Strategic Night Blindness and the Submarine

The U.S. has not been winning its current economic war.

One might say that in Obama’s strategic vision, the most important instrument of American power will no longer be the Nimitz-class carrier or the -nuclear submarine but a food-laden Chinook helicopter backed furtively by a Predator drone guided by a soldier with a joystick hundreds of miles away. - Arthur Herman, The Re-Hollowing of the Military (Preview), Commentary Magazine, September 2010. [color emphasis added]

As the almost perfected lawyer-political complex (note 1) gradually dismantles our alleged military-industrial complex, the most significant defense cuts to watch will be non-commercial satellite launches. When the satellite upgrade and replacement budget is cut, the degraded spyware circling earth now, will not only become rapidly obsolescent, it will simply wear out, and related orbits allowed to degrade.

If and when congress allows satellite attrition to occur, no matter how many nuclear weapons and submarines the U.S. may still have, our military will be reduced to yesteryear tactics in a world of dangerous alliances between our numerous declared enemies and technological giants like China and Russia. Without effective spies in the skies and network-centric communications on the seas a military of decreasing hands and ships may become severely handicapped.

Submarines are always silent and strange.
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note 1 The Lawyer-Political Complex
While law grads comprise only 2-3% of the U.S. workforce, their collegial network extends to the highest levels of every important economic activity, including government.
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The entire judiciary is staffed, and headed by lawyers; 60% of U.S. Senators are lawyers; the House has 36% to 40%, and currently the president, vice-president, Majority and Minority Leaders of both the Senate and House are all lawyers. The heads of both Republican and Democratic National Committees are lawyers.
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Chairman of key congressional investigating and ethics committees (the actual wielders of congressional power-politics)and at least half of their members are lawyers. The Hobbs Act definition of extortion: “the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.” – 18 U.S.C. § 1951.
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Property belonging taken under “official right” from a congressman by an ethics investigation might include unspent campaign funds and his seat, for starters.
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Moreover, the wishes of voters often take a back seat to unelected lobbyist who provide travel and educational influences to congress. The vast majority of lobbyists just happen to be law grads. They are members of the same lawyer network, regardless of political affiliation.