Posted on 05/14/2014 7:17:34 AM PDT by Whenifhow
Senior Air Force leaders have drafted a budget-driven plan that would strip the three- and four-star generals who oversee major commands of their authority to manage their bases. A draft of the plan obtained by The Washington Times shows that the Air Force is aiming to consolidate support operations under the umbrella of a single center, known as the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center.
The tricky endeavor would shuffle day-to-day base management issues such as construction, maintenance and procurement of equipment and supplies from under the authority of the senior generals who command the bases to the leadership of a two-star general who would run the support center, according to the draft proposal. The plan was born out of a directive from Air Force leadership last year to reduce headquarters operations costs at least 20 percent by 2019. It cites reductions contained in the Budget Control Act that were implemented by the Obama administration in 2011. The consolidation would affect the services 10 major commands, each of which specializes in areas such as technical training, management of non-nuclear combat air power and global air mobility.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
The measure of a man is what he does with power. ~Plato
In before the FR naysayers come by to assure us that this is normal, every president does it, and there is no purge...
Apparentlt outsourcing isn’t just for IT any more.
Well. Where we have a Hitler-like bunkerocracy like we have with the Obama administration, either commanding stupidly from the rear, foregoing Generals’ inputs altogether or commanding not-at-all (as in Benghazi), it seems these 3 and 4 Stars are about as useful as teats on a bull, doesn’t it. Why not strip them of their token power?
It doesn’t appear to be a purge, but rather a “re-organization”, but perhaps others can offer expertise in this area.
from page 2 of the article:
The concept of operations document or initial draft shows that the support center would have control of services such as fuel distribution, vehicle and support equipment, material management, small-arms training and ammunition allocation. Although the official said some of that framework was altered after the generals reviewed and rebuked the proposal, it is unclear how much of the framework was carried forward to the revised plan.
Retired Gen. Charles F. Wald, former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said the Air Force has to implement structural changes because it cannot afford to chew through its budget at the current rate. Gen. Wald, who is now vice chairman and federal practice advisory partner for Deloitte, said the plan to consolidate base operations authority under the umbrella of a single support center on the surface makes perfect business sense.
I think we should have done this 20 years ago, he said. Heres the problem: I would have done it if I had known how to do it. I didnt.
New Air Force Command announced:
Operations, Bases, Arms, Materiel, Authority (OBAMA) Command
This week we learn that the Army is downsizing by another 30,000, the VA is systematically rewarding management to deny treatment to vets making defacto death panels, and that only 1 out of 5 applying to the military are getting accepted.
Sorry, it sure sounds like a purge to me.
Now that’s funny!
Probably — if there was a purge —. It’s consolidation of the worst sort. It weakens the traditional command structures and autonomy and will eventually breed a new type of base commander — one that has nothing to do but police racial, religious and sexual orientation attitudes.
Meanwhile, senior Military positions will be usurped by the political appointee process with no oversight. Making the military top heavy and more politically political rather than militarily political. Local contracts will be steered by political appointees back in ‘Washington’s’ Pentagon to more politically pliable contractors.
Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center = White House.
And there will be a five-year plan for all of the bases, right?
Seems reasonable to me.
This is the Obama administration’s big, central government being forced on the military. Just as this big, central government can’t adequately micromanage the affairs of the entire country, this plan will be a disaster as top heavy managers at this new control center will fail miserably in their efforts to manage too many diverse things at once. Talk about the waste in the military budget now for procurement and contracts, wait until there is no one to watch the till.
This is just another aspect of the socialist progressives tightening their control over the country. First, it was the economy, then healthcare, then energy, now the military. Soon, big government will be just a communist dictator with czars to do his bidding.
Centralization of power and authority.
So you’ll have a politically connected 2 star telling an operational 4 star what to do.
The problem with this is that some high-up brass in another state doesn’t know what each base/lower unit needs. I’ve seen this problem with my Guard unit. Some of our training is localized, some organized by Brigade or higher. And when the higher units do the organizing, we ended up with some drills where we didn’t know if we’d have enough ammo to run through all the training for everyone. Other field drills, we got to go burn ~9000 9mm because we had extra and the paperwork to turn it back in just isn’t worth it.
Some stuff, yes, is better at a higher level. But some logistics just can’t be properly handled on a large scale, where people don’t know what’s going on, have little experience with it, and have ever increasing paperwork requirements to go through.
Perhaps the homosexualization of our military can be more easily inserted by a more centralized command structure.
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