Gates the Pragmatist

Defense: "Gates Plays Down Russia, China Threats," by David Morgan, Reuters, 18 March 2009

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates never ceases to amaze me with his pragmatic approach to being the defense chief. I have always thought this, but reading the above short Reuters piece just drove the point home. Since taking over the SecDef position in 2006 he is widely credited with salvaging a flawed battle plan for Iraq. With the ship somewhat righted in Iraq, it appears his focus is turning to more of a traditional defense chief role: Exerting control over the sprawling bureaucracy that is the DoD.

Granted, there are still significant challenges in Iraq, and tremendous challenges upcoming in Afghanistan, but Gates seems to be prepping for a monumental battle with defense contractors. For the past several months he's been preaching the need to prepare for the battles we are fighting today, which he seems to think will be the long term battles as well.

In this article he continues this theme by addressing the supposed China threat, and a resurgent Russia. Read some of his thoughts below:

"A day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russia would rearm its military and boost its nuclear forces, the U.S. defense chief said Moscow is actually moving to reduce the size of its traditional military force."

"As I read between the lines, the first message that he was giving to the Russian military was: 'Don't expect any new equipment for two years."

"Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing he also does not believe aggressive Chinese behavior against U.S. Navy surveillance vessels in the South China Sea suggests Beijing wants to force the U.S. Pacific fleet from the region."

To me, Gates' rationale on China and Russia makes sense. However, folks that have "near peer" weapons systems potentially on the chopping block are not going to agree that Gates is being very pragmatic.

"Cutting" the DoD Budget???

Okay.  Lately I’ve been seeing many headlines about impending "budget cuts" at the pentagon.  What exactly does this mean?  I’m not an economist; in fact I was a C student in macro AND micro economics in college.  However, when I see the term budget cuts, to me that means some of the money in the big pot is going away. 

Does that make sense?  We still have Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines slogging it out in Iraq, and are getting ready to "surge" 17 thousand more troops into Afghanistan.  Does it make sense to cut the DoD budget?  One would think we would want to put more money into the pot to give service members everything they possible need, or want for that matter, to win these wars.

If the term budget cut means a reprioritizing of the DoD budget, that would make sense.  If it means taking some money from a pot for a specific project that is obviously questionable to the common man approach, that would make sense.  And there are clearly some big ticket defense projects throughout all of the services that do not pass the common man approach given the current state of the national security threats we are facing.

As a member of the military, I find it disconcerting when I see all the discussion about DoD budget cuts.  I can’t help but think to myself that we are losing sight of what should be the goal: to win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring home the troops safely -- no matter what the cost.