Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The New Republic asked a few defense experts who won and who lost in the Pentagon procurement reshuffling announced yesterday.  Here’s one answer:

NAME: Andrew Krepinevich

POSITION: President of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

WHO WON: The Navy, which “essentially emerges unscathed. I talked to Gates this morning. According to him, they’ll get to keep their eleven carriers through 2040, and [the budget] left the proposed increase in submarine production intact.”

WHO LOST: The Air Force, because of the slashed F-22 program. “You look across the board, and you say, ‘The Air Force had a pretty tough day.'” Also, the Army, which was “already in a state of disrepair after the cancellations of the Crusader Artillery System and Comanche helicopter” over the past decade. Under the new budget plan, the Army will see huge cutbacks to FCS (Future Combat Systems), which is “the crown jewel of the Army’s modernization program.”

The Navy’s reduction from 11 carriers to 10 won’t happen until 2040?  Since their only other “loss” was the DDG-1000 destroyer, which they wanted to cancel anyway, I guess they really did come through this whole thing pretty unscathed.  The other services must be pretty hosed off about this.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate