Winslow Wheeler at War is Boring makes an interesting point about the sequestration games that the Department of Defense is engaging in: Iit is systematically cutting cheaper and more effective programs in favor of expensive systems:

There has been a short-sighted eagerness in some news articles and commentaries to disparage two actions by the House Armed Services Committee in the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act.

The HASC seeks to retain in the military force structure the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog close support aircraft and the Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The Air Force and the Navy want to retire these systems prematurely, thereby seeming to save money.

But the longer-term game being played is to smooth the way for far more expensive, truly unaffordable, replacements the Air Force and Navy have cued up. And in the case of the A-10, the older, cheaper alternative is the inestimably more effective one.

Like, I said, it’s not about defending our nation, it’s about our Generals getting lucrative post retirement consulting gigs.

That old Iron Triangle.