Tag Archives: Peace Through Strength

News

How well is Democrat appeasement working to contain Russia?

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Not well, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

On Wednesday, Gen. Alexander Zelin, the commander of the Russian Air Force, announced that Moscow had deployed a state-of-the-art S-300 (SA-20 Favorit) long- range air defense system in Abkhazia, a region of the Republic of Georgia that Russia has occupied since the August 2008 war.

Since then, Russia recognized breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent republics. According to Zelin, the task of the air defense systems is “to prevent violation of Abkhaz and South Ossetian airspace and to destroy any aircraft intruding into their airspace no matter what their purpose might be”.

However, there is much more than the defense of Abkhazia to the Russian deployment. Taken together with the S-300 base in Armenia, it extends the strategic air space over South Caucasus and over parts of the Black Sea, furthering Russian control.

What does it mean?

Most importantly from the perspective of the United States, Russian actions are aimed at denying the United Space airspace and over-flight options. The surveillance aspect is no less important—depending on the actual deployment of the air defenses: associated radars will be able to picture or “paint” much of western Georgia and the adjoining Black Sea coastline. The ultimate objective for Moscow is to become an uncontested hegemon in the South Caucasus. And of course this has potential implications in case of an Iranian contingency.

The Russians are committed to deployments in the Caucasus that lead to the strategic denial of U.S. power projection in that region. This bears on the U.S.’s future ability to resupply Afghanistan; to use power to disarm a nuclear Iran; to ensure energy supply from the Caspian; and to help pro-Western friends and allies. These are hardly great accomplishments for the Obama “reset” policy”.

So what else is in the news?

Well, the Taliban are seizing control of nothern Afghanistan, and Russia is assisting Iran with nuclear weapons development.

And that is why the deployment of these advanced SAMs is devastating to our foreign policy objectives. We’ve become a paper tiger by cutting defense systems, like the F-22, so that we can pay for turtle tunnels to nowhere with “stimulus” money. The first job of the federal government is to protect its citizens, not to study how to reduce drinking among Chinese prostitutes.

News

US Air Force decides not to close F-22 Raptor production plant

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Great news from Politico. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The Air Force will hang on to its F-22 tooling at Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., production plant even after it stops making the fifth generation fighter jet in 2012, according to Flight International’s Stephen Trimble. Though the Air Force has said in the past the goal would be to provide a long-time service plan for the jets, “the decision also implicitly preserves the option to restart production if future administrations decide that the USAF needs more than 186 F-22s,” Trimble writes.

The Weekly Standard explains:

The Air Force originally planned for 750 Raptors — at the time called the Advanced Tactical Fighter — as a replacement for the venerable F-15 Eagle. Strategic shifts, like the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of the infantry-heavy war on terrorism, steadily decreased the fleet’s planned end-strength until Congress settled on 187 airframes in 2006.

As Russia and China continue their steady defense buildups and America’s aging fighter fleet continues to decay, the need for the “finest fighter jet ever built” only grows. Keeping that Lockheed assembly line open may seem like mundane news today. But it could end up saving the military big bucks down the line, as the peer threat looms larger.

Now that the JSF is facing substantial delays and rising costs, we need to have the option of restarting production on the F-22 when Obama loses in 2012. This is really important. We need to keep our edge in the sky. There are bad people in the world who threaten peace, prosperity and liberty. We need to make them believe that any aggression they consider will be costly. We need to deter aggression.

News

Stephen Harper makes a stand against North Korean aggression

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I spy... with my little eye... someone whose ass I must kick!

Story here from the Edmonton Journal.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement on Victoria Day that Canada is joining sides with South Korea in countering North Korea’s apparent act of aggression on March 26 that involved the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, killing 46.

“Canada is now committed to a coordinated international response, including through the UN Security Council, as a result of this act,” Harper declared in a written press release. Canada will “move to suspend high-level visits to Canada by North Korean officials,” Harper said in response to statements made Sunday by Republic of Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak.

[..]”The Government of Canada will take steps to impose enhanced restrictions on trade, investment and other bilateral relations with North Korea, including the addition of North Korea to the Area Control List.

“Canada will also continue to consult and co-operate with South Korea, as well as our partners and friends, to ensure that a strong global approach is taken toward the current situation on the Korean Peninsula,” Harper said.

Three experts from the Canadian navy, in concert with representatives from Australia, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S., assisted in the investigation that concluded that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the South Korean ship, the press release stated.

That’s what Obama should have done, too. We should be parking a carrier battle group right where the ship went down and running ASW patrols around the clock as part of joint exercises with South Korea and Japan. We should be selling more arms (e.g. – SAMs, SSMs, and LAVs with ATGMs), to South Korea and Japan, and building additional ships to deploy in that theater. All vessels entering and leaving North Korea should be boarded and inspected by US naval forces. We should be stepping up espionage efforts to get advanced warning of North Korea’s plans.

There should be a swift response to the sinking of South Korea’s vessel – something visible to them, as well as a change in tone and policy in the CIA and the State Department. Kick the doves and the fifth-columnists out of national security and foreign policy, and get serious about making aggression costly on the aggressor. South Korea should just pass a law saying that for every warship of theirs sunk in mysterious circumstances, THREE warships in North Korea will be sunk in mysterious circumstances.

If only Harper were in control of the US military, then we could really get something done – and not just the economic sanctions that he is going to put into place. But with President Pantywaist in charge, our enemies can do anything they want to our poorly-armed allies like South Korea.

By the way, I found this story while browsing on My Can of Contemplation, which led me to Christian Conservative.

* When I say SSMs in this article, I mean surface-to-surface missiles, not same-sex marriage. We should NOT be selling our allies same-sex marriages, we should be selling them surface-to-surface missiles.