“Our personnel costs are inflated vis a vis either China or Russia.:
Higher when compared side-by-side. . .but do we want to lower to their level?
“Our procurement system is corrupt and extremely inefficient, particularly for new weapons.”
Please explain.
They can get and keep similarly talented people for much less money, so they can have more of them, so they get more for their $. So even if their annual military budget is 1/3 or 1/4 of ours, it buys them as much or nearly as much. Which makes them more dangerous than a simple $ comparison would lead on to think.
As for the US procurement mess - there have been many studies on this - we waste between 1/2 to 2/3 of our procurement funds on non-productive paper pushing. Between having way too many office jockeys, regulations, delays, and etc.
I dont know whether the Chinese and Russians are as inefficient as we are, but they could hardly be worse.