> I suspect we could cut the DOD budget by 10-20% and maintain current capabilities
What is that based on? Just suspicion? (At least that honest!)
DoD before the rise of China (and Russia) could afford to cut back. But China is an enormous problem, and an enormous problem of resources.
Wealth drives victory in war more than anything else, except maybe population. Obviously China far exceeds the US and allies in population. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union's economy was (much, I think) smaller than the US, and the Warsaw Pact's was smaller than NATOs. By 2050, with four times the population, if China is only half as wealthy as the US per capita, it would have an economy twice as large. The US has never faced a threat like that.
DoD already cuts and restricts many programs because they can't afford them. For example, the NGAD fighter plane - the next generation fighter plane, a big deal - faces great uncertainty (despite Trump's showboating) because the US can't really afford it. That's just one program of many.
Allies help share the burden, but we are alienating all of them.
> There are a lot of programs that are failing to execute and have for years
Which ones? And programs exist to solve problems - what better ways do you have for solving the problems? The problems don't go away.
> if they're already late then we aren't getting any value from them at this point
We should cancel every late program? Again, what better solutions do you have? Start a new program and lose the progress of the existing one?
Now these are all just words backed by suspicions. Give us some reason to believe!
> What is that based on? Just suspicion? (At least that honest!)
It's based on the sections of DOD I worked in, with, and had visibility into around me, along with reading GAO reports (there are too many to read them all, but grab a few and you'll see some remarkable waste and failures). At one point I had a job to help a group become more efficient (in context: delivering on time instead of late, delivering on or at least near budget instead of grossly over), what I saw looking under the hood was exactly what I suspected. A small corner of the DOD that was wasting at least 10-20% of their budget every year because of ineffective coordination across teams often over absolutely stupid things, and that was just the parts I studied relevant to my job at the time. I'm extrapolating from that experience and the other information I've seen over the years.
And, importantly, I'm talking about what can be cut before it impacts capabilities and readiness. Somewhere in this range you'll have to do reorganizations and realignments to continue reducing the DOD budget while maintaining capabilities.
If we went back in time 7 or 8 years I could give you a lot better information than that because I was more actively tracking things. Here are a couple reports though that demonstrate the kinds of things I saw at the time:
I haven't gone over it all but it's not a pretty picture. Most of the projects they examined are delayed by more than a year, some as much as three, and have had median budget increases of $163 million. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. IT procurement in DOD is fundamentally broken, and accounts for billions in wasted spending.
$1.84 billion spent on modernizing ships that will never sail.
It's possible that some efforts will start, become OBE and abandoned after spending a lot of money (maybe even billions) but this is normal in DOD, rather than extraordinary.
I always give credit to someone who actually knows something - thanks for sharing what you know, which is in some ways certainly more than I do.
> I'm talking about what can be cut before it impacts capabilities and readiness. Somewhere in this range you'll have to do reorganizations and realignments to continue reducing the DOD budget while maintaining capabilities.
I see evidence of inefficiencies and some failed programs, but in one of the world's largest organizations with the largest budget, inevitably that will happen. For generations, people have railed against and joked about the inefficiency and waste of large bureaucracies, in government, business, etc. I can't think of one that people have called efficient.
I don't see evidence that you or anyone else has a serious way to improve it; nor that having improved it, we should make cuts rather than reap benefits. And I don't see evidence of your claim about capabilities and readiness (and the latter is already pretty low). Just cutting things isn't a serious solution worth addressing - it's not a plan at all. How could the situation seriously be improved?
And let's be realistic: The GOP wants to cut everything in government and will say anything to rationalize it. One method of rationalizing they do is endlessly repeat things until they become a perceived truth - in these cases that Agency X is corrupt and inefficient. DoD is just the latest target.
What is that based on? Just suspicion? (At least that honest!)
DoD before the rise of China (and Russia) could afford to cut back. But China is an enormous problem, and an enormous problem of resources.
Wealth drives victory in war more than anything else, except maybe population. Obviously China far exceeds the US and allies in population. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union's economy was (much, I think) smaller than the US, and the Warsaw Pact's was smaller than NATOs. By 2050, with four times the population, if China is only half as wealthy as the US per capita, it would have an economy twice as large. The US has never faced a threat like that.
DoD already cuts and restricts many programs because they can't afford them. For example, the NGAD fighter plane - the next generation fighter plane, a big deal - faces great uncertainty (despite Trump's showboating) because the US can't really afford it. That's just one program of many.
Allies help share the burden, but we are alienating all of them.
> There are a lot of programs that are failing to execute and have for years
Which ones? And programs exist to solve problems - what better ways do you have for solving the problems? The problems don't go away.
> if they're already late then we aren't getting any value from them at this point
We should cancel every late program? Again, what better solutions do you have? Start a new program and lose the progress of the existing one?
Now these are all just words backed by suspicions. Give us some reason to believe!