Obama's FutureWar Battle Plan:
Step 1. Reduce the Military Budget By Relying More on Stand-Off Weapons Like the Tomahawk and Hellfire Missiles
Step 2: Slash Funding for the Hellfire Missile and Eliminate the Tomahawk Entirely

I made up "Step 1," sort of. Though it's obvious that Obama prefers light engagements when it comes to war, drones and planes and missiles, rather than heavy ones with tanks and ships and soldiers and seamen.

Which makes it absolutely baffling that he's cutting Tomahawk purchases to 100 in 2015, and then canceling production entirely in 2016.

This will leave us with enough Tomahawks to get us through 2018... maybe. Assuming we don't have to use more of them than we were expecting.

President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.

The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy.

...

The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to Obama’s proposal.

...

Nearly 100 of these missiles are used each year on average, meaning that the sharp cuts will cause the Tomahawk stock to be completely depleted by around 2018. This is particularly concerning to defense experts because the Pentagon does not have a replacement missile ready to take the Tomahawk’s place.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.”

Cropsey said that if someone were trying to “reduce the U.S. ability to shape events” in the world, “they couldn’t find a better way than depriving the U.S. fleet of Tomahawks. It’s breathtaking.”

They're claiming they'll just put these funds into the development of the next-gen missile, the Long Range Anti-Ship Cruise Missile, but that is in development hell and isn't even planned to be ready for deployment until 2024. (And you know how schedules usually work out.)

This makes such little sense that I can only think -- or hope -- that Obama and possibly the Navy is playing a variation of Shutdown Theater here, canceling the thing that will grab your attention the most in order to alert you to all the cuts to the DoD's budget you might not notice.

As DrewM. has pointed out repeatedly, these sequester cuts are serious, and they will require genuine cuts, not merely "trims" or the like. Hard decisions will have to be made. (Like retiring an entire carrier fleet, and that's just for starters.)

But canceling the very weapons that President Dronestrike relies upon to carry the weight of warfighting as he cuts the rest of the military budget?

It seems so preposterous I can't believe it's all on the level.

posted by Ace at 11:35 AM

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