As a military retiree, here’s my take: there is room to trim the Pentagon budget, but (invariably) the cuts come from the “tooth” and not the “tail.”
A few examples: the Army is getting rid of 10 combat brigades. Why? The brass will claim that “advances in technology” will allow us to get by with fewer trigger-pullers, but Iraq and Afghanistan debunked that myth again. We got rid of 10 brigades because Obama and Co. mandated the cuts (can’t touch social programs)and combat units are manpower and resource intensive. Cut a brigade and there is a huge ripple effect in the support area as well. So, the reductions go even deeper, and so does the decrease in our combat power.
The Navy plans to “sideline” almost two dozen cruisers and destroyers for a few years, before modernizing them and bringing those ships back into the fleet. Does anyone with half a brain actually believe those vessels will ever return to service once they’ve been mothballed? And once again, the cuts are aimed at manpower-intensive systems (and combat capabilities). So far, the carriers have escaped the cuts, but if you reduce your cruiser and destroyer squadrons, it becomes a risker proposition to send the carriers into harm’s way.
A similar scenario is unfolding in the Air Force. To fund the F-35, large numbers of older aircraft will be retired. The A-10 dodged that bullet this year, but it’s a sure bet the same proposal will be made in 2016 (and every year beyond) until the Hawg is retired.
Never mind that the platform is more capable than ever, and the F-35 can carry only a fraction of the payload (but it is stealthy). And never mind the A-10 is optimal for the types of conflicts we will fight in the years ahead. The Air Force is so cash-strapped they will have to sideline the A-10 (along with significant numbers of F-15s and F-16s) to pay for the JSF—and hope there are no MRCs until the F-35 begins arriving in significant numbers.
The Marine Corps plan is similar to the Army’s; cut manpower-intensive units to preserve big-ticket items like the F-35. Some estimates show the Corps’ end strength dropping as low as 150,000 by the end of this decade; if that happens, it means one out of four active duty Marines will be pushed out.
All of this is lost on Mr. Gingrich. He thinks a clever speech line is a substitute for an effective national security strategy. Like a lot of his “ideas,” it’s very short of specifics.
Good post. The real waste never gets cut, because the real waste exists as political payoffs to supporters. So the spear gets trimmed at the pointy end...
If you reduce the escorts the Iranians or Chinese may do some carrier “reductions” for us.