Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight
Army chief scares pants off the military industrial complex
November 21, 2025
The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.
More wisdom from another outsider
The Bunker will never forget how former Senator John Tower’s nomination for defense secretary crashed and burned in 1989 like a human Hindenburg. He knew a lot about the U.S. military, having served in Navy whites as a sailor from 1943 to 1946, and in Saville Row suits as chairman of the armed services committee from 1981 to 1985. But reports of Tower’s tippling and womanizing, along with allegations of sexual harassment, doomed his chances of getting the post.
The Pentagon press corps (back when there was one) was stunned when President George H.W. Bush tapped Representative Dick Cheney (R-WY) for the job. Cheney, who died November 3 at 84, had never worn a military uniform (he received five draft deferments during the Vietnam war, just like President Trump). Nor had he overseen a congressional panel responsible for the armed forces.
Yet he took no prisoners when he arrived at the Pentagon on March 21, 1989. At his first press conference (back when the Pentagon had them), Cheney startlingly rebuked an Air Force general for lobbying Congress about missiles. He went on to scale back (PDF) the U.S. nuclear arsenal, kill the A-12 attack plane, fight to scrap the F-14 fighter and the V-22 tilt-rotor, and lead the U.S. military to victory over Iraq in 1991. Not a bad track record for a defense secretary with no military bona fides.
The Bunker recalled Cheney’s tenure November 12, nine days after he died. That’s when Army Secretary Dan Driscoll (PDF) declared defense contractors, with their bespoke weaponry, have been taking U.S. taxpayers to the cleaners for years. He believes commercial suppliers and innovative upstarts can outfit the Pentagon for a lot less money.
Shortly after Trump tapped Driscoll as Army secretary in January, Pentagon reporters (back when we had them) vainly searched for his military know-how. Driscoll was “a largely unknown figure both inside and outside the Pentagon,” Military.com reported. “The relatively obscure financier and political adviser, who is also a veteran, is set to lead the Pentagon’s largest branch despite a resume that some Army officials behind the scenes are concerned lacks the depth for such a pivotal role.”
Yet, after kicking the Army’s tank treads in recent months, Driscoll — like Cheney nearly 40 years before — found Pentagon procurement wanting. “It used to be 90 percent of things we bought were purpose-built for the military or the Army, and 10 percent were off the shelf,” Driscoll said. “The defense industrial base broadly, and the primes [i.e., prime contractors like Lockheed, RTX, Northrop, General Dynamics, and Boeing] in particular, conned the American people, and the Pentagon and the Army, into thinking that it needed military specific solutions, when in reality, a lot of these commercial solutions are equal to or better, and we’ve actually harmed ourselves with that mentality.”
Those are fighting words for the Military-Industrial Complex. But they’re nothing like what Driscoll said next: “So what we are trying to do is flip it to 90 percent being commercially available and 10 percent being specific” to the military.
Them is frightening words.
It’s amazing what a fresh set of outside eyes, not blurred by decades of defense-business-as-usual, can see.
Somewhere, Dick Cheney is smirking.
When does a weapon become obsolete?
The Bunker wasn’t around during the days of catapults launching burning pitch (the artillery of its day), mailed armor (the Kevlar of its era), or moats (the Golden Dome of yesteryear). He has a faint recollection of the Army disbanding its horse units, the Navy lowering its sails, and the Air Force scrapping its nuclear-powered bomber.
Those were easy calls. But there are tougher ones on the horizon: Should the Navy scuttle its huge flat-deck carriers, given the proliferation of ever more accurate ship-killing missiles? Should the Army abandon its 70-ton tanks? How about crewed fighter aircraft, with all the extra cost it takes to keep a human alive aloft, and the risk of them being shot down and killed, or being captured and tortured by increasingly unhinged non-state actors? And what about the nuclear triad, that snake-oil trident of terror?
Those seem, for the time being, on safe ground, sea, and air. Yet sharks now seem to be circling for good ol’ tried-and-true helicopter. While the U.S. military has been flying production whirlybirds since 1942, the drone-darkening skies overhead may portend their demise. The Army wants to buy 1 million drones over the next two to three years and will slash 6,500 of its 30,000 aviation jobs over the next two years. “We’re cooked,” one Army aviator told Defense One recently, following the flight of a robo-piloted UH-60 Black Hawk. “Why are we even doing this, for real?”
The Pentagon is weighing a proposal that “would sharply reduce or halt” piloted choppers over the next couple of years, Air Force veteran Colton Jones reported November 8 in Defence Blog. “The concept is being presented as a way to reduce long-term personnel requirements, lower training and sustainment costs, and limit the exposure of aircrews during high-intensity operations.”
It’s a safe bet the silicon-vs.-soldier-in-the-cockpit fight won’t end soon. Bell is developing the MV-75, a crew-and-passenger-occupied tilt-rotor that does pretty much what helicopters have always done. It’s intended to replace the aging UH-60 Black Hawk fleet. That could yield a $70 billion bonanza over the next several decades.
Yet Bell isn’t stupid. It underwent a helicopter-ectomy in 2018, when the company formally changed its name from “Bell Helicopter” to “Bell.”
Defending those missile-defense satellites
One of the frustrating things about trying to follow the arcana of military procurement is the cash that is so often MIA. That’s what happens when the Pentagon lowballs the price of a new fighter by using what insiders call the “flyaway” cost, which includes only the stuff and labor needed to build it, while leaving out the billions in R&D that made it possible.
Well, it’s happening again. This time it involves the often overlooked need to protect the “Space Based Interceptors” (SBIs) that would be key to President Trump’s “Golden Dome for America,” designed to shield the country against all incoming aerial threats. You may recall that Trump, in his role as stand-up commander-in-chief, said the dome would cost $175 billion and be finished by January 20, 2029, the final day of his presidency.
But defending those orbiting weapons and sensors isn’t usually being incorporated into assessments of their “requirements, capabilities, and costs,” Breaking Defense’s Theresa Hitchens reported November 12. Such SBI systems would be critical to detecting — and then destroying — enemy multi-warheaded missiles shortly after launch, when their fiery plumes make them relatively easy targets.
“It’s obviously very important that we find a way to develop this space layer in a protected way, not only from adversary kinetic or local orbital issues, but also from cyber attacks, electronic jamming and laser attacks,” Patrick Binning, a John Hopkins space-engineering professor, said at a Space News confab.
But such a sci-fi fantasy could be thwarted by bad guys launching hordes of decoys hidden among their city-busting nuclear warheads. That would “cause us to expend our interceptors prematurely,” Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said. “And that would be the easiest way to make us lose interceptors and effectively poke a hole in the [Golden Dome] shield through which they [the enemy] could fire other missiles that now can’t be defended against” because Golden Dome has run out of interceptor missiles.
So far the administration has been mum on how it will grapple with such challenges. “If the Pentagon does not start explaining Golden Dome, it will never be built,” says Tom Karako, a missile-defense booster at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s time to loosen the gag order and start talking.”
Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently
Highlighting a fundamental change in Pentagon procurement, the most valuable U.S. defense contractor makes software, not hardware, Jeff Sommer reported in the New York Times November 14.
→ But does it include free shipping?
The Defense Department, concerned over increasing drone threats, has created an Amazon-like shopping website for U.S. forces to buy drone-defeating gear, Howard Altman reported November 14 at The War Zone.
President Trump’s push to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War could cost up to $2 billion, Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, and Carol E. Lee of NBC News reported November 12.
Thanks for stopping by The Bunker, which can’t afford to change its name, this week. Forward this on to friends and encourage them to subscribe here.
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Top photo credit: Donald Trump (Anna Moneymaker/Shutterstock) Volodymyr Zelensky (miss.cabul/Shutterstock) and Vladimir Putin (paparazzza/Shuttterstock)
Trump's '28-point plan' for Ukraine War provokes political earthquake
November 20, 2025
When it comes to the reported draft framework agreement between the U.S. and Russia, and its place in the Ukraine peace process, a quote by Winston Churchill (on the British victory at El Alamein) may be appropriate: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” This is because at long last, this document engages with the concrete, detailed issues that will have to be resolved if peace is to be achieved.
The plan has apparently been worked out between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev (together reportedly with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner) but a great deal about it is highly unclear (Update: On Thursday night, Axios reported the full plan, which reflects earlier reporting, here).
The Trump administration reportedly believes that a deal is imminent, but the Russian government has been at pains to stress that no agreement has yet been reached. We do not know if Moscow will try to exact further concessions; the details of several key points have not been revealed; and above all, it may be impossible to get the Ukrainian government to agree to essential elements, unless the Trump administration is prepared to bring extremely heavy pressure to bear on both Ukraine and America’s European allies.
It has already been reported that President Zelensky has rejected the plan and is working with European governments to propose an alternative — though so far, nothing that the Europeans have proposed stands the remotest chance of being accepted by Moscow.
Among the most difficult points for Ukraine will be the reported draft agreement that Ukraine should withdraw from the approximately 14% of the Donbas that it still holds, and that it has sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to retain. But with the key Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk seemingly close to falling, the Trump administration apparently believes that the rest of the Donbas is sooner or later bound to fall too, and there is no point in losing more Ukrainian lives in a vain attempt to keep it, and also risk Ukrainian military collapse and losing more territory beyond the Donbas.
The draft agreement also reportedly softens the blow for Ukraine by stating that the area handed over will be demilitarized and controlled by neutral peacekeepers. In the other two provinces claimed (but only partially occupied) by Russia, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the ceasefire line will run along the existing front line, and Russia will abandon its demand for the whole of these provinces.
In a huge concession to Russia however, the Trump administration — and possibly other countries like Turkey and Qatar, that helped mediate this proposed deal — is willing to recognize Russian legal sovereignty over the Donbas and Crimea (which would also imply the lifting of many U.S. sanctions on Russia) though it does not expect Ukraine to do so.
The draft agreement apparently excludes long-range missiles for Ukraine and would impose limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces, though we do not know how great these limits will be. The Ukrainian government agreed to the principle of arms limitations at the Istanbul talks in March 2022, but has since categorically rejected the idea.
The draft agreement also reportedly includes unspecified U.S. security guarantees to Ukraine, and a formal Russian acknowledgment (already stated by President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov) of Ukraine’s right to join the European Union, in return for the exclusion of NATO membership for Ukraine. It has not been revealed however whether this would require a change to the Ukrainian constitution to restore the previous commitment to neutrality, something that could be hard to pass through the Ukrainian parliament.
This is also true of another key element of the reported plan — the establishment of Russian as a second official language in Ukraine. This is a neuralgic issue for Ukrainian ethnic nationalists, but they should recognize and respond with gratitude to the fact that in the face of the Russian invasion the great majority of Russians and Russian speakers have remained loyal to Ukraine.
Predictably, the leaked plan has drawn immediate denunciation from both Ukrainian and Western sources, with it being described as a demand for Ukraine’s “capitulation.” This is mistaken. As the Quincy Institute has long pointed out, an agreement that leaves three quarters of Ukraine independent and with a path to EU membership would in fact be a Ukrainian victory, albeit a qualified one.
This should be obvious if you look at the Russian government’s goal at the start of the war of turning the whole of Ukraine into a client state, or alternatively of seizing the whole of eastern and southern Ukraine. It would also be a Ukrainian victory in terms of the 500-year-long history of Russian, Polish and Turkish rule over Ukraine. And by way of additional evidence, you would only have to listen to the howls of protest that an agreement along these lines will evoke from Russian hardliners, who still dream of achieving Russian maximalist aims. European comments that this draft agreement concedes Russia’s “maximalist demands” are therefore nonsense.
When it comes to the Western security guarantees to Ukraine promised (but not specified) in the draft agreement, it is crucial to recognize that in international affairs and in history there is no such thing as an absolute guarantee, let alone a permanent one. There are however a whole set of commitments that can be included in order to deter future Russian aggression: the peace agreement should be ratified by the U.N. Security Council and endorsed by the BRICS; Western economic sanctions should be not ended but suspended, with a snap-back clause stating that they will automatically resume if Russia resumes aggression; designated long-range missiles and other arms can be stockpiled with a legally binding guarantee that they will be provided to Ukraine if Russia restarts the war.
Above all, Ukraine should retain the complete and guaranteed right to receive and develop the defensive weapons that throughout this war have played a key part in slowing the Russian advance to a crawl and inflicting immense casualties on the Russian army. Because in the end, the greatest deterrent by far against Russia starting a new war is how badly its armed forces have suffered and performed in this war. If Russia has achieved its basic stated goals in Ukraine, would any future Russian government really want to go through this again?
Certain Western officials, politicians, and commentators believe, and have stated openly, that keeping the Ukraine War going is “money well spent” because it weakens Russia without sacrificing U.S. lives. But apart from the deep immorality of sacrificing Ukrainian lives for this goal, the longer the war goes on the greater the risk that Ukraine will suffer a far greater defeat, Russia a far greater victory, and the U.S. a far greater humiliation.
Given the growing evidence of Ukrainian military weakness and Russian ability to press forward with its offensives, simple prudence dictates the search for an early peace on reasonable terms. That is what the present plan promises, and everyone who truly has Ukraine’s and Europe’s interests at heart should support it.
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Top image credit: noamgalai via shutterstock.com
Trump buys millions in Boeing bonds while awarding it contracts
November 20, 2025
Trump bought up to $6 million worth of corporate bonds in Boeing, even as the Defense Department has awarded the company multi-billion dollar contracts, new financial disclosures reveal.
According to the documents, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million worth of Boeing bonds on August 28. On September 19, he bought more Boeing bonds worth between $500,000 and $1 million. In total, Trump appears to have bought at least $185 million worth of corporate and municipal bonds since the start of his presidency.
Kedric Payne, Vice President of the Campaign Legal Center, told RS in a phone interview there is “absolutely” a conflict of interest in Trump’s purchase of Boeing, especially since it is “a government contractor that is connected to military actions that the president controls almost unilaterally.”
Trump also bought between $1 and $5 million worth of Intel bonds in August, a week after the Trump administration took a 10% stake in the company. “I love seeing their stock price go up, making the USA RICHER, AND RICHER,” Trump posted on Truth Social on August 25. Trump purchased Intel bonds on August 29.
The partial purchase of the chip manufacturer, done under the auspices of driving technology research vital to national security, drew praise from some advocates of corporate accountability, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Others raised concerns about how the U.S. government could maintain fairness. “Will the government favor firms in which it owns stakes over other competitors that might have better technology or processes?” asked Peter Harrell, a Non Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. Since the U.S. government’s partial ownership could give the Trump administration far more influence over the company, Trump’s personal investment in Intel could blur the lines between personal, corporate, and national interests. Intel has said the government’s partial ownership would be passive, with the government agreeing to “vote with the company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.”
Upon entering office, Trump did not move his assets into a blind trust run by an independent trustee that could not be directed by the Trump family. Instead, he opted to hand over his business empire to his sons. The White House did, however, insist that the bond purchases were made by independent financial managers “using programs that replicate recognized indexes when making investments.”
The White House also claims that the investment decisions were not made by Trump or any of his family members, though stopped short of claiming this is a blind trust. It’s not clear who these financial managers are, or how strict the wall of separation between them and the Trump family is.
While Trump is not violating any ethics rule, there is a norm that presidents do not own investments in individual companies. Trump does not appear to have bought corporate bonds or individual stocks during his first term. Former President Joe Biden said that he would “never own any stocks or bonds” as a public servant, and appears to have followed through on that promise according to financial disclosures.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has breathed a new life into Boeing. In March, Trump announced that Boeing would receive the coveted $20 billion development contract for the Air Force’s future F-47 fighter jet. The program is sure to be a cash cow for Boeing. Dan Grazier, a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center, told the Associated Press then that the $20 billion price tag is just seed money. “The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said.
After the government re-opened last week, the Pentagon announced a nearly $900 million sale of Boeing’s Chinook helicopter to Germany. In October, Boeing also won a series of contracts worth $2.7 billion to produce missile seekers alongside Lockheed Martin.
Last Monday, a White House official told Reuters that "President Trump fully complies with his reporting obligations and continues to demonstrate his commitment to transparency and accountability in the federal government.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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