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Old 17th February 2025 | 08:40
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paulross
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From: UK
Originally Posted by Asturias56
From a long article this weekend:-

America’s defence budget, at over $800bn a year, is far and away the world’s biggest, but allocating it is a ludicrously slow and political process. In theory, the administration lays out its defence strategy, the service chiefs tell the secretary of defence what they need to fulfil those goals and the administration then requests the sums necessary from Congress. In practice, things are not nearly so simple. Service chiefs sometimes lobby Congress directly to approve pet projects. Lawmakers often prevent the Pentagon from retiring obsolete weapons if their home state will be harmed. And Congress micromanages, allowing the Pentagon to move around no more than $6bn within the budget, and even then only with the approval of senior members of Congress for each slice of $15m or more.

etc.
The full article [archive.ph]: https://archive.ph/LuDEo
Leader article "Will Donald Trump and Elon Musk wreck or reform the Pentagon?" [archive.ph]: https://archive.ph/PPx1J
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