Secretary of Defense Gates recent announcements about the fate of various defense programs in President Obama's first national security budget has provoked media headlines about "sweeping reform" in the Pentagon. While the Defense Department is truly a broken agency and reform is very much needed, Secretary Gates' decisions do not change anything fundamental there.
That is the assessment of three authors of a new anthology, "America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress." Gates may very much want to initiate real reform, but thus far he has only provoked a "pork fight" on Capitol Hill.
Montgomery College in Rockville, MD will host a discussion of these authors' military reform ideas. The event will be on Monday, April 27 at 7 p.m. in the Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center on the College's Rockville Campus, 51 Mannakee Street, Rockville, MD. (See a link to driving/metro directions below.)
The three authors (Winslow Wheeler, Thomas Christie, and Pierre Sprey) contend that the new administration must make far more aggressive and fundamental reforms than those already taken to keep America's defenses from deteriorating further. Among many other points, the authors contend that -
. At post-World War II highs in spending, we get forces that are smaller, older, and less ready to fight.
. The decay at ever increasing cost is the handiwork of both Republicans and Democrats in the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House.
. Most of the actions being proposed in Congress will make our problems worse.
With their book, Wheeler, Christie and Sprey hope to start a national debate about when, where and how the nation needs to defend itself. They invite you to come and contend the issues with them.
"America's Defense Meltdown" offers basic ideas for badly needed improvement in many key areas: strategy, the quality of today's military leadership, our forces on land and the sea and in the air, the reserves, how to buy weapons, and how to deeply cut the Pentagon's budget while simultaneously increasing the effectiveness of our forces.
Combined, the authors have more than 120 years of experience in defense issues. Wheeler spent 30 years working for Republican and Democratic senators and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Christie has five decades of experience in buying and testing weapons. For 40 years, Sprey was at the core of the design and employment of some of America's most successful weapons, including the F-16 fighter and the A-10 Warthog.
For more information, please contact Winslow Wheeler at winslowwheeler@msn.com. For directions to Montgomery College's Rockville Campus, visit www.montgomerycollege.edu/maps/Rvic.html. Copies of the book will be on sale at the event, or it can be bought at Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080476931...;pf_rd_i=507846 Find a copy of Montgomery College's press release for this event at http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/news/News...ws04100901.html _____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project
Center for Defense Information
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