Crowdsourcing Smart Defense Cuts: The Verdict

Thanks to all those posting and voting in the Crowdsourcing Smart Defense Cuts thread. A number of interesting recommendations ranging from reductions in strategic weapons systems to bayonets were discussed. Discerning any sort of consensus from the breadth of input there was difficult, but I’ll highlight a few themes:

1) Recommendations to pare back the LCS program or cut the class altogether received the most votes (again, this exercise was not intended to be a reliable survey; just an estimation of sentiment from the readers of this blog). Chuck Hill’s comments on an LCS alternative gained the most votes:

“Stop the LCS program at the 24 ships currently built, contracted or optioned--enough Boghammer-destroyers to meet any need.

Build a common hull for the remaining 31 LCS and 25 Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutters, Incorporate provision for at least one MH-60R and two UAS, a 5" Mk45 for NSFS, a towed array, and space for containerized mission modules.

Build down to price $250M each and incorporate diesel electric drive for fuel economy and long range; will also permit use of energy hungry weapons in the future."

Some of the LCS commentary overlapped in the Coast Guard realm, with El
Sid commenting , “$750m for a coastguard cutter is just getting ridiculous, the
USCG might be better off looking at something like the Floreal or BAM classes,
or the SIMSS concept recently discussed over at TD ."

2) Cancelling at least some some part of the F-35 program was also a popular choice. Cutting the A and C models has been previously mentioned on this blog by Rob Farley and me. The utility of the STOVL version to multiply the number of sea-based fixed-wing striking platforms using LHA/LHD ships seems to be a compelling argument.

3) Reductions in General/Flag officer staffs seem to be a perennial theme in these sorts of discussions. These reductions are already in progress, to a certain extent. Another factor to keep in mind is that service, combatant commander, and component staff sizes are somewhat determined from external requirements driven from political appointees and Congress. In my estimation, if cuts start at the top with OSD, other staff reductions will flow naturally.

Honorable mentions in the polling included reducing army airborne forces and other active duty combat brigades (and military bands); scaling back BMD, especially those forces in support of European allies; reforming DOD’s byzantine and inefficient procurement system, cutting or de-alerting SSBNs; and eliminating the “wars” (however one chooses to define and count those).

Decreases in existing and planned CVNs seemed to be a point of contention (no surprise there). Also controversial, but prescient, was this comment by “Nothing Much”:

“I think folks might be avoiding the elephant in the room... Defense can, if we let it, become a retirement and social services agency. American civilians will, in the near future, begin to experience a series of cuts in government services while their overall taxes will go up. There is no escaping this. If the military is going to remain a warfighting service it will have to track cuts to medical care, retirement, and other social services as those same services decline in the general American population. That's going to be rougher than any weapons program cut. However, it must be done.”

I did not by any means capture all of the thoughtful ideas in the above, and I encourage those interested to skim through the 100+ comments to find more insightful opinions.

Of course, the larger question in this debate is what percentage of impending federal budget cuts should fall on DOD? Commenter “J” noted historical budget trends when posting that “When defense gets anything less than 6% of GDP, they can pound sand and go squeeze savings out of the other 94%.” Once that strategic question is answered, the allocation of cuts within DOD among the services can be fairly decided.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.