Many thanks to Giovanni de Briganti over at Defense Aerospace for pointing me to this article!
Just like Congress isn't serious about cutting the US deficit, the Pentagon isn't serious about cutting the FAT from its budget. They prefer to cut muscle, cry that America's defenses are being neglected, and then fool the uninformed that they're underfunded, instead of taking reasonable and appropriate steps to get their house in order.
The Marine Corps should have about half the flag officers it currently does and that's being generous. The need to have a Marine Officer serve as a Combatant Commander is obscene and arrogant.
You're going to have a force of 180,000 people and then have enough fluff and overhead that they can spare a flag rank to serve in that capacity?
Its laughable.
Tiny Finland is leading the way in REAL military reform. Oh and be advised. Until they cut Flag Officers, Senior Executive Service billets and the gross number of civilian DOD workers then nothing you read about the budget causing cutbacks is real.
NOTHING!
via YLE.fi
As part of the reorganisation of the Finnish Defence Forces, every tenth military general will be eliminated by early 2015 as four military divisions are set to be closed.
There are currently 31 Defence Force generals. Next year three generals will retire and no new replacements will be hired. The number of generals in the Defence Forces has remained the same for more than 20 years, but the number of staff such as officers has been reduced by ten percent between 2008 and 2012.
“Half the number of generals compared with others”
According to the Finnish Officers’ Union which represents officers and top-level generals, these cuts are a purely political gesture to mirror the other Defence Forces staff cuts. Finnish Officers’ Union spokesperson Jouko Seitakari says that the number of generals in Finland is very small compared with other countries.Read the entire article here.
“Ten percent of Defence Forces' top brass is quite a large ratio. If we compare the number of generals we have with other comparable countries, we have almost half the number,” says Seitakari.
Just like Congress isn't serious about cutting the US deficit, the Pentagon isn't serious about cutting the FAT from its budget. They prefer to cut muscle, cry that America's defenses are being neglected, and then fool the uninformed that they're underfunded, instead of taking reasonable and appropriate steps to get their house in order.
The Marine Corps should have about half the flag officers it currently does and that's being generous. The need to have a Marine Officer serve as a Combatant Commander is obscene and arrogant.
You're going to have a force of 180,000 people and then have enough fluff and overhead that they can spare a flag rank to serve in that capacity?
Its laughable.
Tiny Finland is leading the way in REAL military reform. Oh and be advised. Until they cut Flag Officers, Senior Executive Service billets and the gross number of civilian DOD workers then nothing you read about the budget causing cutbacks is real.
NOTHING!
USArmy
ReplyDelete(generals v. total size)
2013 --314 for 540,000 = 1:1,719
1945 --1100 for 8.3m = 1:7,545
USNavy
--275 admirals for 283 ships
--WWII one admiral for 130 ships
--now nearly one admiral per ship
NavyTimes, Aug 10, 2010
An internal Pentagon study found about 30 layers of bureaucracy between the Navy secretary and an action officer in the operational fleet.
"Consider that a request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan — or for any other unit — has to go through no fewer than five four-star headquarters in order to be processed, validated and eventually dealt with," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in May.
Since 2003, the Navy's active-duty end strength has dropped from about 380,000 to about 330,000, a reduction of about 15 percent. And yet, the size of the admiralty has grown from 271 in 2001 to 275 last year, according to the U.S. Naval Institute, which maintains a running tally.
http://www.navytimes.com/article/20100810/NEWS/8100320/Lawmakers-Pentagon-look-at-admiral-numbers
image
ReplyDeletePetraeus v. Eisenhower -- http://tinyurl.com/l6eatdf
Paralus' Axiom of Leadership: Management ain't gonna lay itself off.
ReplyDeleteIt takes real leaders and pressure from outside the military to force the flag officers to give up their commands for the good of the nation.
And no cushy defense contractor jobs for them either.