Why does the US fund most of the weaponry on planet Earth? More than 50%.
This waste of money is the main reason our infrastructure is crumbling, and the rest of the world is developing better roads, transport, schools, and healthcare.

A reduction of any amount would be beneficial. The more the better. No one wants to be labelled a wus when it comes to defense, and so the beat goes on, sadly; and we become more and more like ancient Rome--no doubt with the same predictable results.

The only thing worse than a military establishment bent on fighting the last war is a civilian extablishment creating an imaginary war to fight. Putting the two together is closer to the reality of war planning since the Department of Defense was created to move the inter service squablle from the Halls of Congress to those in the Pentagon.

Since defeat in Vietnam was snatched from the jaws of victory, it became Pentagonally correct to return to the war in the West, left dormant for a decade. Once again the mounted warriors manned the battlements along the Interzonal border, as if the Evil Empire was about to wake and charge.

The surge to the Iron Curtain did the Army a lot of good as a training exercise. The Pentagon had allowed the concept of mobilize and go to war model to shrivle and die. The immense arsenal of democracy headed by dollar a year men in WW2 that involved a third of the nations productive people to support over ten percent of the population in uniform had withered an shrunk to a small office in GSA Region III called FEMA.

The lessons learned in counter insrugency and stability operations were deemed contagious like leprosy, those infected to be isolated and purged. Helicopter pilots were shed like striped pajamas, until some smart soul proved that helicopters could kill tanks. Thereafter, pilots were returned to flight status from bagging duties at the store.

Jimmy Carter recognized that the ability for the US to mobilize for a big war was in the trash, and started rebuilding the structure thas was brought to full fruition by Reagan, and parts are still around today. Every Guard Armory and Reserve Center has been wired into the mobilization process like never before.

While the Army was planning to fight at the Fulda GAp against a Soviet style armored force, the place available to fight such was in the desert at Ft Irwin, CA. It must be considered an act of divine blessing that we fought an iraqi army in the Soviet mold in the desert. Saddam and his minions then placed their bets in an older paradigm, of burying the guns to dig up later.

Given Desert Storm as an accident of history, the usual tendency for the US mlitary is not to fight the last war, but the war that fits the needs of career progression best, particularly for the field grade and flag rank officers. The tendency to look at the last war for inspiration is that is where the experience base in for the field grade and flag ranks are.

As each successive wave of experienced field grades move on up the ladder, inexperienced company grades seek the battle laurels they believe to be the next big thing. The need for combat arms officers go get the CIB (Bombat Infantrymans Badge), thought to be an essential ticket for promotion, was a key motivator for volunteering for duty in Vietnam.

The sad part of that is the fact that those closest to the flag pole determine who gets promoted, and those folks don't have muddy boots.

A continueing drama within the Army is the tug of war between the service schools and the Pentagon. The service schools train the troops, but the troops going through the system already have enough experience to teach the teachers a trick or two. Consquently, those who teach at the service schools are faarily current on what's going on, war wise.

Against teh service schools is the Pentagon which is run by civilians of which there are three kinds: career senior Civil Service (the SES), the long serving and redoubtable clerical staff to whom no brass is big enough, and the contractors contracted by the SES to keep the uniforms at bay. Lastly, there are the political appointees sent to put a leash on the uniforms and civil ssrvants, and hope to hang on until a slot opens higher up the food chain.

The uniforms that go through the Pentagon, go there to get a career ticket punched, hopefully to get a real command, with troops, guns, gas, bullets, and mud. Some, however, bought property in Fairfax Country and have kids in teh Fairfax Country School district and desire to go permanent in the Pentagon or wiithin the Beltway.

To the Permanent Party in the Pentagon, control of resources means control of doctrine and seeks the support of the political structure for partisan reasons, not having to do with party politics. Field Marshal von Rumsfeld and Wonderkind, Strange Robert MacNamara believed instinctivly that the rules of corporate board games apply. And the first rule is that of control of which divide and conquer is a favorite tactic.

Enter Strange Robert and the war in Vietnam was fought with numerical indicators that could be traced to management by numerical objectives. That's a great control gimmick for board control, but useless as a management tool, as the God of Numbers, Deming, said. This was the age when things that could be counted or guessed at were used as indicators just because they were countable and not really relevant to those in the mud and fire of war.

Enter Rumsfeld, a former Navy Aviator, and corporate tiger, to establish his control by ridicule, misdirection, and blind ingnorace of full spectrum operations. While he did not invent Transformation, the application of a so-called "Revolutin in Military Affairs (RMA)" which had been cultivated by a Pentagon think tank big on buzz works but anemic in ideas.

Transformation assumed that all miliary problems anywhere on the globe could be solved with expeditionary forces in brigade sized packets. Conseuqently the Army structure developed to handle any and all contingencies with a tailroable structure of field armies, corps, divisions, brigades, battalions and companies going back to our Civil War, and refined throughout WW1.

This structure is based on the span of control that a commander and staff can control. Companies are between 100 and 200 people not becasue of mission paramaters, but because of human capabiities. Thus a Civil War battaion at Fredericksberg, VA covered an area a modern platoon can cover, In those days a part of the unit would be kept in reserve against the contingencies that Murphy's law requires.

Transformation was cast as the out put of creating computer simulation of how the Next War would be. After years of "testing" new experiemetal units with two character designators gave the illusion of testing. In fact, it was another personnel scam.

The WW 1 Army division had two brigades exch commanded by a Brigadier General, who had tow regiments each commanded by a Colonel. These were called "square" divisions. In the dawn's early light of WW 2, the Army dropped the Brigade headquaters and shuffled oone regiment awy creating the "Triangular Division" of three regiments each commanded by a Colonel.

In both cases there was a Field Artillery Colonel in command of the division's artillery, of five battalons of guns. There was alsoa colonel commanding the division Support Command (beans, bullets, gas, and repairs).

After Korea, the downsizing of the army left a lot of regimental commanders without command billets needed for competition to flag rank. The infantry then came up with a fluid mobile concept to fihgt on the nuclear battlefield, and was called the Pentomic Army. The Pentomic Army consisted of a division with five Battle Groups each with five rifle companies. The Battle Group was commanded by a Colonel and the companies by Captains.

This gave no command slots for infantry Lieutenatn Colonels in the Pentomic division. The Amored division structure had not gone Pentomic and kept their WW2 structure of three "Combat Baomands" each commanded by the Colonel, but the number of battalions would be determined by the Division Commander based on the tactical mission.

lack of Lieutenant Colonel command slots was a fatal flaw and the Infantry had to adopt the Armored Division structure with three brigades commanded by Colonels consisted of two or more battalions commanded by Lieutenant Colonels. But two Colonel command slots disappeared.

The new divisions were called ROAD (Reorganization of the Army Division) worked find in every placed it was deployed: frozen Germany, slushy South Vietnam, Iraq, and all sorts of places. I was in the 3rd Amored Diviosion in Germany and the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam. ROAD worked fine.

After Vietnam, and in order to accomodate the existence of fully equipped National Guard separate brigades, one of the three divisional brigades was replaced by a National Guard Brigade. This became intolerable was the comander of any Separate Brigade was the Brigadier General who replaced a Regular Army Colonel. The number of command slots in deivision dropped to two.

This had to be correctedd by a return to the Pentomic Division with a fix fo rthe Lieutenant Colonels. That is the Modular Division that doubled the number of colonels by halving the number of combat battalions per brigade, and stripping out the Field Artilery Colonel and the Combat Service support Colone in Division Support Command (DISCOM) to increase the number of inantry and armor Colonel in command slots and increase the number of other field grade officers in the invcreased number of support battalions and staffs.

No thought at this time was made of the support struct;ure above division and off to war we went wiithout the proper lpgistic and fire support. Since the war simulation board games showed no need for military police, civil affairs, military governance, signal et al, meant that the slightest activity by irregular forces brought the blitzkrieg toa pause, and a empty pot at the end of the rainbow.

Blown away by the Darpa types that came up with Transformation was the capacity to do what came next .... the occupation.

Von Rumsfeld and Strange Robert disliked the Army Reserves in particular and the Guard and other Reserve forces. The idea of a bonafide warrior without the approved list of military assignments and course work, moving into the battle at the head of his or her troops was horrifying to the Pentagon Permanent Establishment.

LIkewise, no decent warrior would get his hands dirty of spare parts, ammunition hauling, pumping gas, or feeding hungry civlilans. Those are not sexy enough to sustain a competitive career, Consquently all the not so sexy units were transferred to the US Army Reserve, and some to the Guard.

The bulk of Miltary Inteligence, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, and the logistical units like Corps Support Commands, Area Support groups, Rear ARea Operations Centers, Movement Control Centers, Material Managment Centers and a lot more were in the Army Reserves.

The conundrum, once said is that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. As of now, we have full time Amateursa dn part time professionals.

The fomal structure above the modular brigades is still mostly on paper, after eight eyars fo war. Against the five year experience of WW2 in which the Army grew ten fold, the current organizaational talent of the Permanent Party in the Pentagon ought to be flished.

If it wwre not for the qualifty of the troops of the volunteer army, built largelhy in comprehenseive personell development model of the school system, we would have had our equivlance of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

One should look at breaking off some parts of the Pentagon to get them out of the business for which they are not staffed: Operations and trainng.

Boot writes "The projection of U.S. power around the world requires more, not fewer, soldiers."
Jesus wept. What kind of foreign policy analyst is this dude? What kind of strategic thinking is this? Does he not see that the US cannot sustain a $1trillion annual military budget? Does he not understand that Americans are losing their appetite for empire and foreign military adventures?
We must start cutting military spending fast or slide ever more rapidly into economic decline.
Arquilla's suggestion of 10% p.a. cuts and freezing legacy systems is right on the money.