Ostrolenk speaks with Dan Grazier, a Jack Shanahan Fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, on the F-35 and specifically its different variants, challenges faced in replacing other aircraft, and why the American taxpayer should care. Unlike the John Boyd perspective on military reform, which Grazier explains in more detail, the F-35 places significant emphasis on hardware, rather than the people and ideas that should drive aircraft creation. The F-35 was created to replace much of the current aircraft used by the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force, as an all-in-one fighter plane, bomber, and air support platform. However, in trying to create one aircraft to serve all these purposes, the F-35 had to cater to too many objectives to do any one of them well. Additionally, building an aircraft that seeks multiple purposes makes its creation and maintenance more expensive. Grazier advocates for a less complicated system of aircraft building that instead focuses on specific use, ultimately leading to greater efficiency. To learn more about Dan Grazier and his work, visit the Project on Government Oversight’s website: http://www.pogo.org/

The F-35: Putting the Hardware before the Idea, #ORadio

The Project On Government Oversight's Dan Grazier recently sat down with Tom Christie, a former Director of Operational Test & Evaluation at the DoD from 2001-2005, to talk about the critical need for realistic combat testing before the Pentagon buys new weapons on this latest POGO podcast.

Fly Before You Buy: Tom Christie on Realistic Combat Testing

Bill Lind Reform Caucus

Capitol Hill veteran Winslow Wheeler shares his experiences and advise about how Congressional staffers can best perform their oversight functions.

Winslow Wheeler on Congressional Oversight

What is Donald Trump talking about when he proposed lifting the cap on defense spending? Why is a sequester on defense spending important? What does "political engineering" even mean?

Dan Grazier explains it all on the Steele & Ungar Show, on Sirius XM's POTUS channel. Grazier, a former Marine Corps captain, served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan during the War on Terror, joined POGO's Straus Military Reform Project as the Jack Shanahan Fellow.

Steele & Ungar is a weekly two-hour show with friends Michael Steele, former Chairman of the Republican National Committee and current MSNBC political contributor, and Rick Ungar, senior political contributor at Forbes. com and Newsmax TV and a long-time Democrat.

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http://www.pogo.org/blog/2016/09/Against-Unlimited-Pentagon-Spending.html?referrer=http://pogo.org/

Military Spending, Debunked (feat. POGO's Dan Grazier)

LtCol Carl Forsling USMC (ret) discusses the consequences for military pilots when they are unable to fly enough hours in a month.

Pilots Who Don't Fly With LtCol Carl Forsling

With Russia a wildcard, Islamic State on the run, budgets out of control and several Forever Wars, the next U.S. president will have their plate full.

The security threats both candidates are ignoring

CBS News Washington Correspondent Dan Raviv wraps up the news of the week and goes deep into the major stories with CBS News correspondents. On December 2, 2016, the Weekend Roundup included an interview with POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian, discussing President-elect Donald Trump and conflicts of interest.

Donald Trump & Conflicts of Interest: feat. Danielle Brian

The relationship between the military and the society it serves has a significant impact on policy decisions and even budgets. The veneration of service members in the United States today manifests benignly in the refrain, “Thank you for your service,” and the much appreciated discounts at the local home improvement center, but this reverence can also have less benign effects. The number of retired flag officers serving in high government positions, sitting on the boards of defense contractors, and appearing as talking heads on television shapes policy, which in turn drives Pentagon budgets.

Dr. Steele Brand, a professor of history at The King’s College in New York City, explored the differences between the citizen-soldier and the soldier-citizen in his recent book, “Killing for the Republic.”Republican Rome produced highly adaptive armies with farmers who would moonlight as effective soldiers during the campaigning season and then return to their families and plows—a practice that helped to remove the barriers between the military and the society it served, according to Brand. He says Rome’s part-time soldiers faced an uphill battle against enemy professionals, but that their ability to adapt meant they usually prevailed in the end. In this interview, Dr. Brand explains the differences between the Roman and American models of training soldiers and how those differences contribute to the civilian-military divide.

Citizen-Soldiers Versus Soldier-Citizens with Dr. Steele Brand

The Pentagon Labyrinth is a podcast by the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight to discuss key issues and current challenges for military and Pentagon reform.

Citizen-Soldiers Versus Soldier-Citizens with Dr. Steele Brand

Pentagon Labyrinth

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