What Happened to a Leaner, Meaner Military?

[xchrom]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/02/_2013_pentagon_budget_why_so_much_spending_on_big_war_weapons_.html

After two earlier rollouts—the announcement of a new “defense strategic guidance” on Jan. 5 and the top-line numbers for the new defense budget three weeks later—the Pentagon today finally released its actual budget request for fiscal year 2013, with all the details attached. When you read through the mountain of pages and appendixes, a curious discrepancy sticks out.

There is a mismatch between the defense strategy and the defense budget. The strategy emphasizes a “leaner, meaner” military, with more emphasis on small-scale campaigns, special-ops forces, and unmanned aircraft. But the budget lays out the usual bounty for large-capital, big-war weapons systems.

This isn’t necessarily a contradiction. No strategy or budget should bet all of its resources on one scenario. The world is an uncertain, dangerous place; it only makes sense to hedge bets, and some hedges are unavoidably expensive. Still, the balance between preparing for the likely and hedging for the unlikely is getting a bit out of hand—I suspect mainly for reasons of bureaucratic politics and economics.
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Take the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the stealth plane that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates boosted when he halted production of its bigger cousin, the F-22. The program has been out of hand for some time—management problems, huge cost-overruns, substantial performance shortfalls. Yet at the rollout of the basic outlines of the defense budget on Jan. 16, the current secretary, Leon Panetta, said he was going ahead with the F-35 anyway, with only minor cutbacks.

[zipplewrath]

1. We used up the military we had

In the short term (which roughly means the next 5 years or so) we'll be merely trying to "reconstitute" the miltary we have/had. Humvees, Blackhawks, C-5's, as well as boots, belts, helmets, and bullets have been exhausted in our 2.5 wars. Some will merely be "reordered" from existing assembly lines. Others will be replaced with "next generation" versions. We may not replace "all" of them, and somethings will merely be "upgraded" as part of refurbishment. But for a while, you're going to see the names of all the usual suspects. What won't be obvious is that we may be replaceing fewer than we used up.

The thing to keep an eye out for is systems that aren't "replaced". The A-10 is one that is under consideration. So is the C-5A. There are discussions on whether to reduce the number of carriers from 12 to 9. These things aren't just "items". They are "systems" or famlies of products and when they are eliminated, whole chains of supply are eliminated. An aircraft carrier is actually a "battle group" and everything from supply ships to submarines can be eliminated when a carrier is removed from service. But of course they actually have to be eliminated, not just replaced, or the supply chain lives on.

[think]

2. The MIC always gets it's way no matter who's in charge /nt

[sad sally]

3. Here's why - follow the money.

1. Boeing – United States of America
($28,050,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)
2. Northrop Grunmman – United States of America
($27,590,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)
3. Lockheed Martin – United States of America
($26,460,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)
4. Raytheon – United States of America
(19,800,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)
5. General Dynamics – United States of America
($16,570,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)
6. L-3 Communications – United States of America
($8,970,000,000 in military equipment sales annually)