Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 8, 2009
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a credible effort to bring new discipline and focus to military spending after the unrestrained, inchoate years of the Bush administration. He has made tougher choices than his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, and shifted billions of dollars from complex systems of little use in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to weapons needed right now by troops fighting today’s wars.
The only problem is that he did not go far enough.
Much is being made of his plans to cut the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet when, in fact, he wants to purchase four more of the planes, for a total of 187. Production should halt at 183. At his news conference on Monday, Mr. Gates vowed to end programs that significantly exceed their budgets or use limited tax dollars to buy “more capability than the nation needs.”
If ever there was a weapon that met these criteria, it is the F-22. It was designed for combat against the former Soviet Union and has not been used in the wars this country is actually fighting. The Air Force’s new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which begins production in 2012 and which Mr. Gates is wisely supporting, uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar like the F-22. It should be sufficient.
We have long argued for canceling the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, a stealthy blue-water combat ship designed to fight the kind of mid-ocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. Mr. Gates wants to buy three of them; we think that money should be invested in better, cheaper ships like the DDG-51 destroyer, which has been the mainstay of the fleet for years and which Mr. Gates proposes to resume producing.
He should have cut deeper than $1.4 billion into the unproven missile defense program and gone forward with planned reductions in the size of the active-duty Navy and Air Force. He should, however, be commended for scaling back the Army’s Future Combat System.
Scrapping wasteful weapons programs is essential, but how much better it would be if they were never built at all. The Pentagon’s procurement system has so run amok that 70 percent of the weapons were over budget last year by a total $296 billion. That’s real money for spending on other vital programs. Mr. Gates says procurement reform is a priority — and it must be.
The military needs rebuilding to recover from the strains of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it must restructure to meet today’s real-world challenges. Mr. Gates made a useful down payment toward that goal with more funds for intelligence and surveillance equipment (including more drones), special forces, experts to train foreign military units and for spending on combat ships that operate in shallow waters to support ground combat. Still, half the budget goes to traditional big battle warfare programs.
Even with much-needed plans to accelerate expansion of the Army and the Marines, Mr. Gates seems to have stayed within the budget figures announced last month: After adjusting for inflation, basic Pentagon spending will rise to $534 billion from $513 billion, with $130 billion more to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan.
After two years in which he focused on war-fighting and left the budget mostly to his then-deputy, Gordon England, Mr. Gates has taken charge of the process. We respect his stated determination to make decisions based on what’s good for the country rather than narrow political interests. Few documents are more political than budgets, however. Now it will be up to him and President Obama to stave off industry lobbyists and their Congressional allies seeking to protect cash cows and then push to do even more in the next budget.
April 8, 2009
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a credible effort to bring new discipline and focus to military spending after the unrestrained, inchoate years of the Bush administration. He has made tougher choices than his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, and shifted billions of dollars from complex systems of little use in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to weapons needed right now by troops fighting today’s wars.
The only problem is that he did not go far enough.
Much is being made of his plans to cut the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet when, in fact, he wants to purchase four more of the planes, for a total of 187. Production should halt at 183. At his news conference on Monday, Mr. Gates vowed to end programs that significantly exceed their budgets or use limited tax dollars to buy “more capability than the nation needs.”
If ever there was a weapon that met these criteria, it is the F-22. It was designed for combat against the former Soviet Union and has not been used in the wars this country is actually fighting. The Air Force’s new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which begins production in 2012 and which Mr. Gates is wisely supporting, uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar like the F-22. It should be sufficient.
We have long argued for canceling the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, a stealthy blue-water combat ship designed to fight the kind of mid-ocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. Mr. Gates wants to buy three of them; we think that money should be invested in better, cheaper ships like the DDG-51 destroyer, which has been the mainstay of the fleet for years and which Mr. Gates proposes to resume producing.
He should have cut deeper than $1.4 billion into the unproven missile defense program and gone forward with planned reductions in the size of the active-duty Navy and Air Force. He should, however, be commended for scaling back the Army’s Future Combat System.
Scrapping wasteful weapons programs is essential, but how much better it would be if they were never built at all. The Pentagon’s procurement system has so run amok that 70 percent of the weapons were over budget last year by a total $296 billion. That’s real money for spending on other vital programs. Mr. Gates says procurement reform is a priority — and it must be.
The military needs rebuilding to recover from the strains of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it must restructure to meet today’s real-world challenges. Mr. Gates made a useful down payment toward that goal with more funds for intelligence and surveillance equipment (including more drones), special forces, experts to train foreign military units and for spending on combat ships that operate in shallow waters to support ground combat. Still, half the budget goes to traditional big battle warfare programs.
Even with much-needed plans to accelerate expansion of the Army and the Marines, Mr. Gates seems to have stayed within the budget figures announced last month: After adjusting for inflation, basic Pentagon spending will rise to $534 billion from $513 billion, with $130 billion more to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan.
After two years in which he focused on war-fighting and left the budget mostly to his then-deputy, Gordon England, Mr. Gates has taken charge of the process. We respect his stated determination to make decisions based on what’s good for the country rather than narrow political interests. Few documents are more political than budgets, however. Now it will be up to him and President Obama to stave off industry lobbyists and their Congressional allies seeking to protect cash cows and then push to do even more in the next budget.