Big Take6 Mar 2023

Is the Pentagon Losing Its Edge?

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the dangers of the business of war–what he called the “military industrial complex.” Now, more than six decades later, that warning still rings true. The US military is the most powerful – and expensive – in the world, but the Pentagon bureaucracy is vast, inefficient, and often slow to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Bloomberg reporters Peter Martin, Courtney McBride, and Roxana Tiron join this episode to talk about their deep reporting about concerns inside and outside the Pentagon that the US military is in danger of falling behind rivals including China, and what the Defense Department is doing to change.

Michèle Flournoy, a former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, also joins to give perspective on how the Pentagon works, what it does right, and what it needs to do better.

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