The CSIS Report

I don't want to spend much time on this, but I do not find the new CSIS report compelling, and do not believe Dr. Cordesman had much involvement with it. It is a mess, and whoever wrote this should be paying royalties to Ronald ORourke, Eric Labs, Chris Cavas, and Paul Francis. Why do I have a problem with this report? Because it fails to produce even a single original idea, and essentially stole every thought written down from one of those four men.

But that isn't the only reason. There are factual errors too, for example, what year was the USS Cole attacked? Check the report, "Draft" is appropriate. In the end the report spends 20 pages complaining about the problems with shipbuilding, actually emphasizes the new CVN program (the only evolutionary program) as the centerpiece of the problem, then calls for people to be fired but is too chicken shit to name names, instead implying Winter and Roughead should be fired. Well that is just really damn stupid, the two guys trying to fix shipbuilding problems by canceling or truncating over budget shipbuilding plans that are, even according to the report, unrealistic... should take the fall? What a load of crap.

I'm left underwhelmed.

You want names? Start with Gordon England. Nice guy, doesn't matter, he has screwed the Navy for years with his transformation agenda. How about Vern Clark? Oh wait, he retired. What about Mike Mullen? Great guy, but he was the designer of 313. What about John Young? His resume as Navy acquisition officer is the LCS.

Do we hold leadership accountable for their decisions? Nope, three of those guys got promoted specifically for their work in the Navy, and last I heard Vern Clark is over at Raytheon, who just happens to be the prime integrator for the DDG-1000. Accountability? Strategic-reality disconnect? Why not just say CSIS lacks a pair of gonads, or is speaking the blunt truth unacceptable?

No, at the end of the day there is a reason Dr. Cordesman's name is written down at the bottom in small print of this report, I refuse to believe this is his work, too sloppy and unoriginal.