Arms Race

If you've been around here for the past few years, you know the underlying philosophy of the latest Orioles rebuilding program. Grow the arms. Buy the bats. Made perfect sense when Andy MacPhail took over the team in 2007 and set to work to build a stronger foundation of minor league talent. The Orioles were in no position to sign a Roy Halladay or a C.C. Sabathia , so the logic of putting an over-arching organizational emphasis on drafting and developing quality pitching was indisputable.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many strategists suggested that the Cold War arms race had bankrupted its economy and caused its downfall. More than 20 years later, it appears that some in Washington are driving the U.S. toward a similar fate. Most recently, House Republicans (led by Rep. Paul Ryan) introduced a budget that both lavishly funds the Pentagon and slashes domestic programs. Mr. Ryan has even questioned whether generals were being honest in their assessment of the president's budget, suggesting, "We don't think the generals are giving us their true advice.

It is truly amazing to me that Op-Ed writer David W. Wise manages to write his scholarly and detailed piece ("Wrong course for Navy weapons research," July 13) on where our Navy will be heading over the next 30 years until 2041 without once mentioning why these new ships will be built, and against what potential enemy. It certainly isn't Somali pirates! Once again, this is part of the military-industrial complex smokescreen that obscures all of our military moves from 1993 to the far future, as we hunker down to confront the People's Republic of China in a possible third World War. We are doing it in exactly the same way, moreover, as did Great Britain and Imperial Germany during the years that preceded the First World War, 1897-1914, primarily via a ramped up naval arms race that we can ill afford in today's economic climate.

In the contest between marijuana and gambling to gain acceptance by generating new tax revenue, gambling just pulled three reels of cherries. Just before Christmas, the Justice Department dropped its ancient opposition to most kinds of Internet wagering, saying that the 1961 Interstate Wire Act bans only sports bets online. That the flip-flop was a sheepish bow to expediency and the need for revenue can be inferred from the timing of the announcement (when everybody was distracted by the holiday)

"We have to make a choice between the quick and the dead." So said presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in 1946 as the new-born United Nations gathered for the first time to wrestle with the new-born nuclear genie. For the better part of half a century it looked ominously as if the choice was with the dead. The two superpowers, locked in ideological enmity, built 100,000 warheads -- some so fearsome, accurate and clustered that, in themselves, they seemed to invite doomsday.Today, miraculously, the choice seems to be with the quick -- with life.

Baltimore County police are chagrined by news reports that the department has adopted a new bullet for officers' service pistols that critics say will inflict horrific wounds on its victims. The police say that is exactly what bullets are supposed to do -- this one just does it better.In April the department began switching to a 9mm bullet manufactured by the Winchester Ammunition Co. called the Black Talon. The bullet is designed to expand rapidly upon hitting its target, causing extensive damage to flesh and internal organs and creating a gaping wound channel and massive internal bleeding.

Winning the arms race was the easy part. It's cleaning up afterward that is hard.Shutting down a war machine takes bread out of the mouths of those who made livings building and staffing it. Hence the howls of anguish in St. Mary's County, Martin Marietta, Southern California and wherever else military facilities are closing and military contracts dwindling.The nation's economy will survive its reorientation, and maybe even prosper as talent and resources are turned toward civilian needs.

WASHINGTON -- In the annals of self- inflicted national injuries, a prominent place is secure for Washington's misguided values in spending scarce research money.The latest figures show that the federal government currently devotes $37 billion, or about 53 percent, of its research funds to seeking better tools of war, and $12 billion, or 17 percent, on research aimed at preventing and treating disease. Even less is allocated to basic science, energy, agriculture and environmental tasks, according to the National Science Foundation, which tracks research spending.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- During the cold war, one of the CIA's most important jobs was to estimate the former Soviet Union's military capability and strategy and share the findings in top-secret reports to the president and policy makers.The reports, known as National Intelligence Estimates, are milestones of the arms race that chronicle the buildup of nuclear arms. But with the country they analyzed no longer in existence and the CIA experimenting with a policy of more openness, 80 reports from the 1950s through the 1980s were declassified this weekend at Harvard University.

PAKISTAN'S five underground nuclear explosions to match India's five bring the world closer to nuclear war, perhaps, than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.It coincides with renewed tensions over disputed Kashmir and reports of shooting along the border. It reflects the Hindu nationalism of India's new government directed at Muslims at home and abroad, although the engineering bureaucrat in charge of India's program is a Muslim. It proclaims the existence of an "Islamic bomb," although Pakistan credibly claims to have had this capability for 20 years and was helped by technological transfers from Communist (and Confucian)

Unemployment is high, national debt is mounting and the government appears utterly incapable of doing anything productive. The Middle East is roiled, Europe is teetering on the brink of financial collapse, and China is beefing up its military. But the real threat to America may be this: Toys "R" Us is opening at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Walmart stores will open at 10 (two hours earlier than last year), and Target, Macy's, Kohls, Best Buy and others will open at midnight. Is nothing sacred?

If you've been around here for the past few years, you know the underlying philosophy of the latest Orioles rebuilding program. Grow the arms. Buy the bats. Made perfect sense when Andy MacPhail took over the team in 2007 and set to work to build a stronger foundation of minor league talent. The Orioles were in no position to sign a Roy Halladay or a C.C. Sabathia , so the logic of putting an over-arching organizational emphasis on drafting and developing quality pitching was indisputable.

It is truly amazing to me that Op-Ed writer David W. Wise manages to write his scholarly and detailed piece ("Wrong course for Navy weapons research," July 13) on where our Navy will be heading over the next 30 years until 2041 without once mentioning why these new ships will be built, and against what potential enemy. It certainly isn't Somali pirates! Once again, this is part of the military-industrial complex smokescreen that obscures all of our military moves from 1993 to the far future, as we hunker down to confront the People's Republic of China in a possible third World War. We are doing it in exactly the same way, moreover, as did Great Britain and Imperial Germany during the years that preceded the First World War, 1897-1914, primarily via a ramped up naval arms race that we can ill afford in today's economic climate.

ORFOLK, Va -N. - The great recession, mounting debt, military burdens, overconsumption. From New York to Beijing to Paris, there is talk, sometimes jubilant in tone, that the United States is on the decline. Some have even said that it's about time. The truth is, if the U.S. declines, who else could take on the tremendous world role? No one. Rather than jeering, the rest of the world should consider just how much the U.S. does and step up support for it. The security of the world is at stake.

The Young Wild Things Tour, featuring Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Plain White T's, and Cute Is What We Aim For, arrives at the George Mason University Patriot Center on Sunday. Fall Out Boy's performance is expected to feature songs from its most recent album, Infinity on High, including "This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race." The Patriot Center is at 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax, Va. Tickets are $35. The show starts at 7 p.m. Call 410-547-7328 or go to ticketmaster.com.

In Miami, assault rifles are becoming more popular among the criminal set, and the grim proof is in the increasing number of murder victims who have been killed with high-powered weapons in that city since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004. The trend has led Miami Police Chief John Timoney to allow some of his officers to carry assault rifles. That's what it's come to: police rearming to try to outgun the bad guys. Congress, though, doesn't seem to care. It's so paralyzed on this issue that it hasn't yet closed the legal loophole that allowed the Virginia Tech killer to buy his guns.

RENO, Nev. -- President Bush warned yesterday that the Middle East faces a bleak future if the United States fails in Iraq, evoking a "dark vision" of terrorist havens, disrupted energy supplies and a regional arms race triggered by a nuclear-armed Iran. "The region would be dramatically transformed," Bush said in a speech to the American Legion's national convention, "in a way that could imperil the civilized world." In muscular language, Bush noted recent evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq and renewed his demand that the Iranian leadership halt support for attacks on U.S. troops.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many strategists suggested that the Cold War arms race had bankrupted its economy and caused its downfall. More than 20 years later, it appears that some in Washington are driving the U.S. toward a similar fate. Most recently, House Republicans (led by Rep. Paul Ryan) introduced a budget that both lavishly funds the Pentagon and slashes domestic programs. Mr. Ryan has even questioned whether generals were being honest in their assessment of the president's budget, suggesting, "We don't think the generals are giving us their true advice.

Arsenals of Folly The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race By Richard Rhodes Alfred A. Knopf / 400 pages / $28.95 In the mid-1950s, Winston Churchill advised Americans that if they continued the nuclear arms race "all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce." With 1,756 nuclear weapons in its stockpile, the United States had the capacity to detonate 192,000 Hiroshimas. Assuming a "greater-than-expected threat" from the Soviet Union, the Pentagon increased its arsenal to 18,638 bombs and warheads (1.4 million Hiroshimas)

RENO, Nev. -- President Bush warned yesterday that the Middle East faces a bleak future if the United States fails in Iraq, evoking a "dark vision" of terrorist havens, disrupted energy supplies and a regional arms race triggered by a nuclear-armed Iran. "The region would be dramatically transformed," Bush said in a speech to the American Legion's national convention, "in a way that could imperil the civilized world." In muscular language, Bush noted recent evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq and renewed his demand that the Iranian leadership halt support for attacks on U.S. troops.