DOGE or be DOGE’d: The Army needs to preemptively start cutting

American flag displayed on a laptop screen and Elon Musk post about DOGE on X displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 13, 2024. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The Army currently appears to be holding the weakest hand in the Pentagon budget deliberation process.  Just look at the Senate, which is recommending an add of $150B to defense, with priorities listed as growing the Navy and strengthening the shipbuilding industrial base; building an integrated air and missile defense for the Homeland, and investments in the nuclear enterprise.

There is only one plus up for the Army: maintaining military readiness. Additionally, the incoming administration has questioned the need for forward deployed troops in Europe, which historically has been a major rationale for the size and structure of the Army. With two strikes against it, the Army is now going to be entering the woodchipper called DOGE and its slash first, fix later philosophy.

It may be best for the Army to move first and make the difficult choices on its own. Specifically, with little new money coming into the Army, the best deal the Army can hope for is to keep its own savings. The only way to do this is to ask the Secretary of Defense to let the Army DOGE-itself before Elon Musk and his crew can get the knives out.

Here’s where to start.

First, the Army needs to organize for “combat” specifically, by mirroring DOGE’s ability to see through the data. The Army has been hampered in this effort for decades, as many of the Army’s internal data owners claim that the data is theirs, however, as we see across the government, the data belongs to the president. (This should not be confused with the data-right issues associated with weapon systems, which may at some point come to the attention of DOGE; The group currently is only going after the government’s own internal personal and finance data.)

The Army, however, in this case may have a running start with its Vantage program that is consolidating multiple sets of data. This may be the time to see if Vantage is worth the price the Army has been paying for it and to see if the Army can make decisions using that data before DOGE accesses it and makes the decisions for the Army.

Second, since the DOGE crew prefers to work at midnight, the Army needs to pull some all-nighters and bring back its Night Court process that found $25 billion to cut back in 2018. That version of the Night Court focused on procurement programs and was driven by a desire to hit a specific dollar target. This new version would need to be expanded — and keep cutting until the Army leadership can assure itself that DOGE would find no fat to target.

This new process would be deeper and more tedious, and need to cut across three main areas: Operation and Maintenance (O&M) funding; Weapon Systems; and Organizational Overhead.

The Army’s O&M funding accounts for $71.4 billion (38 percent) of its $185.9 billion FY25 budget request.  By its nature, this funding is “squishy” in that it funds everything from staff support consulting contractors, to fuel, to leases, and yes, subscriptions to media. While previous Night Courts focused on the 500+ or so major defense programs, the O&M transactions number in the hundreds of thousands, so a serious review of every dollar spent has not been done at the most senior levels. However, given modern data analytics, this now appears possible. The Army could start with Elaine McCusker’s report on Defense Budget Transparency and eliminate many of the items she identifies. The O&M accounts also fund the majority of the salaries for the civilian workforce, many of whom are now eligible for buyouts.

Next up will be the weapon system accounts, both in research and development, as well as procurement.  We already know that Musk has put a target on the F-35 aircraft because he states that  “design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people.” The Army’s new lift helicopter program, FLRAA, has many similarities with the F-35 in complexity, cost, developmental time, and the fact that drones can replace many of its missions. It may be time to kill this program off and invest in transitioning Army aviation to a drone fleet. The Army will also have to wrestle with the statement that Musk has made that tanks are death traps, and will likely need to convince Musk that it is making Abrams smart again.

Finally, the Army has too many headquarters and staff, a fact that DOGE will realize in a New York minute. While the current Chief of Staff, Gen. Randy George, has proposed cutting five percent of the General Officers, it is likely that DOGE will be looking for something like a 50 percent reduction. This level of reduction can only be done by dramatically altering the institutional structure of the Army, eliminating entire levels of staff and simplifying the organization.

The DOGE shock and awe campaign that has started across the government is being unleashed by the Commander in Chief onto the Pentagon, and everyone in the building is battening down the hatches. The Army is the one service that lacks both congressional and Pentagon support. It needs to give up hope of growth and focus on holding onto the money it already has — and to do that, it needs to change at the speed of DOGE.