“Eyeing the Pentagon’s continuing struggle with sequestration and other budget cuts, the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank is proposing an array of management and other reforms that could save $50 billion a year.
A new report by the nonpartisan center — authored by a committee including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former Air Force chief of staff, a former chief of naval operations and two retired four-star generals — also urges changes to the force structure and other modernization.
“Although we never would have chosen this course, we are now confronted by it. Even so, we believe that with appropriate planning, U.S. national interests can be defended at the mandated lower level of defense spending,’ the authors said in the report, obtained by POLITICO. ‘Lower spending incurs greater risk, but the 9 percent real reduction required can be achieved at an acceptable level of risk — if it is linked to a conscious strategy and implemented in a deliberate manner.’”
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