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McCain on Defense Spending: Make Reform a Priority

When Mitt Romney delivered a major speech at the George Bush Presidential Library last month about defense spending, his goal was clear: position himself as a defense hawk to counteract John McCain’s strong military credentials. For the most part, Romney’s message worked. He called for increasing the military’s size by 100,000 and endorsed the Heritage Foundation’s idea of dedicating 4% of gross domestic product to defense spending.

As more Republican presidential candidates begin talking about their policy priorities, Romney and McCain figure to be two candidates who will do battle over defense. Romney needs to do so as a governor seeking to bolster his image, and McCain’s steadfast position on Iraq long ago made the military crucial to his campaign.

Last week, during a conference call with bloggers, I had the opportunity to ask McCain about our military and how he would go about addressing its future needs. While McCain wouldn’t endorse a specific level of military spending, he did call for an increase. His greater concern, however, dealt with the issue of reform. His answer follows.

I think the question is more of what we do than how much money we spend. I think we need to continue to increase spending on defense. I think missile defense has to be fully funded. That’s critical. Look at the reaction [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has to it if you don’t think so. It’s still a very strong point we have to make to defend our country.

I think we also need to emphasize reform. Are we buying efficient equipment and devoting funds to areas that are most important in fighting this new radical form of extremism? Are we spending enough on intelligence? Are we spending too much on equipment and systems that don’t have relevancy in this new time of conflict?

One of our greatest challenges is getting the costs under control. The inflation and cost overruns are a disgrace and obscenity. This latest combat ship that was supposed to cost $160 million is now up to $400 million. That’s disgraceful. It’s obscene.

And what I want, and you’ll see me giving a speech on this, is that I’m going to go to the smartest guys in America. I’m going to go to [Cisco chief executive] John Chambers and [FedEx chief executive] Fred Smith, and say, “You’ve made your billions of dollars. Now, get in the Defense Department, help us with acquisition, help us with reform, help us do the very best we can with American tax dollars.”

In other words, it isn’t just amounts of money and percentage, which I’m not opposed to. But there has to be some fundamental reforms made. And I’ll tell you a small one. The heads of the services have to be a lot more involved in the acquisition process, which they’re basically shut out from now.

Defense reform has got to be one of the highest priorities. We just simply can’t afford everything we’re buying now. And are we buying the things that are the most important aspects of fighting these radical Islamic extremists?

As he goes about drafting his speech on the future of the military, McCain should take a serious look at some of the challenges the United States might face if it doesn’t adequately fund our troops. This former naval aviator certainly has a unique perspective on our military. It will be interesting to watch how the chips fall.