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America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress Paperback – March 27, 2009

by Winslow T. Wheeler (Editor)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
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America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress describes how America's armed forces are manned and equipped to fight, at best, enemies that do not now―and may never again―exist and to combat real enemies ineffectively at high human and material cost. Given that many regard America's military as "the best in the world," how can this be?

In answer to this question, 13 "non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers, and defense specialists" lay out an array of hard-hitting and well-documented charges against our current defense establishment. They demonstrate that the hugely expensive and excessively complex weapons embraced by the Pentagon and Congress as vital for our national defense are barely adequate for engaging in outmoded 20th century forms of warfare. They are woefully inadequate for fighting a 21st century "fourth generation" war, as we've learned so painfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least as disturbing is the condition of the US defense budget. Over time, policy makers of all political stripes have created budgets that have made our forces smaller, less well equipped, and less ready to fight―all at dramatically increasing cost.

Fortunately, the book's authors offer "real-world" solutions to all the problems they identify. At the same time, however, they remain pessimistic about the prospects for real change―arguing that in a system that measures merit by the amount of money spent, the reform proposals elaborated in this book are likely to meet intense resistance. As Winslow Wheeler remarks, "The changes require a president with an iron will who will require real, not cosmetic, reforms of a system determined to and skilled at countering them. It will also require a president who will stick with the process for years, continuously making decisions that will ultimately reverse the present disastrous course U.S. national security is now on. "

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  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Stanford Security Studies
  4. Publication date
    March 27, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0804769311
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0804769310
  8. See all details
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  • Retired Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Defending the U.S., the Smart Way
    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This book is an anthology put together by journalist and defense expert Winslow Wheeler. Yet the book really reflects the thinking and work of the late Colonel John Boyd (USAF ret.). Boyd was a brilliant fighter pilot and tactician who developed into an equally brilliant (and original) strategist. Every contributor to this book reflects his thinking and theories.

    As its title indicates the book is very critical of all aspects of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Armed Forces that reside in that department. The majority of its contributors are retired field grade officers (04,05, and 06 pay grades) mostly from the USMC or Army. This was apparently by design. Officers up to field grade generally have a realistic and informed understanding of military issues that tends to fade away when they move up to the general officer ranks. As a result this book is filled with sound and practical ideas for real transformation of the Armed Forces and the DOD supposedly supporting them. It is a harsh, but honest assessment of the state of U.S. National Defense as 2009. This state has actually gotten worse over the last two years.

    The book does not waste time speculating on why the state of our defenses have gotten so dysfunctional, although it does point to obvious points of failure, but on the whole attempts to provide a broad path to reform with enough details to suggest the book is exactly on track. It ought to be required reading for anyone claiming to be am advocate of DOD transformation
    One person found this helpful
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  • Terry Jennrich
    4.0 out of 5 stars Reform of the military industrial complex that Ike warned us about
    Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    This is an in-depth top to bottom review of the disfunctional American Defense Establishment and the billions of dollars it wastes on weapons that are not useful for either current or future American defense objectives. This problem is caused in part by the congressional iron triangle of pork barrel politics , short term re-election considerations, campaign donations, and revolving door lobbyist employment between the defense companies and certain select congressional and executive public employees that operate the pentagon. It suggests how and why current military policies and weapon systems have to be reformed, changed, or terminated.
    While I am not sure about everything in the book, after all, only the military really know what we need to buy in order to properly defend ourselves at a reasonable cost that we can afford, nevertheless we have to start reform somewhere, and since Obama has NOT DONE MILITARY REFORM YET, this book is a good primer for Obama's successor to use to fix the defense establishment in order to provide a real defense for America that will actually work in combat, and do so at a reasonable cost, given the ballooning costs of our entitlement programs: medicare, medicaid, social security, and Obamacare which also must be reformed within the next few years or the nation will go bankrupt like Greece.

    This book should be read by all concerned voters and members of congress, then a new Congress composed of brand new members must enact this book's recommendations in 2013.
    Terry Jennrich
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  • John Neal Spangler
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Best short explanation about why US spends so much on an inefficient military.
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  • S. Coltman
    4.0 out of 5 stars America's (and Britain's?) Defence Meltdown
    Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    A very thought-provoking book but one that is dangerous to read unless you already know a fair bit about defence. It is so authoratitive overall that an unwary reader can simply fall into the trap of believing every assertion when they are not all necessarily beyond dispute. One or two chapters are rather whimsical, no-one is going to send the US Marines into battle by bicycle, but if those articles are read in the spirit I think is intended they should not do too much intellectual damage.
    On the whole I am convinced by the book's arguments, and many seem to apply to the British armed forces also (which is of as much interest to me). Policy makers should read this.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Asia Times Review
    Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2009
    The following review appeared in the November 27, 2008 Asia Times, written by author David Isenberg:

    WASHINGTON - When it comes to the United States military establishment, all the duly anointed experts, regardless of their political ideology, hold the same conventional wisdom; namely, that it is currently the finest, most powerful, best-led, best-equipped, best-trained example in all of its history.

    At a time when the US military is being used as the primary instrument to fight global terrorism such a sentiment strikes many as comforting. There is only one problem with it - it is wrong. That, at least, is the view of the 13 specialists - including former Pentagon insiders, retired military officers and defense specialists who contributed to this book.

    This book is not some typical leftist jeremiad against the Congressional-military-industrial complex that former president Dwight Eisenhower famously warned against in his farewell address.

    It is a sober, dispassionate, detailed, copiously documented examination of the status of the American military establishment. After reading it one can only think that it is an establishment out of and beyond control, and one that is enormously dysfunctional.

    If it were any other executive branch department other than defense, its enormous intake of resources - as measured in taxpayer dollars and its negligible output in terms of unwanted, over budget weapons systems, lack of readiness and faulty strategies - would be cause for mass firings. The fact that has not happened tells one about the enormous power this bureaucracy has amassed over the decades.

    To fully appreciate this book, a little history is in order. For as long as there has been an American military there have been periodic attempts to reform it. Some of these were titular and some were serious. The former were usually blue-ribbon commissions which produced reports often filed away to gather dust. The serious ones were met with fierce opposition and were fought every step of the way. If they accomplished anything, it was often only an incremental improvement over the status quo.

    The last serious attempt at reforming the American military took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s after the Vietnam War. It sought to change US military strategy, planning, tactics and force structure changes in order to fight and win in a modern theater of war. The initiative wanted to significantly change how the Pentagon prepares for war, establish significantly different war-fighting concepts and the attendant force structure, and change the way weapons are developed and procured.

    The argument was that sheer increases in defense spending would not guarantee greater military capability. Instead, more spending could yield even less capability if the United States were to continue to buy expensive, complex and vulnerable weapons that were costly to operate.

    The proponents of change gained prominence in the 1980s due to the increases in military spending during the Ronald Reagan years. Their key members included retired US Air Force Colonel John Boyd, whose concept of the OODA (observation, orientation, decision and action) loop has spread well beyond the military realm to business and public administration.

    Another important member was Pierre Sprey. A former Department of Defense analyst, Sprey is well known as an uncompromising maverick. Another was William Lind, congressional staffer for former senator Gary Hart.

    Boyd is now dead, but the others are still around and are contributors to this book, as are others such as well-known retired army officers Colonel Douglas Macgregor and Major Donald Vandergriff. And the problems they were speaking out about nearly 30 years ago have only gotten worse. Consider the following:

    America's military spending is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet the army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period; the navy has fewer combat ships and the air force has fewer combat aircraft. The major equipment inventories for those forces are older on average than at any point since 1947. In some cases they are at all-time highs in terms of average age.

    This is despite the fact that the "official", meaning less than the actual total, budget will soon hit $600 billion per year; equaling the military budgets of all other nations combined. When other relevant national security costs are added in, such as those for the Departments of Homeland Security or Veterans Affairs, or interest on the national debt for past wars, the total annual US military expenditure is a trillion dollars annually.

    Despite decades of "acquisition reform", cost overruns are higher today in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any time. Not a single major weapon system has been delivered on time, on cost and as promised for performance.

    Furthermore, the Pentagon refuses to tell Congress and the public how the money it receives each year is spent for the simple, if appalling, reason that it doesn't know how it is disbursed. Its bookkeeping is so bad it doesn't even know if the money is spent. This means that the American military, from the viewpoint of constitutional checks and balances, is broken.

    And apparently almost nobody in Congress knows how to do real oversight. Nor does Congress or the executive branch know how to formulate an effective national security strategy.

    One particularly worthy chapter deals with the way the Pentagon manages, or more accurately put, mismanages its human resources. Communism may be dead but apparently its legacy of centralization is alive and well in the Department of Defense

    This is not a book that merely criticizes; the authors offer detailed solutions for the problems they describe, which are all too frequently the result of "data-free analysis and analysis-free decisions." Their recommendations are both practical and doable.

    The issue is whether there will be anyone with sufficient political courage in the next administration to heed their words.
    10 people found this helpful
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