This is a companion piece to my May 29 post about U.S. defense needs per former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The needs are very real if we expect to be safe as a nation in the decades ahead. He has also said, however, that the Pentagon is its own worst enemy. Essentially, it has become so fossilized, so unresponsive that it cannot design and implement new weapon systems that work, on time and on budget. Many of the most successful weapon systems of the last 25 years have been produced by small contractors like General Atomics and the Predator drones or by closed shops with special rules like Lockheed's Skunk Works that produced the F-117 Nighthawk. Because of the drunken spending binge that politicians have been on, dollars are going to be scarce for a long time, even for critical projects. This is not necessarily a bad thing if it triggers substantial chipping (whacking!) away of fossilized bureaucracies and forces them to be lean and productive.
townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2011/06/02/gates_verdict_pentagons_biggest_enemy_is_itself
No comments:
Post a Comment