Troops vs Tech. Battle lines are drawn.

via Early Warning Blog.

Arguably, the single worst national security decision of the Obama presidency, at least so far, is to protect the personnel portion of the defense budget from the automatic cuts mandated by sequestration. The President protected the personnel accounts in FY2013, forcing procurement and operations and maintenance to absorb virtually the entire $37 billion reduction. Now, it is reported that he will again exempt personnel from its share of the $52 billion that must be taken from the proposed FY2014 defense budget. This means that once again procurement and O&M will take the additional hit of approximately $13 billion.
The requirement to absorb a reduction of about 15 percent of procurement and operating funds would, to employ that overused word, be catastrophic for any federal department, much less one still fighting a war. Even a proportional cut of $37 billion to procurement and O&M will likely necessitate breaking contracts for most weapons systems, grounding hundreds of Air Force aircraft, tying up dozens of Navy ships at the docks and a curtailing of Army and Marine Corps training. Add $13 billion on top of that and it is possible that the military will not just bend but break.
In addition, this decision sets the stage for continual growth in personnel costs. On its current trajectory, personnel costs will consume the entire defense budget by the late-2020s. Thus, protecting personnel spending means setting the stage for a hollow military down the road. This is a horrible legacy for any president. A bad decision, Mr. President; in fact, your worst in the national security arena so far.

The battle lines are drawn.

It troops against tech and since this is Lexington Institute, you can break it down even further to Neo-Cons vs plain cost cutters.

This will bear watching because it takes it to another place no one wants to admit.  Its combat experienced troops vs. gear that is in some cases unneeded.  When the troops, vets, retirees and others finally wake up to the fact that the weapon systems that they're being pushed to support are the same systems that will cut hard earned benefits it will be a sight to behold.

The US military is one occupation where 20 years of service (albeit in certain career fields) can leave a person that appears 40 to actually be 60 internally (work with me, you know what I mean).

Of course there is waste and fraud in the benefits system, but if any of our so called social programs are actually earned then the ones paid to Vets and Retirees should be at the top of the list.

Fireworks ahead and for those paying attention, Obama might end up being a hero on this issue.  We'll see.