Straus Military Reform Project

"America's Defense Meltdown"

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Meltdown Update

August 28, 2009

On Aug. 26 CDI's Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler addressed the American Helicopter Society in Patuxent, Md. His presentation showed the budget and force structure data that demonstrate the predominant trends in the U.S. military services for the last few decades: namely that at record high levels of spending, our forces have become smaller, older and less ready to fight. Moreover, recent actions in the Pentagon and Congress will make all those trends worse.

Author(s): Winslow Wheeler

Will Congress Reverse the Decay in Our Defenses?

July 9, 2009

Next week, the Senate will debate the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010. That bill will only be a minor way-station in the now decades-long deterioration of American defenses, explains Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler.

Author(s): Winslow Wheeler

Stanford University Press Announces Its Release of "America's Defense Meltdown"

April 8, 2009

Stanford University Press have recently issued a press release announcing their edition of the military reform anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown."

"America's Defense Meltdown" Now Available for Pre-Order on Amazon.com

March 25, 2009

The acclaimed military reform anthology for the Obama administration, "America's Defense Meltdown," is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

America's Defense Meltdown Discussion Coverage on C-Span's Book TV

March 11, 2009

C-SPAN's Book TV is now presenting a video of the Feb. 19 discussion event featuring three authors of "America's Defense Meltdown." The presentations are by Winslow Wheeler, Thomas Christie and Pierre Sprey, who collectively have about 140 years of experience in defense budget analysis, hardware acquisition and weapon design. The presentations and discussion that followed addressed the decay in the U.S. armed forces (the shrinking, aging, less ready to fight combat formations) at ever increasing cost (now at a post-World War II high).

Author(s): Winslow Wheeler

To Rebuild the Air Force

March 3, 2009

At his online defense and acquisition Web site, DoD Buzz, journalist Colin Clark has published an article that U.S. Air Force devotees can only regard as apostasy describing decades of adherence to Douhet-ist dogma that has resulted in a weakened, mostly irrelevant and vastly overpriced Air Force. Its future promises only more shrinkage, aging and irrelevance - at even higher cost. The authors of the article that Clark has published, Pierre Sprey and Robert Dilger, also further their heresy by showing how to make the Air Force a far more effective, war-winning entity - at far lower cost.

Author(s): Winslow Wheeler

Measuring the Decay: Malevolent Hardware Acquisition

February 24, 2009

At a Feb. 19 discussion of the new anthology "America's Defense Meltdown," a veteran of five decades of experience with the Department of Defense acquisition system described just how broken the system has become. Pointedly, Thomas Christie made it clear in his presentation that some of the worst practices were developed during the Clinton administration, and now, of course, many of those responsible for that are now back haunting the e-ring of the Pentagon. People who think that nothing could get worse than the incompetence of the Bush-Rumsfeld years might want to wait a bit before they claim that any corner has been turned in the Obama-Gates Pentagon.

Measuring the Decay: The Collapse of American Air Power

February 23, 2009

At a Feb. 19 discussion event at the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust in Washington, D.C., one of the most important and provocative chapters in "America's Defense Meltdown" was the topic. Aircraft designer-creator Pierre Sprey (who co-authored the chapter with Col. Robert Dilger, U.S. Air Force, ret.) took on the many myths of the history of American air power - going back to the 1930s. The analysis challenges the conventional wisdom of the proponents of complexity, cost and ineffectiveness who predominate in each of today's American military air components. Worse yet, Sprey proposed solutions that would combine ultra-low cost with huge gains in relevance and effectiveness.

Measuring the Decay: DOD-wide

February 23, 2009

On the evening of Thursday, Feb. 19 at the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust in Washington, D.C., three authors of "America's Defense Meltdown" discussed the ongoing decay in the U.S. armed forces. In sharp contrast to the political apparatchiks that protest that more money is needed to reverse the moldering in the Army, Navy and Air Force, it might begin to dawn on some that budget increases are a primary cause of the problems, a symptom that Winslow Wheeler described in a presentation at the discussion event.

Cato Sponsors Event on Pentagon's Woes

February 23, 2009

On Friday, March 13, the Cato Institute is sponsoring a discussion event titled "Can the Pentagon Be Fixed?" Two authors from "America's Defense Meltdown" (Winslow Wheeler and Col. Douglas Macgregor), Danielle Brian of POGO, Cato's Benjamin Friedman, and Tom Ricks of The Washington Post will all be participating.

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