This is a convenient lie the Pentagon has told itself to excuse two decades of investing in legacy, wasting assets. It's embarrassing to see the Secretary of Defense repeat it.
https://twitter.com/EsperDoD/status/1306330148665536512
From 2001 to 2008, the base (non-war) budgets of the Navy and Air Force grew 22% and 27%, respectively, adjusted for inflation.
Meanwhile, the number of combat ships and aircraft in the U.S. inventory declined by 10% for ships and nearly 20% for aircraft over the same period.
Meanwhile, the number of combat ships and aircraft in the U.S. inventory declined by 10% for ships and nearly 20% for aircraft over the same period.
# of combat a/c went down, while the Air Force's base (non-war) budget went up in real dollars 
# of combat ships went down, while the Navy's base (non-war) budget went up in real dollars
Yes, we had a lot of servicemembers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, we spent a whole heck of a lot of money in those wars.
But the rising tide of defense spending after 9/11 lifted all boats, including more money for things that had nothing to do with the wars.
But the rising tide of defense spending after 9/11 lifted all boats, including more money for things that had nothing to do with the wars.
I mean, the whole argument is ridiculous on its face. The largest defense program is the Joint Strike Fighter. That's, what, optimized for COIN/CT? The Ford class carrier -- that's for COIN/CT? Give me a break.
If we don't get to the root causes of why the DoD has failed to adapt to the suite of A2/AD capabilities that defense analysts have seen coming for 15 years, and why DoD remains over-invested in legacy, wasting assets, then will never be able to respond to the China threat.
The reality is that we have a military that is not optimized for power projection into A2/AD environments against a near-peer competitor, nor do we have one optimized for COIN/CT (which would look radically different).
We have a military optimized for re-fighting the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Why? Because it's comfortable. It's comfortable with defense contractors. With Congress. With entrenched bureaucratic interests in the Pentagon. And it's comfortable with warfighters.
Why? Because it's comfortable. It's comfortable with defense contractors. With Congress. With entrenched bureaucratic interests in the Pentagon. And it's comfortable with warfighters.
Because to actually adapt to the challenges we face, we need more than just more $$. We need to start changing how we fight. And that's uncomfortable.
DoD loves talking about widgets. Everybody gets excited about hypersonics & directed energy etc. etc.
DoD loves talking about widgets. Everybody gets excited about hypersonics & directed energy etc. etc.
The Services are the worst at this. They fixate on numbers, even though those are precisely the wrong metrics. The Navy wants to talk about # of ships. The Air Force # of planes. The Army # of personnel. Those are the wrong metrics for a 21st century fight.
It is far more important what is on those ships and planes and ground vehicles, how they are networked together, how they fuse and share data, how we manage C2 in contested EW environments, and how we employ intelligent networked PGMs. Everyone knows this.
DoD is doing experiments and prototyping and people are working on the CONOPs. The problem is when the rubber meets the road in spending ... we're locked in. We keep spending on the same legacy pieces of hardware. The bulk of our power projection is in short-range TACAIR. Why?
The Navy's building $13B carriers with a/c that won't be able to get to the fight. Why? Because it would have been uncomfortable for the Navy aviation community to invest in an actual UCAV that had enough legs to show up in an A2/AD environment.
Blaming the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan passes the buck. There are of reasons why DoD hasn't adapted its force to a rising China, but a lack of $$$ isn't one of them.
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