Title: America's defense meltdown : Pentagon reform for President Obama and the new Congress
Abstract: America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and New Congress describes how America's armed forces are manned and equipped to fight, at best, enemies that do not now-and may never again-exist and to combat real enemies ineffectively at high human and material cost. Given that many regard America's military as the best in world, how can this be? In answer to this question, 13 non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers, and defense specialists lay out an array of hard-hitting and well-documented charges against our current defense establishment. They demonstrate that hugely expensive and excessively complex weapons embraced by Pentagon and Congress as vital for our national defense are barely adequate for engaging in outmoded 20th century forms of warfare. They are woefully inadequate for fighting a 21st century fourth generation war, as we've learned so painfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least as disturbing is condition of US defense budget. Over time, policy makers of all political stripes have created budgets that have made our forces smaller, less well equipped, and less ready to fight-all at dramatically increasing cost. Fortunately, book's authors offer real-world solutions to all problems they identify. At same time, however, they remain pessimistic about prospects for real change-arguing that in a system that measures merit by amount of money spent, reform proposals elaborated in this book are likely to meet intense resistance. As Winslow Wheeler remarks, The changes require a president with an iron will who will require real, not cosmetic, reforms of a system determined to and skilled at countering them. It will also require a president who will stick with process for years, continuously making decisions that will ultimately reverse present disastrous course U.S. national security is now on.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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