America’s Faltering Military Readiness
There is no other nation on earth that comes close to matching what America spends on its military budget. At $600 billion, U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next nine largest military budgets around the world—combined.
It should come as a complete surprise that one of the loudest cries in Washington D.C today is that we are not spending enough on defense. Last week, lawmakers were warned by the Pentagon’s top brass that a military budget was being neglected.
It has been reported that the Marine Corps lacks sufficient aircraft to fully train pilots. The Army said it can wage small wars, but doubts it can meet the demands of conflict against major enemies, like Russia or China.
“We track this very closely, and the simple fact is that we don’t have enough airplanes to meet the training requirements for the entire force,” said Gen. Robert Neller, Marine commandant.
General Mark Milley, Army chief of staff, said rotary pilots need a minimum of 14 flying hours a month to stay sharp but are getting only 10 hours. Meanwhile, the Army’s major accident rates are increasing. “It does have our concern,” he testified. “Our aircraft accidents have increased, and we’re very concerned about it.”
General Milley said the force, cut from more than 490,000 to a planned 450,000, is sufficient for counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the overriding strategy of being able to fight a major overseas war is in doubt.
There has been a reduction in military spending over the last few years. In 2013, the budget was reduced by 10.5%. A lot of this reduction was the result of the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. Our defense spending as a percentage of GDP has remained fairly stable at 16%, equal to what it was in the years right before 9/11.
The reason why we are seeing a decline in readiness is because we waste a huge amount of money on military programs. The cost of our weapon systems is skyrocketing and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who is willing to say, “Hey, we can’t afford this.”
The F-35 has to be the most obvious example of cost over-run gone wild. It is America’s most expensive war machine. Each fighter jet was first slated to cost $52 million. After 10 years of mounting expenditures, the per unit cost has now reached $300 million. The bill will likely continue to soar, as deliveries for the fighter jet are scheduled all the way out to 2037.
From windows to jet engines, everything on the F-35 is more expensive. Each helmet for the fighter jet costs $400,000; more than four times as much as the Air Force paid for head wear for other aircraft such as the F-16.
The F-35 easily has the most costly paint job. It takes three days just apply the primary layer of paint. This radar absorbing paint can only be applied at the Aircraft Final Finishes complex in Houston, Texas.
It takes 52 hours to swap out a jet engine in a F-35. A major battle could be long over before a repaired jet is returned to service.
The new jet is also costly to maintain. In 2014, the GAO found that the F-35 fleet would have operating costs 79% higher than the aircraft it replaced.
It’s not just aircraft that have out-of-control budgets. The Navy just sent out for sea trials a destroyer that it has been working on for 20 years. The angled hulled ship looks like something out of a James Bond movie, and has a price tag of $4.4 billion.
There is no way America could have fought World War II with the weapons systems of today. The P-47 Thunderbolt cost just $1 million in today’s money. Even if the F-35 could shoot down German planes at a 20 to 1 ratio, we would have still lost the war. With cheaper airplanes, you can make more of them. The Germans produced over 30,000 fighters. The F-35 will number 2,457 in 20 years from now.
After Pearl Harbor, we didn’t have two decades to develop our military. And you can’t conduct war when your fighters are 300 times more expensive than the ones produced by your enemy.
I have to wonder if the reason why America is not clearly mentioned in Bible prophecy is because we will implode under the financial weight of our vast military complex. At this rate, Uncle Sam will need to beg other nations for jet fuel money just to make it to the battle of Armageddon.
“For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle”… Then shall the LORD go forth…And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zechariah 14:2a,3a, 12).
–Todd
End Times Petri Dish
Sin infection spawned from man’s disobedience has metastasized globally at this late point of the final dispensation leading to Christ’s return. It is not far-fetched to think of things that are happening in such biological terms, or to express them as such, while two major players in Bible prophecy bring the terminal situation into focus.
The European Union (EU), thought by many observers of prophecy in Scripture to be the nucleus out of which will come a revived form of the Roman Empire in accordance with Daniel 9:26-27, is front and center in relevant news. The most central national entity of eschatology for the wind-up of human history, Israel, is the other key player in today’s news of prophetic portent, in my estimation. Of all developments in the milieu of end-times things going on, it is as if some master pharmacologist has upon his lab table a petri dish within which broils a deadly mixture prophesied to explode in a breakout of human history’s deadliest era.
Effervescing within that dish are the virulent ingredients that threaten to take peace from the earth in the form of war unlike there has ever been on planet earth. That war will not be brought about by the players most often believed to be the instigators of man’s final war. Quite the opposite.
Armageddon will be brought about by the One the false religionists of the world of Christendom proclaim could never judge sin harshly. He is love, and no loving God could react with such hateful, punitive action, these purveyors of prevarication promise. Here, again, is what God’s Word says about the very end-times things that are taking place within that petri dish I use as analogous symbolism.
“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.” (Joel 3: 1-2)
That, my friends, is Armageddon that the Lord is prophesying through Joel. The nations of the world are going to pay a terrible price for their rebellion against Him and for the treatment of His chosen people, the Jews–Israel.
The intention to divide God’s land–land He gave to Israel forever–is at the heart of the prophesied simmering brew. The world–including much of Christendom, is turning against Israel in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) piling-on. This, of course, involves economically punishing Israel because they refuse to give up land in order to give the Palestinians a nation within current Israeli borders–land won by Israel in several wars that already belonged to them by divine promise in God’s holy eyes.
The EU, out of which the one who will be Antichrist will emerge, many prophetic observers believe, is presently speaking out of both sides of its official mouth. Its spokesman seems to obliquely defend Israel, while at the same time holding the Jewish state responsible for the hold up to a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestinian so-called problem. We learn more about all this within the following excerpts of current headlines.
Without the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there would be no Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the European Union’s envoy to Israel said Monday, arguing that the best way to fight BDS is to take steps to advance a two-state solution…
“The most effective antidote against the BDS movement is to solve the Palestinian issue. If there were no Palestinian issue, there would be no BDS movement,” [EU] Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen said at a conference in Jerusalem…
Earlier during the conference, which was organized by the Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper, Faaborg-Andersen expressed the EU’s desire to see Israel thrive and said the union completely rejects any efforts to boycott Israel. “Let me make one thing 100 percent clear: The European Union is against BDS. Our policy is totally opposite of BDS. Our policy is one of engagement with Israel.”…
But it is important for Israel not to be seen as undermining a two-state solution, he said. “If more effort is put into showing a will to move forward and to obtain progress in this process, it would greatly weaken the BDS movement.”
(Source: The Times of Israel , Boycotts will disappear when Israel advances peace, EU envoy says, by Rapheal Ahre, March 28, 2016)
The all-out effort to “divide” God’s land–that given Israel in perpetuity– is underway. America’s president has chosen to put the United States at the center of this dangerous petri dish mixture. Certainly the world must be near the time when the final prophecies will begin manifesting. That means the Rapture of all born-again believers is even nearer!
–Terry
You must be logged in to post a comment.