The Defense Rusts

Excellent piece on military spending in
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY:

“After a Missouri Air National Guard F-15 came apart in early November, the Air Force grounded its fleet of 450 F-15Cs. At a time when Russia was resuming its long-range bomber patrols that it had curtailed after our victory in the Cold War, the Canadian air force volunteered its F-18s to patrol the skies over and near Alaska.

We ought to be ashamed, just as we ought to worry that no presidential candidate has made an issue of a steady decline in military capability. The Democrats will say this is because we have spent too much on Iraq. Even if true, that’s no reason to spend too little defending against other threats.

Our lack of capability is a direct legacy of the Clinton years. While President Bush has reversed Clinton’s failure to confront America’s enemies, he has not had time while fighting the war on terror to reverse the damage done to the military Clinton loathed.

As China builds and Russia rearms, we face other threats than just al-Qaida. …”

Read more here.

A very big gun

… that fires without traditional “explosive” propellant. 

According to DoD, U.S. Navy Set to Break Electromagnetic Railgun Record:

The Office of Naval Research will test fire an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va. on Jan. 31, 2008, between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST. The gun will be fired at over 10 megajoules of energy – a power level never before achieved by an EMRG.