DOGE-ing toward the best Department of Defense ever
DOGE-ing toward the best Department of Defense ever
February 21, 2025
Commentary
President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth have made it very clear. The United States will have the best Military in the world, bar none. This goal is being established to deter and prevent conflict, not start it, slip into it, or perpetuate it. The President and Secretary of Defense have also said we will grow the military and also cut inefficient spending. This message is not an oxymoron – with the DOGE raids on other departments, the horror stories of fraud, waste, and abuse are far worse than we thought.
In one of his first public comments on the impending arrival of DOGE to DOD, Secretary Hegseth made it clear that attacking fraud, waste, and abuse would happen on a scale never before seen in the notoriously inefficient DOD. Secretary Hegseth said that DOGE is “here, and they’re going to be incorporated into what we’re doing at DOD to find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government,”. The Secretary said full system access would be given to DOGE, “with proper safeguards and classifications” to ensure redundancies are identified, eliminated, and that non-core priorities and activities would relentlessly be ridden from the DOD. Secretary Hegseth said, “With DOGE, we are focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and top-line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere”
Appointing the best Military Leadership
In the tradition of “Plucking”, which has ample legal and historic precedent, a whole new slate of uniformed and career Senior Executives are needed across the DOD. Although spending close to $1 Trillion a year, the situation is dire. The bases look shabby, the number of aircraft, ships, and missiles is shrinking, deterrence is failing, and until the election of Donald J. Trump, there was a recruiting and retention crisis. It all begins with leadership and many need to go. The initial top five list of firings could include:
General “C.Q.” Brown (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff): The Pentagon has run aground, and the Skipper is always relieved in these situations (as the Captain of the U.S.S. Truman just experienced). General Brown has been front and center in promoting the toxic and cancerous DEI culture and that culture has been fired by Secretary of Defense Hegseth, hence General Brown’s services are no longer needed.
Admiral Lisa Franchetti (Chief of Naval Operations): The Navy should be the lead service in building deterrence to China. Yes, the Navy had a perfect badminton score in the two large missile attacks by Iran on Israel and the Houthis in the Red Sea, but the Navy is in bad shape. The ship numbers are dwindling, collisions are occurring, the Navy is shooting down its own aircraft, use of autonomy is lethargic, and there is more rust than paint on most Navy ships. The once mighty U.S. Navy is a shadow of what it was. Admiral Franchetti has DEI roots, time for a new Skipper.
General Randy George (Army Chief of Staff): The Army needs to radically transform into a new, smaller force structure and needs fresh leadership to conduct this process. The term, “Transform” has routinely been used by Army leadership. “Transform” usually means a perpetuation of stodgy, passive aggressive behavior to shield the traditional Army structure from cuts. Those days are gone, and new leadership is needed. The Army may shrink drastically and even transfer entire units to the Navy and Air Force; traditional Army think will fight this tooth and nail. Sergeant Major of the Army Michael R. Weimer has shown distinct leadership and may serve well as acting or permanent Army Chief of Staff.
General David W. Allvin (Air Force Chief of Staff): The Air Force will be the key partner with Navy as deterrence is built in the Western Pacific. The Air Force needs to disperse, harden, and camouflage post haste while building force structure with pervasive autonomy and AI. New leadership is needed to do this with alacrity.
All the uppity O6s who mouthed off with Woke, DEI, and Trump Derangement Syndrome Blather: Colonel Christina Bembenek, current Commander of the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade in Germany is a poster child for this behavior. She and others were coddled and encouraged in their hateful virtue signaling. Time for them to go before a retention board before they are forced out.
Schwacking the Overhead
When I started on the Office of the Secretary of Defense Staff, I had one person working for me. When I left, I had up to 75 personnel on my staff. I felt far more effective with three to five sharp staffers than with 50 to 75 (and most of thm were well above average). Most uniformed or civilian bureaucrats learn the gameplay really quick. More staff and more funding means more success and prestige, ergo, grow everything no matter what the question. Get a new task? Demand more staff and resources. Those days are over.
The deepest part of the Deep State in the National Security World are the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). In theory, they were supposed to work the hard, technical problem sets. Unfortunately, they have become the jobs program to employ Democrats when they are out of office. I can say this as a material witness for six years while with one FFRDC. The big three are Mitre, Rand, and The Aerospace Corporation. Billions can be saved downsizing these organizations that are overflowing from the C-Suites with woke ideology which clouds their thinking and thus outcomes.
Eliminating the dysfunction of the Acquisition Process
Even the layperson knows the Department of Defense Acquisition Process is broken. The high religion of dysfunction within DOD has been the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). This is the insane system that transforms requirements into programs that are supposed to deliver aircraft, ships, tanks, etc. Since the end of World War II, this process has brought the outcome of yesterday’s solutions, delivered tomorrow, at unaffordable costs to a venerated high art form.
The Hudson Institute has bravely stepped forward and instead of the tired “let’s reform it” gibberish, they put it very simply, “burn it down” and start over. Having had to participate in the torture of JCIDS for 100s of meetings, no question JCIDS has to be eliminated. The spectacle of this process was little different than the bloodshed of the Roman Coliseum or the chaos of Wipeout USA. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are correct. We can build a far bigger and better Military with far less.
All viewpoints are personal and do not reflect the viewpoints of any organization.
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Author: John Mills
