A Lean, Mean Fighting Machine: Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military

This is not some limp-wristed notion from a coastal-elite dressing-gown blogger. (That would be me, caricatured uncharitably but not completely inaccurately.)

It’s from the man who one Army National Training Center official described,* in 1997, as “the best war fighter the army has got.”

Douglas Macgregor thinks we can cut the defense budget by $280 billion over ten years (above and beyond the $450 billion already in the cards), while maintaining our influence in the world and increasing our homeland security.

But the message for Republicans and Democrats alike should be that cutting defense doesn’t mean going defenseless. It means reducing America’s commitments overseas — the latter-day version of “imperial overstretch” — and changing the way the United States thinks about warfare. There’s a way to do this, one that will allow for deep spending cuts, but in a manner that will preserve and enhance the U.S. military’s competitive advantages while improving American national security.

For your delectation:

Lean, Mean Fighting Machine – By Douglas Macgregor | Foreign Policy.

A Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military – By Douglas Macgregor | Foreign Policy.

Hat tip (and further discussion): Mike “Mish” Shedlock.

*Sorry, this U.S. News and World Report article (07/28/97, Vol. 123, Issue 4) only seems to be available through a gated source. You’ll need university affiliation or some such to get at it. Why doesn’t USNWR post their archives?


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