Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, discusses his article “The Jet That Ate the Pentagon;” the large portion of procurement money earmarked for the F-35; why single-purpose planes are better and cheaper than multipurpose ones; and the price/performance penalty inherent in stealth aircraft.
09/07/10 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, discusses the Pentagon's trillion dollar budget, rapidly increasing costs that have delayed much-needed repairs/replacements of aging military equipment, the post-9/11 rejuvenation of incompetent Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and how construction of new Virginia-class submarines is spread out in the interest of inefficiency and Congressional pork.
06/02/10 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, discusses Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's halfhearted fight against Pentagon waste, the expensive and poor-performing next generation of fighter aircraft, differing characterizations of US expansionism: evil empire or benevolent global hegemon, ever-increasing Pentagon budgets that paradoxically result in the worst equipped military in a generation and why US Navy surface ships are sitting ducks.
10/08/09 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, discusses the just-passed Defense Appropriations bill, the calculations that make the real defense budget close to $1 trillion, the accounting black hole at the un-auditable Pentagon and how a post WWII peak in spending only buys a small military with old equipment.
06/12/09 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, discusses the fight between Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Congress over the Pentagon budget, the neglect of U.S. combat training in favor of expensive weapons systems, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst study of military spending and job creation and how Congress would rather chase Pentagon pork than perform its oversight obligations.