A question for those of you with a military background regarding spending cuts that are over and beyond waste.
Do you think the Trump administrations view of DOD is a complete change of paradigm from the current line of thought. ie: The age of carrier groups, M1A3 and F35's are over and not a budget line item going forward. The days of cost plus to Northrup, Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon and GD are over and the future of the military is headed to the Palantir's and SpaceX type firms with lasers, the ability to jam and drop hundreds of drones in a split second and space mounted defensive and offensive systems. Basically a more high tech version of the military and military spending.
I am not a military person but with the people Trump is surrounding himself with it seems plausible that is the type of military Trump envisions going forward.
You are pointing to what has come to terrify me with respect to the future combat capability of our nation's armed forces. I do not know anyone in Trump's inner circle that has any meaningful experience in the application of combat power above a company or battalion organization.
I am as certain today of the truthfulness of this quote as I was when Fehrenbach first published it in "This kind of War" in 1963.
You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, and wipe it clean of life - but if you desire to defend it, protect it,and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did - by putting your soldiers in the mud.
There are different tools for accomplishing that mission but never ever a panacea, though they appear regularly among defense dilettantes.
The first operational Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) may be flying as a test aircraft by the end of this decade. A pair of these would fly with an F-35 and be directed by that aircraft to use their ordinance against ground targets from beyond air defense range of the F35. True air to air unmanned capability is much farther in the future.
Hence, there is no alternative to the F35 which uninformed critics like Elon Musk, who knows nothing about actual warfare, have chosen as their target de jour. I will simply note that the IDF rather effectively used its F-35 fleet to neutralize Iran's extensive air defense array quite recently.
Secondly, the president has shown interest in "one-way drones." I am just an old professional soldier, but perhaps someone who understands this administration can explain to me what that is. The US Navy, Air Force, and Army already operate a vast array of unmanned munition carriers. I will admit they don't have funny little plastic propellers or look like Ukraine's scaled down Piper Cubs. We call them cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, JDAMS, and a host of other standoff variants of great versatility and kinetic potential. US small unit attack drones like switchblade have been in use for several years. They supplement and enable the base firepower of formations, not replace it.
The tank was first declared obsolete following the Yom Kippur war when the first Russian wire guided missiles emerged on the battlefield. Yet, somehow the Abrams has dominated close combat across the Middle East for the last 45 years. Now we should get rid of it because the inferior Russian designs haven't been wholly successful under Russian command.
There is also the assumption that the military is mired in the past. This is usually the judgement of observers who have never served an hour in combat. Believe it or not all the services expend large sums on combat development. That includes new tactics, new approaches to mission accomplishment, and obviously new technologies. Could much of that be streamlined or made more responsive. Absolutely, and that should be something upon which Trump's prodigies could focus.
A defense corporation can perform in any contract environment the government desires. I'll tell you a little secret, it is the government that prefers cost plus contracts - particularly for weapons development. That model allows almost unlimited changes of scope by the government. But if DOD wants to build a autonomous robotic kangaroo with defensive lasers and a drone launcher through an iterative development process, GD will be delighted to do so. Show them the requirement and the contract.
I just pray there are enough sane senators in both parties to stop this madness in its tracks before truly generational damage is done.
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.....this one @roverandbrew ...
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