You thought my last overhaul of the Pentagon was radical? Wait 'til you see what I've got planned for next year.

That's the message Defense Secretary Robert Gates is sending to the armed services and to Capitol Hill. In a speech today at the Eisenhower Library in Abeliene, Kansas, Gates not only informed the military establishment that the post-9/11 "gusher of defense spending... has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time." He warned that he's putting everything from ships to jets to general's billets to troops' healthcare reimbursement rates under fresh scrutiny. "Given America’s difficult economic circumstances... military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny," Gates added.

In 2008, before Gates rolled out the budget that offed the Air Force and Army's signature programs for superpower war, he paved the way with a series of speeches blasting the military-industrial complex for not focusing on today's conflicts. This talk – along with one given Monday at the Navy League symposium – signal a similar approach.

Cutting hardware will almost certainly be part of the equation, once again. Gates all-but-told the Navy earlier this week that the idea of having 11 carrier strike groups was overkill. But this next time, Gates is promising to do something much, much harder. First, he wants to rejigger the military's healthcare system.

"The premiums for TRICARE, the military health insurance program, have not risen since the program was founded more than a decade ago," Gates noted. "In recent years the Department has attempted modest increases in premiums and co-pays to help bring costs under control, but has been met with a furious response from the Congress and veterans groups. The proposals routinely die an ignominious death on Capitol Hill."

Then, he wants to convince the military's barnacled, byzantine bureaucracy to do the unthinkable: cut itself down.

"According to an estimate by the Defense Business Board, overhead, broadly defined, makes up roughly 40 percent of the Department’s budget," he said. "Almost a decade ago, Secretary Rumsfeld lamented that there were 17 levels of staff between him and a line officer. The Defense Business Board recently estimated that in some cases the gap between me and an action officer may be as high as 30 layers... A request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan – or for any other unit – has to go through no fewer than five four-star headquarters in order to be processed, validated, and eventually dealt with."

The private sector has flattened and streamlined the middle and upper echelons of its organization charts, yet the Defense Department continues to maintain a top-heavy hierarchy that more reflects 20th Century headquarters superstructure than 21st Century realities...

Now, just about every military listener will answer this talk with a loud "amen." The question is how many generals and how many senior execs will really put their little fiefdoms on the chopping block. As Gates noted, his successors have waged war on the Pentagon's bureaucracy, too – only to be forced to retreat. Gates even gave props in his talk to Donald Rumsfeld's (in)famous statement of September 10th 2001, that the military's PowerPoint-pushers were "a serious threat to the security of the United States of America."

But unlike Rumsfeld, Gates appears ready to order the bureaucratic cuts - not just bitch about the bloat.

Therefore, as the Defense Department begins the process of preparing next’s years Fiscal Year 2012 budget request, I am directing the military services, the joint staff, the major functional and regional commands, and the civilian side of the Pentagon to take a hard, unsparing look at how they operate – in substance and style alike... In other words, to convert sufficient “tail” to “tooth” to provide the equivalent of the roughly two to three percent real growth – resources needed to sustain America’s combat power at a time of war and make investments to prepare for an uncertain future. Simply taking a few percent off the top of everything on a one-time basis will not do. These savings must stem from root-and-branch changes that can be sustained and added to over time. What is required going forward is not more study. Nor do we need more legislation. It is not a great mystery what needs to change. What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices – choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out.

I once called Gates the "most dangerous man in the military complex." But if he follows through on this speech, his most hazardous job may lie ahead.

[Photo: DoD]

See Also: