Just wait until next year...
By Jim Arkedis
Jim Arkedis runs the All Our Might blog at the Progressive Policy Institute.
There's a ton of hemming and hawing out there about DoD's budget. Spencer Ackerman jabs that a $3-billion cut in procurement this year isn't "change" we can believe in. Elder statesman Anthony Cordesman is really ticked off.
And they are right to demand action. I am as concerned as anyone that the very same entrenched interests will win out in the end. I really got my back up last week when Congress gifted the Navy a multi-billion-dollar ship that the Navy specifically said it didn't need. And when contractors are casting weapons systems as federal jobs programs, the political will to actually do something about it diminishes a little more.
Suffice it to say that the Pentagon's budget is like an aircraft carrier. No, you can't do the hibitty-dibitty on the budget's smoking deck at 4 am like you would aboard the Nimitz. Rather, it takes a looooong time to turn this beast around. This year's DoD budget was essentially a warning shot from the services across the White House's bow -- the Chiefs are willing to fight for every bell and whistle imaginable; so now it's up to the Obama folks to stare 'em down.
So consider Secretary Gates officially on the clock. He's been talking a good game, but, like Cordesman says, "there are no good intentions, only successful actions." He's got to put the money where his mouth is... Or is that "take the money away from where his mouth is"? I digress.
That's why if there's real reform in how we spend money in the DoD, we'll know Gates's mettle by next year's budget (FY11). By then he'll have had the Quadrennial Defense Review -- due this year -- to use as political cover. Its chief author and overlord, Michele Flournoy, has the expertise and inclination to give it some teeth by, oh, say, actually linking strategy to execution to procurement.
But if there isn't much of a change by then, the lack of action would be indicative of too much traditional thinking. At which point we should welcome Bob Gates's retirement to Montana.
(Cross-posted from All Our Might.)
Jim Arkedis runs the All Our Might blog at the Progressive Policy Institute.
There's a ton of hemming and hawing out there about DoD's budget. Spencer Ackerman jabs that a $3-billion cut in procurement this year isn't "change" we can believe in. Elder statesman Anthony Cordesman is really ticked off.
And they are right to demand action. I am as concerned as anyone that the very same entrenched interests will win out in the end. I really got my back up last week when Congress gifted the Navy a multi-billion-dollar ship that the Navy specifically said it didn't need. And when contractors are casting weapons systems as federal jobs programs, the political will to actually do something about it diminishes a little more.
Suffice it to say that the Pentagon's budget is like an aircraft carrier. No, you can't do the hibitty-dibitty on the budget's smoking deck at 4 am like you would aboard the Nimitz. Rather, it takes a looooong time to turn this beast around. This year's DoD budget was essentially a warning shot from the services across the White House's bow -- the Chiefs are willing to fight for every bell and whistle imaginable; so now it's up to the Obama folks to stare 'em down.
So consider Secretary Gates officially on the clock. He's been talking a good game, but, like Cordesman says, "there are no good intentions, only successful actions." He's got to put the money where his mouth is... Or is that "take the money away from where his mouth is"? I digress.
That's why if there's real reform in how we spend money in the DoD, we'll know Gates's mettle by next year's budget (FY11). By then he'll have had the Quadrennial Defense Review -- due this year -- to use as political cover. Its chief author and overlord, Michele Flournoy, has the expertise and inclination to give it some teeth by, oh, say, actually linking strategy to execution to procurement.
But if there isn't much of a change by then, the lack of action would be indicative of too much traditional thinking. At which point we should welcome Bob Gates's retirement to Montana.
(Cross-posted from All Our Might.)
Labels: Pentagon, Robert Gates, U.S. military
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
11:00 AM
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