Posted on 02/20/2025 9:16:26 PM PST by texas booster
The Pentagon’s budget is going to shrink and Americans are going to get a better “bang for their buck” under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.”
“Did you notice that of all the controversial Trump nominees—Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard—the Left went after Pete Hegseth the most vehemently? And he required JD Vance to break that tie. There was a reason for that. He is proposing radical changes in the Pentagon. Remember where we are right now with the Pentagon. We spend $820 billion a year. It's about 14% of the entire budget and it's immune to criticism. It really is.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
“And we're not there yet. We're not doing it. So, what Pete Hegseth wants to do is change the entire manner of procurement.”
00:00 Introduction: The Controversy Surrounding Pete Hegseth
01:20 The Pentagon's Current State and Spending
02:11 Pete Hegseth's Proposed Reforms
03:29 Impact on Military Recruitment and Culture
04:15 Enforcing Military Code and Reducing Conflicts of Interest
05:52 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.
As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.
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These VDH videos are very well produced by The Daily Signal, and are only 6-7 minutes long. I like their conciseness! It’s a daily message to the MAGA hordes.
Drones and AI are the future. We will have to have people and tech that can adjust tactics constantly.
I read that our navy ships' radar struggles to differentiate between whitecaps and swarms of drones skimming the foamy brine.
ping
A four-star is paid $200,000 per year. The CEO of Raytheon makes $22 million per year. Lesser officers of Raytheon such as COO and CFO make lower but still astronomical salaries. Even a member of the board of directors of Raytheon (a part-time job) makes $315,000 per year.
I could make similar comparisons of our top people throughout the federal government, and their “peers” in the private sector.
So, yes, there is and should be a concern about the “revolving door” (by which people in government when they leave government get jobs in the private-sector related to their government jobs that pay much, much more). On the other hand, I don’t have a quick answer to the problem of the revolving door.
DoD acquistion could easily be cleaned up through common sense and getting rid of the hundreds of thousands of pages of rules and regulations.
You spend more time in negotiations then you do building a product. When it takes 10 to 15 years or more to get an aircraft to production that doesn’t meet half your original requirements and is out dated when fielded you have a failed system.
The US military needs to churn out millions and millions of cheap FPV Ukrainian-style drones - no need to spend fortunes on redesign, as the current designs are more than adequate.
Why aren’t we seeing the article 88’s?
Great question!
Cajones.
And the lack thereof.
Maybe, under Trump, the 88’s will come.
There's not as much profit for deep state DOD parasites in light effective and cheap weapons like drones... than in fifteen billion dollar carriers that can be taken out with a medium size drone swarm...
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