A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department’s current budget is “not sustainable,” and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military’s most prized weapons programs.
The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation’s recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation’s most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military’s most pressing priorities.
Those include rebuilding ground forces battered by multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and expanding the ranks to wage the war on terrorism.
“Business as usual is no longer an option,” according to one of the internal briefings prepared in late October for the presidential transition, copies of which were provided to the Globe. “The current and future fiscal environments facing the department demand bold action…”
Pentagon insiders and defense budget specialists say the Pentagon has been on a largely unchecked spending spree since 2001 that will prove politically difficult to curtail but nevertheless must be reined in.
Most important quote? “A few cuts here or there won’t do the trick.”
Here are some money saving ideas:
1) Draw down the troops in Iraq.
2) Withdraw all troops from Europe and close bases.
3) Withdraw all troops from South Korea and close bases.
4) Mothball a few carrier groups.
“according to the Defense Business Board, the Pentagon oversight group, which includes about 20 private sector executives appointed by the secretary of defense.”
Oh, yes. I want these guys to determine what systems to cut.
As Omama hasn’t as much as held a BB gun in his life, he’s going to get lead by the nose and screw the Services. LOL
paddy, i think you’ll be presently surprised to find that you’re wrong about obama. we’ll see.
but yeah, fancy equipment is good, but everyone knows that the troops write home asking for commercial gps units, etc because they’re better quality and damn sight cheaper than what the pentagon get raped on.
yo paddy:
you think obama would tap mccain to go after military waste, as is his record, and if he did you think mccain would accept?
That is pretty disgusting seeing that man dressed in uniform, particularly on Veterans Day.
Here is a crazy idea….. Stop spending Trillions of dollars on bailing out private companies and keep up or defense of our nation. When I checked the constitution last it said nothing about the US government owning insurance companies, banks, or Auto Makers. Let’s put these people in the military and pay them for doing real work for our country. Then they would be eligible for the GI bill 🙂
Killing the missile installation in Poland would be a great start. It is destabilizing, expensive and it doesn’t work very well.
Obviously, lets get out of Iraq ASAP.
And then lets eliminate 10% of overseas bases.
Evaluate at this point and move on
I would also kill foreign aid to Georgia (and Israel and Egypt), or let’s just make the aid a loan to be paid back later and see if they really need that money.
You know, I kind of like the idea of requiring the top executives of bailed out companies to serve in the military in some capacity. Not going to happen, but a funny thought.
#6:
The execs of those bailed out companies and banks are apparently better at throwing parties with bailout money than doing something useful. Having them serve in the military is a funny thought, but also scary.
#3 grog, “you think obama would tap mccain to go after military waste, as is his record, and if he did you think mccain would accept?”
I’d rather Powell do that.
#1 – 1) Happening already. Should continue.
2 & 3) Good idea. Add Japan to that list. And, when these countries start to whine that they want us to stay, present them with a bill, payable COD.
4) Not so much. The Navy has been decimated by budget cuts since the 1990’s. They’re down to 270 commissioned ships and subs. They should review out of control spending, like the DDG1000 which went from $1 to $3 billion (each!), but cutting carrier groups is not a sound idea.
# 9 geofgibson said, “but cutting carrier groups is not a sound idea.”
Agreed. I highly recommend reading, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy.
There are some good basic lessons to be found in this book.
It’s about time the Pentagon money black hole gets capped.
Obama will do the right thing and ignore the stupidty that infects this nation like dingbat like O’LOL and his internet access.
Dwight Eisenhower warned of the dangers of “undue influence” exerted by the “military-industrial complex.” He cautioned that maintaining a large, permanent military establishment was “new in the American experience,” and suggested that an “engaged citizenry” offered the only effective defense against the “misplaced power” of the military-industrial lobby.
I happy to see Dvorak continues to be owned by the Obama phenomenon with continued Obama coverage. This is a great public service for Dvorak to train the loser republicans on what a good leader like Obama can acheive.
This bankrupting of the country (and the world) is precisely what the Al-Qaeda strategy called for.
I don’t care if they claim any victory from their mountain caves – it is what happens here that matters.
But we do need to reequip our forces and rethink our strategy. Mothballing carrier groups is not wise though.
There are weapon systems that the military doesn’t even want but they’re pet pork projects of some senator. Those are the kind of things that need to go.
#11 – Dallas
Let’s not go to the other extreme though. Even without official “wars” underway, Clinton’s management of the military budget was less than stellar.
A friend of mine served two weeks in the Reserves down in Columbia in the “war on drugs”. They’d get down there and couldn’t fly their copters half the time due to long outstanding maintenance issues. Say what you will about the “war on drugs” or any other action but they shouldn’t be sent to any fight if not committed to paying for it.
Why is moth balling Carrier groups such a bad idea? They are extremely expensive. The same for the Star Wars anti-missile project, the F-35, and several other limited useful projects.
Maybe we should be re-evaluating our role as thew world’s police man and hand that role over to the UN.
#14 No argument there. I have several family members in the service and one passed away at a young age of 23. Nobody wants to starve the service of required support.
The issue is clear. The military is a money black hole with lots of opportunity to clean it up. Im not sure what your gripe is with the Clinton administration but I do know the military wanted tanks and other shit to fight a ground war in europe. BILLIONS. Thanks goodness CLinton stopped it.
It was clear the military needs unmanned surveillance and other modern tools and not the bullshit WWII era crap that republicans like to buy in order to pad the profits of their military suppliers
5,
Do you want a reason for the Gov, to own Ins/banks/Grocery stores??
1. to show that IT CAN BE DONE CHEAPER.
2. COMPETE with them, as they ARNT competing with EACH OTHER.
3. even OWNING part of the company can GIVE them the ability to MONITOR and control, OUT RIGHT ROBBERY.
As to the Military output..
IF the money would STAY in the Military, insted of going out to BLACKWATER and others, Being paid 4-10 TIMES what our MEN are getting(for being SHOT AT)…we could raise the Allowance they are GETTING for being IN IRAQ..
#15 – Mr. Fusion
I wouldn’t hand anything over to the UN. Talk about dumping money into a black hole.
But to answer your question about carrier groups, I’ll leave that to people more knowledgeable.
Personally I would rather see foreign base closures. Those are expensive and typically not well regarded in the host countries (other than the local economies surrounding them). Today’s world doesn’t need to stage forces in all potential hot spots (excepting South Korea since the North might just be crazy enough if they starve even more than now). We can project power and defend ourselves and allies faster today than any other era.
My ideal setup would be to protect our borders and global interests (i.e. Somali pirates, Gulf of Hormuz, etc.) by having the carrier groups ready to strike anywhere, anytime from afar. Rounding this out would be Special Forces and rapid deployment groups.
The F-35 needs to go forward. Maybe not in the numbers originally planned but we need to replace an aging fleet of planes. That includes the tanker program. That and the littoral combat ships are a complete failure of Gates. He’s had enough time to provide some leadership on these types of programs that will influence the forces for the next 50 years.
Star Wars has advanced far but who knows how much it has cost over the past decades to get to this elementary stage. I would cut it but keep the research going.
#16 – Dallas
I agree probably 98% with that. I am just saying don’t cut it to the bone. Rethink what our goals are for our security and interests (which should be rethought as well especially with dependence on foreign oil), develop the strategy to support it and fully fund just those programs that support the strategy and goals.
Not sure what you mean by WWII era crap. All I see are hugely complicated naval ships that cost billions each (and still barely work), aircraft programs that aren’t far behind and a lot of other waste. Yes there are many opportunities to cut! We won the battles with smart bombs but have lost on how to win a war.
But some reality based planning for the guys and gals with boots on the ground would have saved many lives. But that doesn’t inflate your budget much and the new toys are so much more fun for the brass. Just like those tanks in Europe they wanted but had not woken up to the new world order and realize were no longer needed.
We will have 12 active carriers by 2009 when the Geo HW Bush becomes activated. Three more are planned and/or are under pre-keel development/manufacturing.
Show of hands: Who wants to be on a carrier named after George Bush? Any George Bush.
The newest are Ford-class. You know, for Gerald R. Ford: dynamic, stumbling, republican. But I digress.
The serious list:
1. Lop off the oldest six carriers. Sell the radioactive waste to the Chinese.
2. Rename the Bush, the MLK.
3. Keep the plan for three Ford-class but rename it for a state or have a name contest limited to kids under 18.
4. Drop weapon systems that are clever but were really needed in WWII, Korea or Viet Nam.
5. Put terawatt orbiting lasers up.
6. Invest in remotely piloted Asimo-class warriors that can be controlled with standard game controllers.
7. Put future conflicts on-line so anybody can play. Even the bad guys. (But they will think they’re just winning a cgi game. Ha ha.)
8. Develop high fidelity real world-to-apparently-cgi interface generation technologies.
9. Draft gamers.
You want to know the dumbest thing of all? This is exactly the Pentagon’s long range plan.
In reverse order.
#20:
Interesting.
2: I thought you were talking about renaming the turnpike near Dallas, Texas for a moment there.
4: Military stuff is always designed or upgraded to take care of problems found in the last war, never the current one.
7, 8, 9 (and maybe 6): I believe that idea was in Ender’s Game, the only good SF novel Orson Scott Card ever wrote.
Why am I not surprised that the first thing that a democrat cuts is the military, yet the entitlement spending will go through the roof.
@Bob.
First of all. No one knows what he will cut first. He hasn’t said anything. This is one article that makes some suggestions.
Second of all. Entitlement spending is non-discretionary. It is not easy to change, and commitments such as social security are almost impossible to alter.
Military spending is completely discretionary, it can be easily adjusted from year to year, and there is no one that will argue that there is not a lot of wasteful spending in the military budget.
@SparkyOne – Barack Obama is the future commander-in-chief. All of our admirals and generals salute him. Why is it so distasteful to see a picture of him in uniform?
Honoring our troops is one thing, but this crazy “troop worship” that a lot of people seem to be doing is absolutely crazy. They are people just like any one of us, and it’s about time that people acknowledge that wearing a uniform is not the only way to honorably serve your country.
#24 excellent post about discretionary and non-discretionary spending.
Thanks for chiming in and taking part in training the motley crew in here. It is going to take a village.
# 24 jbella said, “Why is it so distasteful to see a picture of him in uniform? ”
Because it is a crime to impersonate a military officer, and he has never served in uniform.
Need any other reason?
The military upper echelon are either schizo or pathological liars. They pretend as if they’re not responsible for championing for funding of every weapons system they can. And covering up the failures of those that aren’t working, just to keep the cash flowing. And the cream of the Pentagon generally retire to become executives of the defense contractors, who’s systems they promoted. Then they turn around and tell the next President, they need him to rein their glutenous stupidity in? Because they ain’t got the guts or integrity to do it themselves? What a bunch of weak ass sh*theads! And they expect the lower ranked soldiers to respect these clowns at the top? It’s only because the average soldier is such a dim bulb when it come to the leadership’s economic policies. That they’re willing to sacrifice life and limb, for a general staff that’s more concerned with its retire packages than winning any damn wars. Sorry if this seems to be anti-patriotic, because I don’t blindly except whatever the military shoves down our the taxpayers’ throat as gospel. I was in the armed services once, and saw first hand how they waste money. And then penny pinch on our wealth care and pay. It took years for us to get a few more dollar in pay, per month. While the generals got an increase of hundreds. And they all have cozy corporate positions waiting for them afterward. While the enlisted only have blue collar, service industry jobs (if they’re lucky). Where I served, enlisted families used food stamps to get by. But the brass kept the lie going (or truly believe) that most of the budget went into our pay. Yeah, after the expense of these multi-billion dollar weapon systems are covered, I’m sure the balance went to pay us our minimal wages.
I’m sure a Pentagon group warned Obama of something. Just not what they’re telling us. It was probably something like “Don’t f**k with our budget, or we’ll f**k with you.”
Here’s how the cut the military’s budget. We only need two services. Not four. What are the Marines? The Army of the Navy? Just make them both The Navy! During WW2, the Navy also had the SeaBees. Their contruction arm. They’re not around anymore. So why are Marines a necessity? Can’t the Army hitch a ride on a boat? And the Army and Air Force got split up in the 1950s, to help spend more money by duplicating equipment. But when you get down to the nuts and bolts of the two. Their uniforms, food, housing, training, is pretty much all the same. There’s no really reason why the US needs to keep so many separate services, while the rest of the world DOESN’T! Russia just has an Army and Navy. And I’m pretty sure the UK works that way.
Cut B2 bomber program. Just use the B1s. We only had B52s for decades. Suddenly one modern supersonic long range bomber wasn’t good enough. We had to have an even more expensive, subsonic short range “stealthy” bomber. They only went public with them because the funding was threatened. So they went for the “Oh, got to have it” response of the public. And BTW, Hollywood and Clint Eastwood came out with the movie “Firefox”, just before Northrup went public about the B2. Coincidence?! NO!
Cut all further SDI (Star Wars) funding. Never was there a more stupid, ill-conceived defense program. Thanks, Ronald Reagan, you spending fool! Besides it flies in the face of most of the treaties we signed. What? We don’t honor anything we signed, anymore? Are we commies now?
Cut the V22 program. It’s the Titanic of the skies. It’s never going to be both safe, and useful. You can’t convince me that the V22 can replace the Schnook. That old workhorse was designed by genius engineers. While the V22 was designed by a committee of military technocrats. We’ll just end up buy them by the dozens, they’ll all crash, and we’ll never use them as intended. Give up on this flying Edsel.
Cut these new highly expensive super subs. The cold war is over. We don’t need to out gun the Russian Navy with vastly superior nuclear subs, against what few they even have. Again, Hollywood furnished another myth about their Navy with the movie “Hunt for Red October”, to help sell this program. Why is Hollywood such a tool of the Pentagon?!!
Here’s why. Cut funding Hollywood movies by letting them make movies and Tv shows at practically zero cost (to them), using US military equipment and men. Especially during a war! All during the Vietnam War, Hollywood made movies about WW2, with the military’s help. Which mean a good bit of resources were wasted pretending to fight the wrong war. And cover up how badly we were losing the real one.
Folks saw “The Great Escape” and probably thought their sons got treated as well as WW2 POWs. WRONG! Just ask John McCain.
Open Question: What kind of spending pulled the USA out of the Great Depression?
#28, Here’s how the cut the military’s budget. We only need two services. Not four. What are the Marines? The Army of the Navy? Just make them both The Navy!
The Marines are a part of the Navy.
During WW2, the Navy also had the SeaBees. Their contruction arm. They’re not around anymore.
The SeaBees are still around. They are used onsite in hostile areas and maintain the facilities at bases around the world.
So why are Marines a necessity? Can’t the Army hitch a ride on a boat?
The main difference is when an Army soldier is surrounded by enemies, the Marine is in a target-rich environment.
Seriously, their missions are way different from each other. The Marines are the shock troops and the Army are the heavy-duty combatants. Each spends years training for their specific mission, missions you can’t cross-train for and still be effective.
Star Wars
What’s more dangerous than a fantastic weapons system? One you don’t have but the enemy thinks you do.
Certain circles consider Reagan’s Star Wars propaganda to be one of the main reason the USSR fell. YMMV.
And I, too, feel that picture of Obama in a uniform is distasteful and disrespectful. He may get the salute but he is a civilian CIC, not an officer. I served in the military and yet I would not want my picture taken as such either.