After months of feverish speculation about who would succeed Ash Carter as the Pentagon's No. 2, former Marine colonel and current think tank chief Bob Work appears to have won the job and gone into pre-nomination mode, declining invitations to give speeches or take part in other public events -- a sure sign in Washington that someone's about to get the nod.
Work, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, will be nominated by the White House as the new deputy secretary of defense by the end of the week, possibly Thursday, U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. That will leave Work with one of the most difficult jobs imaginable: slashing the Pentagon's bloated budget and pushing back against the powerful lawmakers and senior military officials who will do all they can to preserve the status quo.
Work is a UCAS-N (example X-47B) advocate. Interesting as the Navy, knowing this, announced X-47B progress recently in an effort to let Work know they are on the team with him.
Then there is the issue of the Navy wanting to get out of the F-35C program.
Taking that into account. Let us look at what Bob Work's very own think-tank is recommending for the 2015 budget.
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Well, LCS is a waste. Much else of what he is gaming is good. Or, better than the other nutty think-tanks. A very small technical note: Block 60 is an export variant of the F-16 with specific limitations (along with ownership of intellectual property). If USAF was to get an advanced F-16, it would be a different Block and a different configuration. If USAF was forced to get more F-16s by the hundreds, and the F-35 was killed, well, there is an interesting issue. Current F-16 production is only around 4 per month.
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