Take Government Back to First Principles

It's time for government to go back to first principles.  Government exists by the consent of the governed.  Government's purpose is to protect the life, liberty and property of the governed.  When John Locke explained these ideas in 1687, they were new.  When the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written, everybody knew them and both documents included the principles.  Today, both these ideas are either unknown or actively ignored.

It seems clear from the world wide frequency of government dysfunction, bankruptcy and collapse, that government is trying to do too much.

The first step in any analysis is problem identification.  In a governmental context that should mean consulting with the voters to see if they agree there is a problem.   It should not mean a slick presentation of an expensive solution to a problem the voters don't think they have.

The reason voters are angry is that they aren't being consulted while their taxes are being wasted on boondoggles.

Original article (subscription may be required):

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-sanders-and-the-populist-anti-policy-surge-1463700199

How Liberals Win Taints the Outcome

The issue is not who wins or loses. The issue is whether we preserve the rule of law or not. When the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, there were not many complaints from conservatives. They didn't like the outcome, but they loved the reasoning. The Court said marriage was a state, and not a federal, issue.

The problem with liberals is that they don't care how they win. If they have the Supreme Revolutionary Council, formerly known as the Supreme Court, rule that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment mandates Gay Marriage, they're fine with that. Conservatives, like me, see that as a serious problem, not because of the outcome, but because of how it was reached. The 14th Amendment was drafted and ratified by Republicans in 1868, when homosexual acts were illegal in every state. It was intended to keep state courts in the former Confederacy from mistreating free blacks, especially freed slaves. The only bearing it had on marriage was mixed race marriages were made legal. It did not mention same sex marriage. It would never have been ratified if it did mention same sex marriage. The consent of the governed was given only to the 14th Amendment's meaning at the time it was passed. Reinterpreting it with a new meaning now is tyranny. Changing the Constitution was supposed to require an Article V ratification process. It was not supposed to be some far-fetched argument in a court case that even the judges writing the opinion don't really believe was the intent of the Constitutional wording or Amendment in question.

It was also unnecessary to get the same sex marriage outcome. Under the full faith and credit clause, it could easily have been held that a legal marriage performed in one state had to be recognized by all states. This would have left marriage a state decision.

Improving US Military Big Ticket Procurement

The US procurement problem for big ticket ships and airplanes is a vicious circle. We don't get to buy many platforms because they are too expensive. So we try to pack every single capability we ever wanted onto each platform, which makes the platform too expensive to buy in quantity. This leaves us with fewer platforms. And repeat as long as possible.

I'm a USAF Vietnam Era veteran, so I mainly watch airplane development. I would have to call the F-35 the second coming of the F-111. The F-111 was a Vietnam era fiasco. After a lot of expensive bureaucratic bumbling, it ended up in service only with the Air Force

Just like the F-111, the F-35 is a multi-service airplane that costs too much and requires 3 services to sign off on design changes. That many admirals and generals with their fingers in the pie just has to be prone to management delays, which delay the project. The F-35 is a jack of all trades, master of none. It should have been developed for one service, probably the Air Force, before any of the other services had any input. After IOC, the Navy and Marines should have had their turn to modify the design into something they could use.

But I think the biggest problem with US development of big ticket items like ships and airplanes is "systems thinking." We design and develop new everything for most new designs. Not just a new platform and engines, but new electronics, new software, new ejection seats, new cockpit displays and, in the case of the F-35, a new on board logistics system, which isn't working right now. Having all of these new things increases risk tremendously. In integration testing, there are an exponential number of combinations of new elements which may not be working together correctly.

I think the solution is to separate the platform development from the electronics and the software. Develop the new platform with as much off the shelf electronics and existing other standard parts as possible. Don't pick a completely new part unless you have to. This makes debugging problems in the new platform a lot easier. It's either the software specific for the new platform or it's the platform itself.

Electronics and revolutionary new software should be deployed after IOC, Initial Operating Capability. We definitely know how to do this. We upgrade existing platforms routinely. Those B-52's on missions over Syria are not using vacuum tube electronics from when they were originally built in the early 1960's. Even the A-10 Warhogs have upgraded electronics and the Air Force doesn't even like them. New weapons systems, like the small diameter bomb, can also be integrated after IOC.

I'm sure the Navy can do this with ships. When the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor were repaired and refitted for service in World War II, their secondary armaments were changed to feature a lot more anti-aircraft guns and they also got fitted with radar. There’s no reason similar upgrades can’t be fitted into modern ships after their Initial Operating Capability.

It’s a lot cheaper to go from a platform that works to an improved platform that works than it is to debug a completely new system over the course of several years. If it takes several extra years to debug a new ship or airplane, you get no benefit from your investment while you’re debugging. The platform is useless.

The whole idea is to get something that works ASAP, then improve it with additional capabilities or variants. This is the way World War II aircraft were developed. The P-40 was an adaptation of the P-36 with a better engine. The P-51A used the same engine as the P-40. The subsequent P-51s used the same engine as the British Spitfire.

Similar component sharing and variants are possible today. For example, there was a proposal to build a stretched F-22 as a bomber.

Starting with off the shelf capability with everything but the platform and engines will make it harder to allow scope creep, the repeated inclusion of “just one more requirement.” If only the platform and engines are developmental items, it's not feasible to make a Swiss Army plane or ship that’s designed to do everything. This will hold down costs. You have to tell the people asking for additional features that it will be fixed in the next release.

Original article:

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/05/lessons-littoral-combat-ship/128314/