Atlantic Council Senior Adviser Harlan Ullman writes a letter to the editor to the Wall Street Journal on how the uncontrollable internal cost growth threatens to return America’s military to the “hollow force” of the late ’70s and early ’80s:

John Lehman is absolutely correct in his New Year’s Eve warning about what bureaucratic bloat and the current procurement system will do, not only to disarming the Navy, but to the other services as well (“Disarming the Navy Through Bureaucratic Bloat,” op-ed, Dec. 31). And his kudos for the reforms pushed by Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry of the respective Armed Services Committees of the Senate and House are on target.

However, an even greater danger threatens to return America’s military into some version of the “hollow force” of the late 1970s and early 1980s: uncontrollable internal cost growth.

Read the full letter here.