From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: defense cuts (was Re: Clinton/Gore on foreign policy)
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 05:50:12 GMT

In article <1598@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King) writes:
>cote@cs.ucsd.edu (Brad Cote) writes:
>>anders@athena.mit.edu (Anders W Hove) writes:

>>>While Clinton is for an active military, he also wants a lean military.  
>>>Where Bush has proposed hardly any cuts in wasteful, Cold War oriented 
>>>programs like Star Wars and the B-2, Clinton wants a smaller, more 
>>>flexible force structure.  
>>> [stuff deleted by jking]

>>Yeah, like 'Slick Willie's' endorsement of the much-needed Seawolf
>>attack submarine that the Pentagon wants to scrap as 'un-needed in the
>>Post Cold War.' 

>This was one of the Cheney suggestions, right?  And even if it isn't,
>I think it's poor to assume that there aren't political implications
>of *any* Pentagon decision.  And I'm not always ready to assume that
>the Pentagon always knows best what weapons it really needs, even
>assuming that the Pentagon and the President agree on what the defense
>mission will be.  (Where were all the blasted minesweepers when we
>needed them?)

This *was* a political decision, but no more than the chnage of heart by
the Bush admin on (1) Homestead AFB (2) Fighters for Taiwan.

Furthermore, the Pentagon does NOT want to scrap the Seawolf -- they
want to scrap the V2 Osprey.  They claim they need the Seawolf in order
to keep that factory going so that they'll be able to build subs when
they're needed in the late 1990s.

>>Seems he was pandering to the union vote in Connecticut.  This will 
>>probably be his primary defence spending principle - jobs in Democratic 
>>congressional districts. 

>Oh, sure.  There's just a huge union vote in Connecticut.  And there
>are just so many Democratic congressional districts in Connecticut.
>(There are 3 Democratic and 3 Republican, btw, and I don't know whose
>district builds the subs off-hand.)

>And speaking of pandering, which presidential candidate has been going
>around to defense industry company towns announcing the sale of jet
>fighters to one place or another?  Hint:  it ain't Clinton.

The most outrageous thing about this is that the sale of planes to
Taiwan completely reverses US policy towards China since 1972, and it
does it over a few thousand temporary jobs needed for a Bush reelection.

And the same with the Saudi sales -- we've been sponsoring talks
designed to REDUCE arms sales to the Mideast, while we're now increasing
them by a huge amount for NO military reason at all in order to get Bush
reelected.

>>This hardly makes me feel good about his ability to make decisions 
>>in the long term interests of national defence. 

>If you like.  BTW--what about the B-2 and Star Wars?  Clinton *is*
>against those, and I'm sure that there are lots of voters out there
>who owe *their* jobs to these projects.

Overall, Clinton is for cutting the defense budget more than Bush.
Which is what really counts.

>Oh, and by the way:  

>THIS IS AN *ELECTION YEAR* PEOPLE.  It's not as if we've never seen
>this kind of thing happen before.  I can maybe see some of the source
>for the outrage, but there really isn't anything new this time.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Orioles 1992 World Series Champions
niepornt@phoenix.    | Mike Mussina 1992 AL Cy Young Winner
   princeton.edu     | Brady Anderson 1992 AL MVP
Vote Clinton/Gore '92.   Four more months!
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.flame