Trump's Cabinet

[dream big]

32 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-budget-cuts/

BOHICA - Trump admin directing DoD to prepare for massive cuts in defense spending. Of note, Congress controls appropriations, at least under the U.S. Constitution, but who knows now...

5 years of 5% cuts, plus 5 years of projected 2% inflation equals an effective 30% cut in DoD spending by 2030 compared to if you kept the DoD budget flat. Plus the admin wants to add a significant new mission of policing the southern border.

So...do more with less money & manpower. This is much worse and dumber than the 2013-2014 sequestration that was intentionally designed to be as dumb as possible by Congress to motivate itself to work.

If this is the admin's starting position, Congress, including the GOP, is FAR FAR from it based on their draft reconciliation bill. Why Trump who is "very strong on the troops" wants to cut the Pentagon budget by 30% but also give us new expensive missions is not something I have an explanation for.

There is plenty of waste in the DoD we can cut without affecting ops or military personnel, the DoD is by and large the largest culprit of waste in the USG; if any of you have served time on a staff you know I’m right. I’d also offer that homeland defense should be the #1 priority of a military - I’m pretty sure it’s codified as such even in the previous admin’s NDS. I suspect we will retrograde from Syria pretty soon and Iraq to follow. If we cut down on some of the foreign skirmishes we are consistently involved in, there is more than enough resources to defend the southern border from let’s call them what they are, invaders. 
 

Now, will it be clean? Absolutely not, I expect some malicious compliance and it will end up being much more complicated than it needs to be. I’m hopeful that the culprits of any malicious compliance get the boot. 

[nsplayr]

7 minutes ago, Pooter said:

But I will say, I think we can find some room in the budget if we can be honest with ourselves about our biggest, dumbest, and most expensive mission: the collective delusion that we would actually fight WW3 against China over control of Taiwan. 

Well I've got great news for you, I'm pretty confident Trump will not life a finger to defend Taiwan. To be clear, I do not support this position, just my assessment of what the current admin would do if the flag went up - they would turn their backs.

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, dream big said:

There is plenty of waste in the DoD we can cut without affecting ops or military personnel, the DoD is by and large the largest culprit of waste in the USG; if any of you have served time on a staff you know I’m right.

If you are still in uniform and think wantan, indiscriminate cuts that culminate in a 40% budget reduction are anything other than a giant sledgehammer to your face and balls, you are crazy.

I have some ideas on how to defend our nation and our national interests more effectively & efficiently, I'm sure we all do. Cutting 40% of the budget and naively believing it won't affect ops or mil personnel isn't part of that plan. This will 100% affect ops and military personnel.

3 hours ago, dream big said:

...there is more than enough resources to defend the southern border from let’s call them what they are, invaders.

I disagree with this framing and also the idea that U.S. military personnel should be on the border enforcing immigration law. Why the F do we have Homeland Security as its own cabinet-level department if we're just going to siphon active duty troops away to do that job? Hard disagree on that . Active duty and the vast majority of Guard/Reserve troops should be concerned with armed conflict, how to conduct it, how to deter it, training & preparing for it, not doing domestic law enforcement.

Edited Thursday at 12:59 AM by nsplayr

[nsplayr]

3 hours ago, dream big said:

Now, will it be clean? Absolutely not, I expect some malicious compliance and it will end up being much more complicated than it needs to be. I’m hopeful that the culprits of any malicious compliance get the boot. 

"Will it suck, yes. Could I do something to make it better, yes, but I won't."

Guys, we don't have to make it suck. We can improve our units and our Air Force and our country without deliberately punching ourselves in the dick. If a Democratic President floated 40% cuts at DoD and maybe just maybe surrendering the world stage to our dictator-led adversaries, y'all would rightfully light his ass up; most of you know this to be true.

And if you're not a fan of a little malicious compliance I have serious doubts that you are aircrew despite your nice profile pic of a herc landing in the dirt lol. If our leaders wanna order us to do stupid shit that makes no sense, I can salute sharply and do my best to make it work, but I can also wear my reflective belt on my head like a banzi bandana and ::gasp:: occasionally let a hair graze my ears 😅

Edited Thursday at 12:59 AM by nsplayr

[Pooter]

22 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Well I've got great news for you, I'm pretty confident Trump will not life a finger to defend Taiwan. To be clear, I do not support this position, just my assessment of what the current admin would do if the flag went up - they would turn their backs.

I don't know if it's turning our backs as much as recognizing these realities:

a. it isn't our fight

b. even if you can do the mental gymnastics to say it is our fight, we can't project power enough to have a reasonable chance of success

c. China gets to decide when it starts, and you can bet they won't pick a time convenient for us

d. The longer China waits, the more their production of combat assets outstrips our own.

Taking all these into account I don't see how anyone could come to any conclusion other than: China is going to wait until a time that is advantageous to them, and with their military's trajectory plotted against ours, eventually they will have amassed overwhelming force.

So we get to decide do we want to fight a losing battle or not fight at all. My point is, why sink more money and resources into a boondoggle that's debatably already out of our control and trending worse?

 

[nsplayr]

Look I agree I'd rather not jump into a losing fight against a near-peer and the Taiwan defense is a hairy problem to solve. Does that mean we should give up on a key partner, give up on our actually allies in Asia (ROK & Japan, also PI et al) and just let Xi walk in to Taipei totally uncontested and unaccountable? I vote no. I've participated in some of the planning for that fight and it's not like we have zero game and have no hope of victory or extracting heavy costs on the CCP for their imperial ambitions.

It wasn't cheap or easy to beat the Nazis in Europe. That "wasn't our fight" either strictly speaking, hell, Churchill was begging FDR to do more for years before we did.

It wasn't cheap or easy to beat Imperial Japan in the Pacific, but we kicked their asses after they stupidly fucked around and found out.

It hasn't been cheap or easy to be the world's dominant superpower for 30 years and mistakes have been made along the way, but I don't think we should just give it up for nothing. I'd rather be the United States than any other country on earth. We're all lucky to have won the geographic lottery to be born in the USA.

I won't give up on all that so easily or cheaply, maybe some of y'all will.

My view on the current admin is that it might be more like if in 1941 President Lindbergh decides to sign a neutrality treaty with Japan and continue to stay out of Europe and/or no-shit actively ally with Hitler. "Those ungrateful Europeans shouldn't provoke or fight back against a clearly superior regional power, why didn't they just negotiate a better deal??" /sarcasm

The actual timeline of what happened is much better than that alternative history, even though active fighting in WWII cost an exorbitant amount of blood and treasure.

Edited Wednesday at 11:12 PM by nsplayr

[ClearedHot]

14 hours ago, nsplayr said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-budget-cuts/

BOHICA - Trump admin directing DoD to prepare for massive cuts in defense spending. Of note, Congress controls appropriations, at least under the U.S. Constitution, but who knows now...

Tell us you don't understand PPBE without telling us you don't understand PPBE

Of note, it doesn't work the way you think it does.  DoD is currently working on a CR that expires in March.  POMS are built using a topline number derived from POTUS that is then negotiated with Congress.  Congress in typical fashion will add pet projects and cuts others but the top line number always starts with direction from POTUS to SECDEF.

 

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

Tells you don't understand PPBE without telling us you don't understand PPBE

Of note, it doesn't work the way you think it does.  DoD is currently working on a CR that expires in March.  POMS are built using a topline number derived from POTUS that is then negotiated with Congress.  Congress in typical fashion will add pet projects and cuts others but the top line number always starts with direction from POTUS to SECDEF.

 

I'm sure you know more about DoD budgeting than I do, but can you defend the President calling for a 40% cut in DoD funding over 5 years? Given the missions we are being asked to do? Given the threats we are facing? What $68B are you cutting from $850B in the current budget? And I hope you have cuts of similar scale lined up for the next 4 years after that - that's what the admin is telegraphing they want. Axing DEI and some % of worthless staff civilians ain't gonna get you there.

I mean I guess if you cut the USMC entirely in 2026, Space Force + all F-35 buys entirely in 2027, all USN ship building in 2028 you would get there? I'm out of ideas on that scale for 2029 and I'm even hundreds of billions short even with the above. That seems reasonable! /sarcasm

I would LOVE for a Republican here who supported Trump but is also relatively within the foreign policy mainstream help me understand how this is going to work. If you want to just max abandon world affairs and become isolationist, copy shot, that's not what I'm asking for.

I say again, if Biden would have been blowing up Putin's phone with heart emojis, worked to abandon Ukraine in short order, basically preemptively abandoned Taiwan AND called for severe DoD budget cuts in early 2021 y'all would have stormed the Capitol (again).

Edited Thursday at 01:00 AM by nsplayr

[SurelySerious]

blowing up Putin's phone with eggplant emojis

FIFY

[GKinnear]

53 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

I'm sure you know more about DoD budgeting than I do, but can you defend the President calling for a 30% cut in DoD funding over 5 years?

He's not directing a 30% cut...everything beyond the next POM (FY26 in this case) is an "out year" that sees massive changes when that year turns out to be the next one up.  There's always an inflation adjustment to bump up the number...which by the way, the Biden Admin was using a baseline of 1.5% inflation when it was higher than that in reality, so getting an effective reduction in Defense spending power is a fine tradition across all political parties.

Also...it's a reduction that flows up to SecDef to fund top-down guidance in the DOD.

During the Biden and Lloyd years, a 2% POM reduction was standard.  The only thing different here is the amount, but no one complained then.

What's the big change to Defense priorities that POTUS mentioned in the first week of his 2nd First 100 Days?  Homeland defense ain't going to pay for itself.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-directs-the-building-of-the-iron-dome-missile-defense-shield-for-america/

Edited Thursday at 12:40 AM by GKinnear
More info from past Admins

[brabus]

27 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Axing DEI and some % of worthless staff civilians ain't gonna get you there

Cut 50% of DoD civilians and you’ll save $40B/yr (have to simul destroy the bureaucratic processes that “require” them). Burn the acquisition process to ashes and start over - will save a metric shit ton of billions over time. Those are two good places to start. 

[nsplayr]

1 hour ago, GKinnear said:

He's not directing a 30% cut...

Yea I did the math wrong, it's a 40% cut!

1 hour ago, GKinnear said:

There's always an inflation adjustment to bump up the number...which by the way, the Biden Admin was using a baseline of 1.5% inflation when it was higher than that in reality, so getting an effective reduction in Defense spending power is a fine tradition across all political parties.

Are you really complaining that the Biden admin was doing a stealth cut by undercounting inflation when the Trump admin is saying straight up cut 8%? I mean...ok.

1 hour ago, GKinnear said:

During the Biden and Lloyd years, a 2% POM reduction was standard.

Well, people did complain, I remember it.

"SENATOR SULLIVAN: The President has put forward inflation-adjusted cuts to the Department of Defense every year. Now, the chairman mentioned—“Well, this was the House Republicans.” This is the commander in chief's leadership and he's failing on it. Every year, he puts forward Defense Department cuts during one of the most dangerous periods. Right now, this budget, if it continues in the direction the Biden administration is pushing, will get us below three percent of GDP for our defense. We've only done that four times since World War II. Do you think being at three percent of GDP or below three percent of GDP for the Department of Defense meets the moment in terms of the dangers we're seeing right now?"

The Senator was right! And this was complaining about an absolute increase but with his preferred inflation adjustment it was a small effective cut. Trump is asking for an 8% absolute cut, which will be an even higher effective cut with inflation. Hopefully Congress does their job and takes this Presidential guidance and sticks it where the sun don't shine, but then again who knows. I'm not holding my breath for Sen. Sullivan to do anything of consequence to push back.

With current economic projections, 5 years of Trump's cuts as desired would put us at 1.5% GDP for defense in 2030. 1.5%! Yet he's always bitching at Europe (somewhat rightfully) to spend at least 2% but in the same breathe now he's directing his own government to plunge us well below that.

Again, someone make this make sense.

1 hour ago, GKinnear said:

The only thing different here is the amount, but no one complained then.

Also "the only thing different here is the amount" well shit yea, the amount matters a lot! Would you like a 1% salary reduction of 25% reduction? The only thing different here is the amount! /sarcasm

Edited Thursday at 01:19 AM by nsplayr

[Pooter]

@nsplayr

I’ve seen the plans as well and I will tell you at least as they pertain to my community and our readiness, the assumptions going into those plans are pipedreams.

China is a peer. Not near peer. A near peer doesn’t debut weapons you don’t have and then you scramble to catch up. I like the attempt to use WW2 lore to justify yet another foreign boondoggle but this is not Germany or Japan. This is a country the same size as us. With a far larger population, and a far larger industrial base, who is already out producing us. And we will be fighting in their back yard.

We have another thread on this site about how we can’t train new pilots properly or field a single engine trainer aircraft in a reasonable timeframe. If we can’t do those things I think we need to have a real look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we actually can fight WW3 on the opposite side of the world, on our enemy’s turf. 
 

We don’t have to fully abandon Taiwan and we can funnel weapons to them to make the invasion as difficult as possible. But if China really wants it we aren’t stopping them and the faster we realize that the faster we can stop wasting money a hypothetical WW3 we’ll either lose quickly or never fight to begin with. 

Edited Thursday at 02:32 AM by Pooter

[nsplayr]

I vote we don’t just give up and let our enemies win because the problems are hard.

Edited Thursday at 02:38 AM by nsplayr

[Sua Sponte]

2 hours ago, brabus said:

Cut 50% of DoD civilians and you’ll save $40B/yr (have to simul destroy the bureaucratic processes that “require” them). Burn the acquisition process to ashes and start over - will save a metric shit ton of billions over time. Those are two good places to start. 

You can add in IMA Reservists while you’re at it.

[GKinnear]

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Yea I did the math wrong, it's a 40% cut!

Are you really complaining that the Biden admin was doing a stealth cut by undercounting inflation when the Trump admin is saying straight up cut 8%? I mean...ok.

Well, people did complain, I remember it.

"SENATOR SULLIVAN: The President has put forward inflation-adjusted cuts to the Department of Defense every year. Now, the chairman mentioned—“Well, this was the House Republicans.” This is the commander in chief's leadership and he's failing on it. Every year, he puts forward Defense Department cuts during one of the most dangerous periods. Right now, this budget, if it continues in the direction the Biden administration is pushing, will get us below three percent of GDP for our defense. We've only done that four times since World War II. Do you think being at three percent of GDP or below three percent of GDP for the Department of Defense meets the moment in terms of the dangers we're seeing right now?"

The Senator was right! And this was complaining about an absolute increase but with his preferred inflation adjustment it was a small effective cut. Trump is asking for an 8% absolute cut, which will be an even higher effective cut with inflation. Hopefully Congress does their job and takes this Presidential guidance and sticks it where the sun don't shine, but then again who knows. I'm not holding my breath for Sen. Sullivan to do anything of consequence to push back.

With current economic projections, 5 years of Trump's cuts as desired would put us at 1.5% GDP for defense in 2030. 1.5%! Yet he's always bitching at Europe (somewhat rightfully) to spend at least 2% but in the same breathe now he's directing his own government to plunge us well below that.

Again, someone make this make sense.

Also "the only thing different here is the amount" well shit yea, the amount matters a lot! Would you like a 1% salary reduction of 25% reduction? The only thing different here is the amount! /sarcasm

Well, maybe Sullivan did, but I don't recall where you or anyone on BO did...that's my point.  From a policy standpoint, it's not a departure from previous admins and no one cared enough to bitch about it.  It seems like it's a blatantly political opposition now.

And again, the house vig stays in the house...the Iron Dome EO I posted earlier is a FY26 add and those funds are coming from somewhere. 

Can Congress add it in later as a specific appropriation for the out year, yes.  

Will it happen is a different question, even with a uni-party in control of 2/3 of the Federal Gov.  For now, I choose to believe Congress will and we'll see the out-years adjust accordingly if they do.

I'm also not a math guy and your WashPost is behind a firewall...but your 40% statement might need to have the work shown.  Seems like your assumptions have inflation continuing upwards...that may be true, maybe not.

I'm not concerned about the GDP percentage...I'm more concerned about the total Fed Gov spending as a percentage of GDP.  Seems we're running about ~10% higher our 1980s peak, and 15% higher than 1950-1975. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Federal_state_local_percent_of_gdp.webp

We need to bring it all down since I believe our debt is a bigger existential threat than Taiwan or Ukraine.  I can back a robust deterrence strategy to maintain the International Rules-Based Order (which seems to breathing its last breath, unfortunately)...but I can't see the threat in either at this point that justify the continued waste of resources.  I don't like wasted taxes from my own government...I hate it when it seems another government is wasting my tax dollars. But that's just me.

As far as your comment about not giving up because it's hard...same can be applied to reigning in spending.

[nsplayr]

36 minutes ago, GKinnear said:

Well, maybe Sullivan did, but I don't recall where you or anyone on BO did...that's my point.

I am a longstanding neolib advocate for modestly rising defense budgets given the challenges we face as the world's superpower. Biden's proposed very small increases were the floor of what I thought we should be doing, I'm glad Congress in a bipartisan fashion continued to add more to the topline above the WH request.

36 minutes ago, GKinnear said:

I'm also not a math guy and your WashPost is behind a firewall...but your 40% statement might need to have the work shown.  Seems like your assumptions have inflation continuing upwards...that may be true, maybe not.

#HeDidTheMath. And here's a gift link to the Post story.

And yea I assume inflation will continue upward, at the 2% Fed target rate. Do you assume it will be less than that or that we'll have deflation? If anything I would bet it will be higher. It's higher than 2% right now, I was sorta being generous.

36 minutes ago, GKinnear said:

I'm not concerned about the GDP percentage...

But President Trump very, very much is concerned with that, at least when it comes to our NATO allies. He's going about it in the most dickish manner possible, but he's not wrong that Europe should spend at least 2% of GDP on defense if they want to play a serious role in world affairs. And we would very much want them to do so because we are their allies and our values largely align, especially when it comes to countering Russian gangster oligarchy or CCP-style governance.

So...after berating our allies to get up to 2%, and actually succeeding to move the needle there despite being a total asshole...he's gonna slash our own defense spending from like 3.4% today to around 1.5% in 2030?? That makes zero sense.

Here's my very most generous interpretation - Trump wants to do insanely massive reprogramming from the baseline but will ultimately accept the topline the same or rising because Congress will make him. Ok...if that's the case what are we cutting and what are we getting instead? That's the million dollar question of the whole plan, if that's even the plan. Right now it just looks like a big defense cut & surrendering our world influence to the foreign dictators who want to remake spheres of influence.

Right now we are top dawg and the entire world is our sphere of influence, and we got there through a lot of blood & treasure. Let's not give that up for literally nothing.

Edited Thursday at 03:29 AM by nsplayr

[ViperMan]

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Are you really complaining that the Biden admin was doing a stealth cut by undercounting inflation when the Trump admin is saying straight up cut 8%? I mean...ok.

You need to relax the grip on your pearls. If you're that shocked with an "OMG 8%!!! cuts to the DOD budget!" you should have been equally concerned with the cumulative 28.5% rise in the DOD budget from 2018 to 2022. 

An 8% cut in the DOD budget will bring us back down to - wait for it - the 2022 level.

[nsplayr]

12 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

You need to relax the grip on your pearls. If you're that shocked with an "OMG 8%!!! cuts to the DOD budget!" you should have been equally concerned with the cumulative 28.5% rise in the DOD budget from 2018 to 2022. 

An 8% cut in the DOD budget will bring us back down to - wait for it - the 2022 level.

Is my position not crystal clear?

I am for modest, continual defense budget increases above the rate of inflation.

Based on the role we now play in world affairs and the one I would like us to continue to play, we need more ships, more jets, more munitions, more training, and likely more end strength.

I want to do the same or more with more. No major power is cutting defense spending right now and neither should we.

Some liberals have long favored cutting defense and now apparently some MAGA are on that train. Y’all are wrong, cutting defense spending in most circumstances is bad policy whether it’s Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump calling for it.

Edited Thursday at 04:45 AM by nsplayr

[ViperMan]

1 minute ago, nsplayr said:

Is my position not crystal clear?

I am for modest, continual defense budget increases above the rate of inflation.

Based on the role we know play in world affairs and the one I would like us to continue to play, we need more ships, more jets, more munitions, more training, and likely more end strength.

I want to do the same or more with more. No major power is cutting defense spending right now and neither should we.

This board is clear on your position. And I agree that we need more of all those things. But...what you have yet to reconcile is what happens when our finances spin out of control. You can take Stephanie Kelton or Paul Krugman school of economic thought and run with it as far as you like. Right up until it crashes into reality's brick wall. You can regurgitate falsehoods that "deficits don't matter when you are the reserve currency of the world" - but that's all fake news. Our deficit and debt level will wreck this country if we don't do something about it. And previous governments' failures to do something about it was inevitably going to lead to this - either through a visible cut, or through the invisible one we call inflation.

Am I happy about taking budget cuts to defense? No. I'd rather we take them elsewhere.

Do I understand this to be an inevitable consequence of fiscal and monetary decisions made by a series of governments over the course of decades? Yes.

In short, yes, you position is crystal clear, but it's also decoupled from reality. If you want your argument to gain traction, I recommend you start by convincing the majority of people on this board that we can spend an unlimited amount of money - because that's really what you're advocating. Squawking about cuts to this group is spinning your wheels. We're on a different sheet of music than you are and we interpret the danger of a deficit/debt differently.

[nsplayr]

I would raise taxes, primarily on the wealthy, and also slowly adjust the structure of social security in order to bend our deficit spending back toward a more fiscally responsible path.

Whether people here are convinced of that being a good idea is not something I can control.

And you are correct that I am not a debt doomer. Deficits and debt do matter, but not as much as you worry they do. Debt to GDP ratio is what matters most, and if you implement austerity you usually kill your GDP growth, which in turn undermines all the savings you’re trying to realize. I would instead keep things growing strong and adjust a few of the big levers gently (taxes and mandatory spending) to have us level off and eventually bring that ratio down a bit.

Edited Thursday at 05:18 AM by nsplayr

[ClearedHot]

12 hours ago, nsplayr said:

I'm sure you know more about DoD budgeting than I do, but can you defend the President calling for a 40% cut in DoD funding over 5 years? Given the missions we are being asked to do? Given the threats we are facing? What $68B are you cutting from $850B in the current budget? And I hope you have cuts of similar scale lined up for the next 4 years after that - that's what the admin is telegraphing they want. Axing DEI and some % of worthless staff civilians ain't gonna get you there.

I mean I guess if you cut the USMC entirely in 2026, Space Force + all F-35 buys entirely in 2027, all USN ship building in 2028 you would get there? I'm out of ideas on that scale for 2029 and I'm even hundreds of billions short even with the above. That seems reasonable! /sarcasm

I would LOVE for a Republican here who supported Trump but is also relatively within the foreign policy mainstream help me understand how this is going to work. If you want to just max abandon world affairs and become isolationist, copy shot, that's not what I'm asking for.

I say again, if Biden would have been blowing up Putin's phone with heart emojis, worked to abandon Ukraine in short order, basically preemptively abandoned Taiwan AND called for severe DoD budget cuts in early 2021 y'all would have stormed the Capitol (again).

Why would I defend calling for a 40% cut, I don't agree with it AND I don't believe that is what is happening.

I know you are smart and you don't believe everything the press says...you took a lot of time to do the math, I am sure you actually read the memo as well...right?

For the record, the Washington Post reported the potential 8% cut as an annual reduction for five years. But the memo sent out yesterday morning does NOT say that.  Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said the goal was to find “offsets” in the fiscal 2026 budget plan, with a goal of finding at least $50 billion to transfer to “programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities.”

Obviously some chaos here which is very unfortunate but the memo and other things I've seen sound more like another sequestration drill, albeit twice as severe.  I worked in SECDEF's office during the sequestration abortion and it was beyond frustrating.  One of the issues with senior leadership (and likely an issue in this case), they have to process so much information their staff waters things down (happens in industry as well), so the don't get the details that matter.  If I were SD 30, I would NOT let the senior GOs brief, I would insist they bring the smart Majors/LtCols from the Engine Room to get the details, truth data and most importantly the nuance.

Let me give a quick example of the sequestration chaos I lived through.  During his tenure SECDEF Gates directed a huge shift to fighting insurgency (screw those F-22's - we don't need more than 187).  He sent out guidance he "thought" was helping everyone including SOCOM which was growing to a topline end strength of 69,000.  In short he said as part of the drill the services (and SOCOM is both a combatant command and a service as it has its own funding line MFP-11), could keep anything they cut from "tail" and converted to "tooth".  Meaning he thought the system was too bloated and he wanted a focus on capability at the pointy end of the spear.  Sounds great right?  Unfortunately SOCOM leverages a LOT of support form the other services and combatant commands...everything from weapons, to transport to beans and bullets that are service common, SOCOM by its very nature is skinny on tail and heavy on tooth.  In order to meet the cut bogey and attempt to keep as much as possible, SOCOM has to break down individual SEAL, ODA, and squadrons....then stand them back up as new units.  I will stop here at the risk of complete diverting the conversation, but suffice it to say it was a complete abortion because it was not well thought through and I suspect that is what is happening here, especially given the pace of action and decisions.

I believe what is happening it a realignment of priorities and now funding, but we shall see. 

I believe in other reported things Trump as said he called for halving the DOD budget in future years as the world calms down...obviously a pipe dream.  Also, that does not align with other things he said.  Earlier this year, Trump publicly suggested that all NATO countries spend at least 5% of their gross domestic product on defense, a figure that would mandate a nearly $1 trillion military budget for the United States.

Bopttomline, read the actual words and details, buckleup and hang on.

[nsplayr]

Yea I mentioned in one of my many posts that the very most favorable interpretation of what’s happening is massive reprogramming from current programs and priorities to…something new. TBD. “A concept of a plan.”

Thats the best case and it may still be a wreck, like you described with Gates’ reprogramming efforts during GWOT. Actual topline cuts on the order of 8% per year for 5 years would be devastating and inshallah Congress will never go for it and also inshallah they still have an independent will and governing authority outside of whatever the President wants to do.

I would love for all my friends in the GOP to lobby their Reps and Senators to make sure that’s the case. I have written to mine. Hopefully it’s another “not the first nor the last time POTUS is talking out of his ass” or writing half-baked memos in this case, but if we can, let’s slow down the thrash because we are all on the whip end right now.

Guiding the ship of state toward new priorities is the President’s prerogative, but let’s try not Tokyo drift into the wall at high speed here either.

Buckle up is right. We have fucked around and this is the find out phase.

[O Face]

I think we identified an AGR who DOGE might consider less than essential. That’s an awful lot of posting here during the duty day. Get back to faking work nsplayer. Elon is coming for your ass. 

Edited Thursday at 05:56 PM by O Face
.

[McJay Pilot]

15 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Buckle up is right. We have fucked around and this is the find out phase.

Edited Thursday at 03:16 PM by McJay Pilot