1$ Trillion Later

[gute]

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/08/30/1-trillion-bought-older-smaller-forces-fix-it-mr-gates/

If you were Mr. Gates what would you do?

[Oppenheimer]

Fire everyone in the ranks of E-9, O-6 through O-10, and GS-13 through SES...start over.

[Ken White]

Wheeler's a twit and I pay little attention to him. He deliberately obfuscates and use hyperbole to make his points. That's okay on a discussion board but not a good plan for a would be pundit...

OTOH, I do strongly agree with Oppenheimer and I say that with full knowledge, having been in two of those categories... :D

[gute]

I found this part of his article to be suprising.

Donald Rumsfeld (2001–2006) is generally acknowledged to be the most incompetent secretary of defense since — well — Donald Rumsfeld (1975–1977).

I'll go with Les Aspin.

[Ken White]

all but him, Cohen and Gates. Louis Johnson was hands down the worst, followed closely by Charley Wilson. Les Aspin was definitely in the bottom third. Rumsfeld is about in the middle of the pack.

Melvin Laird was the best so far IMO, though Gates may catch and even pass him. Weinberger, Carlucci and Schlesinger were really good. Those five plus Marshall and Perry round out the top third IMO.

Rumsfeld was a meddler and micro manager but he also did some good things. Wheeler merely shows his ignorance and biases in saying Rumsfeld was the worst...

[Pete]

Military spending always goes down when a war ends that has nearly bankrupted the country. The DoD R & D commands will have to suck it up, or maybe even downsize their force structures and expectations. The current threats to U.S. security are from low-tech terrorists and insurgents, not from hypothetical weapons that might be invented by some foe. For the time being our main priority should be funding for the Operations and Maintenance subcategory of the budget, and also for rebuilding the stuff sent back from overseas now in CONUS depots.

The time isn't right now for increased DoD spending, but that will change in three or four years.

[Pete]

When I say the Operations and Readiness budget has to be funded is because we have to maintain the institution at its current level, and where necessary restore its edge to the prewar levels. About 20 years ago it was popular to say Task Force Smith in Korea in 1950 was all the fault of the postwar budgets starting in 1946, but I think a main cause was guys sitting around telling war stories in Officer and NCO Clubs with an "Oh, what the hell" attitude about training and maintenance. There are too many stories about poorly-trained soldiers and malfunctioning weapons and equipment to let the officers and NCOs in the units off the hook.

[Dayuhan]

The time isn't right now for increased DoD spending, but that will change in three or four years.

If we're talking about spending, present and future, there's a blunt reality that I think we have to face: we are no longer the world's dominant economic power, and therefore we can no longer realistically expect to be the world's dominant military power. If we try, we will bankrupt ourselves and be no power at all.

Military power may help to protect and support the economic edifice, but ultimately it is economic power that enables military power, not the other way around. Painful though the idea may be, we will ultimately have to adjust our thinking and planning to reflect economic realities.

[Global Scout]

Dayuhan, our economic status may be eroding rapidly, but I believe we're still the top dog for now. I also think with the right domestic policies, and getting our foreign policy objective aligned with our means (realism versus spending on idealism) we'll actually widen the economic gap between our main competitor (China) instead of seeing it continue to narrow. If you look at the economic might of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined (among others, but a lot business journals commonly refer to emerging economic powers of BRIC) they might have more economic power than the U.S., but they're not a coalition, nor is it likely they will be.

[Pete]

Oh no! My great-grandfather who was in the cavalry during the Spanish-American War was right about all of that "Yellow Peril" stuff he used to say. He used to listen to Father Coughlin on the radio. Grandma said he'd drive great-grandma nuts when he'd start fiddling around with his Army Colt .45 revolver when he was halfway through a bottle of whisky. "Garry Owen" and all that.

[Dayuhan]

We might be the biggest dog in the pack right now, but I don't think we have, or ever will have, the level of economic dominance relative to the rest of the world that we once had. I also think that's a good thing, as a unipolar structure has many inherent instabilities.

I don't think the challenge to us will come from a single rival that gains the capacity to outspend and thus dominate us. I think a greater threat is our tendency to play global cop and take on numerous smaller conflicts... the reality of our military structure is that all deployments, even small ones, cost a great deal relative to size. If we keep doing this, and other powers avoid such engagements, we are effectively imposing a long-term tax on our economy, with very questionable returns. That has a serious impact on our competitiveness.

"Getting our foreign policy objectives aligned with our means" is exactly what I think we need to do, and that requires realistic assessment of our means.

[Bob's World]

(copied from a post made in another section this morning. Fits here as well)

Sometimes governments just need to change or be replaced. In America we are lucky, the populace has the hope borne of their confidence that our (intentionally) flawed system will take out the trash on a regular basis; either because they voted and it counted, or because imposed time limits will be respected and leaders step down. Other countries do not have the "insurgency off ramp" that such hope bestows, so they take up arms. It's natural.

One of the West's problems is that Corporations love the stability that comes from effective dictators. We don't fight for oil in the Middle East; we fight for distribution of oil profits. A subtle, but critical, nuance that seems to be lost on most. Oil producing countries must sell oil and oil consuming countries must buy oil. This is a constant. It is a global market, so if one producer or seller get into a tiff, it just changes the routing, but not the amount sold or bought. So why fight over oil??? Because if a government that may be more democratic but less stable comes into power, that is bad for business. Or if a government comes into power that is willing to void a long outdated contract that may have been good for a few in senior positions, but that is bad for the country as a whole (think when Mossadegh threw the Brits out of Iran post WWII - prompting his removal by the US in '53). Such interference upsets the natural balance, and shifts the focus of the oppressed populace to those who help sustain the oppressors in power.

When we go in and sustain an effective, but despotic leader; or an ineffective and corrupt leader; we disrupt the will of the people and create legitimacy issues we do not fully appreciate the importance of. This is becoming more important as globalization brings us all closer together. The tool of "Friendly Dictators" is, IMO, obsolete and needs to go into the dustbin along with other tools of sustaining interests that have waned over time.

Powerful lobbies shape policy. Using starch plastic bags, biofuel for your car, and unhealthy sweetener for your food? Blame the Corn lobby. Think everything Israel does is great and everything Arab nations do that is counter to that is evil? Blame the Jewish and Christian lobbies. Think we're supporting a bunch of tinpot dictators in oil producing countries or those that control the critical sea lanes oil moves through? Blame the oil lobbies.

Instead we blame those populaces living in those regions whose sovereignty has been corrupted, whose writ of legitimacy has been co-opted by outsiders.

We can do better than this. We are applying outdated perspectives and policies from a world that no longer exists to one that is emerging around us. Rising powers are embracing change and leveraging it to fuel their rise. Fading powers will cling to the status quo, and ride it to their demise. The irony for the US is that we actually rode the front end of this current trend to rise to our current position. We have a choice: remain flexible, open minded, seeking and embracing new technologies and industries and continue to rise; or instead focus on clinging to what we have and trying to preserve it through military might.

Pouring billions into old industries, like GM and Chrysler is a pretty good metric we are still very much committed to clinging to the fading past. Imagine what that money applied to emerging technologies and industries, and an education system designed to exploit the same, could produce?

To state the obvious, the future is before us. We should head in that direction. If we are headed in the right direction, the new governments that emerge to lead old allies will follow us as well.