Defensiebegrotingen en -problematiek, niet NL

[Mourning]

Nou, hoi laten we dan nooit meer een krijgsmacht uitzenden ... kun je de grootst mogelijke krijgsmacht veroorloven omdat je geen geld meer aan uitzending kwijt bent, belachelijk.

Regards,

Mourning

Dus uitzenden om het uitzenden. We hebben een krijgsmacht om uit te zenden dus dan zullen ze gaan ook. Waarheen dondert niet..... als ze maar gaan. Het enige belachelijke is het feit dat de grote jongens nu op hun platte ... gaan door de oorlogsgeilheid van hun politieke leiders.

Wat een met alle respect gelul! Het gaat niet om het uitzenden om het uitzenden, waar heb ik dergelijke onzin geschreven? "Oorlogsgeilheid" van onze politieke leiders? Nou dan vindt jij ze wel heel snel "oorlogsgeil".

Maar ja, inderdaad laten we onze strijdkrachten alleen nog maar voor de territoriale verdediging gebruiken en andere onze belangen als die bedreigt worden laten opknappen, daar hebben we al eerder ervaring mee opgedaan (en wat ging dat toch lekker), als we het toch in het extreme gaan trekken.

Regards,

Mourning

[Ros]

Nou, hoi laten we dan nooit meer een krijgsmacht uitzenden ... kun je de grootst mogelijke krijgsmacht veroorloven omdat je geen geld meer aan uitzending kwijt bent, belachelijk.

Regards,

Mourning

Dus uitzenden om het uitzenden. We hebben een krijgsmacht om uit te zenden dus dan zullen ze gaan ook. Waarheen dondert niet..... als ze maar gaan. Het enige belachelijke is het feit dat de grote jongens nu op hun platte ... gaan door de oorlogsgeilheid van hun politieke leiders.

[Northside]

Dat zijn me toch bedragen... hoe kan een land dat voor een periode van meerdere jaren opbrengen zonder failliet te gaan?

[Northside]

Nou, hoi laten we dan nooit meer een krijgsmacht uitzenden ... kun je de grootst mogelijke krijgsmacht veroorloven omdat je geen geld meer aan uitzending kwijt bent, belachelijk.

Regards,

Mourning

Je kan je natuurlijk afvragen of de kosten wel tegen de baten opwegen. Stabiliteit in een ver-weg land waar je verder weinig aan hebt of je marine op zee in plaats van in de mottenballen...

[Lex]

Big Budget, Big Questions Await U.S. Lawmakers

By WILLIAM MATTHEWS , DEFENSE NEWS
Posted 01/02/07 12:31 

With defense spending at historic highs, 2007 promises to be a good year for defense companies but a tough one for the new Democratic-controlled Congress.
The United States will spend about $633 billion on its military during 2007: $463 billion in the regular defense budget and $170 billion in appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The regular budget includes $83 billion for buying weapons and $74 billion for research and development. Congress has already approved spending $24 billion to repair and replace Army and Marine Corps equipment damaged in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that number could easily double when the Pentagon sends its second 2007 emergency funding request to Congress next month.
But Democrats, who take control of the House and Senate on Jan. 4, have vowed to keep a much sharper eye on defense spending than their Republican colleagues did during the first six years of George W. Bush's presidency.
Not that they plan to cut defense spending, necessarily, but Democrats are widely expected to favor troops over spending on high-priced weapons. And the burgeoning defense budget — it has nearly doubled during Bush's tenure — is driving up the federal deficit, which Democrats have pledged to reduce, and competing with other government concerns that Democrats are inclined to favor, such as education, health care and the fast approaching retirement of the baby boom generation.
"The issue of tradeoffs between guns and butter and taxes may well be forced onto the congressional agenda very early in the new [legislative] session," said Steven Daggett, a national defense analyst at the Congressional Research Service.
But that debate will affect the 2008 budget. Except for an expected $100 billion in emergency war funding, 2007 spending is already set, and for defense companies, the figures look good.
"Procurement funding and research and development are going up," said Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis. And at least 20 percent of the emergency supplemental will go toward procurement, he said.
That may benefit most companies that can supply the Army and Marine Corps with gear ranging from armored vehicles and helicopters to bullets and boots.
The future looks less certain for more high-tech and high-priced weapons such as the Joint Strike Fighter and the Army's Future Combat Systems.
"People are concerned about the long-term prospects for modernization," Kosiak said.
Hoped-for spending increases of 30 percent over the next five years for those systems may not occur, he said.
To Supplement or Not?
For lawmakers, 2007 looks like a difficult year. They will immediately confront an assortment of challenging budget issues.
One of the first will be whether the 2008 war costs are included in the regular 2008 defense budget.
Last fall, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., requiring Bush to include war costs in the regular defense budget, but in a signing statement, President Bush objected to the requirement.
In a Dec. 21 letter to the president, leaders of the House and Senate Budget committees urged Bush to comply and end the "ever expanding 'shadow budget' of supplementals and bridge funds."
Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., wrote that the president's way of funding the wars "has skewed deficit projections, minimized the rational tradeoffs in the budget and obscured oversight of war costs."
Gregg is outgoing chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Conrad is his replacement, and Spratt is incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee.
In addition to the 2008 war funding issue, lawmakers will confront the 2008 defense budget — $490 billion or more. At about the same time, they will receive the 2007 emergency supplemental request — about $100 billion. Both are scheduled to be delivered to Capitol Hill during the first week of February.
Supplemental Mystery
If it's as big as expected, the supplemental would bring spending on the wars in 2007 to $170 billion. That would be 45 percent more than the war cost in 2006, and that presents Congress with a dilemma, according to Amy Belasco of the Congressional Research Service.
"If troop levels remain at roughly current levels, it is not clear why the 2007 supplemental should be larger than funding in 2006," Belasco said in a Dec. 20 report to lawmakers. War costs in 2006 were under $120 billion.
The cost increase is all the more perplexing if, as many hope, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq decreases during 2007. Costs would decrease by $11 billion if 25,000 troops were withdrawn, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
On the other hand, Belasco noted, a temporary surge in the number of troops in Iraq would push costs up "by several billion." That still wouldn't explain the $50 billion-plus increase contained in a $100 billion emergency supplemental.
In December, the president finally sided with lawmakers from both parties in Congress, and his own senior appointees at the Pentagon, and endorsed increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
Congress will have to decide questions of how big and at what cost. The Army estimates it costs $1.2 billion annually for every 10,000 additional soldiers.
Other issues await lawmakers, according to the Congressional Research Service. They include:
• Resetting the Army. Army leaders say they will need $12 billion a year for the rest of the Iraq war and for two or three years after to replace damaged equipment.
• FCS. The Army's futuristic combat systems program has ballooned to $160 billion, up from $91 billion in just three years. FCS is considered a high risk program because many of its key technologies exist today only as concepts. Even the Army is considering slowing the program because of other costs.
• Shipbuilding. The Navy's 30-year plan does not buy enough ships to maintain a 313-ship fleet, and naval experts question whether even that plan is affordable.
• Aircraft. At $276 billion for 2,458 planes, the Joint Strike Fighter, renamed Lightning II, is the largest aircraft program ever, but additional costs and production delays loom. Lawmakers will also have to keep an eye on Air Force plans to buy a new aerial refueling tanker and may have to referee a squabble between the Army and the Air Force over the Joint Cargo Aircraft program. •

[Lex]

Nou, hoi laten we dan nooit meer een krijgsmacht uitzenden ... kun je de grootst mogelijke krijgsmacht veroorloven omdat je geen geld meer aan uitzending kwijt bent, belachelijk.

Dit probleem treft niet alleen het Verenigd Koninkrijk, maar ook de USA ondervindt problemen met de aankomende Defensie bergroting(en).
Nadere berichtgeving hieromtrent zal door mij in een nieuwe posting :"Defensie Nieuws Internationaal" geplaatst worden.

[Mourning]

Nou, hoi laten we dan nooit meer een krijgsmacht uitzenden ... kun je de grootst mogelijke krijgsmacht veroorloven omdat je geen geld meer aan uitzending kwijt bent, belachelijk.

Regards,

Mourning

[ronjhe]

Tja, het laat maar weer zien wat voor grote negatieve impact de aanval op Irak heeft. Een zeer kostbare blunder wat mij betreft.

[Northside]

In Nederland worden de kosten voor een uitzending toch deels gedekt door het ministerie van buitenlandse zaken en van ontwikkelingshulp-gelden? Ik weet niet precies hoe en wat...

[Mourning]

Ik vind het uberhaupt raar dat de kosten voor een uitzending niet uit een algemene rijkspot komen.

[Northside]

"The cost overruns on procurement are exacerbated by the Treasury's refusal to refund the costs of training for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and up to 40% of the cost of actual operations."

Klinkt lekker, straks krijg je de situatie dat defensie gewoon weigert te gaan als de politiek dat wenst als er niet eerst betaald wordt. Een soort verkapte staking...

[KapiteinRob]

HALF of the Royal Navy is to be "mothballed" as it bears the brunt of cuts imposed after a series of expensive procurement projects and the hidden costs of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Six destroyers and frigates and two other vessels are expected to be put into reduced readiness, known as mothballing, to achieve urgent savings of more than £250m. It can take up to 18 months to bring mothballed ships back into service. The armed forces have been told to save more than £250m this year, and £1 billion by April 2008, amid a "rebalancing" of the Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) spending plans, defence sources disclosed.

The MoD will also cancel the last two of the eight Type-45 destroyers the navy was supposed to get. The navy was promised the government would provide these in exchange for cutting 15 major ships in 2004, sources said.

Julian Lewis, the Tories' defence spokesman, said the fresh cuts were "absolutely devastating stuff" and that cutting the number of Type-45 destroyers would be "catastrophic". "You can't have a navy without ships. This government is absolutely hellbent on the destruction of the Royal Navy," said Lewis. Admiral Sir Alan West, the then first sea lord, has said he only accepted the cuts in return for the "jam tomorrow" of the eight Type-45 destroyers and two large new aircraft carriers he was promised. Adam Ingram, minister of state for the armed forces, admitted this month that 13 of the Royal Navy's 44 main vessels were already in mothballs to save cash. A total of 13 were at sea, and a further 18 in port and ready to go to sea at any time. But the decision to mothball another eight ships will mean that 21 of the 44 are not available. Ingram refused to say which ships were out of action, admitting that this would "enable deductions to be made that could be prejudicial to national security". Measures to save money that are already under way include a review of the Royal Navy's three main remaining bases at Plymouth, Faslane and Portsmouth. At the height of its power in the 19th century, the Royal Navy was as large as the seven next biggest navies combined. Even as the US and German navies grew at the start of the 20th century, it remained twice as large as its nearest rival. But the 2004 cuts reduced it to its smallest since before Trafalgar in 1805, and there are suggestions it now needs only two major bases. The decision last month to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent, based at Faslane, saved the Scottish base and made Portsmouth the favourite for closure.

Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South, said the cuts were "as potentially damaging as the (then defence secretary, Sir John) Nott cuts of the early 1980s, which preceded the Falklands conflict. Closing the Portsmouth dockyard, the most important of the bases, would be an historic mistake. This government keeps cutting back on equipment without cutting back on commitments. It is putting more on crews and undermining the navy." The problems with the defence budget are largely caused by cost overruns in procurement projects such as the RAF's Eurofighter Typhoon, the Bowman communications system, and the Navy's Astute submarine and Type-45 destroyer programmes. The Eurofighter Typhoon programme costs about £1 billion a year, which will rise in the next financial year to £1.3 billion. The other major programme costs are: the Type-45 destroyer £600m, Bowman £545m and Astute £415m.

The cost overruns on procurement are exacerbated by the Treasury's refusal to refund the costs of training for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and up to 40% of the cost of actual operations. The Treasury claims to meet the full cost. The MoD said it was not prepared to provide details of internal government budget discussions but it did not expect to see an overspend in this financial year and no budget had been set for next year.

Bron: DAILY COLLECTION OF MARITIME PRESS CLIPPINGS 2007 – 002

[KapiteinRob]

Ik ga die discussie (hier) (nog?) niet aan; je begrijpt vast wat ik met mijn reactie bedoelde.....

[ronjhe]

Tja, hoeveel voorbeelden denk je dat ik kan aandragen van een heel scala landen dat in mijn ogen geld over de balk gooit, waaronder ons volprezen kikkerlandje, terwijl er opa's en oma's liggen weg te kwijnen met hun zessen op een kamer, met hooguit een douchedag per week en ga zo maar door. Maar dat is offtopic, dus acht ik het verstandig deze gedachtes niet (verder) in dit topic te bespreken......

Als die landen ook beweren god's given country, de grote voorbeeld democratie te zijn van de wereld, illegale oorlogen te beginnen en zij meer aan defensie uitgeven dan laten we zeggen de NAVO-norm (en dan hebben we het alleen over de reguliere defensiebegroting), dan mag je die voorbeelden best, ok elders dan , geven hoor Kapitein Rob...

[KapiteinRob]

tja..hoeveel mensen leven in de States ook al weer onder de armoedegrens en hebben geen ziektekostenverzekering? tja..ik moet er steeds aan denken als ik dit soort enorme bedragen lees...

Tja, hoeveel voorbeelden denk je dat ik kan aandragen van een heel scala landen dat in mijn ogen geld over de balk gooit, waaronder ons volprezen kikkerlandje, terwijl er opa's en oma's liggen weg te kwijnen met hun zessen op een kamer, met hooguit een douchedag per week en ga zo maar door. Maar dat is offtopic, dus acht ik het verstandig deze gedachtes niet (verder) in dit topic te bespreken......