I have a few common sense suggestions that would save a significant portion of the DoD budget.
Bring our soldiers home from Europe. We can further downsize our presence in Europe and leave our prepositioned equipment in place. This would save a huge amount of money and a large portion of that money should be invested in logistics assets such as fast sealift ships and air cargo platforms that would offset the argument that we must have a large forward presence.
Reduce the moves. I know this has already been partially implemented but each time you have the taxpayers move a military family it is very expensive and provides little benefit to the national defense. If there is a job available for any soldier at the same location it should be filled by them instead of paying to move them somewhere else and a new person to the old slot. The British have it right with unit continuity.
Push for regime change in North Korea. As long as Chia Pet Jr. remains in control of North Korea we will have to maintain a large troop presence there. I would also push for South Korea to help pay for their own defense. Their economy today is light years beyond their economy in 1960.
I would love to see the DoD continue to expand the reserves and National Guard into the support services role such as logistics. They could integrate these part-time soldiers into full time units.
I know it’s not popular with the local congressman or town but we need to close many more small bases and transition more of the DoD civilian workforce to contractors. This not only immediately saves money but it will save much more in government retirement costs.
Continue to integrate drone air platforms and naval assets into the military.
A few simple suggestions that probably won’t be popular with a few folks but it would save lots of money.
Hey, I’m with you. I’ve been saying pretty much the same thing for the last two years here on FR.
OK...but what is the overall effect on National Security?
Regarding Unit Continuity: I’ve been on numerous British and other European navy ships while serving on five of our own. Underway on one German Frigate we asked a senior Petty Officer in the engine room about the strange squeal we heard. He replied ‘It’s always done that’, so we asked him how long he’d been on that ship; ‘16 years’ was his reply. Longevity breeds complacency which always leads to more blood when it comes to front-line units, especially those (such as ours) with incredibly high op-tempo.