Nearly half of all federal research and development dollars go to the Department of Defense, a new report from the Congressional Research Service observes. The Pentagon research budget is more than twice that of the next largest recipient, the Department of Health and Human Services. The structure of the DoD research budget, which has “its own unique taxonomy,” is described in the new CRS report. See Department of Defense Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E): Appropriations Structure, December 13, 2016:
Part I: US gearing up for false flag attack blamed on Russia that enables a massive attack on Syria that can pivot against Russia. This is outright criminal insanity. “Something Big Is Underway On All Fronts“
Part II: An eye witness report on the massive build up of bombers, submarines, and warships at Diego Garcia, below the fold. More outright criminal insanity.
In the next 9 years, the US Army will have more combat robots than humans, according to John Bassett, a former UK intelligence officer. Basset, who worked for 20 years at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), told attendees at a counter-terrorism meeting in London that the US is attempting to “stay ahead of the curve” by employing thousands of robot soldiers over the next few years.
An Open Source (Technologies) Agency, far removed from the secret intelligence world, would radically reduce wars and illegal immigration, increase trade and shared prosperity, and convert the USA into a “Smart Nation”.
On 06/17/11, I wrote the first installment of National intelligence and national defense, published at the Campaign for Liberty, suggesting that we could both cut the secret intelligence budget by three quarters, and radically increase the amount of open source decision-support (as opposed to secret mass surveillance).
Of course nothing happened, but now, to my enormous delight, I am hearing that there is a very tentative discussion in some of the darkest corners of the US government of a proposal to terminate three of the secret agencies that reside within the Department of Defense (DoD) – the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the National Geospatial Agency (NGA). This should happen, if not in the closing year of the Obama Administration, then in 2017 under the first Independent president and a diversified Congress in which Independents, Greens, and Libertarians and others (e.g. Constitution, Working Families) win the 20-30 seats being vacated.
The sad fact is that flag level officers and their civilian overseers of all the military services appear unable or unwilling to exercise critical thinking and commitment to doing what should be their jobs.
Look at the U.S. Army: it is now down to between 425 and 450 thousand soldiers yet the army general staff still speaks of fighting multiple conventional wars, defending the U.S. Homeland, and tackling insurgencies. This is just plain silly.
Part I in the Reinventing the US Army monograph series.
Updated November 15, 2016 Robert Steele
This is the author’s preliminary draft of the first of three monographs focused on the future of the US Army as an expeditionary force in a complex world that is rapidly decentralizing while also facing major development challenges. A revised draft is provide at DOC below but the online full-text version has not been updated.
Sigh. I was not going to comment on David Patraeus gross dereliction of duty but several colleagues are totally pissed off and they are correct to be angry. Here are a mix of supposition and fact along with my conclusions on this sorry disgrace to the Republic. HOWEVER, I conclude this is not about Patraeus — many others should be indicted along with him and many others have committed high crimes and misdemeanors that exhonerate him in relative terms.
UPDATED to integrate specific observations from IDENS A-C.
UPDATED to add key paragraphs from Marcy Wheeler at SALON and Ray McGovern.
We have grossly inadequate funding for schools, infrastructure, elder care, child-care, and a host of other programs and projects that create a more compassionate and life-affirming society. But, boy, the dollars fall like a blizzard on the military industrial security industries. Here is the real truth of where you tax dollars are going. The sums are so large I think they are essentially incomprehensible to ordinary people.
