Thank you for your service, while your here.

Retired Admiral Mike Mullen has noted that the servimen killed in action are quickly forgotten by his countrymen and women.  I cannot say I disagree with him, but we generally tend to forget all our dead.  I will be going to a memorial service for a relative gone several years now.  He was close and is in my memory often.  Others, it's harder, that's why we have memorial services, not to mention Memorial day.  Like most American holidays, Memorial Day is now just another have fun day.

I applaud the Admiral, to a point.  Granted, fellow feeling for those who follow your trade is natural, but the lads and some lasses who lose their lives in war are a bit different from cousin Sid who died of an infected paper cut suffered in his cubicle as he was struggling to get out the monthly cafeteria usage report.

Our forces overseas are either the first line of defense in a vital world historic conflict, or their lives are being wantonly put at risk.  A short perusal of the Neutralist should leave no one to wonder long where we stand.

According to the Admiral,

"When you get to these wars, I worry that America has paid us very well, the compensation's good, [so the culture says] 'please go off and fight our dirty little wars and let us get on with our lives,'" he said. "We need to figure a way to get America to buy into those, into them."

Interesting words.  Yeah, the people like to be vaguely reminded someone is out there, so you have fine organizations like Fisher House and, after some recent media exposure, lesser outfits like Wounded Warrior.  So, does he have any ideas?  If he wants to drag the citizenry through the hospitals, maybe clean a bedpan or two, support for the war will last for nanoseconds.  It is only the detachment from reality keeps it from being unpalatable.

Another paragraph and quote struck us as a bit weird,

He proposed some sort of universal national service program (although not a draft), perhaps two years of service for all people between the age of 18 and 24, to bridge the gap between the military and the civilian communities.

"The military becoming more and more isolated from the American people is a disaster for America," Mullen said.

Now how is putting the kids in some non-draft situation going to bridge the gap?  

Actually, The Neutralist may be the only one in the country who finds such proposals bizarre.  It seems mandatory community service requirements in high schools and colleges can only make the students cynical.  Even the slow student gets that forcing someone to do good does not make them good.

He singles out The Northeast for special treatment.

The problem is worse in the Northeast than other regions. "The people in the Northeast don't know us anymore, for example," Mullen said, given that the Base Realignment and Closure process has led to the closure of so many military installations in the region.

Now as someone who has lived here all my life, except for an inglorious period as a soldier, to a degree I believe him correct.  The political class is not enamored of  the military and does not enlist.  The base closures have been many and without people with jobs at the bases, there is less paycheck loyalty.

For all that there is a pervasive support the troops sentiment.  Hardly a professional sports event happens without remembering the troops.  Of course, there has been some substitution of Marathon Bombing memorialization  the closer one gets to Boston.  ROTC may not be big at Harvard or Yale, but many of the private and state colleges offer it.

The national service idea is not without supporters regionally.  In the upper reaches of academia and commerce, they see their kids teaching the benighted and closing some gap, while the lower orders have the grunt jobs.  Another reason to oppose it.

We have addressed this in other posts, but what kind of military does the Neutralist envision?  Ideally, we would wish everyone would rush to the colors and serve long term in the reserves.  I expect to be signed as a pitcher by the Red Sox before that happens.

Next idea?  The Neutralist wants a miltary that can defend the country, but not be tempted to foreign adventures.  Obviously, that is not a large standing army.

We are not optimists, but there is a system that is an effective fighting force and does not go abroad to save the world or markets.  That would be Switzerland.

Now this can work only if everyone goes.  As soon as war comes, the senator and rep, not to mention their staff head as well as the college president and ceo move out to their units.

The training of the new soldiers would mean everyone at age of induction goes to learn together the joys of low crawling.  The professors kid mixes with the lower orders.  He may find a few Billy Bobs from south of the Mason-Dixon who can outsmart him*.  Also, he can get to meet the inner city youth he has shed tears of blood over while personally avoiding.  Sexual orientation, who cares?  In basic, it should be all training all the time such that if someone still has energy to get into another bunk, they've probably earned it.

The grand establishment that is the military will no longer exist.  We won't need Pxs, Golf courses, enlisted clubs and all the paraphernalia that bribes people into long service.

It won't be fun, and like the Swiss, as everyone goes, the people will not tolerate frivoulous deployments to save the world or bring democracy or something.

I know this has no chance of happening.

*Be assured, there is no one of this class who thinks anyone outside it his or her equal.

All must have prizes-women can kill!

Women are now to be allowed in the front lines.  the belief in absolute equality has reached the reductio ad absurdam.

I commend the article "Women in Combat" by Stephen Browne.  I disagree with him in some matters and he is certainly not a neutralist.  His article is a concise examination of the question.

He points out women have served well in places, amongst other duties as Soviet snipers.  I don't know if he is aware of the "Night Witches" an amazing group of flyers who terrorized the Wehrmacht.  These lasses beat the Germans in biplanes.  The Neutralist does not believe in equality, but hardly denies that the heroism and effectiveness of, as the Brits say, horses for courses.

The Neutralist sees this integration as part of the gender spoils system.  As such, it will not enhance military power.  A degradation will ensue.

One might say, the Neutralist would be encouraged by such a development.  It can only hasten the day when the imperialist absurdity crashes.  We don't.  The crash due to our forces deteriorating can only be horrible.

note:  I first became aware of Mr. Browne reading his article on the Saudis.  Maybe his writing is a lie, but it sounds logical, if not brilliant, to me.  I thank him for saving me the necessity of a trip to KSA.

Over at the Global Economic Anaysis blog, as usual, Mish is talking sense. As usual, no one is going to listen.

Mish Shedlock has an analysis of Ryan and Romney's fiscal and defense delusions.


When I was a boy, and TV was new, there was a perfume commercial that has stayed in my mind.  The words went, “Promise her anything, but give here Arpege.”  Change only the last word in that ad, and you have the Republican policy.  The only problem is that last word.  I was thinking that the Neutralist might have resort to  a word that should be avoided in polite company.  We have settled on mush.  Suffice it to say the Republicans are promising stuff they can’t deliver.

You remember the old headline from the Boston Globe, “Mush from the Wimp” to describe some policy of the hapless Carter administration.  Okay, maybe you don’t.  Lucky you.  For the purpose of this discussion, let us settle on a definition of Mush as some rearrangement, but no real change.  That Mr. Ryan is being villified as a scrooge is what might be expected from the Dems, but, not much will change.

The two paragraphs from Mish below say it all,

Mr. Ryan (R., Wis.), who heads the House Budget Committee, said his plan would put the U.S. on a sound economic path by spending $5.3 trillion less than Mr. Obama recommends over 10 years, resulting in a budget deficit that would be $3.3 trillion narrower.
Let's pause right there for a second. The deficit is about $1.4 trillion. If the US lapses back into a recession at any time, (something I think is highly likely) it will worsen. Cutting $5.3 trillion over 10 years, is $530 billion a year, still leaving deficit spending at $900 billion a year, not counting the odds of a recession.

Let's continue with a few more snips ...
Congressional budgets by nature lack specifics—those are provided in spending bills that come later—and this one was no different. Still, Mr. Ryan made some things clear. Most dramatically, he proposed repealing Mr. Obama's health law.

Yup, ending the healthcare law would be a dent, but even so, it would be little more than a tonsilectomy in the greater picture.  

The Neutralist is more concerned with the point Mish made about the defense budget.  House Republican budget supremo, Rep. Paul Ryan is reneging on a deal to cut $55 billion from defense.  Now this is an amount Mish accurately describes as “measly.”  We are drowning in a defense budget that is bloated enough to cause trouble in the world, but is not helping to defend the nation.

The Neutralist has not read the debate or proposals in depth.  What never seems to come up is the proper force structure of our military.  

The second part of Mish’s article is about Mitt Romney’s defense plans.  Now Mitt does have some ideas about force structure.  From what I have heard in debates and from the campaign, the Mittster’s ideas are the military needs everything and more.  Mish’s words, “When it comes to the American military, the leading Republican presidential candidates evidently only learned to add and multiply, never subtract or divide.”

The administration is planning some tiny cuts after years and years of growth.  Mitt “has staked out the “high ground” in the latest round of Republican math with a proposal to set Pentagon spending at 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That would, in fact add up to an astonishing $8.3 trillion dollars over the next decade, one-third more than current, already bloated Pentagon plans” according to Mish’s article.

This will certainly allay the fears of management at Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing who are always worried where the next meal is coming from, not.  And what will those of us who are not stockholders in defense contractors get for all this largesse? Taxes and/or deficits one would guess.

Missle defense against the non-existent Korean threat, big winner.  Nine to fifteen more ships for the navy each year.  Sadly, what Mitt and just about everyone seems to forget, the naval threat to homeland ended in 1942 at Midway.  There has been no carrier fleet since then that could challenge ours.  The Soviets built a credible submarine force, but it probably was not enough against all our ships and subs, though themissles might have burnt some cities.  So, just what are we defending against?

Again, the question is, what is the proper defense structure to defend the United States, as opposed to projecting power everywhere simultaneouly?  Calling Obama weak just because he does not throw money at the military is absurd.

Mish posits that the result of the Romney spending orgy will be two wars,

1.  A war with Iran
2  A trade war with China.

This spending should forestall an invasion from either entity.

I consider myself a low tax type of guy.  The idea that high spending and high taxes can lead to prosperity does not work.  Neither does low taxes and high spending.  Making the Pentagon an entitled welfare case in either scenario is hardly the road to fiscal sanity.

After a decade of throwing money at defense, we have little to show for it.  Some folks say the country is war weary.  Can anybody not be cynical about Romney’s campaign promises?  Whoever is Mitt’s real constituency, Mr. and Mrs. Average American, it ain’t you, Babe.

The Nature of our Army

Maybe it is not such a good idea to enlist people to fight for a cause rather than each other or "the regiment."  Disillusionment comes eventually to those who have illusions about causes.

The words of Colonel Pat Lang, of Sic Semper Tyrannis went off like a bombshell when I read them.  He had posted about Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the NCO who killed 16 Afghan civilians.

His insight is both correct and disturbing.  Bales was ten years younger upon enlistment.  Maybe he just needed a job, but as it was just after 911 so patriotic fervor might have been at work.  Ten years later, the men who came in to right the nations wrongs have to be disillusioned.  One would guess that to have stayed so long, he would have transferred his feelings for the country to his comrades, but who knows?  Analyzing the soldier is not the purpose here.

What needs to be looked at is the nature of our force and do we want a military of patriots or mercenaries?  Our army is a mixed force.  Some do join do for love of country.  Others, because some opportunity exists.  the patriot may end up a time server or the mercenary, a devoted soldier.  the truth is, the long serving man will leave if the pay benefits are not adequate.  Get rid of the pension and put a 401k in place and see the rush for the exits.

Gibbon is often mentioning the “donatives” necessary to keep the army compliant.  the Neutralist has always thought that the semi-mercenary nature of our armed forces would be a contradiction that could not be resolved.  An imperial forces, all over the globe will have to be completely mercenary even if the patriotic fig leaf persists for a while.  You don’t really want zealots for what is just a job.
That is, if we don’t go bankrupt first.

The Neutralist has written before about our belief in the best force structure.  In the current political climate, it cannot happen.  We will never see a hair out of place on one of the Romney boys.