Transformational SecDef
Brent Tantillo • September 19, 2009 • Uncategorized
According to the October 2009 Wired Magazine, Robert Gates is the most “radical secdef in generations, upending the politics of national security, scrapping the traditional ways gear gets to troops, and defying the military-industrial complex.” The article isn’t posted yet, but once it is, I’ll post it. There’s some interesting stuff in there, like the fact that what differentiates Gates from other Secdefs is that he doesn’t let the wars of the future distract him from winning the wars of today. Gates is critical of the Pentagon because it’s a department that “principally plans for war. It’s not organized to wage war. And that’s what I’m trying to fix.” And to fix that he’s had to butt heads, a lot of them with military and political brass. That’s included killing off dead weapons systems, like the F-22 fighter, that don’t help the military win wars now, in favor of smaller more nimble weapons systems like the Aegis Destroyers, MRAPS, and the F-35, which all the services can use.
Gates is also tearing up the Rumsfeld playbook of military transformation, which was based on the ridiculous notion that you go to war with the Army you have. No, Gates says: You wage war with the enemies you have, not the ones you wish you had. Enough of the bloated weapons systems, we’re going to build tools for the men on the ground, against the enemies they are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sorry if that doesn’t help us win some hypothetical war against Russia or China.
This sounds like common sense, but in a bloated bureaucracy such as the Pentagon nothing is as it should be. Remember both Presidents Washington and Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. That’s why it’s refreshing to have a good Midwestern boy as Secdef to help straighten things out.
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Hey, check this out from a Conservative Mag, even making waves into Left wing sites.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7421