November 25 2024

1. National Defense Strategy at Crossroads: Urgent Reforms Needed to Address Mounting Global Threats
2. Defense Spending as Percent of GDP, Pentagon Fails Audit 7 Years in a Row
3. Deindustrialization Erodes Naval Fleet Readiness as China Surges Ahead
4. Defense Firms, Navy Hide Cost and Schedule Problems from Congress
4.5. Status of various next-gen US weapons systems
5. Trump Transition Diary
November 25, 1923: First transatlantic broadcast from England to America

See the new Ad Astra Podcast! Released on Apple and Spotify around 10a CST.

1. National Defense Strategy at Crossroads: Urgent Reforms Needed to Address Mounting Global Threats

The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II. The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose. The current National Defense Strategy (NDS), written in 2022, does not account for ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East and the possibility of a larger war in Asia. Continuing with the current strategy, bureaucratic approach, and level of resources will weaken the United States’ relative position against the gathering, and partnering, threats it faces. In its report, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy recommends a sharp break with the way the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) does business and embraces an “all elements of national power” approach to national security. It recommends spending smarter and spending more across the national security agencies of government. The United States was slow to recognize the threat of terrorism before 2001 and late to understand the rising strength of China and the renewed menace posed by Russia. According to the Commission, the time to make urgent and major change is now. That change will mean fundamental alterations to the way DoD operates, the strategic focus of other government agencies, and the functionality of Congress, as well as closer U.S. engagement with allies and mobilization of the public and private sectors. The Commission presents its unanimous conclusions and recommendations on how to accomplish these changes in its report.

Article Source: Rand

2. Defense Spending as Percent of GDP, Pentagon Fails Audit 7 Years in a Row

A. When officials express defense spending as a percent of GDP, it is a shorthand way of describing the financial burden of defense on US taxpayers. It is a measure of the affordability of a given defense budget. 
This “burden” has shrunk dramatically over the years. In the World War II year of 1944, arms spending consumed a gargantuan 38 percent of the economy. As economic growth mushroomed, the defense share of GDP has plummeted. For example:

In 1953, the peak year of the Korean War, 14 percent.

In 1968, at the height of Vietnam, 9.5 percent.

In 1986, at the peak of the Reagan rearmament, 6.2 percent.

Then in the early 1990s came the post-Cold War “peace dividend.” In GDP terms, defense outlays fell at an accelerated rate, bottoming out at three percent from 1999 through 2001.

Editors note: there’s a difference between spending for the sake of spending and spending wisely. Currently, the United States invests heavily in exquisite weapon systems, like massive aircraft carrier strike groups and next-generation fighters, that may not be effective in modern warfare. Instead, resources should be directed toward developing swarms of drones and bolstering ammunition stockpiles.  

B. The US Defense Department failed for the seventh straight year to score a clean financial audit, highlighting the challenge of tracking the finances of a sprawling organization that has some $3.8 trillion in assets and $4 trillion in liabilities.

Article Source: Bloomberg, Air and Space Forces

3. Deindustrialization Erodes Naval Fleet Readiness as China Surges Ahead

Decades of deindustrialization and policymakers’ failure to prioritize among services and threats have left the Navy ill-equipped to endure a sustained high-intensity conflict in the Pacific. The United States is unable to keep pace with Chinese shipbuilding and will fall even further behind in the coming years. As evidenced by the Biden administration’s latest budget request, fiscal constraints are forcing the Navy to cut procurement requests, delay modernization programs, and retire ships early. The Navy’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year calls for decommissioning 19 ships—including three nuclear-powered attack submarines and four guided-missile cruisers—while procuring only six new vessels. The expensive upgrading of the U.S. nuclear triad, simultaneous modernization efforts across the services, and the constraint of rising government debt are compelling the Pentagon to make tough choices about what it can and cannot pay for. Workforce shortages and supply chain issues are also limiting shipbuilding capacity. The Navy needs more shipyard capacity, but finding enough qualified workers for the yards remains the biggest barrier to expanding production. At bottom, it is a lack of welders, not widgets, that must be overcome if the U.S. Navy is to grow its fleet. Instead, the shipbuilding outlook is progressively worsening. An internal review ordered by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in January found that major programs, including submarines and aircraft carriers, face lengthy delays. Even the Constellation-class frigates, touted as a quick adaptation of a proven European design, are delayed by three years. As defense analyst David Alman outlined in a prize-winning essay for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, the United States simply can’t win a warship race with China. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimates that China now has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. China built almost half the world’s new ships in 2022, whereas U.S. shipyards produced just 0.13 percent.

Article Source: Foreign Policy

4. Defense Firms, Navy Hide Cost and Schedule Problems from Congress

The Navy’s new Virginia-class submarines are projected to run $17 billion over their planned budget through 2030, a problem emblematic of a crisis in the program, the House’s top lawmaker on defense spending disclosed. “It’s clear that the Navy and shipbuilders have known about this shortfall for at least 18 months” but “Congress was notified just two weeks ago,” Representative Ken Calvert, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said in remarks released Thursday before a classified hearing with Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. The program for a new generation of nuclear-powered subs being manufactured by General Dynamics Corp. and HII “has slipped two to three years” behind schedule “and is experiencing extraordinary cost growth,” Calvert said. The $17 billion shortfall will increase the program’s projected $184 billion total cost if the Navy can’t close the gap by finding ways to cut expenditures. Several Navy ship programs, including the Virginia class, “are in crisis,” he said. Calvert, a California Republican and usually an enthusiastic supporter of defense programs, lambasted the Navy for what he called a lack of candor in disclosing problems and for poor metrics in overseeing multibillion-dollar programs. “It’s not clear to me that anyone has accurate information about the trajectory of any shipbuilding program other than the program executive officers — and since they switch out every two years, the options for long-term accountability are limited,” Calvert said. “For too long, this committee has been put in a position of asking what the Navy is hiding behind the curtain. It’s time to pull down the curtain altogether,” he said.

Article Source: NI

4.5. Status of various next-gen US weapons systems

Columbia-class nuclear missile submarine: 16mo late 

Virginia-class fast attack submarine: 2-3y late, $17b over budget 

Literal Combat Ship: final price overrun by $280m each, “one of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems”, decommissioned after 5y 

F35 fighter: more than a decade late and $183 billion over budget 

B-21 stealth bomber: The U.S. Air Force's B-21 Raider program, aimed at replacing aging bombers like the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit, faces potential cost overruns and production delays, concerns could be technologically outdated by the time it reaches full operational status 

Sentinel nuclear missile system: now $141b, close to twice the original estimate, and years of expected delays 

Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier: $13b, yet to prove it can reliably launch planes 

Army Future Combat System: canceled after spending $200b  

My take on fixing the defense base

5. Trump Transition Diary

Roles 

Scott Bessent named treasury secretary

Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget 

Lori Chavez-DeRemer named labor secretary 

Scott Turner named housing secretary 

Dr. Marty Makary named Food and Drug Administration commissioner 

Dr. Dave Weldon named director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Dr. Janette Nesheiwat named surgeon general 

Brooke Rollins named agriculture secretary 

note: Ag filled  

A. the big loser in the post World War 2 reconfiguration…Was the American worker; yes, we have all of those service jobs, but what we have much less of are traditional manufacturing jobs. What happened to chips in the 1960s happened to manufacturing of all kinds over the ensuing decades. Countries like China started with labor cost advantages, and, over time, moved up learning curves that the U.S. dismantled 

B.

C. Donald Trump is expected to kick transgender troops out of US military as early as January 20th according to a new report from The Times.  The move would remove about 15,000 transgender active service members.  “They would be medically discharged, which would determine that they were unfit to serve,” The Times reported.  “It would also lead to a ban on trans people joining the military and would come at a time when almost all branches of the American armed forces are failing to meet recruitment targets.”

Article Source: WSJ, Stratechery, @CollinRugg

November 25, 1923: First transatlantic broadcast from England to America

Sources

1. https://www.rand.org/nsrd/projects/NDS-commission.html

2. A https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0808issbf/
B https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-16/pentagon-s-audit-woes-seen-lessening-despite-seventh-shortfall

3. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/17/us-navy-ships-shipbuilding-fleet-china-naval-race-pacific/

4. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-missile-production-problem-looks-dire-211772

5. https://substack.news-items.com/p/weekend-edition-6f3

6. A https://stratechery.com/2024/a-chance-to-build/?access_token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6InN0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhdWQiOiJzdHJhdGVjaGVyeS5wYXNzcG9ydC5vbmxpbmUiLCJhenAiOiJIS0xjUzREd1Nod1AyWURLYmZQV00xIiwiZW50Ijp7InVyaSI6WyJodHRwczovL3N0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LmNvbS8yMDI0L2EtY2hhbmNlLXRvLWJ1aWxkLyJdfSwiZXhwIjoxNzM0NTM4NTQ1LCJpYXQiOjE3MzE5NDY1NDUsImlzcyI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXBpLnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZS9vYXV0aCIsInNjb3BlIjoiZmVlZDpyZWFkIGFydGljbGU6cmVhZCBhc3NldDpyZWFkIGNhdGVnb3J5OnJlYWQgZW50aXRsZW1lbnRzIiwic3ViIjoiUHF4N2tCaWlzaWN6TVI1dzN1eXhWdiIsInVzZSI6ImFjY2VzcyJ9.fg72XSKKmUtvCWJiOd2rWlXitBBzBjMlRKszNsRhCMW8oIuLBtnUnBUQ_rTPoNPUub5AKJ2DZRUx8BysRI7EaXlG14-zKHPvTNC7EetPHcGsdNXzdMZp4xZz3L2sZi89M_pn2DBa7PGmqNlrXOoVgnWq-Yw9YQwDozlTHwrNoEs-oTO5lzgKtspqud-SAIoLah3MylruFe5sq1hfY1AftyuH7Ojd6DSgDURToR7yXm2zxI3pbGpHKJfLNCOhrFO8np0G_bc6FMQ8Ng9GoWgXbd_c46h_4zzp8C4FBKpcYmL2uycr2YVcYqJ__gznlF3EbGNRe9Oj_0gJJlnjXhhl9A
B https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/how-trumps-tariffs-on-china-changed-u-s-trade-in-charts-bb5b5d53?mod=hp_lead_pos9
C https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1860830888600248324