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What We Need: Extravagance and Shortages in America's Military

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Barrett Tillman is best known as an historian (Clash of the Carriers and LeMay) but in What We Need he proves a keen if acerbic commentator on current events.

In analyzing military procurement, Tillman arrives at a fundamental conclusion: the US defense community spends vastly more on politically popular programs rather than what the troops in contact with the enemy actually need. He observes that for the cost of one stealth fighter canopy, we could purchase far more useful items including radios, batteries, and body armor--items often lacking in the front lines.

Perhaps the most disappointing revelation is that the armed forces (especially the Army) continue sending poorly trained troops to combat zones. Based on personal observation, Tillman describes soldiers who literally cannot shoot to save their lives. The fact that such lapses ever occurred is bad enough: the fact that they continue six years into the global war on terror is unforgivable. The Army is jealous of the numerous multi-billion dollar Air Force & Navy programs.

The outlook is bleak. The services all want to spend on big ticket items that advance program managers' careers & set them up with cushy double dip jobs once out of uniform. The DoD doesn't do its job in restraining these impulses & enforcing a rational acquisition strategy based on our real defense needs (although to Rumsfeld's credit, he did kill the Army's desired new howitzer under transformation rationale). Finally, Congress always has its own agendas that usually no more than accidentally coincide with what's in our national best interest.

Pick up What We Need at your own risk. It is not happy reading, but it's an important message that should be widely disseminated.

What was Tillman thinking!?! Well, find out- this book is pretty much a stream of consciousness effort- of noted military author Barrett Tillman, and covers what he thinks is wrong with the military and its many issues- including training, supply and choice of weapons, among many items. You may not agree with the author- but he's done his homework and tapped an amazing number of contacts to provide some delicious food for thought.

It is somewhat ironic that I would review this book just days after Mr. Obama claims the US military does not need the C-17 Globemaster. Well it is obvious that Mr. Obama nor his military advisers have read Barrett Tillman's seminal work on properly arming and training our military to win the Global War on Terror and future low intensity combat.

Tillamn is not some sort of malcontent who has made a career writing disparingly of our military establishment and its leaders. During his writing career, Tillman has contributed more than 500 articles to various military journals, including International Defense Review, Naval Institute Proceedings and USAF Fighter Weapons Review. His works have received awards from both the US Navy and US Air Force. This accomplished author has the credentials to write this needed critique of the failure to adequately equip, train and arm our military for current and future combat.

So let's go back to Mr. Obama's announcement that the C-17 Globemaster transport is no longer needed in our Air Force. In Chapter 4 of this book entitled "We Need Logistics" Tillman spells out the essential role that a well tuned logistics system plays in providing the troops in the field both the "beans and bullets" needed to stay engaged with the enemy. He devotes an entire section of this chapter on our overworked and underplaned military airlift that when he wrote this book in 2007 was in dire straits and has not purchased any transport aircraft in the intervening 3 years. Our transport fleet flies 24/7 because we do not have the needed logistics infrastructure in foreign nations to meet all of the troops needs. Just reading this chapter alone regarding our military logistical system and the infrastructure of planes and ships it needs, then take that and imagine if we had to go to war in Korea; we are sunk.

Whether it is men, not women to put combat boots on the ground; realistic training that develops combat skills; logistics which is the backbone of the troops in the field; or guns and gear, especially guns (rifles and pistols) that can delivery a lethal round; Barrett Tillman makes a clear cut case for a major overhaul of our military establishment. This overhaul, long overdue needs to come from both ends; from the policy makers and star wearers in Washington all the way down to the drill instructors who are tasked with molding our youth into warriors.

While this book will never be on the recommended reading lists that come from the service Chiefs, this retired Air Force officer highly recommends it to those officers and non-commissioned officers who truly believe in service to the nation. Careerists need not waste their time on this tome for future military leaders, irregardless of branch or corps of service.

Barrett Tillman provides a critical commentary of the military's needs in his book, What We Need Extravagance and Shortages in America's Military, Zenith Press 2007. Tillman is best known for his works regarding military aviation, but in this book he attempts to answer the question of what is war in the global age of terrorism and what does the military require to fight this war.

Tillman's fundamental claim is the tax payer pays and the congress allocates vast sums of money to the military for personnel, equipment, and training, yet most of what is spent is spent on technical marvels that do little if anything to assist the military fight the current war on terror and future conflicts. Tillman is very critical of the military for insisting on funding stealth technology and the next generation of submarines which have little to no value in this current conflict. Tillman rationalizes that wars have become far to expensive to support the massive force structures that were seen during World War II. As a result the U.S. can not, for example, buy enough aircraft or ships to sustain a war based on the World War II model of attrition warfare. Instead the military will increasingly find itself engaged in conflicts of "flesh, faith and cities, " (Pg 11.) where traditional American strengths of air supremacy, sea control, firepower and logistics are largely negated by our enemies.

A second theme throughout the book is Tillman's assertion that after six years of fighting the war on terror the pentagon is still conducting business as usual, which in his mind is a losing strategy. For example, the services continue to program big ticket items that cost billions of dollars with little regard to what is really needed to fight current or future wars, fighter aircraft over cargo aircraft, more bombers over air refuelers, more modern submarines versus fast sea lift ships and maintaining the current inventory of small arms that are not adequate for the current fight in lieu of procuring more modern and lethal small arms. Tillman is not shy about pointing out the fact DOD does not restrain itself from wanting to procure many of these items and Congress is more than happy to allocate resources to their acquisition especially if their district benefits in the manufacturing of the hardware.

Tillman argues that the military needs personnel, training, logistics and individual gear, specifically small arms to meet the threats poised in the future. Tillman points out the obvious shortcomings of the all volunteer force, which he calls the all recruited force, and points out the problems inherent in a draft. Ultimately, he calls for a limited draft, but offers no specifics on how to do this or even if it is politically possible. Tillman makes a much better argument for more people, but not just in numbers. Instead he argues we need specialist, special forces operators, more infantrymen, civilians and to retain more senior officers and NCO's for many of the tasks that we will face in the war on terror.

Tillman is especially critical of the training our military members receive especially in the areas of marksmanship and basic combat skills. Tillman goes as far as to suggest that if you want to learn marksmanship then go to a civilian course because you won't learn it in the military. Additionally, Tillman opines that the military requires more ranges, ammunition, and facilities to ensure our soldiers receive the best training possible before we send them into harms way.

Chapter 5 is titled We Need Guns and Gear and Tillman allocates 28 pages of the book to discussing the shortfalls of the M16/M4 and the 9 MM pistol. Tillman does a good job of laying out his argument, but what is missing in this chapter and throughout the book are any footnotes to clarify or prove the statistics he is using. Although many of his claims and numbers appear to be accurate, the reader is not sure where the data comes from and is thus open to doubt. The final 10 pages of the chapter focus on protective gear, life saving equipment and basic services such as food and maintenance equipment. Tillman makes some good points, but he could have expanded these points further to make his case more convincing.

What We Need Extravagance and Shortages in America's Military is a relevant book to the military establishment and makes many good points that our current leaders should address. Footnotes to solidify his data would have made the book much more empirical, but as it is written it is an excellent commentary on the state of the military and what the military requires in order to succeed in the future.

As Always Author Barret Tillman gives us a witty , well written report of what's really going on inside Defense spending & procurement. In a world dominated by so called brushfire Wars and minor conflicts what we need for the Grunt's on the ground are:better training,bigger calibre guns, more A-10¨s for close air support,and more copies of the book for reading by the JCS and the President ¡¡

This book was verygood but kind of hard for me to understand in some of the way he expressed hiself. I learned verymuch from the book about how the money is being spent on things that are not needed . I also learned
about the things are troops need that they are not getting because the money is being spent on space age stuff. I also learned that we are using A weak caliber bullet.223 aganist a .308 that they are shooting at us. Something needs to be done about all of this.

David E. Hood