Marcus Aurelius: Six Items on Defense Budget Madness

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

This appears spot-on.  I've had some one-on-one experience with OSD CAPE and they appear to be true non-patriots whose sole function is to cut dollars.  They don't seem to have a clue as to what the business of defending  America is all about.  They particularly oppose the concept of redundancy.  In our huge bay, we have a cartoon posted about egg-head researchers at a blackboard whose task is to provide a scientific justification for a pre-determined solution:  transfer dollars from the Army to the Air Force and Navy.  That pretty well summarizes OSD CAPE and where things are heading these days.  Big picture:

1.  Pivot to Pacific is impacted by sequestration.
2.  Congress thinks sequestration is effective tool to cut government spending and may well extend it.
3.  Army is sucking wind for money, cyber geeks are a growth industry.
4.  Navy and Air Force want to leave Army as only Service furloughing people.

James Jay Carafano: Chuck Hagel begins knifing the Pentagon

EXTRACT:

CAPE is a number-cruncher. CAPE doesn't do strategy. Hagel can count on CAPE to put a happy face on sequester-size defense budgets.

Even more worrisome was Hagel's announcement that CAPE's assessment would provide the foundation for the Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR is supposed to be a long-term assessment of missions, capabilities, threats and resource requirements — not a rubber stamp for budget cutting.

Read full article.

Related:

(U) Army Posture Statement 2013,23Apr

Pentagon Cuts Feared Tripping Up Pivot To Asia

Pentagon Asked To Detail Possible Cuts

Details Leak On DoD's Budget Reprogramming

Pentagon Furloughs Still Uncertain As Services Disagree

Phi Beta Iota:  The pivot to Asia is ideological idiocy.  The Army has suffered 80% of the casualties while providing the 4% of the force that receives the 1% of the budget.  To cut the Army on the personnel side — while Congress unethically and treasonously forces more unwanted and unneeded tanks on Army, is criminal insanity at best, treason at worst.  Most flag officers, but particularly those of the Navy and the Air Force, lack intelligence with integrity — what the Navy SHOULD be doing is zeroing out half its Admirals (one per ship, which is preposterously corrupt), half its task forces, and moving aggressively toward a simplified 450-ship globally distributed Navy that — combined with a long-haul Air Force and an air-mobile Army — allows for the immediate withdrawal of most of our troops from overseas, returning them — and their purchasing power — to CONUS — while radically reducing our overseas target footprint.  The reality is that SecDef lacks advisors with intelligence and integrity — he is stumbling in the dark when he should be running with the wind on his back, empowered by ethical evidence-based decision-support.

See Also:

2013 Robert Steele: Reflections on Reform 2.2 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years

2012 Robert Steele: Reflections on the US Military — Redirection Essential — and a Prerequisite to Creating a 450-Ship Navy, a Long-Haul Air Force, and an Air-Liftable Army

2012 Robert Steele: Addressing the Seven Sins of Foreign Policy — Why Defense, Not State, Is the Linch Pin for Global Engagement

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