, and the U.S. military quickly lost its purpose there. With the U.S. government under President Barack Obama planning to leave Afghanistan completely by 2014, it would appear that not much has been accomplished in the country, and not much will be accomplished. Counter to the theme being pressed by government officials at all levels, progress in Afghanistan has been nearly nonexistent.
A BBC News report details a secret NATO document pointing to rampant collusion between the Afghan security forces that the U.S. has been training, equipping, and bankrolling, and the Taliban forces that have been killing American servicemen. The BBC report indicates that the Taliban are controlled mainly by the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence services. In case you hadn’t heard, the U.S. has been giving billions of dollars to Pakistan during the last decade to help the country fight terrorism, not aid it.
The BBC writes of the NATO report that “the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.”
And in the report it says, “Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption.”
The general call of distress was echoed this week by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis. In a shocking article published by Armed Forces Journal titled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan,” Davis describes a dismal scene on the ground in Afghanistan. He says of the allied effort in Afghanistan, “I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.”
His assessment of conditions in the war zone is bleak. For instance, he writes of how “insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.”
But worst of all, his report echoes one that leaked to the BBC from NATO. The Afghanis are colluding with the Taliban against the U.S. forces. The people American leaders claim the military is protecting are in fact their enemies. Davis writes, “I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency.” He goes on to say that “Already all across [Kunar] [many elements of] the security forces have made deals with the Taliban. [The Afghan National Security Force] won’t shoot at the Taliban, and the Taliban won’t shoot them.”
The American military and U.S. taxpayers have been training and equipping the ANSF, which now is colluding with the enemy to kill U.S. servicemen. What is the long-term plan for success here?
Davis cites two reports that Americans are being fed a line of bull from the government. He quotes the Afghan NGO Security Office as saying that allied leadership’s propaganda statements regarding the war are “sharply divergent from IMF [international military forces, NGO-speak for ISAF] ‘strategic communication’ messages suggesting improvements. We encourage [nongovernment organization personnel] to recognize that no matter how authoritative the source of any such claim, messages of the nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation for those who live and work here.”
He goes on to cite Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who wrote, “Since June 2010, the unclassified reporting the U.S. does provide has steadily shrunk in content, effectively ‘spinning’ the road to victory by eliminating content that illustrates the full scale of the challenges ahead. They also, however, were driven by political decisions to ignore or understate Taliban and insurgent gains from 2002 to 2009, to ignore the problems caused by weak and corrupt Afghan governance, to understate the risks posed by sanctuaries in Pakistan, and to ‘spin’ the value of tactical ISAF victories while ignoring the steady growth of Taliban influence and control.”
Commentator Pat Buchanan responds to imminent failure of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan in his post Ron Paul: Reactionary or Visionary by citing the reality of the larger U.S. strategy of world policing. Buchanan writes that “the United States, facing its fourth consecutive trillion-dollar deficit, can no longer afford to sustain all its alliance commitments, some of which we made 50 years ago during a Cold War that ended two decades ago, in a world that no longer exists.”
Buchanan expects a future war between China and Russia, and says the U.S. ought to tell both nations that we won’t be back in Asia anytime soon. In regards to Europe, Buchanan writes, “The Europeans are freeloading, as they have been for years, preserving their welfare states, skimping on defense and letting Uncle Sam carry the hod.”
Read about a strategy for the future of U.S. military operations right here on Friday.
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The Gerald R. Ford-class will continue the legacy of U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ship platforms. Enhancements being incorporated into the design include flight deck changes, improved weapons handling systems, and a redesigned island, all resulting in increased aircraft sortie rates. It will also include a new nuclear power plant; increased electrical power generation capacity; allowance for future technologies; and reduced workload for the sailors, translating to a smaller crew and lower operating costs for the Navy.
Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the Navy’s first aircraft carrier to be completely designed using a 3-dimensional product model.
The overall design of the ship provides the Navy a more capable ship with reduced weight to allow for future technology insertion, increased sortie generation capability, 2.5 times more electrical power and reduced cost.
The Gerald R. Ford class-aircraft carriers have been redesigned from the Nimitz class. They have the same hull lines and the same number of decks as a Nimitz-class carrier, but the footprint of the general arrangement has been totally rearranged to accommodate a new technology and meet all of the Navy’s operational requirements.
Galleys – There are five galleys on Nimitz-class carriers and two on CVN 78. The Strike Group Commander and the Ship’s Commanding Officer have separate galleys on both ships.
Weapons Elevators – The weapons elevators have been redesigned to reduce maintenance and repair costs and provide a design which improves the carrier’s mission capability. Nimitz class weapons elevators are wire rope hoist type elevators driven by electric motors with hydraulically driven doors. CVN 78 is an electromagnetic hoist system with no wire ropes and the doors are driven by electric actuators. Hydraulics have been eliminated and wire ropes have been eliminated.
Manning – The CVN 78 will cost less to operate over its 50-year life because it will require less people to operate and maintain the ship. The ship manpower reduction goal is between 500-1200 billets less than a Nimitz-class ship. The overall manpower savings to the Navy is expected to be approximately $5.0B over its 50-year life.
Flexible Infrastructure – The CVN 78 design incorporates a “flexible infrastructure” which is a major distinction between CVN 78 and the Nimitz-class carriers. Select ship spaces will be outfitted with track on the deck, bulkheads and in the overheads for items such as speakers, lights, electrical receptacles and monitors, so that no matter where the Navy in the future wants to locate consoles and cabinets, the space will accommodate it. Ventilation and wire ways will be run underneath a false deck so that where ever you need ventilation you can reconfigure the space to accommodate changing technology. These spaces will save the Navy significant costs over the life of a ship as new missions require space reconfiguration.
Source: Newport News Ship Builders
Future of Aircraft Carriers
The Gerald R. Ford class is the future aircraft carrier replacement class for USS Enterprise and CVN 68, or Nimitz class aircraft carriers. Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) was ordered from Newport News Shipbuilding on Sept. 10, 2008, and is scheduled to be delivered in 2015. The Gerald R. Ford class will be the premier forward asset for crisis response and early decisive striking power in a major combat operation. Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers and carrier strike groups will provide the core capabilities of forward presence, deterrence, sea control, power projection, maritime security and humanitarian assistance. The class brings improved warfighting capability, quality of life improvements for our Sailors and reduced acquisition and life cycle costs.
Each ship in the new class will save more than $5 billion in total ownership costs during its 50-year service life, compared to the Nimitz-class. For comparison, the total ownership cost for a Nimitz-class ship is $32.1 billion in FY 04 constant year dollars, and the total ownership cost for CVN 78 is expected to be $26.8 billion. Half of the total ownership cost for an aircraft carrier is allocated to the direct and indirect costs of manpower for operations and maintenance of the ship. The CVN 78 is being designed to operate effectively with nearly 800 fewer crew members than a CVN 68-class ship. Improvements in the ship design will allow the embarked air wing to operate with 400 fewer personnel. Technologies and ship design initiatives that replace maintenance-intensive systems with low maintenance systems are expected to reduce watch standing and maintenance workload for the crew. Gerald R. Ford is the first aircraft carrier designed with all electric utilities, eliminating steam service lines from the ship, reducing maintenance requirements and improving corrosion control efforts. The new A1B reactor (Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation is the contracted designer), Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) and Dual Band Radar (DBR) all offer enhanced capability with reduced manning requirements. The Gerald R. Ford class is designed to maximize the striking power of the embarked carrier air wing. The ship’s systems and configuration are optimized to maximize the sortie generation rate (SGR) of attached strike aircraft, resulting in a 25 percent increase in SGR over the Nimitz class. The ship’s configuration and electrical generating plant are designed to accommodate any foreseeable requirements during its 50- year service life. The Gerald R. Ford class builds upon the Navy’s legacy of aircraft carrier innovation stretching back to the first aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV-1) and continuing to the present day. The introduction of jet aircraft, angled decks and nuclear power were all innovations that kept the fleet relevant for Cold War needs. Gerald R. Ford continues the aircraft carrier history of innovation and adapatability that will enable her to serve our country for decades to come. Source: Navy.mil
The United States maintains a massive navy, with capabilities far surpassing all other nations combined. The aging fleets of Russia and China pose little risk to the contiguous United States. It makes one wonder why such a large full-time ground based military is necessary for the United States, especially when much of it is based overseas. America can protect itself using increased naval power, drones, and Special Forces, while drawing down conventional land forces that all-too-often are used for nation building purposes they were never meant for in the first place.—The Editors
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 We have argued on these pages that the War on Terror should be prosecuted using a mixture of drones and Special Forces strikes based on intelligence. It would seem that the military is being pushed to this inevitable conclusion whether they like it or not. The reality of large nation-building forces and the expense of paying for them is sinking in. Military planners at the Pentagon are having the decision to move to a less expensive, more mobile force made for them by simple mathematics.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta explained the new strategy by saying, “In this budget environment, we simply cannot—we simply cannot sustain the infrastructure that is beyond our needs or ability to maintain.” Panetta went on to highlight the role unconventional forces like special operators will play in the future of the military, saying, “This [strategy] requires that we have the capability to defeat the enemy across a broad horizon of different conflicts. And the budget leverages, as a result of that, new concepts of operations and advances in space, cyberspace, special operations, long-range precision strike capabilities and other capabilities as well to ensure that we can still confront and defeat multiple adversaries.”
But there is no cause for alarm. Smaller, more agile ground forces can be just as successful as larger ones. On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operation Michael Sheehan, a former infantryman and Special Forces soldier, and former deputy commissioner for counterterrorism at the NYPD, told a symposium that “[U.S. forces] actually responded very, very effectively to crush al-Qaeda immediately after 9/11 and continually for the last 10 years.” He added that what was vital to that success “was several hundred [special operations forces] operators working side by side with the CIA and supported by the United States Air Force.”
The capabilities necessary for fighting the War on Terror should not be confused with those necessary for nation-building counterinsurgency operations. The War on Terror is not a battle for the hearts and minds of our enemies. It’s a race to kill them before they kill us.
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