Gates Wants $100 Billion: Why Now?

The cost-savings and overhead reduction initiative Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is pushing has industry listening, and it only makes sense.  Does the Secretary see his legacy in play?  Perhaps.

After a decade of record-high defense spending, a spending downturn is all but inevitable, barring an impending war with Iran or having to back up Japan or South Korea in a scuffle with the North.

The heart of the matter is an excess in defense industrial capacity which has accumulated as a natural consequence of ten-years worth of increased defense spending.  

Stick A Fork In JFCOM?

The Defense Business Board has recommended U.S. Joint Forces Command be done away with.

Similarly, the DBB has also targeted elements of the Office of the Secretary of Defense itself, which has an approximate head count of 5000-plus and spends about $5.5 billion per year.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it’s hard to envision anything so radical as the demise of Joint Forces Command.  After all, the intellectual opposite of “not in my backyard” is “not in my district.”

Say No to NATO?

Let’s see: Gates wants to cut $100 billion from the defense budget over the FYDP.  Ron Paul and Barney Frank want to cut $1 trillion from the defense budget over 10 years.

How can such things be done?  With great difficulty.  Such difficulty could include having the U.S. back away from its current funding for security free-riders (or nearly free-riders) such as many of those in NATO.

Here’s the money line from the link: “America’s membership in NATO is supposed to protect America, not make other states more secure by increasing the risk to Americans.”

It’s impossible to argue with that statement.