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Defense Chief Urges Big Cuts In Military Spending
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Pentagon is wasting money it will no longer get, and focused on targets as diverse as the large number of generals and admirals, the layers of bureaucracy in the Pentagon, and the cost of military health care. 'The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade,' Gates says. 'Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny. The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.' Gates, a Republican who was carried over as Defense Secretary from the Bush administration, has already canceled or trimmed 30 weapons programs with long-term savings predicted at $330 billion, but is now seeking to convert as much as 3% of spending from 'tail' to 'tooth' — military slang for converting spending from support services to combat forces. While this may not seem like a significant savings in the Pentagon's base budget, cuts of any size are certain to run hard against entrenched constituencies. Gates's critique of top-heavy headquarters overseas was underscored by the location of the speech — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. President Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, warned the nation of the menacing influence of an emerging 'military-industrial complex' in his farewell address as president in 1960. 'Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,' said Eisenhower, 'so that security and liberty may prosper together.'"
Does this mean major cutbacks on corporate welfare and job security clearances for US Persons?
I'd love to get an engineering job outside of the defense/military industrial complex, maybe this will finally make the other jobs on the market relatively more competitive! And maybe I could get to apply some of the mechanical/aerospace skills I learned in college finally?
Corporate welfare through defense spending has been an awfully good way of keeping the educated middle class too busy doing busywork to try to enact any kind of social change. But maybe mass entertainment has finally caught up with keeping those minds preoccupied with inane things.
Eisenhower and DOD created DARPA as a way to guarantee that we had fundamental RD being done. That group has been responsible for keeping American military on the cutting edge. W converted it from a mix (basically university, business, etc) to a great deal of money to just business esp. into Texas. That has come at the cost of long range basics. That needs to be changed back. We do need a better way to get our RD into the field, but not at the cost of the future. In addition, more of the RD needs to funnel back to either American business, or at least Western business, with all of the work in America/West.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Instead, you have made a select group of people very rich and very powerful. Was it worth it?
Well, since they also happen to be the ones in charge of almost everything, I think they'd say yes. The lower classes are too busy drugging up and watching TV, and the middle classes are kept busy with B.S. distractions like "gay marriage" and federal vs state control of abortion. When Bush/Haliburton said "mission accomplished" they meant it literally. Just not the mission the gullible thought it was.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Just because it hasn't happened yet in the US does not mean it is not a possibility. It's a continuation of the tension between the state and intellectuals that has been going on forever. To put it another way, it's the tension between those who have power and those who have knowledge.
In the olden days it was royalty and clergy and nowadays its military-industrial and scientific-technological. In both cases the relationship is mostly mutually beneficial (the state's power is derived from the intellectuals and in exchange the intellectuals get benefits such as funding from the state), but there is some antagonism because both wield immense power and often compete for control.
By the way, although it might sound like a great idea to put the modern intellectual group in control (after all they are using science instead of the religion and philosophy of the past), there are some major pitfalls with this idea. A major one is that power would end up being concentrated in the hands of an elite few, the scientific-technological elite Eisenhower mentioned. It would also likely lead to the formation of a formal hierarchical system for scientists, much like the ranks of priests or soldiers. Think of the present day academic system of rank except extended with positions of immense power on the national scale. Another huge problem is the potential for corruption, and particularly intellectual corruption. If the policies of the elite relied on specific ideas, how do you think they might react to opposing ideas? Might they decide to use their power to enforce intellectual orthodoxy? It is up to the elite few at the top to decide such things.
It's a lot easier to find waste in the military. The military knows where it is. The hard thing, is that you can't cut it. It's not because of the normal turf wars, it's because all too often you're legally forbidden to cut it. There are numerous weapon systems that the military doesn't want, yet, they have forced on them. Let me give an example I found last night. Since the late 80s the Air Force wanted to replace the A-10 close air support attack craft. Their first plan was to create a F-16 variant, the A-16. What happened? In 1990 Congress passed a law mandating that it maintain two wings of the A-10. Why? Well as Ike said, no one knows how to spread the pork around like the Military-Industrial Complex.
So what's going to replace the A-10 now? The F-35, the same plane that was supposed to be "cheap" (especialy compared to the F-22, which last I heard has not been deployed in combat) that's now experiencing huge cost overruns.
It will be the entitlement programs that bankrupt the U.S.
You refer, of course, to the entitlement programs for the rich and powerful, such as Gates is saying we need to cut out?
We'll go bankrupt because of the unwritten amendment to our constitution that says "The Congress shall make no law that cuts into anyone's profits or share prices."
That and the fact that we've offshored all our industry, so that what passes for an economy these days is just a giant pyramid scheme called "Wall Street".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
or someone with many years of education, who tries to rely on handed down wisdom from people much smarter than him?
This would be preferable to the former. Unfortunately, in reality it usually denotes someone who receives all of his "wisdom" from a filtered academic environment that is more concerned with making reality fit a particular system than handling it as-is, in all of its shifting complexity. Remember, just about everybody involved in the financial meltdown was college-educated--their models told them there would be no crash.
I don't want either one of those types in charge of things. What happened to the well-rounded individual who used to reside between the extremes and could think for himself?
Your brain is not a computer.
While I agree that we're spending too much on some weapons systems... there's absolutely no excuse to pay 7 billion dollars for a DDG-1000 destroyer...Gates is fiercely protective of the biggest, most expensive military boondoggle of all time, the Joint Strike Fighter. He will absolutely tolerate no talk of canceling it.
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
I'm as big a hawk as you'll find, but I think the primary problem is with two parties here... defense contractors, and Congress. Congress sees defense as a jobs program, and defense contractors are ripping off the taxpayer. I've come to the reluctant conclusion perhaps we should abandon private suppliers for the military, and go back to in-house supply solutions. For instance, the Navy used to build their own ships in their own shipyards. It was seen as a way to not be too reliant on private yards, and to keep them honest. God knows we need that again. I'm a big capitalist, and all for competition in truly free, private markets. But defense contracting isn't really a free market. You're serving one customer... the government. Maybe it's time to open up our own shipyards again, and revive the old Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. Maybe that's the only way to put firms like Lockheed on notice that the gravy train is over.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
> Because some people want to ensure a future for their children? Is that really that hard to
> understand?
>
> I'll grant you though that the need to do so may or may not exist today.
No not at all, though, what IS hard to understand, for me, is how anyone, who hasn't had their head in the sand for their entire life, equates signing up to fight whoever congress and/or the president says to fight with ensuring a future for their children.
So far, they have a piss poor track record when it comes to picking the fights that we need to (or even should) fight. So far they have shown absolutely no shame whatsoever when its come to provoking the start of conflicts for political ends (a tradition going back far enough that Lincoln himself was nicknamed "Spotty Lincoln", long before he was president).
Aside from the revolution (which wasn't fought under the current government), the war of 1812, WWI, and WWII, I am having trouble thinking of a conflict that Americans needed to fight to ensure the future for their children.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The one the UK is building, the Queen Elizabeth Class is one quarter the tonnage of the Gerald R Ford class of which the US is building three.
The fleet carrier is going the way of the battleship, with more advanced S/VTOL aircraft and increased reliance on UAV/UCAV's smaller, cheaper ships perform the same duties. Much in the same way that guided missile cruisers and Aircraft carriers saw the end of the Battleship, drone armed destroyers and assault (light) carriers will see the end of the fleet carrier.
Throwing money at something will not make it work. The US needs to get out of this mindset. You need more brilliant people having good ideas, like back in the 50's and 60's.
I believe that George W Bush is symptomatic of US governmental problems, he promised to "run the government like a businesses" and that part he did, he ran the government like a business straight into the ground. Governments are fundamentally different to businesses and not readily interchangeable and the US needs to eliminate this mindset.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.