rssDear Dov Zakheim
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 at 10:43 am
- 13 Comments
I’m a little confused as to how you reason that a $663.7 billion defense budget that won’t be fully worked out until April “sacrifices American primacy.” I suppose that since Defense Secretary Bob Gates has talked about difficult “tradeoffs” and the need to focus on the current wars rather than ephemeral conceptions of hypothetical wars, it’s reasonable to speculate that “short-term military needs” will be something privileged in the forthcoming Pentagon budget request. But how do you get to this:
While the administration is certainly funding short-term military needs, it appears willing to sacrifice long-term U.S. military superiority. We should not forget that, even if China’s GDP is no longer growing at 8-9 percent each year, even a five percent annual growth will enable Beijing to continue to modernize and expand its military capability over the medium to long term, while the current U.S. defense budget clearly limits our capability over the same time frame.
You were Pentagon comptroller. Can you explain how you’re defining “medium” and “long-term,” and how a budget that no one’s read yet is treating the rise of a potential Chinese competitor irresponsibly? While you’re at it, would you mind explaining why you’d expect Gates to act imprudently? I confess I don’t see much in his career to support that proposition.
On my read, this appears to be the strongest leg of your argument:
In fact, personnel and operations and maintenance costs will squeeze procurement and research and development programs, and do so at a time when the loss of engineering jobs will run counter to the administration’s job creation policy. More ominously, while foreign students will continue to dominate key university post-graduate science and engineering programs, young American engineers, who probably are most familiar with state-of-the-art developments in their fields, are more likely to be laid off first as procurement programs are cuts. The administration seems oblivious to the implications of this long-term threat to our national security.
Concede all that for the sake of argument. Does such a thing really jeopardize American primacy? Please show your work.
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13 Comments
Comment posted March 6, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
The Congress and DOD have turned a blind eye to the root cause problem in Defense spending. The penalty for failing to deliver anything on time or within cost is being given more time and money.
Programs are over promised in terms of capability and schedule and significantly under estimated in ever aspect including cost. No one is held accountable from those who approved the program to those making the decisions in the conduct. The excuse of complexity and unique technologies do not account for the massive delays in schedule and cost, it is either incompetence or fraud. The word fraud means agreeing to something to be done when you know it is not possible, and words like over optimistic or immature technology code words.
The Congress looks a blind eye as Defense Contractors push the programs as jobs for the various districts and the victims in this is the war fighter who ends up with little, DoD that is denied the use of those funds for more immediate requirements and the tax payers who have to foot the bills.
Many of the new programs for planes and vehicles are marginal improvements over systems in place that are continuously improved and overhauled and already superior on the ground and air to any known current or future threat.
The defense of current practices is far too often packaged that business improvements are being made and that wrapped in some sort of management slogans of the day. The real problem is the lack of integrity in the process where people and institutions no longer deliver goods and service on time, within cost and performing as advertised.
Comment posted March 6, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
The Congress and DOD have turned a blind eye to the root cause problem in Defense spending. The penalty for failing to deliver anything on time or within cost is being given more time and money.
Programs are over promised in terms of capability and schedule and significantly under estimated in ever aspect including cost. No one is held accountable from those who approved the program to those making the decisions in the conduct. The excuse of complexity and unique technologies do not account for the massive delays in schedule and cost, it is either incompetence or fraud. The word fraud means agreeing to something to be done when you know it is not possible, and words like over optimistic or immature technology code words.
The Congress looks a blind eye as Defense Contractors push the programs as jobs for the various districts and the victims in this is the war fighter who ends up with little, DoD that is denied the use of those funds for more immediate requirements and the tax payers who have to foot the bills.
Many of the new programs for planes and vehicles are marginal improvements over systems in place that are continuously improved and overhauled and already superior on the ground and air to any known current or future threat.
The defense of current practices is far too often packaged that business improvements are being made and that wrapped in some sort of management slogans of the day. The real problem is the lack of integrity in the process where people and institutions no longer deliver goods and service on time, within cost and performing as advertised.
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