DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Asia's Military Spending To Surpass Europe's For First Time

Asia News Report: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Asia's Military Spending To Surpass Europe's For First Time
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Yifei Zhang - IBT
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 26, 2012: 2012 will be a historic moment in the shift of global power from the West to the East. According to expert estimates and figures on military spending, in 2012 Asia's spending on defense will eclipse Europe's for the first time in the modern era.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a UK-based think tank focusing on global military and political research and analysis, released its influential "Military Balance 2012" report back in early March.

The report claims that since 2008, financial crises in the West have led to major reductions in defense spending in Europe. Drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely contribute to decreasing numbers in the future. Meanwhile, Asia's continued economic growth, and efforts to modernize and build military forces there, have reinforced higher spending. In the IISS calculations, Europe does not include Russia, and Asia does not include the Middle East, but does include Australasia.

While per capita spending in Europe is still higher, press releases form the institute say that "Asian defense spending is likely to exceed that of Europe, in nominal terms, during 2012." The U.S. accounted for nearly half of all worldwide military spending in 2011, a figure which may be in slight decline over the following years due to defense cutbacks.

IISS says that in real terms, declines in defense spending by 16 out of 28 member states of NATO exceeded 10 percent between 2008 and 2010. Asian spending increased almost 3.2 percent in real terms between 2010 to 2011.

Planned spending on defense, from different countries worldwide, 2011. Graphs from IISS.

Five countries -- China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia -- accounted for more than four-fifths of all regional defense spending. A major focus of spending in Asia is geared towards building newer, bigger fleets of warships and aircraft. Further geographic distances, greater territorial distributions of water, and the predominance of air and naval forces in modern warfare are the main factors driving Asian funding for air forces and navies.

Nations such as China and India are developing new and more powerful ballistic and cruise missiles as well as aircraft carriers. All of the five countries above, save Australia, have active space programs aimed at deploying greater systems of satellites for surveillance and communications, as well as plans for building next-generation stealthy super-jets, like the U.S. F-22 Raptor.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Yifei Zhang - IBT
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*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: U.S. Budget Proposal Aims to Support Troops, Families

Asia News Report: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: U.S. Budget Proposal Aims to Support Troops, Families
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources American Forces Press Service
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 13, 2012: President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal has several provisions for service members, veterans and their families.

According to an Office of Management and Budget fact sheet released today, the budget request includes:

-- $8.5 billion in Defense Department base funding to support military families, from child care and education for military children to counseling and employment programs for the entire family.

-- More than $1 billion through the Education Department’s Impact Aid program to local school districts where a military base may increase the number of students and decrease the property tax base that funds the local schools. Districts educating more than 368,000 children from military families receive these funds.

-- Funding for a 1.7 percent pay raise for service members -- the full amount authorized by law -- as well as a variety of monthly special skill-based payments, enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, and other benefits.

-- About $2.4 billion for programs serving wounded, ill and injured service members, with $747 million of that total to address traumatic brain injury and psychological health needs, such as support for recovery care coordinators and enhanced access to care.

-- $465 million for medical research specifically focused on psychological health, TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder.

-- $259 million for the Labor Department’s Veterans Employment and Training Service, and $8 million for the department’s transition assistance program and grants for employment services to veterans. The budget request ends the Veterans Workforce Investment Program, supporting service delivery innovations through the Workforce Innovation Fund instead. The expanded transition assistance program makes employment workshops more accessible to retiring Reserve and National Guard members, as well as spouses of separating service members.

-- Continuing grants under the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program at a level of $38 million.

-- Expanding entrepreneurship training for veterans and military families through the Small Business Administration’s National Veterans Entrepreneurship Training, a new $7 million program that will train up to 260,000 veterans annually.

-- $278 million for implementation of the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act. New caregiver benefits and services include training adapted to the veterans' individual care needs, a direct stipend payment and health care and mental health services.

-- Almost $1.4 billion to provide services through the Veterans Affairs Department for homeless and at-risk veterans. These funds will combat veteran homelessness through collaborative partnerships with local governments, nonprofit organizations, and the Housing and Urban Development, Justice and Labor departments.

Earlier today, officials said defense leaders are fully committed to assisting service members and their families.

The DOD budget request provides $1.3 billion in funding for child care space for more than 200,000 children, as well as $1.4 billion for family support centers and morale, welfare and recreation programs. It also commits $2.7 billion for the education of more than 61,000 students at DOD Education Activity schools in 12 countries and more than 33,000 students in seven states, Puerto Rico and Guam.

The request includes more than $50 million to improve public school facilities on military installations.

Military construction funding is set at $9.1 billion, and family housing at $1.7 billion.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources American Forces Press Service
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DTN News - U.S. AIR FORCE NEWS: Air Power - Lessons From Libya

Asia News Report: DTN News - U.S. AIR FORCE NEWS: Air Power - Lessons From Libya

*With resources thinning and China rising, the U.S. Air Force is all the more vital—yet it's due for major budget cuts.

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources

WSJ By Michael Auslin

(NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI, India - October 28, 2011: Moammar Gadhafi was killed last week by Libyan rebel forces on the ground, but his regime would never have met its end if not for the Western air power that targeted his troops from the skies. As Washington considers slashing $500 billion from the defense budget over the next decade, the lessons of Libya should give pause to anyone whose plans will reduce the U.S. military's ability to control the air. The United States cannot fight in the future with a hollow Air Force.

Allied air power saved the Libyan revolt from being crushed at least once, if not twice, this past summer. Nearly 8,000 allied strike sorties kept Gadhafi's forces on the defensive, destroyed their command-and-control network, and eliminated much of their supply infrastructure. Much of the direct air-combat activity was borne by the British and French but, as then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted, without U.S. air-refueling tankers, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, the NATO missions would have been severely hampered and largely ineffective.

Considering the broad range of U.S. interests and commitments around the globe, the capabilities offered by the U.S. Air Force will remain essential national assets. As Mr. Gates argued shortly before leaving office, in the post-Iraq/Afghanistan future, the U.S. is more likely than not to be unable or unwilling to commit large numbers of ground forces to overseas campaigns.

If the Army loses up to 10 brigade combat teams and shrinks by as many as 75,000 troops, and with the Navy at its smallest size since World War I, there will be fewer traditional military options for projecting U.S. power and deterring or defeating adversaries. Any land and naval forces sent into harm's way will be smaller, with fewer reserves to call upon. And all of this will be happening while China develops missiles to target American aircraft carriers and modernizes and expands its air forces, including developing a fifth-generation fighter-bomber. The result will almost certainly be an increased burden on the U.S. Air Force.

Fighting from the air reduces U.S. casualties on the ground. Air power can significantly destroy an adversary's strength, making follow-on operations far easier. The Air Force's unique global airlift and air-support capabilities, and long-range targeting and precision bombing, provide the umbrella under which ground forces and naval forces can act with impunity and assured lethality.

Yet the Air Force is rapidly aging, with 30-year-old fighters and half its bomber force dating back to the 1960s. And the Air Force already receives the lowest percentage of defense resources (around 23%) of any major service.

To shoulder the burden of increased responsibilities, the Air Force will need the resources to improve its capacity to act globally. But funds for procurement, maintenance and operations are already projected in the 2012 budget to decline by over $2 billion, and some inside the Pentagon expect annual cuts of $10 billion or more in a few years, even before any sequestration-imposed cuts.

Even as funds shrink, the Air Force must continue all its air operations, modernize its tactical fighter and tanker fleets, build a new long-range strike bomber, maintain its global airlift tempo, and increase its capabilities in space and cyberspace. If the U.S. intends to remain the world's premier power-projecting nation, then we will have to adequately fund the aerospace force that allows us to reach anywhere on Earth at any time.

Air warfare will not be the answer for every battle we enter, but it may become our most visible means of force projection in an era of smaller Army and Navy units. From the high plateau of national security decision-making, a future president and his top commanders will expect readiness, not excuses, when they order the Armed Forces to destroy the enemy.

Being able to operate in both open and contested skies will ensure that any U.S. land and sea forces we send into combat will remain completely protected from the air, as they have been since the Korean War and as Libya's freedom fighters were this summer.

Mr. Auslin is a resident scholar in Asian and security studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Michael Auslin - WSJ

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*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News

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