The status of the F 35 SNAFU and cost overruns begs better leadership. Strib carrying an AP feed:
A fracture developed last week over Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and worsened after Mattis' public disagreement with Trump, aired in his resignation letter.
Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will take over as acting secretary on Jan. 1, Trump announced in a tweet Sunday. He had worked for more than three decades at Boeing Co. and was a senior vice president when he became Pentagon deputy in July 2017.
In the new year Trump wants to focus on streamlining purchases at the Pentagon, an issue on which Shanahan has already been working, a White House official said. The official asked not to be identified publicly discussing personnel matters.
U.S. officials said they didn't know if Shanahan would be Trump's nominee to replace Mattis. During a lunch with conservative lawmakers Saturday at the White House, Trump discussed his options. They were "not all military," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was among those attending.
Shanahan's biography on the Pentagon's website does not list military experience for the longtime Boeing executive. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, then a master's degree in mechanical engineering as well as an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In addition to work in Boeing's commercial airplanes programs, Shanahan was vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems and of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems. In a March 2016 report, the Puget Sound Business Journal called Shanahan a Boeing "fix-it" man who was central to getting the 787 Dreamliner on track after production problems in the program's early years.
An acting defense secretary is highly unusual. Historically when a secretary has resigned, he has stayed on until a successor is confirmed. For example, when Chuck Hagel was told to resign in November 2014, he stayed in office until Ash Carter was confirmed the following February.
Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, had been expected to retain his position as Pentagon chief through February. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, not the president, notified Mattis of Trump's decision to put in place Shanahan, said a senior administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel issues.
The sudden change stripped Mattis of any chance to further frame national security policy or smooth rattled relations with allies over the next two months. But U.S. officials said the reaction to Mattis' decision to leave — it sparked shock and dismay on Capitol Hill — annoyed Trump and likely led to pushing Mattis out.
The man has run public company divisions on a tighter budget than the Pentagon enjoys, and had technology over manpower aims while in the private sector. Traditional conservatives should love Shanahan's chops.
Rotary aircraft would include the Osprey, a technological innovation that works, even having had birthing pains, and having gotten 787 bottlenecks straight after the decision to build in South Carolina as a "right to work" state vs. Washington where experience was greatest but where unions were strong made things work despite the nastiness of Boeing top management in making that anti-worker decision.
The Pentagon needs a flush, and a civilian top dog offers that possibility. The military after going voluntary has been brass-heavy for decades and needs a flush. That the Kurds suffer is not new; they've been sold out and screwed over for most of a century or more, and this is just one more step in that direction. The Afghan situation, without direct confrontation of Palkistan was a loser and downsizing the loss makes sense.
When a sensible change is made it should be acknowledged, despite it coming from Mr. HushMoney.
Can you imagine the situation had it been Pence making the choice? A crusadeer like Boykin would not be a good idea, but it would most likely be the idea Pence would cherish. Trump deserves credit for not marching that dangerous and stupid road. So far . . .
_____________UPDATE______________
It is not an unmindful praise at issue. Naming one of the death vendors to head the war and death part of the federal government who has been reported as wanting to streamline purchasing from the vendors is a naming recognized as greasing the skids for the vendors.
But the alternative is running the show by the death deliverers, whose bias is as was said by one during Vietnam days, "It's not much of a war but it's the only one we've got."
Don't seek attribution, it was published, but pinning it to one specific member of the officer corps is not worth the research time.
Getting the "war ticket" punched, combat command experience is a part of the "up" dimension of "up or out." It leads to mindsets which are counterproductive to pacifist ideals.
Selling technocratic "deterrence" is a better background, and money spent buying high-tech death tools gets recycled into the general consumer economy with that old multiplier effect of money in circulation that Econ 101 praises.
Cutting out the slack of bureau inertia has appeal as an argument, since the waste is great already, and minimization of it is hence easily envisioned.
What is most dangerous is the belief set of generals such as Boykin that a holy crusade is good for national character. It is not.
Civilian leadership at the Pentagon can be better in planning and research of weapon possibilities, with spin-off capable to consumer products, GPS being an example, with the alternative being how to most effectively deliver death and demoralization to "the enemy" using the equipment now in the arsenal and the training techniques that have long insensitized persons in killing "the enemy" while under one of several civil commandments to not kill our own, that being crime.
Downsizing the entire circus is likely easier among vendor technocrats who have more transferable skill sets than generals possess. Generals know how to climb a ladder and how to boss things once atop. They get into Pentagon consultancies, the schmoozing side of things, less than the technocrat side of let's make its radar cross section lower by doing this or that with carbon fiber composites.
The fact that an obscene majority of an obscene federal spending budget goes to the killing machinery, euphemistically called "defense," is at the heart of what a long term end should be the aim, and a start would be downsizing the military academies; as well as closing off a big part of the pentagon making it a war history museum or such. The fewer having a stake in the money flows to the death industries, the better; but long term attrition is needed because of the moods of those with vested interests, and how they might react to citizen effort to downsize their toys and games and meal tables.
Again, happy holidays.
May the next year be more sane than the last, and may that trend continue.