How about increasing the salary of commissioned officers by 30% but reducing the number of such commissioned officers by 50%.
There's a 20% cut in cost and I suspect that it would have little effect on overall efficiency. In fact overall efficiency might be increased as there would be fewer chiefs and more indians. Almost every level of the federal government, including the military is top heavy.
I would suggest that congress just inform the Pentagon (and every other federal department) that they have 10% less money next year than they had this year and let them figure out where to cut. If there is a problem, congress can always deal with it by way of emergency appropriations.
It’s a more difficult issue due to the sifting, training that’s required to get to the most qualified.
As with any organization that promotes from the lower ranks, one must have both sufficient lower ranks and sufficient opportunity for advancement in order to retain the best.
Everyone raved about Petraeus in his heyday, but odds are many his equal or better left the military as majors because they knew the odds of advancing to general grade was less than a quarter of a percent.
So much of that is luck, connections, nepotism, etc., that the truly good must see a pathway to making a contribution.