An Ambitious Agenda for Gates

If he can begin to get DOD heading in the following directions, he will be the best SecDef of my lifetime:

• Cancel or sharply cut the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighter planes. He may get the support of his new Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, whose background isn't in fighter planes but in airlift: i.e., in planes that transport ground troops and their weapons to the battlefield.
• [C]ut some of the Navy's budget. (...Gates says that the Navy's fleet, even in its reduced state, is larger than that of the 13 next-largest navies combined, and 11 of those are allies).
  
• Get the Air Force into other missions besides air-to-air combat (for which there presently is no threat): Build more C-17 cargo planes (Schwartz's specialty)...

The linked article lists other important priorities regarding the promotion system and training, but the budget situation will make the first two bullets above rise to the top of the opportunity list. I wish him well and hope that Obama will back him sufficiently to beat back Congressional opposition - which will come loudly from both sides of the aisle. Most Defense spending is based more on geography than on ideology. If a weapon system is built in a given Senator's district - he/she is for it. Period.
- posted by john @ 10:04 AM