Ahrcanum

“I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early yhttp://apnews.myway.com//article/20090529/D98G22BO0.html  after North Korea recently detonated another nuclear test and prepares to fire more missiles capable of hitting Alaska.  Stupid duck say what?  No crisis from a totalitarian, communistic, secretive country who has made it clear on more than one occasion it seeks to dominate not only South Korea, but the world?

North Korea calling its actions preparations for self defense, accused the Security Council of hypocrisy and in defiance said, “There is a limit to our patience, The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth’s 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests.”  

“Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means … as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted Pyongyang’s state-run Minju Joson newspaper as saying.

An inter sting report on The North Korean regime’s history can be found here http://socialistworld.net/eng/2009/06/0701.html 

Last year- 2008, countries around the world spent $1.5 trillion on weapons, vehicles and intelligence and reconnaissance services, according to a Monday report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or Sipri. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-military-spending-hits-a-record-in-2008   The amount represented a 4% increase from 2007 with the U.S. accounting for the largest percentage of the increase in spending. Undoubtedly, North Korea’s funding is not included in the study.

Read more on military spending and escalation here http://www.sipri.org/yearbook. There is also an overview of arms control and disarmament agreements and international security cooperation bodies, and a chronology of events during 2008 in the area of security and arms control.

33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age is a one-hour documentary produced by The Heritage Foundation that tells the story of the very real threat foreign enemies pose to every one us. The truth is brutal – no matter where on Earth a missile is launched from it would take 33 Minutes or less to hit the U.S. target it was programmed to destroy. 

33 Minutes is the definitive documentary exposing the untold vulnerability we all face and the action plan necessary to revive a strategic missile defense system that America uniquely can develop, maintain, and employ for its own defense.  The trailer for the movie can be seen here http://www.heritage.org/33-minutes/index.htm 

Security, stability and peace aren’t cheap, but there are too many rogue nations and terrorist organizations who pose a constant threat that demands The Obama administration lay a course of military defense of America first and foremost.  Even Japan is on guard with the Anti-Missile defense system named the “Son of Star Wars,” already installed aboard Japanese Destroyer in anticipation of another North Korean Missile test or in the event of an attack with possibly nuclear war heads from North Korea.  http://www.nowpublic.com/world/missile-crisis-japanese-sea-escalating-further

The good news is that The U.S. Defense Department led the surge in global military spending over the last decade, climbing to $607 billion in 2008 — more than seven times the military budget of China and greater than the combined budgets of the next 14 ranking nations, according to Sipri. 

The bad news is that President Obama  is cutting military spending.  Read the Obama budget here http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/26/fy10.budget.pdf  Our military exists to defend America. Period. Not “peacekeeping” or
meals-on-wheels missions for the UN, not to prop up NATO, and not to maintain bases on foreign soil writes a commentator at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32169 where you can also view further military cuts and see that the ability to engage in conventional warfare appears on the chopping block.

Sarah Palin weighed in on CNN, “Reducing Alaska’s defense readiness in these perilous times is a show of weakness, it is not a sign of strengths…And yet, Washington thinks it’s best now to actually cut defense spending in Alaska by hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said. “Now that is an odd priority there.”http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/07/palin-defense-cuts-are-a-sign-of-weakness/  

Congress requires a “Quadrennial Defense Review” to answer the demands of the Defense Department and base its budgets on the QDR results.  But the 2009 QDR hasn’t been done yet.

Taiwan’s First ever QDR http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/06/02/2003445104 offers the principle “preventing war but not fearing war and preparing for but not provoking war.”  Sounds like a sound policy.

“We want defenses, but what should we look like? If you really truly want disarmament at the end of the day, having defenses is not a bad thing,” she said. “(But) if the U.S. has a strong defense and it’s too unilateral, then it looks to others like we’ll marry that to our offensive capability and have first-strike capability.” said Cristina Hansell, director of the Newly Independent States Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/09/MNGF183579.DTL  I’d rather the world know we have the capability than not.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher seeks Senate confirmation today as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.  She seems as resolute as Obama on goal of a nuke-free future just as North Korea and others ramp up their nuclear programs.  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, new strategic arms-reduction treaties including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty all challenge the balance between peace and preparedness. 

I am again reminded; A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Related:

https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/north-korea-missile-aimed-at-the-new-world-order/