The United States Will Resume Buying Russian Rocket Engines — so as to Launch American Military Satellites — How Stupid Is that for Our National Security?

17 December 2015

One of history’s most obvious lessons is consistently ignored by dim-witted American leaders

The preponderance of American manufacturing, (combined with huge amounts of Soviet blood) largely accounted for the Allies’ victory over the Third Reich in World War II.

Yet, like the most obtuse of students, we today export our manufacturing abroad and import items necessary to our national defense from China and Russia.

Consider the following example of gem-like stupidity

From USA Today:

The Pentagon will be able to continue using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites under legislation nearing final approval in Congress.

The massive spending bill released early Wednesday overrides a previous law phasing out the RD-180 engines that United Launch Alliance [a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing] uses for Pentagon launches.

Lawmakers approved the phase-out last year and reaffirmed it this year to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea.

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which negotiated the catch-all spending bill, added the provision overturning the ban.

“The language included in the omnibus would reverse the reckless restriction put on the use of the RD-180, which undermines our national security,” Shelby said.

“This language directly addresses the concerns of our nation’s military leaders who argue that there will be a multi-year gap in access to space for national security launches under current policy.”

McCain said lifting the ban was a “triumph of pork-barrel parochialism.” He often criticizes Senate appropriators who use must-pass spending bills to engineer last-minute policy changes. In this case, he singled out Shelby and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., for choosing home state interests over national security.

“A rocket factory in Alabama may benefit from this provision," McCain said on the Senate floor.

"Boeing, headquartered in Illinois, may benefit from this decision. But have no doubt, the real winners today are Vladimir Putin and his gang of thugs running the Russian military-industrial complex."

The moral? — American leaders are so incredibly air-headed — that they think that substituting Russian manufacturing for American sources in the defense sector is a good idea

Grounding the Space Shuttle program and farming out rocket engine production to the Russian Federation parallels the historically preceding inanity of surrendering American “rare earths” production to China.

Both are good examples of how multinational corporatism and plutocrats’ greed trump the American public’s interests every time — all with the eager help of our Congressional and Executive branches of government:

McCain has accused ULA [Boeing and Lockheed joint venture] of manufacturing a crisis to get the law changed by not bidding on the first military satellite launch.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, he vowed to take up the issue again in next year’s defense authorization bill — threatening a “complete and indefinite” ban on Russian-made engines.

Like Senator McCain, I am fuming.

PeteFree.com

The United States Will Resume Buying Russian Rocket Engines — so as to Launch American Military Satellites — How Stupid Is that for Our National Security?