(F-35 in flight. You don’t want to know what they cost, or that pilots report the airplane is a dog. Photo USAF.)

I should be happy. The Dow-Jones is over 15,000, and my meager investments are doing pretty well. Of course, there is no other place for money to go, and why would I think that the smart guys are just pumping up another bubble, just like the one in housing they are inflating again.

There is a hint of blue in the cotton-wool sky. I am hoping that means the long trudge from the Commissary lot to the visitor’s entrance of the Big Aluminum Bread Box on Joint Base Bolling-Anacostia will be dry.

There is a video teleconference with an activity overseas someplace and we will get to ask questions about a complex bit of business that appears wired to be won by a competitor.

That is fine, and that is the way things work, except that no one at the moment seems to know how things work. This is a learning experience for all of us- contractors and Government officials alike.

Sources on the inside say there is a “big audit” coming, something directed by the Office of Management and Budget through the Defense Contract Audit Agency, an outfit I hope you have never heard of, but one that can put the Fear of God into bureaucrats and contract personnel alike.

The prospect of some green-eyeshade types drinking weak government coffee and scrutinizing the books is enough to put anyone off, but also is causing an excess of caution, something that the Government has been notoriously short on over the last decade of wars and waste.

The people who administer contracts, be they the working-level government officials that I deal with all the time, aren’t the direct problem. They just do what they are told. The Big Chill seems to radiate from the executive suite, where the government lawyers have layered the senior officials away. No one wants to look like they are too cozy with the contractor community.

I would say there is a tinge of paranoia in all this. I don’t work with the folks at the Department of Energy, so I don’t know if the millions and millions of TARP funds sprinkled over the renewable power industry ever got the same level of scrutiny. I would certainly hope so- that would imply that a wave of accountability is breaking out across the government, but I am not holding my breath.

Instead, I am betting that this is more likely a concerted effort to pluck the Big Goose in the President’s discretionary budget. I sympathize with Mr. Obama- one of his second term issues clearly was to establish his budget priorities outside of the dizzying and urgent framework of war and necessity. I assume that is why maverick Republican Chuck Hagel is now Secretary- he is supposed to break china and free up bucks for other things.

I enjoyed Leon Panetta’s tenure at the Department- he is my kind of politician. They loved him at CIA. He bought into the agenda of the Directorate for Operations there, a tricky bit of work, and openly defied a couple Directors of National Intelligence, essentially neutering the new structure put in place by the 9/11 Commission.

You remember that, right? The issue where the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement didn’t tell each other about foreign nationals taking flight training, overstaying their visas, and being involved in jihadi politics?

Yeah, nothing there resonates after Boston.

A couple fun reads about what is going on in the real war- the one between the Administration, the Pentagon and the people at Langley- include “Legacy of Ashes,” Tim Weiner’s attempt at an unclassified history of the Central Intelligence Agency, and “The Way of the Knife,” Mark Mazetti’s landmark hatchet job on how the CIA provided a deadly and effective scalpel for the Executive Branch.

Both are political works- no surprise there- but there is enough that is absolutely true in my personal experience that I can recommend both to contextualize what is going on in your National Security Establishment.

But of course there is much more. The awful stories about sexual abuse in the military establishment is big news this week, as it should be, but it is hardly a new issue and the knowledge that there are lingering social problems in the Department should come as no surprise to anyone.

The only question is, “Why now?” One answer is that it is time. Another might be that the necessity to be supportive of the established order by our leaders is past, and there is something else going on.

Watch along with me as this plays out. Sexual assault is criminal behavior. The Administration is outraged, as it should be. Though why this week, with this Secretary, is something of a mystery. But the idea that now that the wars are over and al Qaida is on the ropes is necessary to dial back military spending. That is why that narrative- and I think the jury ought to be rightly out on that- produces official statements that Maj. Hassan’s murderous rampage at Fort Hood was “workplace violence,” or that six months in Dagestan was just a way for some lost and troubled kid to find the URLs to bomb-making texts on the Web.

Forgive me if I voice the suspicion that something else is going on. There are no coincidences in this town, and all these scandals appear to be hanging, fully tailored, in a closet somewhere to be trotted out when the time is right.

(The fine M1A2 Abrams main battle tank that doesn’t quite fit in any prospective war plans, but which are being inserted into the Army budget. Photo US Army).

I need to insert another disclaimer here: There is plenty of evidence that that the Big Ticket acquisition programs- the place that industry makes the real bucks off the Department- have failed. The Army is being told to buy tanks it claims it does not need. The once-affordable F-35 Joint strike fighter program has got real and significant problems. The navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is under-manned, under-gunned, and not ready for prime time.

All those programs have entrenched constituencies. Against them, the needs of the people who have deployed again and again and again in conflicts against implacable foes matter little, you know? I think you know where the cuts are going to be found, but to do that effectively, you need to undermine faith in the institution.

My pals- women and men- had faith. I did, too.

Now watch what they do. I am betting the Big Ticket stuff does just fine. The people ought to be ready to take cover. They do not appear to matter nearly as much.

(The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship- LCS- that is not ready for any discernible or likely mission. Photo USN.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com