Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Pentagon Gets Ready For A Trump Administration

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, U.S., October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Reuters: U.S. defense secretary pledges orderly transition to Trump admin

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter pledged to oversee an orderly transition to a Trump administration on Wednesday and thanked Pentagon employees for staying out of the political fray during the 2016 presidential campaign.

"We must stay focused on our duty to confront our current challenges and any that might arise during this period," Carter said in a memorandum to Defense Department employees.

Read more ....

Update: After Donald Trump's surprising win, Pentagon launches immediate transition (Military Times).

WNU Editor: Everyone is now focused on this .... Who will be Trump's Secretary of Defense? (Military Times). More here .... Here's who Trump may pick to lead the Pentagon's nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel (Business Insider). I do not see Senator Jeff Sessions becoming Defense Secretary .... he is needed in the Senate. I also do not see Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn (Ret.) being appointed .... too controversial. My money is on Stephen Hadley .... a bone that Trump will throw to the neocons to keep them quiet. Is this a good choice .... no. But at the moment it is his name that is being passed around.

5 comments:

jimbrown said...

Yet another reason to support pres elect DJT, he said defense money will be spent more wisely. We dont need to increase size of budget for more effective military.

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B.Poster said...

Jim.

I think you are correct. Measuring how much money a country spends on military is a bit like time of possession in American football which has been called "the least important statistic." The main difference being how much $ are spent on this, while not irrelevant are even less important than that statistic.

We should be able to build a more effective military than the one we currently have for about 1/10 of the current cost. Useful models to study would be the Russian and Chinese ones. These are the world's top militaries, in my considered opinion. At the very least, they are comparable to America's military and they spend much less money.

fred said...

Comprable to U.S. military? I doubt it

B.Poster said...

Fred,

The only way to "know" would be to actually have the fight. Let's pray it does not come to that.

Watching how well the Russians performed in places like Georgia where even Col. Ralph Peters admitted that the Russians moved men and material faster than the US could have starting from a similar position it is reasonable to conclude they are quite good. Furthermore it is reasonable to assume they have improved since then. Additionally they've performed quite well in Ukraine with special ops and in Syria. Also, they have not run their military into the ground the way the US has.

As for China, they've made massive upgrades in recent years, are closely allied with the Russians, and have a fresh force highly motivated and ready for combat in contrast to the worn down and depleted US military. They would present a very formidable force and would be very hard to defeat.