From time to time I am going to display these selected web page delectables from Sweet Tammys which can now be ordered by going to thir web page ( SweetTammys.com)
If you have never tasted their products you are missing the boat.
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Wednesday's Fed action should have been interpreted as the economy was weaker than desired so The Fed decided to continue Q3 and the markets should have been unhappy. However, traders and speculative investors took comfort from the fact that The Fed is going to continue to pump money into the economy and keep interest rates low and make the problem of withdrawal bigger at some future date. Had the speculators looked at the news that way the market would either have gone down modestly because the economy was strengthening and this act was already discounted by previous market moves or not done much of anything. (See edited 1 below.)
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Stratfor on German election. (See 2 below.)
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According to Rubio, Obama wants the government to shut down because he knows the unwashed will blame Republicans and he will win points.
As for 'Obamascare,' I repeat what my father always said: "If you want to rid yourself of a bad law enforce it.
Republicans are afraid to allow 'Obamascare' to be imposed because, as with most all government rules and regulations, they remain on the books forever. Nothing ever is erased in D.C only added to because Rube Goldberg is in control
My view is let Americans suffer, let unions suffer and then the unwashed can only blame Democrats who passed this monstrosity because they could not because they should.
Obama thought Republicans would cave on sequester and he was wrong. It is time Republicans learned to play hardball!
If Democrats keep serving poison leave it on the menu. Eventually, even the unwashed will want to fire the chef! (See 3 below)
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This analyst sees the Middle East imploding. This will be hastened by Obama's impending overtures to Iran and his willingness to avoid a confrontation there as well. (See 4 below.)
Those who truly read what I write and post know I have been warning about our declining naval power. I have often posted and cited articles from The Naval War College, whose foundation I contribute to and which I attended once at the invitation of the then Sec. of The Navy, warning of this.
A shrinking U.S. fleet is the perfect way for Obama to cripple America's ability to be in the game. He would rather issue more food stamps than maintain our fleet. (See 4a below.)
Dick
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| Get ready for a disaster. The warning signs are already flashing. There's a tsunami headed for the financial markets. And it may make 2014 look a lot like 2008… only worse. In 2008, the stock market cratered. The S&P 500 dropped from its high of 1,560 in October 2007 to 760 one year later – a loss of more than 50%. Lots of investors were wiped out. Retirement plans were destroyed. The damage was pervasive. I expect we'll see something similar happen next year. And while it sounds like bad news, it could be GREAT news… If you're prepared for it. You see, investors can make money during bull markets. But it's the decisions you make during bear markets that can make you rich. 2008 was the best trading year of my career. In my S&A Short Report newsletter, we had 13 trades earn 100% or more. We had an annualized total return of more than 1,700% for the year. And we did this at a time when the broad stock market was cut in half. What made the difference? We were prepared. We saw the crisis unfolding, and we had a game plan to profit from the situation. That's why I'm looking forward to next year. In 2014, I expect we'll have the same chance to profit as we did in 2008… It's why I'm doing something I've never done before. And it's too important for you to miss… I'm not trying to scare you, but we are starting to see clues that indicate the potential for the same sort of financial meltdown we experienced in 2008. Most investors didn't see the clues back then, or they ignored them altogether. Don't make that mistake this time around. Investors are going to have a tremendous opportunity to profit off the disruption I expect to happen in the financial markets. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2)Europe: What to Expect After Germany's Elections Summary
Much of Europe is eagerly anticipating the results of Germany's Sept. 22 parliamentary elections, but this anticipation may be somewhat misplaced. Of course, Germany's importance to Europe is well founded. It is Europe's largest economy and its main bailout creditor to struggling eurozone countries, so Germany's economic health is vital to the economic health of Europe as a whole. But the relationship goes both ways: Germany's economy relies on the free trade zone and on exports, which the rest of Europe can buy only if it can afford to do so. Thus any government in Berlin will continue to aid countries afflicted by the European crisis -- even at the risk of growing domestic opposition.
Analysis
Germany's economic performance is tied strongly to external developments because of the country's reliance on exports. According to Eurostat, exports were equivalent to nearly 52 percent of Germany's gross domestic product in 2012. Europe is Germany's largest customer, so the German economy depends on the strength of the European consumer base. Germany's political and economic stability largely depends on its access to foreign markets, hence its unwavering support for the eurozone and the free trade agreement within Europe.
So far, German exports have mostly survived the tumult of the European crisis. This is partly because German businesses diversified their export markets relatively successfully. Since 2007, exports to the European Union and the eurozone have declined in favor of other countries, particularly Asian countries and the United States. In fact, the United States is the second-largest destination market for German exported goods. In 2012, nearly 30 percent of all the European Union's exported goods to the United States came from Germany. Roughly 16 percent of German goods exports went to Asia, with China being Germany's fourth-largest export market.
However, Germany's economy has not escaped the crisis unscathed. Over the past few years, German economic growth has slowed. According to the International Monetary Fund, Germany's GDP grew by only 0.9 percent in 2012, down from 4 percent in 2010. In 2013, the International Monetary Fund expects the GDP to grow by only 0.3 percent. Unemployment will likely follow these contractions, and German voters will pressure Berlin to increase government spending -- something German officials have urged other countries to avoid.
Germany's Dilemma
This goes to the heart of Germany's dilemma. Strengthening domestic demand -- by raising wages, for example -- would limit its exposure to external risks, but it would also make German exports less competitive. German demand is relatively strong despite the European crisis. Relatively cheap borrowing costs have facilitated domestic consumption, as has a low unemployment rate, which stood at 5.3 percent in July 2013, according to Eurostat. This is the lowest unemployment rate since the European Union's statistical office started recording data in 1991.
Germany's stable domestic demand has helped Central and Eastern European countries in particular avoid deeper economic contractions, but Berlin is under pressure to strengthen demand even further. We expect Germany to debate how it can do so after the parliamentary elections.One option under consideration is the introduction of a minimum wage. Germany's labor costs have risen modestly over the past few economic quarters. Averaging 30 euros an hour (about $40) in 2012, they were only slightly higher than the eurozone average. The industrial sector will nonetheless oppose this measure, citing fears of losing competitiveness.
Berlin will also address its immigration issue. With an aging and declining population, Germany is searching for ways to attract foreigners who can bolster its labor force. Germany has actually seen an uptick of immigrants over the past few years due to its resilience to the crisis, but historically it has trouble retaining them. Any new government will have to introduce policies to retain immigrants while allaying fears that foreigners will abuse the national social security system.
A third priority for the new German government will be re-evaluating the country's energy strategy. Energy costs for households and companies have risen over the past few years because of the country's transition toward renewable energy. The transition has proved more expensive than expected, giving way to concerns of lost competitiveness. Considering the resources that have been committed and developments already underway, Germany cannot simply abandon the current strategy, but its targets likely will be revised and alternative options such as shale gas will be considered.
Because Germany has few domestic energy resources, the country's energy strategy is also part of its foreign policy. Infrastructure integration with other countries is important for German energy imports, as are bilateral relations with Russia, Germany's main oil and natural gas provider. Ensuring unfettered access to Russian natural gas and oil will remain a foreign policy priority, though relations with Moscow will sometimes conflict with Germany's goal of integrating Europe.
The Insignificance of Partisan Politics
How effectively Germany integrates Europe will depend largely on its willingness to aid other European countries, particularly those in the eurozone. Major German political parties probably accept the notion that Germany will have to provide further aid to struggling countries. Continued financial assistance is a crucial element in Germany's national strategy of ensuring cohesion in Europe and preserving the currency union.
Thus Germany is almost certain to continue providing funds. Berlin already has contributed considerable amounts of money to the rescue effort. The government estimates that Germany's direct liability to the European debt crisis so far is around 95 billion euros. In any case, it can afford to risk neither the outbreak of another financial crisis nor the dissolution of the eurozone. German think tank Ifo estimates that if the eurozone were to break up, and if the five countries that have received aid were to go insolvent, Germany would lose some 530 billion euros. The actual cost would likely be much higher considering the economic consequences that such a breakup would have outside the financial sector.
Notably, this does not mean Germany will suddenly change its strategy and finance far-reaching stimulus programs for troubled countries. German aid to struggling countries will still only come as a reaction to pressure from financial markets and political instability in single countries threatening the eurozone's stability.
Future German aid is likely to entail giving more time to countries that have required aid to repay their debt. Further, it could reduce the cost of such repayments and rely on the European Central Bank to intervene in bond markets if necessary.
Legal and institutional hurdles will limit Berlin's ability to be proactive in helping other countries. Even if there were general consensus among the political elite that Germany should provide aid more extensively, small opposition groups can challenge and delay assistance plans relatively easily. The German constitutional court has already had to assess the legality of German contributions to EU aid measures. (So far the court has not ruled that the efforts have violated the constitution.) Within the next year, the court will likely have to determine whether forgiving debt to crisis countries, an option under consideration for Greece, would violate the German constitution.
To ensure survival of the eurozone, Germany will also try to preserve the Franco-German alliance. Historically, European integration meant solidifying German economic strength and French political leadership, but the European crisis has strained their relationship. The pressure Berlin will face in giving in to French demands, which include allowing more government spending, mutualizing debt and changing the European Central Bank's role to accept higher inflation and to more openly intervene in sovereign bond markets, will largely depend on how strongly the economic performance of both countries diverges.
As the crisis persists and further aid measures are implemented, the challenge for Berlin will be to convince not only German voters but also smaller countries in northern Europe of the importance of participating in joint aid efforts to stave off further eurozone disintegration. These countries, which include the Netherlands, Finland and Austria, typically are skeptical of aiding afflicted countries, as is Germany.
Germany is often portrayed as the leader in Europe, the country that can define the European Union's future. There may be some truth in that portrayal, but Berlin's actions actually are guided by the strength of external demand and the need to maintain cohesion of the European Union.
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3)Rubio: Only Obama Wants to Shut Down Government
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!Republicans should do "anything and everything" to prevent the "disaster" of Obamacare, Sen. Marco Rubio tells Newsmax. But he insists it can be done without shutting down the government. The Florida Republican asserts that President Barack Obama actually wants a government shutdown to achieve a "political win," and the administration is going to fight to the bitter end to defend its healthcare reforms. Elected in 2010, Rubio is considered a rising star in the Republican Party. He delivered the GOP's response to Obama's State of the Union address in February and has been mentioned as a presidential candidate in 2016. In an exclusive interview Wednesday with Newsmax TV, Rubio discusses efforts to stop Obamacare and the possibility of a government shutdown. "Every single member of the Republican conference agrees that Obamacare should be stopped, but the disagreement is about the tactic," he says. "I'm not in favor of shutting down the government. The president appears now politically to be in favor of shutting down the government. "I'm in favor of funding the government at the levels that were agreed to last year in the Budget Control Act and not spending a single penny more of hardworking taxpayer dollars on a disaster, which is Obamacare. "Actually, the administration has admitted it's a disaster because they've had to delay major portions of it. Labor unions that strongly supported Obamacare are now asking to be exempted from it. "So we should be doing anything and everything we can to prevent this law from going into effect, because once it starts to hurt people, it's going to hurt our economy in ways that are very difficult to undo later." The House will pass a plan to delay and defund Obamacare but to keep the government open, Speaker John Boehner says. "That's very positive news," says Rubio. "It's now going to call attention to the fact that we can keep the government open, we can fund the government, but we don't have to shut down the government, and we don't have to fund Obamacare. "It's the president who's threatening to shut down the government because he is saying, and it's the position his allies in the Senate so far have taken, that unless they fund Obamacare, they won't fund the government. "The president's basically looking for a political win, and I guess his political people have told him that this is a political win: shut down the government and blame the Republicans. The problem is that's not the Republican position." Rubio predicted that the House will pass a short-term budget to keep the government running. "If in fact the government shuts down, it will be unfortunately because the president and his allies believe that Obamacare is so important to them that they are willing to shut down the government over it. "That's shortsighted, primarily because they are going to fight to the end to defend a disaster, something that even their own allies and labor unions are asking to be let out from." What Rubio is most concerned about, regarding the lack of a federal budget, is the long-term economic health of the country. "Here's what I know to be true: The American free-enterprise system is the only economic system in human history where anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything, where people through hard work and sacrifice can achieve a better life. It has eradicated more poverty than all the government programs in the world combined. That's what free enterprise does. "One of the things that comes to mind in free enterprise is unpredictability about the future, because people are afraid to open up new businesses or expand existing ones or invest in new products and invent new things if they're uncertain about the future. This lack of a federal budget and the certainty about future spending worries people. It's holding growth back. "So I would prefer to have a real budget. Unfortunately, for Democrats budgets are nothing but an opportunity to grow the size and scope of the government." Rubio maintains that Mitt Romney could have won the presidential election in 2012 if Americans knew more about Obamacare. "It's very difficult to go back in hindsight and analyze what would have happened, but it was a very close election, and certainly if people had known what they know now about the healthcare law" the election results might well have been different. "We just had word this week in Sea World down in Florida that 2,000 people who work part time are going to lose hours from 32 hours to 28 hours. That's devastating for these families. "This is the real world impact of Obamacare, and if that had been more apparent to people last November, there are a few people out there that would have voted differently and it's very possible that Mitt Romney right now would be in the White House and we'd have a much better outcome for our future." As for Democrats' charge that Republicans have not offered an alternative to Obamacare, Rubio observes: "I actually don't think that's a very fair analysis. First of all, over 80 percent of Americans have healthcare coverage and most of them are happy with the coverage that they have. We do have a significant number of Americans that are uninsured for a variety of different reasons and that's what we should be focused on. "But that's not what Obamacare does. Obamacare basically takes everybody, including people that are happy with their existing coverage, and lumps them all in together in this one-size-fits-all approach that's actually hurting people that are happy with their coverage and not doing much to help people that don't have coverage now." Rubio has been a strong advocate for immigration reform, but there has been little talk of reform since Congress returned from recess. Rubio says: "Obviously this is a difficult issue to deal with. We all agree that we have a broken legal immigration system, and, in particular, we don't have a merit-based immigration system, which is what our country desperately needs. We also have a very significant illegal-immigration problem. "Where the debate is now is what's the best way to solve it. "But I would also point out that there have been some other issues that are as important or more important that have overtaken it here in the short term. When you have the potential for war, as the Syria conflict raised last week, that's going to galvanize and cause a lot of attention to be paid. "And then these budget fights are important and Obamacare is incredibly important. The national debt and the debt limit is going to be incredibly important. Those issues are time sensitive. Immigration's a big issue but these issues are bigger and that's why the focus is on those issues right now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Watching the Middle East Implode
By Bruce Thornton - Defining Ideas
Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first.
The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody mélange of coups and counter-coups, as have happened in Egypt; vicious civil wars, like the current conflict in Syria; a resurgence of jihadists gaining footholds in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sinai; and a shifting and fracturing of alliances and enmities of the sort throwing Lebanon and Jordan into turmoil. Meanwhile, American foreign policy has been confused, incompetent, and feckless in insuring that the security and interests of the United States and its allies are protected.
A major reason for our foreign policy failures in the region is our inability to take into account the intricate diversity of ideological, political, and especially theological motives driving events. Just within the Islamist outfits, Sunni and Shia groups are at odds—and this isn’t to mention the many bitter divisions within Sunni and Shia groups. Add the other players in the Middle East––military dictators, secular democrats, leftover communists, and nationalists of various stripes––and the whole region seems embroiled in endlessly complex divisions and issues.
Yet a greater impediment to understanding accurately this bloody and complex region is our preconceived biases. Too often we rely on explanations that gratify our own ideological preferences and prejudices, but that function like mental stencils: they are a priori patterns we superimpose on events to create the picture we want to see, but only by concealing other events that do not fit the pattern. We indulge the most serious error of foreign policy: assuming that other peoples think like us and desire the same goods as we do, like political freedom and prosperity, at the expense of others, like religious obedience and honor.
One persistent narrative attributes the region’s disorder to Western colonialism and imperialism. The intrusion of European colonial powers into the region, the story goes, disrupted the native social and political institutions, imposing in their place racist norms and alien values that demeaned Muslims as the “other” and denigrated their culture to justify the exploitation of resources and markets. This process culminated after World War I in the dismantling of the caliphate, and the creation of Western-style nation-states that ignored the traditional ethnic and sectarian identities of the region. As a result, resentment and anger at colonial occupation and exploitation erupted in Islamist jihadism against the oppressor.
The Islamists themselves have found this narrative a convenient pretext for their violence, thus reinforcing this explanation for some Westerners. The most important jihadist theorist, the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, wrote, “It is necessary to revive the Muslim community which is buried under the debris of the man-made traditions of several generations, and which is crushed under the weight of those false laws and customs which are not even remotely related to the Islamic teachings.”
Qutb was clearly alluding to the European colonial presence in the Middle East, and specifically to the nearly half-century of British control of Egypt. Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other jihadist groups similarly lace their communiqués with references to colonial “oppression” and neo-imperialist interference, as when Osama bin Laden scolded the U.S. in 2002 for waging war in the region “so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries.” The Arabs likewise routinely describe the creation of Israel as a particularly offensive act of colonial aggression against the lands of Islam.
Such pretexts, however, are clearly for Western consumption, exploiting the Marxist demonization of imperialism and colonialism that informs the ideology of many leftist intellectuals in Europe and America. When speaking to fellow Muslims, however, most Islamist groups ground their motives in the traditional doctrines of Islam, which call for war against the infidel and the enemies of Islam.
The narrative of colonial oppression may be gratifying to leftist Western intellectuals, but it cannot alone explain the disorder of the region that has persisted long after the exit of the colonial powers. And it is hard to take seriously complaints of imperialism, colonialism, and occupation coming from followers of Islam. After all, Muslims were one of history’s most successful conquerors and imperialists who, as Efraim Karsh writes, “acted in a typically imperialist fashion from the start, subjugating indigenous populations, colonizing their lands, and expropriating their wealth, resources, and labor.”
Something else is needed to explain Islamic violence when India, a British colony for nearly 200 years, or South Africa, another ex-colony subjected to the indignities of racial apartheid, has not spawned global terrorist networks responsible for over 20,000 violent attacks just since 9/11.
The other dominant narrative is a reprise of Wilsonian democracy promotion. In this view, the dysfunctions of the region reflect the absence of open economies, liberal democratic governments, and recognition of human rights. Subjected to autocrats and dictators, the peoples of the Middle East are denied freedom, individual rights, and economic opportunity, and as a result are mired in poverty, oppression, and political disorder that explode into violent jihad.
George W. Bush sounded these themes in January 2005 in his inaugural speech, in which he linked U.S. security and global peace to the “force of human freedom” and the expansion of democracy: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Hence Bush’s attempts to build democratic institutions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and President Obama’s early support for the “Arab Spring” revolutions: “I think it was absolutely the right thing for us to do to align ourselves with democracy [and] universal rights.” Both presidents agree that more democracy in the region will mean less of the violence, suffering, and disorder caused by frustration and oppression at the hands of dictators and kleptocrats.
Like the left-wing narrative of colonialism’s blowback in the form of terror and political dysfunction, democracy promotion suffers from the same limitations, particularly the imposition of Western political categories and goods onto a different culture. The fetishizing of democracy ignores the complex network of mores, values, and principles that undergird political freedom and that took over two millennia in the West to coalesce into liberal democracy. And it ignores the absence of those principles and mores in most Middle Eastern countries.
So we focus instead on the photogenic process of voting, the ink-stained fingers and lines at polling booths that we confuse for belief in the liberal foundations of genuine democracy. More important, like the left-wing narrative, democracy promotion is ultimately based on material conditions and the goods of this world––prosperity and individual freedom–– at the expense of religious beliefs. Religion is treated as a private lifestyle choice, as it has become in the West, rather than the most fundamental and important dimension of identity both personal and political, as it is in the Muslim world.
Much of the conflict in the Middle East reflects the collision of these two sets of goods, the religious and the secular, which we oversimplify by emphasizing only the latter. We assume that if a liberal democracy can be created, the tolerance for differences of religious belief, respect for individual rights, and a preference for settling political conflict with legal processes rather than violence, will automatically follow. We forget that in our own history, despite the long tradition of separation of church and state whose roots lie in Christian doctrine, Europe was torn apart by wars of religion that killed millions before that tolerance for sectarian differences triumphed.
The power of Islam is the reality our various narratives ignore or rationalize away when we attempt to understand the violence and disorder of the Middle East. But as the scholar Bernard Lewis reminds us, “in most Islamic countries, religion remains a major political factor,” for “most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim, in a way and in a sense that that most Christian countries are no longer Christian . . . in no Christian country at the present time can religious leaders count on the degree of belief and participation that remains normal in the Muslim lands . . . Christian clergy do not exercise or even claim the kind of public authority in most Muslim countries.”
This observation provides an insight into recent events in Egypt. After Mubarak fell, many believed that the secular democrats were on their way to creating a more democratic political order. But ensuing elections brought to power the Muslim Brothers, an Islamist organization that scorns democracy and Western notions of human rights as alien impositions preventing the creation of an Islamic social and political order based on sharia law.
When the deteriorating economy created frustration with the Muslim Brothers’ arrogance and ineptitude, mass protests sparked a military intervention that once again was interpreted as a rejection of the Brothers and sharia, and a yearning for liberal democracy. Our ideological stencil assumed that our secular goods of freedom and prosperity had trumped the religious goods of fidelity to Islam and its doctrines.
Yet it is not so clear that this is the case. Impatience with the Muslim Brothers’ inability to provide basic necessities and manage the economy, or anger at its heavy-handed tactics, do not necessarily entail rejection of the ultimate goal of a political-social order more consistent with Islamic law. Polling of Egyptians suggests that the general program of the Muslim Brothers is still supported even as their tactics and governing are rejected.
In a Pew survey earlier this year, 74 percent of Egyptians said they want sharia to be “the official law of the land,” and 55 percent said sharia should apply to non-Muslims, which in Egypt includes 15 million Christian Copts. An earlier survey from 2010 found more specific support for sharia law: 84 percent of Egyptians supported the death penalty for apostates, 82 percent supported stoning adulterers, 85 percent said Islam’s influence on politics is positive, 95 percent said that it is good that Islam plays a large role in politics, 59 percent identified with Islamic fundamentalists, 54 percent favored gender segregation in the workplace, 82 percent favored stoning adulterers, 77 percent favored whippings and cutting off the hands of thieves and robbers, 84 percent favored death for those leaving Islam, and 60 percent said that laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Koran.
These attitudes, consistent with the program of the Muslim Brothers, suggest that their opponents are angry not with their long-term goal of creating a more Islamized government, but with the Brothers’ abuse of power and their managerial incompetence that alienated the even more radically Islamist Nour party. As the Middle East analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht recently wrote, “Only the deluded, the naïve and the politically deceitful . . . can believe that Islamism’s ‘moment’ in Egypt has passed. More likely, it’s just having an interlude.”
These results will not surprise anyone who understands how profoundly religious beliefs determine Middle Eastern attitudes to politics and society. Rather than ignoring this widespread religiosity, or subordinating it to our own goods such as prosperity and personal freedom, or explaining away the patent illiberal and intolerant dimensions of this belief, as the dominant narratives continue to do, we should instead recognize and acknowledge the critical role of Islam in the violence and disorder rending this geopolitically strategic region. Only then can we craft a foreign policy that protects our security and interests.
Bruce S. Thornton is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He received his BA in Latin in 1975 and his PhD in comparative literature–Greek, Latin, and English–in 1983, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. Thornton is currently a professor of classics and humanities at California State University in Fresno, California. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays and reviews on Greek culture and civilization and their influence on Western civilization. His latest book, published in March 2011, is titled The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama's America
4a)Expert: U.S. Naval Supremacy Is in Trouble
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey told an audience at the Heritage Foundation Thursday afternoon that American sea power and global projection is “in trouble.”
Cropsey appeared at Heritage to highlight the release of his new book Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy.
Michaela Dodge, policy analyst of defense and strategic policy at the Heritage Foundation, highlighted the current plight of U.S. naval forces before Cropsey’s speech.
Under current sequestration cuts, the Navy will be reduced from approximately 285 ships to 195 in the next thirty years, Dodge said.
While Cropsey was quick to criticize sequestration’s effects on U.S. Naval power, his main focus was the looming threat posed by China. Cropsey highlighted the fact that the last Maritime strategic review was conducted over six years ago and did not mention China at all.
“The 2007 strategy did not mention China, not once.” Cropsey said. “The Chinese have made it clear that its policy is to deny the United States access to the Western Pacific.”
“China’s military budget continues to grow … in double percentage points each year,” Cropsey added.
With countries in various stages of unrest, Cropsey pointed to the fact that countries like Iran, China, and Russia have already begun projecting naval power in various parts of the globe. Cropsey pointed to the fact that Russia is in the process of having a permanent twelve-ship presence in the Mediterranean Sea.
With rival countries encroaching on American sea power Cropsey lamented the state of the U.S. 6th fleet—the group of ships responsible for Mediterranean operations.
“The Eastern Med has reverted back to instability… and the U.S. 6th Fleet … that once composed of two carrier battle groups, today consists of a command ship based in Italy and three [surface ships],” Cropsey said.
Cropsey also stressed the threat of the recently tested DF-21D a Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile designed to destroy large surface ships from over 1,200 miles away.
“The DF-21 … is a real threat,” Cropsey said.
Cropsey’s solutions to a waning American naval power centered on being more fiscally responsible with ship purchases and production. Cropsey highlighted the recent overage on the budgets associated with the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program and an Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer.
When asked if he had further suggestions for the Navy to be more fiscally responsible, Cropsey suggested the use of unmanned drones to supplement personnel and the use of older technology.
Older tech, Cropsey suggested, such as diesel electric powered submarines and smaller aircraft carriers would make “a more combat effective” Navy by creating more units for the enemy to counter on the battlefield.
Cropsey concluded his remarks by using history as a sign of things to come if the U.S. loses naval supremacy.
“Americans are forgetting the importance of naval power … and once you lose it, you never get it back,” Cropsey said.
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