Some Insights into Future Defense Spending?

Military.com reprinted an article from the NYT and re-titled it: Wall Street Pain Coming to Military. (That actually sounds better but less accurate than the NYT’s original title: Pentagon Expects Cuts in Military Spending.)

On the other hand, Aviation Week runs with: Obama to Support Defense, Space Technology.

In either case, some excerpts from the NYT article:

• The obvious targets for savings would be expensive new arms programs, which have racked up cost overruns of at least $300 billion for the top 75 weapons systems, according to the Government Accountability Office….
• In all, the Defense Department now accounts for half of the government’s total discretionary spending…
• On the presidential campaign trail, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have pledged to cut fat without carving into the muscle of national security…
• “I think we need a complete review of this whole thing,” said Representative Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat from Hawaii who is chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee. “You cannot make a case for undermining the readiness of the Army and the Marines in the circumstances that we face today with a commitment of so much money to weapons systems that are at best abstract and theoretical.”…
• Boeing’s chief executive, W. James McNerney Jr., recently wrote in a note to his employees: “No one really yet knows when or to what extent defense spending could be affected. But it’s unrealistic to think there won’t be some measure of impact.”…
• Other analysts, like Loren B. Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a policy research center, say that weapons spending will be fiercely defended by many in Congress and their allies in the weapons industry as a way to stimulate the economy.

I guess the Pentagon doesn’t read Aviation Week. They’re saying:

• Obama's campaign says he advocates unmanned aircraft, electronic warfare capabilities and cyber security among several other national security efforts. The tech emphasis aligns with Obama's promises to buttress the military's personnel ranks while wrangling control of the DOD's problem-plagued acquisition portfolio…
• Obama during the late summer appeared to shift his support toward the Bush Exploration Vision goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020, noting that he "endorses the goal" of a lunar return "as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars."…
• Nevertheless, while the Democrats assert their willingness to develop, buy and equip the U.S. military with the best weapons and technology, the platform of Obama and Vice President-elect Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) still paints a person-over-program picture.

So where does this all lead? I don’t know, but we’ll get a lot of insight when the future Secretary of Defense is announced.