|
|
As the Defense Department looks to the future, how many of its pieces — redundant air forces and duplicate armies among them — are really needed for the nation’s security? How many fall into the nice-to-have basket that might no longer be affordable? The topic gets kicked around by John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and your Battlelander, along with Dave Barno, a retired Army lieutenant general, and Nora Bensahel, a military strategist at CNAS.
President Obama’s goal at the NATO summit this week is looking increasingly clear: wrap up U.S. troops’ combat role over the coming year, and get the allies to pay more money to enable the Afghan military to fill the gap.
The House has approved a $643 billion defense-spending bill for 2013 that’s $3.7 billion more than the Obama Administration, and its Pentagon, is seeking. That’s just about the same amount the Congressional Budget Office estimates the House bill’s push for an East Coast missile shield will cost over the next five years.
Whenever federal bureaucrats running the nation’s parks get antsy that their purse is likely to shrink, they roll out something long known as the “Washington Monument strategy.” That’s the tried-and-true technique of warning the public that if money isn’t forthcoming, one of the first budget cuts will force the shutting down of the popular obelisk to Washington, D.C., tourists.
