Your examples perfectly illustrate the extremely powerful case against Reagan-era over-spending so compellingly put forth by Burton, Boyd, and all the rest of that small but exemplary group of genuinely patriotic Pentagon reformers. Those M-1/M-1A1 tanks, for example, are archetypal examples of what was so horribly wrong with Reagan’s (and his heirs’) ridiculous, strength-sapping, and from a certain point of view arguably traitorous defense over-spending.
And we don’t even need to theorize: the facts were made as plain as can be by the first Gulf War…
In addition to ousting the Iraqis from Kuwait, there was the extremely critical military objective of out-and-out destroying the Iraqi Republican Guard. General Schwarzkopf, in accordance with orders from the President and the Joint Chiefs, repeatedly emphasized in the strongest possible terms – from Nov. 14, 1990 and then on virtually every following day to the very last day of the war on Feb. 28, 1991 – that this goal was absolutely paramount. Here are his own words (with added emphasis): “We need to destroy – not attack, not damage, not surround – I want you to destroy the Republican Guard. When you are done with them, I don’t want them to be an effective fighting force anymore, I don’t want them to exist as a military organization.”
Had we achieved that mandate – even without going in to Baghdad – Saddam Hussein would have had virtually no strength or protection left, and it’s not at all unlikely that the current Iraqi war would not have been necessary. Needless to say, we botched it, although few people know just how badly we fucked it up (there’s that pervasive conservative media bias again!). We lost perhaps the most important objective of that war, and above all other responsible factors were the Reaganesquely venal, insanely over-priced and over-designed M-1 and M-1A1 tanks! Reagan’s obscene defense over-spending effectively lost us that war, at least when one considers America’s then-future national security interests.
The bottom line is that these stupidly super-modern, super-expensive tanks – like all of Reagan’s absurdly over-wrought and over-costly weapon systems – screwed us over big time: they were and are essentially incapable of performing much in the way of any real military mission. Our “ancient” but cheap pre-M-1 era tanks are vastly superior if you actually want them to fight and survive!
A few facts will make this obvious. Let me quote from Burton’s exceedingly important, valuable and bravely patriotic book:
Unfortunately, the conditions in a real war are seldom nominal. Consider Bertrand Russell’s quip (IIRC): “Heaven is a place where everything works as it does in the textbooks.”
In actual practice, such as during Desert Storm, these insanely stupid quasi-jet engine driven tanks were much too fast for the rest of the men, vehicles, and equipment to keep up! And because they burn fuel at an incredibly prodigious rate (it wouldn’t be all that easy to dump the fuel so fast!), they usually had to refuel at least every two hours. But because they were so fast, when they ran out of fuel they were very often stranded there for many more hours – even overnight – waiting for the far slower fuel carriers to catch up with them!
How STUPID can you get? Sheesh!
Furthermore, one extremely valuable aspect of using diesel tanks (those prior to the ReaganTanks) with infantry is that the troops can follow behind the simple yet considerable protection the tanks’ armor affords them. But not only are they far too fast for infantry to keep up with, these stupid Reagan-beloved tanks with their jet engines could pretty much toast anyone careless enough to get behind their exhausts! For this same reason, there are many environments where you can’t even use these tanks, lest they set fire to their surroundings!
But it gets worse!
These Reagan-raped turbine-engine tanks need enormous quantities of clean, finely filtered air to “breathe” and burn. Even under nominal conditions, the tanks needed to be stopped and shut down to allow the crew to replace the engine’s expensive air filters at least every three hours. But under actual desert conditions, especially if the wind picks up the sand, these filters clogged about every fifteen minutes! The engines would crash from the filthy air and the crew then had to jump out – exposing themselves to the enemy – to perform filter replacement and other maintenance right then and there. Every fifteen minutes!
Essentially equivalent scenarios were the rule rather than the exception with virtually all of the Reagan-era (and post-Reagan) big budget weapon systems. The Reaganites were filled with a Strangelovian and effectively traitorous lust for obscenely over-expensive, impossibly high-tech, but worse than worthless weapon systems, which were far worse than what we’d already built and had on hand from pre-Reagan administrations.
Are you getting the picture yet of how badly Reagan’s criminal defense largesse unconscionably betrayed and decimated our military strength? If the DoD wasn’t gleefully handed the unnumbered billions necessary to build these mindless fiascos, we’d have had to rely on systems that actually worked such our vastly superior “ancient” diesel tanks that performed so incredibly well and would have easily succeeded in Schwarzkopf’s goal of destroying the Republican Guard! We lost the most important American goal in Desert Storm fundamentally because of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
As Burton notes:
Can there be any reasonable doubt that, at least in the defense arena, Reagan and his minions sold us down the river?
And lest you think it’s only these incredibly stupid Reagan tanks that deserve our horrified, patriotic scorn, much the same type of defense-weakening, Reagan-led betrayals of our national interests were a result of, for just a few examples:
– The F-15, which costs many billions more but performs worse in all important areas (such as maneuvering, dogfighting and actual combat) than the comparably cheap, brilliantly designed and triumphant early F-16. The particularly successful and cost-effective F-16 project was originated, led and championed by a tiny handful of much-hated Pentagon Reformers on which Burton’s book centers, but it was vehemently, corruptly, and illegally fought against (and even repeatedly canceled, only to be forced by reformers back into activity) by nearly every single high-ranking officer and civilian in the Pentagon in favor of the grossly overbuilt F-15. And the F-15 is more or less a piece of shit in comparison to the cheaper and much more agile F-16 (at least before the Pentagon “Reaganized” the subsequent model F-16s in later years), and the 16 easily runs rings around any other, more modern fighter where it matters most: in combat.
– The so-called “Stealth” aircraft represent one of the Reagan era’s most contemptible, lie-filled boondoggles. It has been demonstrated that these ostensibly “stealth” aircraft were easily seen even on 1980’s era radars! The Brits even reported in their national press that our Stealths were readily spotted on radar at least 40 miles away! Sheesh!
– There is probably no aircraft more profoundly and widely hated throughout the upper echelons of Pentagon, and no aircraft has been “retired” more often (only to be restored to service, then “retired” again), than the magnificently graceful yet deadly A-10 “Warthog”. The A-10 is probably the most effective and valuable military aircraft ever built (with the possible exceptions of the F-16 and the B-52). Why was and is it hated so passionately, particularly by the Reaganites and their kin? I’ll tell you: It was extremely cheap and extremely effective, and it was also another incredibly successful project of the Reformers, that’s why!
Here’s Col. Burton again:
Here’s a breakdown of the A-10’s amazing battle successes in the first Gulf War (confirmed kills):
[ul]
[li]Tanks 987[/li][li]Artillery 926[/li][li]Armored personnel carriers 501[/li][li]Trucks 1,106[/li][li]Command vehicles 249[/li][li]Military structures 112[/li][li]Radars 96[/li][li]Helicopters (shot down) 2[/li][li]Bunkers 72[/li][li]Anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) 50[/li][li]Command posts 28[/li][li]FROG missiles 11[/li][li]Surface to air missiles (SAMs) 9[/li][li]Fuel tanks 8[/li][li]Fighter aircraft (on the ground) 10[/li][li]SCUD missiles 51[/li][/ul]
- And speaking of SCUD missiles, surely you know that not one over-expensive Patriot missile ever stopped or so much as brushed any SCUD missiles? NOT ONE! But did that stop the Pentagon from out-and-out lying about their alleged “successes”? Hell, no! The A-10s should have gotten the credit instead.
Face it, Brutus, Reagan and his insane squandering of our national treasure undeniably weakened our nation’s actual military strength to a considerable degree. In his extreme idiocy and reckless haste to throw away countless billions on mindlessly stupid super-high-tech weapons that are much inferior to older and/or cheaper designs, he screwed our country over but good. To put it politely.
(The citations for the facts used above are given in the text, notes, and appendices of Col. James Burton’s book:The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard
