Based on these numbers alone, the increase in DoD contractors (which is not included in the above numbers), and the modern difference in the Federal Civilian workforce of today versus 1966, and the difference in the Federal Civilian DoD workforce and the Active Duty, and the reduction in DoD weapons systems acquisition projects, I have to believe we can sustain significant reductions in the DoD civilian work force and maintain a necessary level of defense readiness.
In today's military, what is the correct percentage of Active Duty, Ready Reserve, DoD Civilians, and DoD Contractors? We must answer this question first, and from there size our military appropriately.
You are obviously clueless with respect to the much more complex combat environment today vs 1966, and have no idea what it takes to actually field and develop a major weapons system.
Can some cuts be made? Yes.
Can they be made to the level you are advocating? No.
They have done all of that and they really need the DOD civilians. They need shooters out in the filed not at home station. The times you are talking about no longer exist. The AF used to be 900,000+ but now it’s around 300,000+ with more deployments and the same or bigger workload.
Sure programs can be cut and we did give them suggestions a year ago, they got almost 10,000 ideas to make cuts but never used any of them.