Gates: Modernization Funding Imperative; Current Inventory ‘Getting Old and Worn Down’

[Valin]

ExecutiveGov:

Jack Moore
5/25/11

Soon-to-retire Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in public remarks recently, has been delivering the sobering message of budget efficiencies in the Defense Department.

But there’s one area that bucks Gates’ public pronouncements: funding for modernization efforts.

“We cancelled or curtailed modernization programs that were egregiously over-budget, behind schedule, dependent on unproven technology, supplied a niche requirement that could be met in other ways or that simply did not pass the common sense test,” he said in an address at the American Enterprise Institute.

(Snip)

Video: Robert Gates on America's Role in the World
An Address by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the American Enterprise Institute.

[clearvision]

So we are doing to ourselves what we did to the Soviet Union.

[Valin]

So we are doing to ourselves what we did to the Soviet Union.

 

 

Short answer...not just no....but hell no. The USSR was a 3rd world nation with a 1st world military.

 

That said decisions have to be made and fairly soon as to what kind of force we will have. It takes 45 mins. to listen Gates speech, (the rest is Q&A and a panel discussion), IMO worth the time spent. One of the things Gates talked about (briefly) was retirement and changes in retirement policy...ie. should people get some kind of retirement benefits if they serve 10-15 years, and should different jobs get different retirement benefits. Example tow people retire after 20 years, one is in (say) infantry and the other is an REMF, today they get the same benefits, he asked, is this right.