Counter-IED Research and Development to be cut?

Pentagon Program to Limit the Threat of Roadside Bombs Faces Budget Cut

This is one R&D project that should not be cut from the DoD budget.  The threats from IEDs are not going away... It is quite sad that R&D needed in today's operations is cut, but unproven and expensive R&D designed for warfare generations down the road is kept.

Lawmakers claim that "lack of coordination” with some activities undertaken by the individual services led to their discussion of program cuts.  In fact, the committee report said, “The Army and the Marine Corps have pursued their own separate efforts to develop counter-IED mine rollers.”  This is one more example of inter-service rivalry vying for military industrial complex dollars.  The first change that needs to be made is getting rid of bottom-up budget making.  The Secretary of Defense needs to be given a dollar amount by the President, like every other cabinet secretary, and then divy the money out to the services, rather than the services coming up with a budget on their own and submitting it to the Secretary.  In this instance, if the SECDEF had said "Counter-IED programs" get $X and the Marine Corps and Army will split the money and conduct research jointly, the current problem described would not be happening.