Home » Policy » We’re not in decline, Dempsey insists

We’re not in decline, Dempsey insists

By Philip Ewing Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 12:20 pm
Posted in Policy

These days, every story on the defense beat is depressing.

Gray winter clouds are literally and metaphorically parked over Washington. Elected officials regularly plumb new depths in bad governance. The defense industry is going out of business because the penniless federal government must cancel all its big pending programs. We’ll be defenseless and our Republic is doomed. If history is any guide, we’re in for about a hundred years of sackings by some very unpleasant people.

Well, wait — maybe not. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey hinted to the BBC this week that America might not be buried by snow in an eternal night, after all. Here’s how Jim Garamone put it in an official Defense Department story:

During an interview on the BBC program “Newsnight,” Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey bristled when Jeremy Paxman began the interview by asking, “General, what’s it like to take over the military at a time when it is in decline?”
“We’re not in decline,” Dempsey asserted. “The incline or decline is not an affect of size, it’s a function of capability.” Dempsey explained that the U.S. military has learned much over the past 10 years of war. “We tend to face adversaries who don’t mass against us — they decentralize,” he said. “We’ve had to become a network to defeat a network.”

Continued Garamone, quoting Dempsey in a speech:

Dempsey said he believes a psychology contributes to talk about decline. “We are neither in decline nor are we victims,” he said at the Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture following his talk with the BBC. “We are simply responding to what one might argue is a historic cycle of resources.”
Historically, Dempsey said, the U.S. military has expanded during times of conflict and shrunk following the conflicts. “The key,” he said, “is that we have to ensure that what we do in contraction is ‘expansible,’ so if we get the future wrong – which, by the way, we have an uncanny capability to do that – that we’ll have enough capability to get through the initial challenge and then be able to expand the force.”

Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad! Maybe we’ll get through this thing all right after all. At least today there’s slightly less of a threat from complete nuclear annihilation than there used to be. But Dempsey wasn’t all sunshine and roses, per Garamone:

Budget challenges do exist, and the U.S. military will do its part to help the nation over the deficit crisis, the chairman said. The military is cutting $450 billion in spending over the next 10 years, he noted, a level of cuts he said is manageable. “Anything more and it risks being unmanageable,” he added. “But I can’t see that far yet.”

That could be the main reason why this era has become so bleak for the defense game — no one can.

Join the Conversation

	Dfens November 30th, 2011 at 2:12 pm Hell yeah everything is all right. So what we can’t get 300 ships to float. Who cares that our airplanes are twice the age of their pilots? The key parameter you can’t take your eye off of is that our defense contractors are doing just fine, and after all, that’s what’s really important. The defense contractors are making record profits. So let’s not get rash and think we have to change things. Stay the course. Don’t change anything. Especially don’t ever stop paying contractors a profit to develop weapons. That’s the goose that laid the golden egg right there. Let’s never ever stop doing that. Before we paid profit on development, weapons only took years, not decades, to develop and were much more innovative than today’s. Who would possibly want to go back to those days? Stay the course. Don’t change anything. All is well. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an enemy of the military-industrial bureacracy and will be destroyed.
	Lance November 30th, 2011 at 4:09 pm Yes most of the cuts can take out wasteful none needed program like the ICC and JLTV which we don’t need now and keep valued stuff like Virgina Class Subs and F-35 on order still.
	crackedlenses November 30th, 2011 at 4:24 pm So, you are against the defense corporations making a profit.….. I’m all for getting rid of bureacracy, military or otherwise, but I don’t understand what you are griping about.…..
	dddd November 30th, 2011 at 4:41 pm Agreed. Although one could, maybe, in some crazy world, argue that the F-35 should be scrapped and more funding spent on UCAVs and autonomous submarines.
	Dfens November 30th, 2011 at 4:52 pm That’s your take on what I said? Maybe you should learn to read first, then write. I’m all for defense contractors making a profit on good weapons that perform as advertised that are delivered on time. In fact, I think the contractors that make innovative weapons should make considerably more profit than those who drag their asses cobbling together costly pieces of crap. You’re the one who thinks those who drag their asses cobbling together crappy weapons deserve more money than those who make good, innovative weapons, on time and on-budget, which is why you are an advocate for the status quo. That also makes you the target of my scarcasm. Sucks to be you.
	Thunder350 November 30th, 2011 at 5:10 pm I don’t remember these companies making a “huge” profit during WWII. Back then they actually cared about the nation. Not their pocket. These corporations today will sell our nation out to get more money. The sad thing, it’s already been happening for awhile now, and our politicians that are suppose to protect us are ok with it. (Getting themselves reelected with that money.)
	Dfens November 30th, 2011 at 5:17 pm As I stated above, there’s nothing wrong with making a profit. There is something wrong with making a profit off of stupidity. The procurement system the defense contractors lobbied for and got is one in which they get paid more for providing us with crap than they do if they provide us good weapons on time and on budget. Only an idiot would pay more to get screwed. Got any comments on that, Crackedlenses?
	Aurora November 30th, 2011 at 5:21 pm “We tend to face adversaries who don’t mass against us — they decentralize,” he said. “We’ve had to become a network to defeat a network.” General Dempsey has it right. Well stated, sir!
	charles222 November 30th, 2011 at 6:25 pm He’s entirely correct; the US has swing periods of rise & decline for at least the last hundred years. Bad governance? Hmm…whichever president Teddy Roosevelt replaced, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon. Horrid economic climes? Try the 1880s, 1930s, 1970s, and a period in the 1990s. Underprepared military, or military that was ‘pointing’ in the wrong direction? again, 1860s, 1910s, 1930s, late 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 2001… It’s a cycle; everyone gets dramatic about it because they don’t bother remembering/don’t know that it happens alot.
	Old loggie November 30th, 2011 at 8:52 pm The Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture? You made that up, right? P.S. How can we get in touch with the babe in the bikini?
	Dfens November 30th, 2011 at 9:38 pm What troops? We laid them all off so we could pay for the F-35 cost over runs. How about we stop taking the fool’s choices and opt for what’s behind door number 3? Good weapons developed at the contractor’s expense bought as a result of a fair, head to head competition? Yeah, no one wants to talk about what’s behind door number 3.
	Richard November 30th, 2011 at 9:38 pm Heck no, scrap every project on the table, army, navy air force and marines, put the troops all back into whatever old crud we have lying around and then expect them to go against new ships,fighters,bombers etc’ but whatever you do,dont say a friggen thing when our forces are anhileated and we the people of the U.S. are then under control of some third world nation because we refused to upgrade our military. … fools..
	Ruby November 30th, 2011 at 10:00 pm Plus, no one’s got nearly as many bombers, fighters, or ships as us. No one else even comes close. It’s possible that a very skilled fighter pilot could outgun one of ours in a dogfight. But that’s about it. And even that’s not so common. Very few non-allied countries give their pilots even a fraction of the amount of hours ours get in the cockpit. They can’t afford it. We outspend everyone on the planet by a lot. We can make do with less equipment. What matters is the SKILLS. And GEN Dempsey’s right. Our guys have increased their skills by several magnitudes over 10 years of war. If we can capitalize on all that we have learned, apply it, and pass it on to the next generation of men and women in uniform, then we’ll be fine.
	Macman1138 December 1st, 2011 at 2:52 am I suppose we know who he’s going to vote for again in 2012.
	itfunk December 1st, 2011 at 5:53 am Of course the flight hours of the F-35 are being cut because they are too expensive and because the contractors say that the F-35 will never have to dogfight anyways because it is invisible.
	guest December 1st, 2011 at 8:33 am The US military is not in decline, yet. However. The US has outsourced its manufacturing base enormously over the last ten years. Having economic policies (such as pressuring China) that return manufacturing to the US will provide the economic base required to support the military. US lost something on the order of 20–30 manufacturing plants every day for the last 10 years.
	Dfens December 1st, 2011 at 8:47 am Too bad the world is not really that rosy. I’ve worked long enough in the defense industry to know that the so called “defense giants” are really just huge bags of gas. They have long since outsourced all of their manufacturing capability. Their factories are nothing but glorified wearhouses where imported parts are assembled into weapons. They are as much weapons factories as your house is a bicycle factory on Christmas Eve. These gas bags eliminated the weapon design positions decades ago, which should have been obvious to everyone given the 2 pieces of crap that “flew off” against each other in the JSF competition. You get the finest weapons that can be designed by a committee, and you deserve them.
	Vitesse et Puissance December 1st, 2011 at 9:40 am I don’t think that was the sigificant part of what General Dempsey said. The business about decentralized networks is a tactic, not a strategy. It says nothing about national power and how this nation generates power. More to the point was his comment about getting “through the initial challenge and then be able to expand the force”. This of course implies a reactive strategy, something I would advise against. But otherwise the point is well taken.
	Pat December 1st, 2011 at 9:58 am It’s only the B-52’s and KC-135’s plus some C-130 that are that old.
	always right December 1st, 2011 at 11:11 am and who cares that our walmart $$$ going to china has given them the wherewithal to build 3000 miles of tunnels to house their mobile nukes, making them bomb proof. Thanks, Sam. You progeney did a great job of arming the chic-coms
	crackedlenses December 1st, 2011 at 6:55 pm “Stay the course. Don’t change anything. Especially don’t ever stop paying contractors a profit to develop weapons. That’s the goose that laid the golden egg right there.” Your own words; what was I to think?.….
	Dfens December 2nd, 2011 at 8:01 am Try thinking beyond the rhetoric of the Republican or Democrat talking points. Those two are both wholly owned subsidiaries of the defense contractors.
	Dfens December 2nd, 2011 at 8:04 am Unlike you I’ve been working in the aerospace biz for the last 30 years and I’ve seen things come and go. I’m not guessing when I tell you something about how things are done in the defense industry. I know.
	Dfens December 2nd, 2011 at 8:13 am The first F-15A flight was made in July 1972, and the first flight of the two-seat F-15B (formerly TF-15A) trainer was made in July 1973. The first Eagle (F-15B) was delivered in November 1974. In January 1976, the first Eagle destined for a combat squadron was delivered. — http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factshee… Now if I had been born in January of 1972, I’d be pretty darn close to 40 right now. I guess there aren’t really any 20 year old F-15 pilots. Most start in that airplane when they’re 23 to 25. Well, give it a few years. It’s not like they’re going to be replaced by hoards of F-22’s any time soon, or at all for that matter.
	major.rod December 2nd, 2011 at 1:43 pm Only problem is you slam the companies and give the military a pass. Its like slamming Boing and Airbus over the tanker fiasco and giving the Air Force a pass. The military is a big part of the problem and the bueracracy is as much involved in this mess as the services and industry.
	Thinking_ExUSAF December 2nd, 2011 at 2:47 pm I totally agree, Major! There is by definition more than enough blame to go around to all parties for the defense acquisition problems, and those parties include the military, DoD, the contractors, and dont forget the Congressional contributions as well. Every time a new “oversight” reporting requirement is levied by Congress, DoD, or the services, the price of the toilet seat goes up another notch. Every time an operational requirement is eliminated to make the SPI and CPI pretty, or a corner is cut on a verification requirement because the system might fail, or a delivery is postponed the system delivered is incrementally less valuable than originally intended. AND should the contractor also take his turn at the slop bucket, things really go south. Perhaps its fatalistic, but… a bit more concern about the real mission of military acqusition and less about the appearances might be a breath of fresh air for all concerned. And by the way, I went to work in the defense industry in ’76, so I guess that makes me old, if perhaps not all that wise, just like Dfens…. :-)
	Dfens December 2nd, 2011 at 6:14 pm Yeah, I’m sure if we spent lots of time figuring out who to blame and zero time fixing what’s wrong, that would make everything all better. Don’t waste my time, but feel free to do whatever you want with your own.
	JRL December 2nd, 2011 at 10:12 pm I don’t know what world you live in, but the pilot’s of America’s first line of aerial defence, the vaunted F-22, have reportedly had their flight hours cut by a third due to the Raptor’s voracious appetite for expensive maintenance. And they were only getting 12–15 flt hrs/month to begin with. There’s not much point in having the very ‘best’ if you can’t afford to use it. Or to buy it in sufficient numbers to allow for the regrettable but inevitable attrition that results from realistic training.
	JRL December 2nd, 2011 at 10:14 pm Just to clarify — My previous post was in reply to Richard and Ruby, not itfunk.
	itfunk December 2nd, 2011 at 11:14 pm Dempsy’s retirement depends on the continuing ever higher spiral of costs. But as far as performance goes the decline has been going on for a long time. Its safe to say that our current military would not be able to defeat a present day Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. They simply don’t have the will.
	JRL December 2nd, 2011 at 11:33 pm Sam’slil chilluns didn’t buy all that cheap Chinese junk, your neighbors did. Because when you get right down to it, they’d rather save a few bucks to put towards the latest smartphone than help their fellow citizens make a decent living.
	Dfens December 3rd, 2011 at 11:17 pm It is perfectly obvious what the problem is. Whenever you provide a “for profit” company more to screw up, they’re going to take the bait. That’s what they’re about, making money. They’ll do whatever it takes to make more of it. If you make the rules so they do the right thing to make that money, they’ll do the right thing. If you make the rules so they make money doing what you don’t want them to do, they’ll do what you don’t want them to do. Capitalism always works. It can work for you or against you, but it always works. We used to understand that in this country. Now I tell people that and they argue with me. It’s like arguing about if the sun comes up in the East. Let’s quit wasting time and fix it.
	crackedlenses December 5th, 2011 at 3:08 pm Unlike you, I accept my “cracked lenses” and understand I may be wrong; I haven’t researched this, so I don’t know much. I’ll probably look into it without taking your word for squat. Please, people will be more likely to listen to you if you leave the cockiness and personal insults out of it.….
	crackedlenses December 5th, 2011 at 6:13 pm Bomb our soil again and we’ll see who doesn’t have will.….

NOTE: Comments are limited to 2500 characters and spaces.

By commenting on this topic you agree to the terms and conditions of our User Agreement

DoD Buzz

We’re not in decline, Dempsey insists

Join the Conversation

Recent Comments