It’s rather hard to comment in detail on Secretary Gates’s new plan for the military, for the reason that the plan in and of itself is rather lacking in detail. Things like actual budget numbers for individual programs, or a top-line net change. Which, given Obama’s budget, is almost certain to still be positive. But as a broad declaration of intent, it’s fairly clear: this administration is willing to pick a fight with the defense lobby.
So the “big idea” driving the plan is to drastically reduce the amount of waste in our enormous military budget. This is to be done in two ways: first, actually making credible the threat to terminate programs on grounds of enormous cost overruns. Secondly, by not paying for things we’re never going to use, since we’re never going to get into a conventional war against Russia or China. So fewer absurdly expensive F-22 fighter jets, more relatively cheap robot hunter-killer planes.
It is, in short, one of those plans that people always think would be nice. Followed by a sigh and the fact that the defense-industry lobby would fight tooth and nail against it. Most likely, the fight over this budget will be fierce. I’m mostly curious to what extent it will be carried out in Congress or actually by the military itself. It’s a non-political unit, but it has a variety of ways to strike at the administration. They can do things like provoking China by running more naval surveillance patrols, such as the one that had the run-in with the Chinese Navy recently. Or by arranging for leaks damaging to the Obama administration. But it remains to be seen whether the military is as committed to highly expensive programs like SDI as are their self-appointed champions in Congress.