With all the calls for cuts in spending being looked at, then why not defense too..and this is underconsideration...even as Gates, the Secretary of Defense gets ready o leave office, and Panetta is ready to assume the position.
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thewillandthewallet.org/2011/06/20/rebalance-state-dods-security-assistance-roles/---------------------------------------------------
[Click on link to read article]
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The Will and the Wallet
Budget Insights for Foreign Affairs and Defense Policy from the Stimson CenterRebalance State, DoD’s Security Assistance Roles Posted on June 20, 2011 by BFAD
This post originally appeared in DefenseNews.
by Matthew Leatherman and Rebecca Williams
"Revolutions across the Arab world have forced the U.S. to re-examine its engagement with governments in the region, especially any assistance we provide to their armed forces. This rethink is badly needed. The U.S. should no longer accept the financial or strategic costs imposed by how we approach this mission. Better calibrating the State and Defense departments’ roles would make our efforts more effective and efficient.
Last month, President Barack Obama responded to the “shouts of human dignity” that have toppled two governments and threaten at least four more. “After decades of accepting the world as it is in the region,” he announced, “we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be” – one that values human rights, civil discourse and inclusive development.
A pause in some security assistance transactions is part of this policy, according to James Miller, second-in-charge of the Pentagon’s policy office.
Generation-shaping change isn’t limited to foreign governments, though. Today, Congress and the administration confront the most severe public debt crisis since the Truman presidency. Overcoming it requires painful choices and savings across the government, including national security."
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Companion article to the above..
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thewillandthewallet.org/2011/05/19/is-the-%e2%80%9cdefense-review%e2%80%9d-for-real/-------------------------------------------
Is The “Defense Review” for Real?
Posted on May 19, 2011 by Gordon Adams
"Secretary Gates, whose days at the Pentagon are numbered, has launched a “defense review” in response to the White House announcement that “security” budgets (largely defense) will be lowered $400 billion over the next twelve years.
While the decision to undertake a review sounds dramatic, the required budget changes are not as serious as they might appear. The Secretary said yesterday that the President’s guidance would “reduce the nation’s investment in defense by hundreds of billions of dollars.” Not really; it would reduce the projected growth in defense investment by hundreds of billions of dollars.
A quick calculation of projected defense budgets (outside of war costs) over the next 12 years, starting with Congress’ appropriation of $529 billion for FY 2011, shows that the President’s savings target could be met while maintaining DOD’s purchasing power – that is, by growing the base defense budget every year for the next 12 years by the rate of inflation.
Moreover, the target of $400 billion is somewhat phony. Secretary Gates leaves in July. President Obama, reelected, will leave in 2017. So the reality for defense, out there in the far future, will be decided by a different Secretary, President, and Congress.
There may still be good reason to do a review. There is substantial probability that defense budgets will actually be cut over the next decade, as part of a broader effort to reduce the deficit and control the nation’s debt. Cuts will get further impetus from the end of theIraqadventure and the coming withdrawal fromAfghanistan. The budget is likely to fall a lot further than Gates, or the President, suppose. So perhaps not all the work will be wasted.
But the review needs to be based on solid premises and assumptions. And while Secretary Gates laid out a set of assumptions, some of them are flawed, which could undermine the exercise from the start.
First, he continues to repeat the mantra that budget changes should not be a “math and accounting exercise.” Of course strategy should influence a review. But strategy, and defense programs, are always resource constrained. They have been through history and they are now. Charging down the road of strategy without an awareness of fiscal constraints is a dead end; it always produces more requirements than resources will allow, creating inefficiencies all along the way. Strategy and resources are joined at the hip; it is time the Secretary acknowledged that reality.
Second, he is dead on target that setting mission priorities and defining acceptable risks should be the centerpiece of a review. Unfortunately, he also said that the Quadrennial Defense Review would provide the basis for mission priority setting and risk definition. But the QDR failed because it specifically did not provide any such guidance. It gave equal priority to all missions and argued that risk should be reduced as close to zero as possible across the board.
The Secretary is going to have to do better at defining the criteria for setting priorities. And as for risk, it always comes with the territory. Given that resources are always constrained, the key will be defining “acceptable risks,” by truly examining whether all these missions are equally needed.
In particular, the future of COIN is in doubt –
"counterinsurgency (COIN)
we have not done it well, the next wave of insurgents is hard to find, and few countries are going to invite us in in the near future to remove their regimes, create instability and insurgency, and then stay around to fight it.
And the strategic nuclear mission is also in doubt. If the goal is to move our strategic forces toward zero over the next 10-20 years, buying a new long-range strategic bomber, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, a next generation ICBM, and a submarine fleet the same size as the current one must be on the table.
The Secretary is also right that more efficiencies are needed in DOD’s management and overhead. However, while he has made some efforts toward this goal, they are on the periphery of the problem. If, as the Defense Business Board pointed out last summer, more than a third of the active duty force never deploys, but runs the “back office” it may be time to shrink the back office seriously, eliminating personnel over time without adding back civilians or contractors. It’s the jobs and requirements for the back office that need to shrink, leading to a leaner and more focused force.
And good luck to him on reducing health care costs and reforming military compensation and retirement benefits. Worthy objectives, but a political Third Rail, as he has seen with his request to raise Tricare fees a tiny amount for younger military retirees.
The review is worthy, even if the President’s target understates what is likely to happen to defense resources over the next decade. And it will be up to Secretary Panetta, and his team, to make the decisions stick. But out of the starting gate, it is not clear that this review will have the legs to finish the course."
