Hegseth slashes Army training as Trump's war rages on

[babylonsister]

Hegseth slashes Army training as Trump’s war rages on
by Lisa Needham
Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 7:00:00a PDT


Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a little short on cash.

You see, the Army is apparently short $4 to $6 billion, and while that is a lot of money to the rest of us, it’s pretty much pocket change for the Pentagon. So Hegseth just needs to make a few small adjustments here and there, which led him to a terrific solution: drastically cut training for servicemembers.

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Well, at least it’s only one branch of the military that has to deal with this, right?

Wrong.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told Congress Tuesday that the Navy could run out of money by July, which could cause interruptions in training and other operations.

It’s honestly astonishing that the military could be facing any sort of shortfall given that the Pentagon’s budget—initially set at $839 billion for this fiscal year—got a $156 billion boost, bumping it to nearly $1 trillion. And next year, if President Donald Trump and Hegseth get their way, it will have $1.5 trillion to completely mismanage.

But Hegseth doesn’t have that money yet, now does he? Right now, Trump’s ridiculous war in Iran has burned through … well, the Pentagon doesn’t actually know how much the war has cost thus far. It could be $29 billion, it could be $40 to 50 billion.

It’s neat how government spending is now an untraceable mess.

more...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/14/800038507/news/hegseth-slashes-army-training-iran-war/

[Aristus]

1. Well, as long as the rubes up in Squalor Holler believe that the GOP is "fiscally responsible", this shit is going to

keep happening.

[haele]

2. Navy is running out of money because they are re-organizing

Shifting strategic goals and changing their acquisition strategy at the same time. Every time the Government tries to change or shortcut acquisition, contractors - especially shipbuilders automatically raise their prices because "It wasn't in our scope of work"

The Navy also wasn't ready for the Iran War, and with the amount of smart Admirals re-assigned, encouraged to retire, or outright fired because they dared to be a minority or suggest a more strategic plan with an actual mission and goal rather than Hollywood or video game planning replete with musical training or repair montages, cut scenes, and reset spawn points...
And don't get me started on AI. Seriously, people are being forced to use it, and it's taking twice as long to coordinate the data and check it for errors - especially since AI anticipated schedule milestones based on averages, and can't handle slippage of the presence of prerequisite requirements at all.

Also, *Rump's "Golden Fleet" initiative had been kicking off. The amount of redirection and prioritization of resources that is creating... Where the Fuck is Congress?

Time is money in the Navy, especially if there's a rapid increase to deployments or engineering updates being pushed.
A naval vessel that is deployable is a mobile mini-community; it's not like you can just call a local repair shop, go down to Home Depot or Auto Zone, or open up the Amazon browser for a next day replacement part or consumables when a ship breaks down in the middle of the ocean.
Especially with modern technology and "black boxing" components, there's a lot of logistics and mission planning that goes on before a deployment, and there are limits to the amount of time a ship can be deployed before things start to seriously - and expensively - go wrong.