December 24, 2008
A temporary rise in DOD spending on supplies, equipment and manpower should be a significant part of that increase in overall government outlays. The same applies to the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI, and to other parts of the national intelligence community.The increase in government spending needs to be a short-term surge with greater outlays in 2009 and 2010 but then tailing off sharply in 2011 when the economy should be almost back to its prerecession level of activity. Buying military supplies and equipment, including a variety of off-the-shelf dual use items, can easily fit this surge pattern.
For the military, the increased spending will require an expanded supplemental budget for 2009 and an increased budget for 2010. A 10% increase in defense outlays for procurement and for research would contribute about $20 billion a year to the overall stimulus budget. A 5% rise in spending on operations and maintenance would add an additional $10 billion. That spending could create about 300,000 additional jobs. And raising the military's annual recruitment goal by 15% would provide jobs for an additional 30,000 young men and women in the first year.
Feldstein isn't pushing for the creation of radical complex new weapons systems with such a short-term spending increase, and so I'd encourage the incoming Obama Administration to use the proposal to stock up on upgrades in the small arms our frontline soldiers and Marines are using in the war against terrorism.
I'm not expert enough to try to sell any particular improvement as being any more important than another, but there are certainly several ideas worth considering one can come across without very much research at all.
In no particular order:
- Upgrading rifle and carbine magazines. A common reason our existing M16/M4 rifles experience jams is because of of magazine-related failures. Perhaps purchasing existing "off the shelf" magazines will work, or perhaps funding new R&D in this area is needed, but this seems like a good short-term project in-line with Feldstein's proposal.
- Upgrade the rifle and carbine operating systems. The M16/M4 has been knocked since it's inception for reliability issues due to its operating system, and multiple vendors have off-the-shelf upper receivers that are at least theoretically far more reliable, run cleaner, and cooler. While a program that is slated to end in 2011 won't (probably) give us enough time to make a revolutionary leap in small arms technology, such an evolutionary step seems warranted, could upgrade many front-line rifles, and be a good fit for the stimulus timeframe.
- Upgrade small arms ammunition. Advancements in small arms ammunition design means that we can field ammunition with bullets far more effective that that presently fielded as general issue. Special forces are using this ammunition and seem to be very impressed with its performance, so retooling and expanding production lines to take advantage of more effective cartridges seems a very wise use of stimulus money.
- R&D in news small arms systems. The M16/M4 design is older than the soldiers using it, and in this instance, older is not always better. Their is significant room for improvement creating a more compact, reliable, more accurate weapon with modular components that allow soldiers in the field to readily modify them for mission-specific requirements. The current 9mm M9 pistol simply bites, doing nothing well, so a more effective pistol is certainly needed. Non-frontline troops can become frontline troops in asymmetrical warfare in moments, so perhaps personal defensive weapon (PDW) systems with a rifle's range and armor-piercing capability and a submachinegun's compactness are certainly worthy looking at, and I can't believe existing first-generation MP7 and P90s are the only solution.
There are plenty of short-term small arms projects that can fit the proposal offered by Feldstein and serve as job-creating economic stimulus. Let's hope that incoming powers that be see the good-sense in his proposal.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
08:35 AM
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