“Some of the proposals in the Air Force’s budget request do not appear to make fiscal sense,” Casey wrote to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on March 2. “For example, I understand that while the Air Force plans to retire 65 C-130Hs, it will continue to maintain at least 65 golf courses at bases around the world.”
Yet, USAF wastes $9B per year on the Just So Failed.
5 comments:
Exactly.
If the USAF cannot afford to maintain 65 essential C-130H aircraft, then the USAF in no way can afford the F-35 Program let alone the Tanker recapitalization Program on paper, as well as the NGB.
What a cheap shot and incompetent thing to say...ie to blame the decision of retiring C-130 transport platforms on traditional recreational activities being provided to service members.
What this says is that DoD and the services cannot responsibly handle and manage the massive budgets they are given. They can't appreciate and comprehend the funds they have to work with.
Perhaps if near-term appropriation budgets are given a haircut, then Professionals will finally get serious about formulating a more sustainable, strategic budget plan?
How about officers up for promotion compete to propose real solutions and strategies to deliver more for reliable USAF capabilities and national defense while under austere budget environments?
Always could get a good burger at the bowling alley.
How about officers up for promotion compete to propose real solutions and strategies to deliver more for reliable USAF capabilities and national defense while under austere budget environments?
Asking officers to produce arguments against the current procurement plans of their leadership would be akin to career suicide, and likely wouldn't happen. Instead you'd likely get a parade of solutions that are non-controversial to those in leadership and mesh fairly well with the current failing plans. Your idea would work in a perfect functional bureacracy capable of reasonable self-examination and removed from political interference. Unfortunately, we don't have one of those, which is why we're where we are.
Maybe you're right, Leper. I guess I was getting ahead of myself in the optimism department. The stay the course protocol however enables an assured force structure and capability loss over the next 10-15 yrs, at least. One would think the system would correct itself on it's own by now, in assessing the latest data and forecasting?
Maybe the DoD and services can take a trip back into time, and evaluate whether or not certain basic practices and methods of operation in the past enabled superior results in terms of more credible cost-effective capabilities?
As a pure anecdotal, an ancestor of mine actually was once upon a time a retired RADM USN and while acting as Under Secy of Navy for procurement, in the early 1900s, had to plea with SecNAV to fund feasibility testing of an aircraft being launched from a warship (a cruiser at the time). When at first, SecNAV rejected the idea as being too risky and not yet justified for spending resources, a plan was conjured up to have the aircraft manufacturer (Curtiss) and company pilot to self-fund the initial flight less than 2 years later.
The rest is history. But somewhere between the two -- innovative concept and prudent, calculated planning and implementation -- has to be the most successful approach.
Above... corrected: 'Chief of the Navy Bureau of Equipment', not Secy of Nav for procurement.
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