Is the Department of Defense the Shadiest Organization in the World?

[Montmorency]

Due to the nature of the DoD I suspect it's title of "shadiest" is for a multitude of reasons, that in the bigger picture are not as devious as you would first imagine.

A. First issue from any DoD spending is that the DoD is the biggest jobs program that the Federal government employs. The number of contractors who suckle off the DoD teets are uncountable and with contractors comes inflated prices. It is an odd arrangement in my own life that I am just beginning to understand (in hopes of figure out something better). Usually contractors will bid (a minimum of three to five in order for the program to qualify for funding), the lowest bidder wins and proceeds to then take its time and run down the purchase order funds. It is logistically impossible to switch horses mid-stream, so you simply extend the contract as many times as needed until it becomes politically nonviable and gets press attention (see F-35 debacle).

I don't really consider this an issue as the money is funneled through American companies for security reasons and reach American workers. The downside is that we have a very inefficient system that become intractable. Perhaps the way forward is not to keep everything in house (although the political climate for progressives may make that possible in the future) but to reform the way in which contractors bid (do we really need to go with the bottom bidder who is low balling us and lying?) and assign some sort of penalties for overdue projects.

B. These types of programs can at times be black box projects, where even the amount of resources being funded is too much info for the enemy as it may provoke attention and espionage. In that sense I am not surprised the numbers dont add up, the money has to come from somewhere so you transfer it internally where no one can see it until an audit happens and even then it become difficult to trace.
Again, for the purposes of national security, I see no problem with this. It is the nature of the beast.

C. With any large organization there is a degree of incompetence if oversight is not applied. If you think BIG GOVERNMENT spends outrageous amounts of money on the simplest things, you have never worked at a large multinational who purchases its office supplies through "preferred vendors". This is not acceptable, and the fact that the DoD has begun the process of initiating audits leads to believe that we are making progress on this front.

You're strangely (naively?) sanguine.

There are three primary drivers of cosmic bureaucratic misconduct that I see (on the civilian/administrative end specifically):

1. Hierarchy
The DoD has countless layers of hierarchy due in part to its rigid and conservative nature as a milsec establishment (even though the trend in modern militaries since at least WW1 has been less hierarchy), and because of the proliferation of minimally-cooperating lateral departments and offices that might as well be different countries despite operating out of the same building, or floor, or adjacent rooms.

2. Secrecy
Secrecy breeds contempt of oversight, and I find it strange you are so willing to accept this excuse. We should always be striving to open as much information to the public and to the wider government as is practical. Most things that are secret have no call to be secret.

3. "Too Big to Fail"
Because empire calls, because sunk costs, because of those monopsonized private industry contracts you mentioned, because the military is the most trusted institution in the country or close to it and is bound up with all things "patriotic"...

We see the fruits in... well, in the DoD shifting potentially trillions of dollars not in its budget (we have no way to tell) and in the petty corruption of individual soldiers killing each other (and presumably civilians and locals) over the opportunity to misappropriate black money (see my Errata thread on special operations in Africa). What happened to those pallets of hard cash that disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan, btw? The "operating loss" we are willing to accept should be limited by rational factors.

The existence of failed audits is not more a good sign of internal affairs than Trump tweeting a reasonable eulogy for George HW Bush is a positive indicator for his competence as President. As the OP article points out in the first paragraphs, the DoD has refused audits for decades until one was foisted upon them recently. And this audit failed because of stonewalling and incoherent, missing or disappearing records.

'B-b-but national security' is a terrible excuse, you know it, and you should be fighting it.

Noting approvingly that money trickles down through defense contractors into the economy is somehow even sadder than thanking billionaires for trickling down tax cuts to the middle class. As with the steel industry, as with employment in general, if the flow of money and jobs is vital (and it is) then it should be nationalized and reorganized up the ass to fulfill core objectives and nothing else. Too many fingers in the pie? 3 seconds to remove the fingers or they get baked in with it. But keep in mind it's not just the private contracts, it's the whole institutional organization and culture that is intolerable.

I'm glad you at least hinted that large insular private organizations will also see an increasing share of fraud and inefficiency (against the myth of private sector virtue).

Of course I'm pessimistic because "wag the dog", and the fact that reforming the whole existing defense administration is a task likely more complex than building a national health service in the United States from the ground up, even on the level of changing the whole economic system of the world. The only hopeful aspect to this story is that it can help teach us that government debt is irrelevant in our world and that we should spend whatever we damn need to secure designated outcomes (which we should shoot for the sky on). How's that for a compromise?

[a completely inoffensive name]

You're strangely (naively?) sanguine.

I am willing to lean on the side of overdoing it than the opposite. Maintaining Pax Americana will never be anything less than a drain on our national coffers.

2. Secrecy
Secrecy breeds contempt of oversight, and I find it strange you are so willing to accept this excuse. We should always be striving to open as much information to the public and to the wider government as is practical. Most things that are secret have no call to be secret.

Any deviations from my normal political reasoning is due to my fear of China. Despite my own thoughts on the failure of the Chinese state to maintain stable political grounds for the future, the Chinese system as of today is running very well and playing catch-up through both their own internal policies but also through massive corporate and political espionage. This is an area where we as citizens feel we are getting bamboozled, and I think given our position we must simply accept such bamboozling to an extent reasonable to secure our own advantages against foreign powers. We agree on the principle but I think the degree of openness is something we differ on. I would consider it to be "naive" if we are looking for anything more than rough metrics of 'lost money' and total spent as measures to trim down inefficiencies.

3. "Too Big to Fail"
Because empire calls, because sunk costs, because of those monopsonized private industry contracts you mentioned, because the military is the most trusted institution in the country or close to it and is bound up with all things "patriotic"...

We see the fruits in... well, in the DoD shifting potentially trillions of dollars not in its budget (we have no way to tell) and in the petty corruption of individual soldiers killing each other (and presumably civilians and locals) over the opportunity to misappropriate black money (see my Errata thread on special operations in Africa). What happened to those pallets of hard cash that disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan, btw? The "operating loss" we are willing to accept should be limited by rational factors.

I agree with this, but of course that's why Congress has taken the measure of having oversight committees that limit such deep dives to only members on the committees which can signal their displeasure to their colleagues on the hill. Accountability does not necessarily come from publicizing this information but from public pressure on the selected watchmen among our elected officials.

The existence of failed audits is not more a good sign of internal affairs than Trump tweeting a reasonable eulogy for George HW Bush is a positive indicator for his competence as President. As the OP article points out in the first paragraphs, the DoD has refused audits for decades until one was foisted upon them recently. And this audit failed because of stonewalling and incoherent, missing or disappearing records.

Baby steps?

'B-b-but national security' is a terrible excuse, you know it, and you should be fighting it.

National security is not a terrible excuse, but is often abused. We need to weigh the factors rationally and come to a decision on whether 'national security' is justified.

Noting approvingly that money trickles down through defense contractors into the economy is somehow even sadder than thanking billionaires for trickling down tax cuts to the middle class. As with the steel industry, as with employment in general, if the flow of money and jobs is vital (and it is) then it should be nationalized and reorganized up the ass to fulfill core objectives and nothing else. Too many fingers in the pie? 3 seconds to remove the fingers or they get baked in with it. But keep in mind it's not just the private contracts, it's the whole institutional organization and culture that is intolerable.

Nah, I don't think you appreciate just how socialist this system is. We are artificially inflating a demand for highly educated positions and propping up local economies in every state of the union (at least one region of SoCal exist solely around aerospace companies having their facilities there, kept alive by DoD money/contracts. This is money coming from a progressive tax base, so it is in effect a redistribution of wealth downwards and provides many perks as well.

Nationalize the organization? I mentioned that in my post, not until the progressive message becomes mainstream. Otherwise, as I said you will need reforms on how contracts are formed and how the DoD oversees timelines and compliance in its project management.

I'm glad you at least hinted that large insular private organizations will also see an increasing share of fraud and inefficiency (against the myth of private sector virtue).

Of course, the larger the organization the more codified all transactions become in order to minimize "risk" and increase reliability of supply chains. The result is increased costs.
I'll put you on the "good list" if you promise to have what I need in stock at all times, ready to give it to me at any point in the future (or at least move me to the front of the line).
So now if I want a stapler, I have to call them first and pay whatever they want, but hey I get the exact stapler I want, when I need it.

Of course I'm pessimistic because "wag the dog", and the fact that reforming the whole existing defense administration is a task likely more complex than building a national health service in the United States from the ground up, even on the level of changing the whole economic system of the world. The only hopeful aspect to this story is that it can help teach us that government debt is irrelevant in our world and that we should spend whatever we damn need to secure designated outcomes (which we should shoot for the sky on). How's that for a compromise?

We can do better, but we as citizens just won't know why or how. There are bigger fish to tackle much more viable politically (healthcare).

[Montmorency]

I am willing to lean on the side of overdoing it than the opposite. Maintaining Pax Americana will never be anything less than a drain on our national coffers.

Seeing as the United States will remain an empire as long as it exists, and we want a more peaceable or at least helpful empire that isn't just the ultimate capitalist hound dog, we may have no choice but to become Trotskyites. That is, reparametrize Empire toward a healthier outlet. This obviously has implications with respect to China and geopolitics. Seems like it'll come to an influence war in the Third World over access to key resources, with America promising Justice and the Chinese promising hard cash, no questions asked.

Essentially the New Order/Comintern/Human Alliance or whatever has to ensure common prosperity at least as well as China has, preferably much better to justify transitioning economy, while being ideologically and morally superior in conscripting the "hearts and minds" of citizens under it. And so it should spread across the world from the grassroots, with the endgame being a popular revolt in China against the police state, us hopefully hanging in the background as an exemplar: 'Why do we need repression and mediocre prosperity when we can have both freedom and prosperity like the foreigners?'

But this isn't a primarily military campaign, and the gravity of their edifice is so great that it could easily corrupt government or subjure foreign policy (inasmuch as the Left won't have a coherent alternative theory to defend). So when you say that national security is a good excuse that can be abused, the hairs split may be impossibly thin. Let me reiterate for the howeverth time that mere inefficiency at the DoD isn't the core problem unless you have a Kubrickian laser focus on competing with China on narrow metrics, it's the fundamental corruption and taint of the organization and its overseers. We know for sure that most of these chuckleheads aren't nearly as smart or skilled as they claim, to be allowed to have such de facto authority over so much of the state and society.

Given our establishment's grand strategic track record, I also am not even sure we could trust the military on their terms to guarantee superiority over or even parity with the Chinese. So if you're worried about China, that's fair, but it's a whole cluster that we can't begin to approach without specialized knowledge. Let the default attitude be suspicion.

Nah, I don't think you appreciate just how socialist this system is. We are artificially inflating a demand for highly educated positions and propping up local economies in every state of the union (at least one region of SoCal exist solely around aerospace companies having their facilities there, kept alive by DoD money/contracts. This is money coming from a progressive tax base, so it is in effect a redistribution of wealth downwards and provides many perks as well.

Government spending and patronage are certainly not inherently socialist, and even if they were it doesn't make it good or right. Like I said somewhere else, if the expertise of the engineers and researchers is the absolutely indispensable asset, put them on payroll doing non-functional tinkering in the shops and labs. If wealth redistribution is the goal, get on with the Universal Income and Job Guarantee schemes.

We can do better, but we as citizens just won't know why or how. There are bigger fish to tackle much more viable politically (healthcare).

I admitted as much where you quote me. Just remember that none of these items are dissociable from the rest in a real government and society. The world is so amazingly complex I, as ever, can't help but be pessimistic.




Chesterton's Fence as an analogy has always been a fallacy. There isn't a fence but a rather sloppy Jenga tower.