"And So It Begins..."
Obama calls for Defense Cuts of 10% starting in 2010. From Fox News:
The Obama administration has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon’s budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent — about $55 billion — a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.
Last year’s defense budget was $512 billion. Service chiefs and planners will be spending the weekend “burning the midnight oil” looking at ways to cut the budget — looking especially at weapons programs, the defense official said.
Recalling cuts from the Clinton Era, I am thinking anything transformational, untraditional, or cheap (recall the arsenal ships and the Armored Gun System, both of which would have been ready and most useful in the War on Terror )will likely be the first target. Perhaps, though with Gates still at the helm, my skepticism will be unfounded. H/T to CDR Salamander.
Something noticed recently on LCS from the Information Dissemination Naval blog:
...There are a ton of lessons to learn not only about the platform itself, but also the concept of operations. I think we will see these lessons begin to emerge as part of the discussion late this year. For those looking where the conversation might start, keep an eye on the combat system, because there will be a push to go with a single combat system among all LCS models. If you aren't aware, the GD and LM versions of the LCS each have a unique combat system, which at the time may have been a good idea, but isn't anymore.
If you want to read some good articles and analysis on LCS, click here - Labels: LCS
Aloha, Brad
Posts
January 31, 2009 at 4:27 pm
This is going to cut bone, especially if President Obama’s stated intent to grow the Army and Marines by 92,000 holds true. To get there, DoD will have to hold or grow personnel funding, multiplying the impact of top line cuts on the procurement and RDT&E accounts. I see a 26% decrease in procurement coming from this 10% delta.