Compiled and edited by Ethan Rosenkranz

Thursday, May 16, 2013

5/16/13 RD Bulletin: Defense Cuts May Help U.S. Economy Says New Study

 
Highlight
 
House Democrats have unveiled a new economic analysis of sequestration, which argues that defense spending reductions are having the “largest drag” on the economy.  This comes despite a recent report released by George Mason University which shows that defense cuts free up additional capital for the private sector.
 

State of Play
 
House Democrats are renewing their push to undo sequestration with the unveiling of a new report highlighting the economic impact of the so-called “mindless” cuts.  The report, commissioned by Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee, argues that the defense cuts included in sequestration are having a disproportionately larger impact on the U.S. economy than the domestic spending reductions.  The report notes that “the decline in defense spending has been cited by many economists as the largest drag on broader economic growth,” even though several economic analyses, including those conducted by Harvard economist Robert Barro, former Reagan administration economist Benjamin Zycher, and economists at the University of Massachusetts, have shown that defense spending is the least stimulative form of government expenditure.  In fact, Barro’s analysis, released just last week by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, estimates that “over five years each $1 in federal defense-spending cuts will increase private spending by roughly $1.30.” 
 
The Pentagon has for months warned that it will have to furlough portions of its 800,000-strong civilian workforce in order to blunt the impact of sequestration cuts to operations and maintenance accounts.  However, senior military officials have since vacillated over how many furlough days would be required and when they would begin.  The Navy even announced that its civilian workforce would be spared because the service had identified alternate ways to bolster O&M funds. 
 
However, in an attempt to display solidarity amongst the services, Secretary Hagel announced this week that all civilian employees at the Department of Defense will be furloughed for eleven days beginning in July.  Exceptions will be provided for shipyard workers, nuclear staff, and civilians deploying to warzones.  The Pentagon hopes to save $1.8 billion in Fiscal Year 2013 by furloughing civilian employees.    A bipartisan group of House lawmakers quickly dashed off a letter to Hagel calling the furloughs “misguided,” “bad policy,” and an “attempt to impose pain for political gain.” 
 
According to the recently released Pentagon ‘Green Book,’ the department is proposing a 3 percent annual increase in acquisition funding over the next five years.  The acquisition budget is expected to rise from $99.3 billion in Fiscal Year 2014 to $114.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2018.  Also released recently was the Navy’s long-term shipbuilding plan, which in many ways closely resembles last year’s plan.  The Navy is again recommending the retirement of seven aging cruisers and two landing dock ships as well as two fast attack vessels.  The cruisers’ mothballing was explicitly rejected by Congress last year.
 
The Navy’s new plan highlights the enormous stress that its shipbuilding budget will undergo between 2024-2033 when the Navy will begin purchasing replacements for its Ohio-class submarine.  During that time period, the shipbuilding budget will climb from roughly $15 billion a year up to $19 billion a year – notwithstanding the fact that the Navy routinely underestimates the long-term costs of its shipbuilding plans.  One of the Navy’s most vociferous proponents on Capitol Hill, Representative Randy Forbes (R-VA), lambasted the new document as “an exercise in wishful thinking,” arguing that “the funding shortfalls in the shipbuilding account will leave the fleet with capability gaps in key areas over the coming years.” 
 
At a briefing sponsored by the National Security Network on the issue of acquisition reform, the head of the GAO’s defense acquisition program, Michael Sullivan, warned congressional staff and defense analysts that while attention is often paid to big ticket weapons systems that are already over-cost, more focus needs to be given to nascent acquisition programs that have a high risk of falling behind schedule and experiencing cost growth.  Sullivan pointed specifically to the next-generation Amphibious Combat Vehicle, the Ground Combat Vehicle, the new Presidential Helicopter, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the Long Range Strike-Bomber, and the Combat Rescue Helicopter as systems over which congressional staff should keep vigilant watch. 
 
Indeed, just last week a senior Army acquisition official announced that the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle will be delayed by at least four months.  And this may only be the tip of the iceberg for Army acquisition programs: a separate senior official, Lt. Gen. James Barclay, deputy chief of staff of the Army, remarked that “all acquisition priorities and many equipment modernization programs may face unanticipated schedule or cost impacts in the out-years.”  The Army also is internally debating its acquisition strategy for a replacement to the OH-58 Kiowa helicopter after a recent disappointing industry demonstration. 
 
For the past year, the White House has been championing its new ‘Asia Pivot’ strategy, which relies heavily on the concept of ‘Air-Sea Battle.’  This concept envisions the United States prioritizing Air Force and Navy assets over the coming decades, because of those services’ ability to counter China’s growing arsenal of anti-access and area-denial weapons.  Due to the winding down of the war in Afghanistan, the American public’s general disinterest in engaging in large-scale counterinsurgency operations, and the new Air-Sea Battle concept, it is widely assumed that the Army and Marine Corps will disproportionately shoulder  future force size reductions.
 
In a new white paper the heads of the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations push back against this growing notion.  The paper insists that the United States is likely to fight another large-scale land war sometime in the next twenty years and that America's success in such a conflict depends on robust ground forces.  The paper warns that “some in the defense community interpret this [Asia Pivot] to mean that future conflicts can be prevented or won primarily with standoff technologies and weapons. If warfare were merely a contest of technologies that might be sufficient. However, armed conflict is a clash of interests between or among organized groups, each attempting to impose their will on the opposition.”
 
 
 
News and Commentary
 
DoD Buzz: C-27J Reemerges Despite AF’s Boneyard Plans – Michael Hoffman
“The Air Force is set to discard 21 C-27Js before the end of fiscal year 2013, yet service officials still issued a request to industry on May 10 for proposals to purchase even more of the same exact aircraft that will likely sit in the boneyard… Congress ordered the Air Force within the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act to form a working group and add 32 strategic airlifters. Lawmakers did not specify that those airlifters be C-27Js and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said it’s unlikely the service will keep the Spartan fleet alive. However, the request issued on May 10 appears to be an attempt by service officials to show Congress that the service considered buying more C-27Js.”
 
Michael Shank, Elizabeth Kucinich
“That Washington is holding defense cuts responsible for slow economic growth is a specious argument at best. War spending is unproductive and inflationary. Modern defense costs are capital intensive, not labor intensive, making the industry inefficient as a job creator.  The defense industry has a presence in congressional districts across this country, so cuts affect every member. But every district in the U.S. has pressing infrastructure, education, health and environmental needs, and the return on the taxpayer’s dollar is much higher when invested on these areas.”  (5/15/13)
 
New York Times: Pilotless Planes, Pacific Tensions – Richard Parker
“This week the Navy will launch an entirely autonomous combat drone — without a pilot on a joystick anywhere — off the deck of an aircraft carrier, the George H. W. Bush. The drone will then try to land aboard the same ship, a feat only a relatively few human pilots in the world can accomplish. This exercise is the beginning of a new chapter in military history: autonomous drone warfare. But it is also an ominous turn in a potentially dangerous military rivalry now building between the United States and China.”  (5/12/13)
 
Real Clear Defense: Hagel Must Rein in DOD Civilian Workforce – Mackenzie Eaglen
“The Obama administration has responded to military budget cuts thus far by prioritizing one defense workforce over another. The active duty military has been shrinking while the large Pentagon civilian workforce has only grown. Since coming into office, the President has set into motion a plan to cut the active duty military by roughly 12 percent, mostly as a result of reductions to the US Army and Marine Corps. The Department of Defense civilian workforce, meanwhile, has grown about 13 percent since Obama's first budget.”  (5/10/13)
 
“Almost four years after the MV-22 Osprey arrived in Afghanistan, trailing a reputation as dangerous and hard to maintain, the U.S. Marines Corps finally has had an opportunity to test the controversial hybrid aircraft in real war conditions. The reviews are startlingly positive… The Marines have been able to use it more widely, flying it for everything from freight to hundreds of assaults, where it’s carried loads of Marines into or out of landing zones, often under intense fire. It’s twice as fast as the helicopter it replaces, the CH-46, it has substantially greater range, and can carry more cargo and more than twice as many troops.”  (5/9/13)
 
The Hill: Hagel is not reneging on military benefits – Lawrence Korb
“As a life member of the Military Officers Association, I am chagrined at the efforts of its leaders to prevent the Congress from restoring benefits for active duty and retired military personnel to their rightful level.  In presenting incorrect and misleading information to Congress and the general public, these individuals are stooping to the level of many special interest groups and are not putting the interests of the country first.”  (4/25/13)
 
 
Reports
 
 
 
 
Congressional Budget Office: Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023 (5/14/13)
 
 
 
 
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: Beyond the Ramparts: The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces  (5/10/13)
 
 
Congressional Research Service: The Federal Budget: Issues for FY2014 and Beyond (5/9/13)
 
Mercatus Center: Defense Spending and the Economy (5/7/13)
 
 
Center for a New American Security: If All Else Fails: The Challenges of Containing a Nuclear-Armed Iran (May 2013)
 
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: Nuclear-Conventional Firebreaks and the Nuclear Taboo (4/18/13)
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Thursday, May 9, 2013

5/9/13 RD Bulletin: SASC Leaders Call on Hagel to Outline Sequester Cuts

 
Highlights
 
News: The chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee have called on Secretary Hagel to identify $52 billion in potential Fiscal Year 2014 spending reductions by July 1. 
 
News: The Littoral Combat Ship program suffered another blow this week as a leaked Navy report casts doubt on both the cost and capabilities of the program. 
 
PDA Perspective: Until the mandatory sequester of discretionary funding is amended or repealed the administration and Pentagon have an obligation to plan for well-provisioned and trained armed forces appropriate to the level of funding available.  They currently are not doing so.
 

State of Play
 
The White House was roundly criticized last month when it released a Fiscal Year 2014 budget request that did not reflect or incorporate sequestration reductions to spending.  Now, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and James Inhofe (R-OK), have requested that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel itemize $52 billion in military spending cuts from the department’s FY14 budget request by July 1.  The chair and ranking member wrote that “the identification of these specific reductions will serve both to help Congress and the Department prepare for the possibility that we will be unable to avoid another round of sequestration.” 
 
In their letter, Levin and Inhofe acknowledge that some members of Congress think that sequestration is an effective means of culling federal spending, and that prospects for a ‘grand bargain’ remain dim.  In a related statement, Levin again reiterated that he would prefer that sequestration be replaced with a ‘balanced deficit reduction package,’ which, Levin has suggested, could include an annual cut of $10 billion to the Pentagon. 
 
Pentagon officials admitted this week that they have recalculated sequestration cuts in light of the recently enacted omnibus spending bill, and found that the Department of Defense faces $4 billion less in cuts than originally thought.  In an interview with Defense News, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale pointed to a little-known provision in the 1985 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (the 2011 Budget Control Act’s underlying statute), which states that if certain accounts decrease over the course of a fiscal year more than sequestration requires, then that account can be spared additional cuts.  As a result, the Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget are currently enacting $37 billion in military spending reductions, rather than $42 billion, and have until the end of this fiscal year to implement them. 
 
To help blunt the impact of sequestration on operations and maintenance accounts, the Pentagon is preparing to submit to Congress a multi-billion reprogramming request that would shift funding from procurement accounts to O&M.  The reprogramming request is also necessary due to unforeseen costs associated with the redeployment of U.S. troops and assets from Afghanistan –expected to cost around $7 billion.   Among the procurement programs slated to have funding redirected to O&M are the Apache helicopter, F-15, C-130, tracked vehicle programs, and drone systems. 
 
For several years now, the Pentagon has shifted funding from its base budget into the war funding account in order to help shoulder the cost of war fighting personnel and equipment.  Because war funding is considered ‘emergency spending’ and is not constrained by the Budget Control Act’s statutory spending caps, it is a tempting place for the Pentagon to squirrel away funding for high-priority items. 
 
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drawing to a close, it had been expected that the White House would begin migrating funds back into the base budget while eventually ceasing to request OCO funding from Congress.  However, due to budget uncertainty, Comptroller Robert Hale announced this week that the Pentagon will attempt to maintain items like armored fighting vehicles, drones, and Army personnel in the war budget account. According to Defense News, upon entering office President Barack Obama pledged to enact “strict guidelines” on OCO funding requests. American University professor Gordon Adams points out that those restrictions “have gotten looser every year as the Pentagon’s banged away at trying to use the OCO request to make up for shortfalls in the base.” 
 
In a report issued last year, analysts at the Cato Institute and Project on Defense Alternatives chastised the Pentagon for including personnel funding in its OCO account and recommended that Congress work to halt the migration of base funding into the OCO account.  Meanwhile, the Pentagon says its delayed war funding request for Fiscal Year 2014 will be delivered in coming weeks.  The White House has been using a placeholder figure in lieu of its FY14 request. 
 
Bloomberg reports that a confidential analysis prepared for the Navy last year by Rear Admiral Samuel Perez warned that the $37 billion Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program will be unable to meet its mission objectives. Though the Navy claims that the LCS is “under budget,” costs have doubled from $220 to $440 million per ship. The Navy has requested an additional $2 billion to buy four more ships in FY14 while continuing to split production between Lockheed-Martin and Austal, a decision the confidential report notes complicates logistics and maintenance. Perhaps most significantly, the report highlights the limited combat capability of the ship, calling it “ill-suited for combat operations” against any but the smallest, most lightly-armed ships.
 
Adding to an already bad week for the LCS, a draft GAO analysis has been released suggesting cost projections to operate and maintain the new class of vessel have been significantly underestimated.
 
In addition to concerns about the LCS, the Navy has run into a number of shipbuilding problems. Notably, the launch date of the first Ford-class aircraft carrier has been pushed back four months as the vessel clocks $2.5 billion in cost overruns. The service is also $300 million short on a multi-year contract to purchase ten DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers, and is trying to bring down the per-unit cost estimate for the Ohio-class replacement submarine from the current $5.6 billion estimate down to $4.9 billion.
 
 
Project on Defense Alternatives Perspective
 
Last February, a month before sequestration went into effect, the Project on Defense Alternatives noted that “the Pentagon is ‘preparing’ for this eventuality in ways that are fundamentally unsustainable ... planning furloughs, suspending nonessential travel, imposing hiring freezes, reducing depot maintenance activity, cutting base operating budgets, and the like. What the Pentagon is not doing is making significant adjustments to their force posture which could maintain strong security at lower levels of spending.” In order to escape a budgetary squeeze play, PDA recommended that President Obama “break out … by announcing some Pentagon posture changes and budget cuts for FY14.”
 
The President did not take this advice and instead built his FY14 budget submission off of previous budgets and plans, ignoring post-sequester budget levels as if they are not current law.  In effect he has acquiesced to the Pentagon’s budget game, allowing them to orchestrate a growing perception of a ‘hollowing’ of the forces.  In a recent interview Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said, “If [the sequester] stays in effect, we’re going to have to make, and have made in many cases, major changes that are devastating, frankly, to our readiness.” 
 
It is easy to see how that narrative, echoed by a political chorus, will quickly build pressure for reversing the downward trajectory of Pentagon spending.
 
Nonetheless, sequestration is now the law of the land.  Until that law is changed the White House and Pentagon have an obligation to plan for that level of funding.  They should be reducing the size, scope of missions, and routine (non-war) deployment tempo of the armed forces.  Instead they insist on keeping forces large, the missions broad and deep, and routine global activities frenetic.
 
Responses to sequestered funding such as deferred training and furloughing of workers are clear signs of an unsustainable course.  Everyone in the defense establishment understands that.  It is bound to sap morale and over the course of time will harm the capacity to respond to a security crisis if and when it occurs.   A smaller, sustainable defense establishment is the much preferred and more responsible option.
 
It is fair enough for leaders of Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon to hate the sequester, but their refusal to make adjustments to pre-sequester plans is beginning to damage the armed forces.  They certainly cannot be excused for pretending they have a bigger budget to work with than they actually have.  It is well past the time for the Pentagon to make responsible adjustments in accord with their new budget reality.
 
News and Commentary
 
National Interest: Rational and Reckless Alliances – Ted Galen Carpenter
“As a new Cato Institute infographic and video demonstrate, allied free riding has grown even worse in the past few years. Today, the United States spends nearly 5 percent of its GDP on the military. The rest of NATO spends a paltry 1.3 percent, South Korea 2.6 percent, and Japan still just 1 percent. And the trend in the major European powers, even such countries as France and Britain that once made respectable outlays (in the area of 3 to 4 percent), is toward stagnation, at best. But as much as U.S. officials, members of Congress, and various pundits might complain, such behavior is predictable and rational. Washington has insisted on being the ‘indispensable nation,’ actually encouraging dependence on the part of other nations to preserve the U.S. leadership role in both Europe and East Asia.”  (5/9/13)
 
“In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds of camouflage uniforms. One was green, for the woods. The other was brown, for the desert. Then things got strange. Today, there is one camouflage pattern just for Marines in the desert. There is another just for Navy personnel in the desert. The Army has its own ‘universal’ camouflage pattern, which is designed to work anywhere. It also has another one just for Afghanistan, where the first one doesn’t work. Even the Air Force has its own unique camouflage, used in a new Airman Battle Uniform. But it has flaws. So in Afghanistan, airmen are told not to wear it in battle. In just 11 years, two kinds of camouflage have turned into 10. And a simple aspect of the U.S. government has emerged as a complicated and expensive case study in federal duplication.”  (5/8/13)
 
National Interest: Lessons from the Past for Syria Hawks – Lawrence Korb
“The last thing this country needs is to rush headlong into another disastrous war like Vietnam or Iraq, especially when the evidence is murky and the threat to our security doubtful. Even limited military intervention carries a host of risks and second-order effects, which proponents of action have spared little time to consider. Attacking Syria would represent a war of choice, not necessity, and should only be considered after extensive strategic calculation and with the involvement of the entire Congress, as the representatives of the people, our allies, and the United Nations. We certainly have not yet undertaken either of those preliminary steps in their entirety.”  (5/8/13)
 
“The Air Force stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of their authority to control — and, if necessary, launch — nuclear missiles after a string of unpublicized failings, including a remarkably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy commander said it is suffering ‘rot’ within its ranks. ‘We are, in fact, in a crisis right now…’ The tip-off to trouble was a March inspection of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equivalent of a ‘D’ grade when tested on its mastery of Minuteman III missile launch operations.”  (5/8/13)
 
“After a decade of war and being aware that the size of the Marine Corps would be reduced from surge-level highs, the USMC Force Structure Review Group identified that the operational ‘sweet spot’ for the Corps of the future is somewhere between traditional army units and special operations teams. Institutionally committing to this sweet spot and focusing on smaller unit operations provide opportunities for the Marine Corps to deal with the fiscal pressure facing the entire DOD.”  (5/7/13)
 
“Pentagon contractors have privately wondered what, if anything, the industry should be doing to change the perception that sequester is a fake crisis. They concede that earlier lobbying efforts flamed out, partly because they overstated the impact of the cuts. The industry has to repair a credibility gap with Congress and begin to better communicate the effects of sequester, one official said during an off-the-record industry gathering. Excessive sequester hype in the months leading up to the March 1 deadline backfired on the defense sector, the executive recognized. Congress and the public, he said, have yet to appreciate the real damage that automatic cuts are causing to the military and its suppliers.”  (5/7/13)
 
Foreign Policy: High Stakes and the Sequester Squeeze – Gordon Adams
“Let's be clear: Congress is worried about jobs, campaign contributions, and reelection -- even when they cloak the argument in national security verbiage. The defense budget is one of the biggest political games in town… We are a defense drawdown. Nobody should be shocked that less cash means more political tokens on the gaming tables, amplifying the noise coming from the back room. It always has, and only some of those punters will walk away with winnings when the wheel stops spinning. Game on.”   (5/6/13)
 
“A new report this week by the government’s top watchdog over U.S. spending in Afghanistan casts doubt on whether the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government has met a goal set in 2011 of enlisting and training a total of 352,000 Afghan security personnel by October 2012. Pentagon officials have said that target was meant to strike a balance between what is needed and what America and its allies can deliver in concert with the Afghan government. The White House declared two months ago, in conjunction with the President’s State of the Union address, that the goal had been attained… But on Tuesday, Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko challenged this rosy assessment.”  (5/3/13)
 
International Security: How New and Assertive Is China's New Assertiveness? - Alastair Iain Johnston
“There has been a rapidly spreading meme in U.S. pundit and academic circles since 2010 that describes China's recent diplomacy as ‘newly assertive.’ This ‘new assertiveness’ meme suffers from two problems. First, it underestimates the complexity of key episodes in Chinese diplomacy in 2010 and overestimates the amount of change. Second, the explanations for the new assertiveness claim suffer from unclear causal mechanisms and lack comparative rigor that would better contextualize China's diplomacy in 2010.”  (4/4/13)
 
Reports
 
 
 
Congressional Budget Office: Monthly Budget Review (5/7/13)
 
 
 
 
Congressional Research Service: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2013 (5/3/13)
 
 
 
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction: Quarterly Report (4/30/13) 
 
Congressional Research Service: Energy and Water Development: FY2013 Appropriations (4/25/13)
 
 
Congressional Research Service: Major U.S. Arms Sales and Grants to Pakistan Since 2001 (7/25/12)
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Thursday, May 2, 2013

5/2/13 RD Bulletin: Polls: U.S. Public Against Military Action in Syria, N. Korea

 
Highlights
 
News: The Pentagon is conducting a “BRAC-like” review of U.S. military assets stationed in Europe. 
 
News: Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has directed senior Pentagon officials to begin examining ways to cut department bureaucracy by 33 percent. 
 
PDA Perspective: Charles Knight discusses the implications of recent polling data, which show that a strong majority of Americans oppose U.S. military intervention in Syria.
 


State of Play
 
Ever since it became clear last December that Congress did not have the political will or courage to enact a ‘grand bargain’ deficit reduction package that could replace sequestration in its entirety, President Barack Obama has held out hope that public outcry over cuts to domestic programs would pressure lawmakers to bridge their political differences and compromise.  Public concern has been mounting for several weeks over Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) furloughs that could have the potential to cause long delays at airports.  Congress responded by passing legislation that would allow the FAA to bolster its personnel funding – causing consternation amongst some in Washington who believe the President has given up any leverage he may have had to enact a grand bargain and protect the Pentagon from sequestration cuts. 
 
Concern over losing political leverage in the sequester debate was one of the reasons Democrats refrained from providing expanded transfer or reprogramming authority to the Pentagon in the most recently enacted omnibus spending measure.  With domestic program advocates now lining up to request their own individual sequester patches, it remains to be seen how proponents of Pentagon spending will react to the latest political developments. 
 
Executive:
 
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently met with senior officials who are conducting the Strategic Choices and Management Review, which Hagel commissioned earlier this year to examine whether the Pentagon’s earlier Strategic Guidance can be implemented given the onset of sequestration.  According to Inside Defense, the group is developing options for enacting roughly $500 billion in reductions to previously planned spending levels over the next decade.  Furthermore, deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter, who is leading the strategic review, has directed officials to outline ways to cut the Pentagon and its agencies’ bureaucracies by 33 percent. 
 
The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly chastised the Pentagon and Congress for utilizing concurrency development in the acquisition of big ticket weapons systems.  Concurrency development refers to an acquisition practice in which the Pentagon begins procuring a system before it is mature or has been tested and evaluated by a third party.  As a result, concurrency development often leads to serious cost-overruns, technology creep, and delays. 
 
Most recently, GAO released a report highlighting problems in the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) use of concurrency development in several high-profile programs missile defense programs.  GAO notes that “MDA’s Aegis BMD, GMD, and THAAD interceptor production have been significantly disrupted during the past few years due to this concurrency, delaying planned deliveries to the warfighter, raising costs, and disrupting the industrial base. Program plans for the Aegis Ashore and PTSS also include high acquisition risks due to planned premature commitments to production.”
 
In last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Congress instructed the Pentagon to examine reducing personnel and infrastructure in Europe before advocating any additional base closures in the United States.  At a series of recent hearings, senior military officials told lawmakers that they are conducting a “BRAC-like” review of military assets in Europe to determine where downsizing can occur.  The head of U.S. forces in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, recently noted that the Pentagon has reduced force structure in Europe by some eighty percent since the end of the Cold War.  The United States currently has 64,000 personnel under European Command and has committed to withdrawing two combat brigade teams from Europe by Fiscal Year 2014. 
 
Military leaders continue to press Congress to approve a new round of base closures domestically.  Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee last week, Army Secretary and former committee member John McHugh lamented the fact that the service is wasting millions of dollars annually maintaining outdated domestic infrastructure that is “unusable.”  He further pointed out that the last time the Army evaluated its domestic inventory was in 2005, and since then, Congress has statutorily prohibited the Army from reevaluating its excess domestic infrastructure. 
 
The Army has set a timeline for development and procurement of its next-generation helicopter platform.  The service plans on awarding four design contracts by the end of Fiscal Year 2014 and hopes to have two different demonstration aircraft finished by 2017 in order to fully field the new helicopter by 2030.  “The configurations currently being examined include a tilt-rotor possibility, like today’s Marine Corps and Air Force V-22 Osprey as well as various compound configurations such as air vehicles with a rear-thrusting mechanism and co-axial rotorblades,” reports Defense Tech. 
 
Speaking at a symposium on Capitol Hill, Vice Admiral William Burke warned attendees that if the Navy is required to fund the Ohio-class replacement submarine out of its shipbuilding budget, then it will have to lower its fleet goal from 300 ships down “closer” to 250.  If sequestration holds, Burke cautioned that the Navy’s total fleet would likely drop down to 200 vessels.   Meanwhile, the Navy has requested that Congress increase the price cap on the U.S.S. Gerald Ford (CVN-78) aircraft carrier by nine percent, from $11.7 billion to $12.8 billion. 
 
Legislative:
 
Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, along with fifteen other members, has written to the head of the defense spending subcommittee, Representative C.W. Bill Young (R-FL), urging him to include $250 million for the planning, construction, and implementation of an East Coast-based missile defense shield.  The members asserted that, “in light of the recent cancellation of the SM-3 Block IIB program, it is incumbent upon the Congress, in the absence of aggressive action by the President, to deploy an East Coast site to defend the United States from the rising threat of ballistic missile development from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”  The Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the Pentagon to begin developing plans to locate a missile defense shield on the East Coast. 
 
The Navy still has yet to provide its annual long-term shipbuilding plan to Congress, though the document’s delay has not prevented Senator John McCain (R-AZ) from slamming the service’s plan.  Last month, McCain wrote Navy Secretary Ray Mabus expressing serious concerns about the service’s shipbuilding plan and demanding answers about its viability “given the steep drop in defense spending” necessitated under sequestration.  McCain also wants to know if the Navy is developing a “back-up” plan in light of fiscal constraints.  The Congressional Budget Office has for years scolded the Pentagon for seriously under-estimating the projected costs of its long-term shipbuilding plans. 
 
Separately, McCain was joined by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) in writing Secretary Hagel inquiring as to the Pentagon’s recent efforts at eliminating waste and duplication.  The two cited a recent GAO annual report that itemizes duplicative programs in the federal government. 
 
House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) has announced that his committee will begin a full markup of the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on June 5.  Subcommittee markups will be held in the weeks prior to that date.  Unlike its Senate counterpart, the HASC typically conducts its NDAA committee markups in open hearings.  The Senate is expected to conduct its full committee markup one week after the House.
 
 
 
Project on Defense Alternatives Perspective
 
Advocates for U.S. military intervention in Syria are presently confounded by wide and deep opposition from the American public to additional military interventions abroad.  A new poll by the New York Times and CBS News finds that by better than two to one Americans think the U.S. doesn’t have a responsibility to “do something about the fighting in Syria.”  In addition, only 15 percent believe that “North Korea is a threat to the United States that requires military action now,” while 77 percent believe that either “North Korea is a threat that can be contained for now,” or is “not a threat to the United States at this time.”
 
Such public opinion is profoundly worrisome to many of Washington’s foreign policy elites who since the triumphalist days following the Cold War have been fond of using America’s powerful military instrument to re-shape the world.  John Bolton, a leading conservative diplomat in the Bush administration recently wrote an article in which he raises alarm about “the specter of isolationism… stalking the Republican Party.”  In 2011, centrist diplomat Nicolas Burns wrote about “an insidious turning inward by congressional budget leaders whose Draconian cuts will deny us the ability to lead globally.”  Stephen Walt hits back at the isolationism charge here.
 
In the New York Times article reporting on the new polling data, Megan Thee-Brenan notes that “Americans are exhibiting an isolationist streak.”  There is indeed a minority of Americans who are isolationist in the sense of opposing foreign entanglements and engagements be they military or otherwise.  But when strong majorities hold opinions opposing military intervention in Syria there is something else going on.
 
It seems a majority of Americans are far ahead of Washington in learning the hard lessons of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Getting militarily involved in a civil war is almost always a bad idea.  Military power is a blunt instrument and its use has many adverse effects.  Using that instrument in someone else’s war will as easily make things worse as it will make things better.  Alliance commitments are one thing, but voluntarily taking sides in a civil war is generally a fool’s errand and majorities of Americans understand that.
 
What about the responsibility to protect (R2P)?  Nowhere is it written that this is primarily an American responsibility.  Rather, it is an international responsibility.  No recent U.S. administration has done much of anything to increase the international capacity to protect endangered non-combatants through the United Nations or any other institution.   Secretary of State John Kerry should be busy organizing broad international commitments to help protect non-combatants, in places like Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a minimum use of force. 
 
At any rate, joining a civil war as a contestant and feeding its flames actually contravenes the spirit of R2P.  Establishing and underwriting well-protected and fully-demilitarized civilian zones on non-contested territory would be more to the point -- if the aim was actually "protection" and not regime change.  Washington elites should restrain their reflexive urges to intervene militarily on one side of the civil conflict in Syria.  Fortunately, majorities of Americans find that stance sensible, moral, and pragmatic.
 

 
News and Commentary
 
TIME Battleland: Who Knew the Pentagon Had Bad Habits - Mackenzie Eaglen
“Time’s up for Pentagon officials to talk more and think harder. The time has come for definitive action and real change. Congress must insist that the Defense Department floor the accelerator into this new budget reality where detailed sequestration planning is complete and public. This would speed up the requirement for defense leaders to offer specific reforms and tangible solutions to the government’s biggest bureaucracy. By continuing to let the Pentagon ignore sequestration, Congress is letting defense leaders postpone and push off the need for comprehensive change.”  (5/2/13)
 
"After five years and an estimated $1 billion spent trying to build a single integrated electronic health record system with the Department of Veterans Affairs, defense health officials have been taken off the project, sources confirm. Wielding the hook was Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who signaled disappointment with his management team to a House panel this month, saying he halted a solicitation for bids from commercial electronic record designers because ‘I didn’t think we knew what the hell we were doing.’”  (5/2/13)
 
“On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are increasingly doubting the Army’s buying strategy for the GCV. Budget analysts have challenged the Army’s decision to pursue a new GCV design instead of opting for existing, less costly, alternatives. And military experts are raising more fundamental questions about the GCV’s raison d’être. They wonder why the Army is spending billions of dollars on heavy armor for an era that presumably will be dominated by cyberwarfare, surgical-strikes and low-intensity conflicts.”  (5/1/13)
 
The Nation: Barney Frank Talks Common Sense - Katrina vanden Heuvel
“When it comes to confronting military bloat, are we finally reaching a turning point? ‘We are on the verge, I think, of some major progress,’ says Barney Frank… Frank sees greater grounds for bipartisan bridge-building than we’ve had in years: liberals increasingly recognize that tackling defense spending is a necessary condition for preserving social progress, and some principled conservatives are applying their cost-cutting philosophy to the military-industrial complex.”  (5/1/13)
 
“Throughout the Cold War, the United States relied on the theory of deterrence for protection against nuclear attack… In retrospect, this arms race was incredibly costly, wasteful and dangerous. If war had started, the two superpowers would have destroyed each other and probably all of humanity. But deterrence did work. And the U.S. never attacked the Soviet Union or any other nation to stop them from becoming nuclear powers. So, why does it seem that the U.S. has a different strategy toward North Korea and Iran?”  (4/30/13)
 
Huffington Post: Is War Good for the Economy? – Michael Lofgren
“Military spending may at one time have been a genuine job creator when weapons were compatible with converted civilian production lines, but the days of Rosie the Riveter are long gone. Most weapons projects now require relatively little touch labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned into high-cost R&D (from which the civilian economy benefits little), exorbitant management expenditures, high overhead, and out-and-out padding, including money that flows back into political campaigns. A dollar appropriated for highway construction, health care, or education will likely create more jobs than a dollar for Pentagon weapons procurement. A University of Massachusetts study claims that several alternative projects would produce anywhere from 35 percent to 138 percent more jobs than spending the same amount on DOD.”   (4/30/13)
 
Associated Press: Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists – Richard Lardner
“Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams. But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, ‘No thanks.’ It's the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether.”  (4/29/13)
 
Washington Post: Defense cuts pose an economic quandary for liberals – Zachary Goldfarb
“Liberals are increasingly facing a conundrum as the Pentagon experiences the deepest cuts in a generation: The significant reductions in military spending that they have long sought are also taking a huge bite out of economic growth. Liberal lawmakers and others on the left have argued for years that the military budget is bloated and should be dramatically scaled back. At the same time, they have been major advocates of government spending to help drive economic growth and create jobs.” (4/28/13)
 
TIME Battleland: Repeating Hi$tory – Chuck Spinney
“How can we reduce the defense budget to free up the funds needed by both the private and public sectors to reinvigorate our economy? Clearly, President Obama’s most recent budget provides no answer — he has placed defense off limits.  Moreover, the President and Congress are clearly maneuvering to neuter the effects of the budget sequester on the Pentagon’s weapons boondoggles by focusing on furloughing people, cutting back on training, reducing spare parts purchases, etc. Over the years, my colleagues and I have written extensive diagnoses of the Pentagon’s institutional problems, together with many recommendations about how to correct its dysfunctional behavior. Over time, our central conclusion has remained the same: it is not only possible to reduce the defense budget, but budget reductions are a necessary step in reforming the Defense Department’s wasteful management practices to produce a more effective military.”  (4/26/13)
 
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: War Spending as Sequester Replacement? Just Don't Do It
“With news yesterday that the Senate might consider a bill to replace the sequester for 2013 with a drawdown of war spending, CRFB reacted in a press release, decrying the gimmick for what it is. The bill would specifically put caps on war spending for FY 2014 through 2016 at the levels called for the President's budget -- drawing down war funding from $97 billion this year to $37 billion in FY 2016. Since these caps would only codify existing plans to draw down the wars, they would not represent new deficit reduction. Claiming that they would generate new savings would be incorrect.”             (4/25/13)
 
Center for Public Integrity: Pentagon claims $757 million overbilling by contractor in Afghanistan – Richard Sia
“The Pentagon allowed a private firm providing food and water to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to overbill taxpayers $757 million and awarded the company no-bid contract extensions worth more than $4 billion over three years, according to the Pentagon’s chief internal watchdog and congressional investigators. The deal represented one of the largest U.S. military contracts in Afghanistan. But the Defense Logistics Agency, which was overseeing the contract, failed repeatedly to verify that the contractor’s invoices were accurate, an official in the Defense Department inspector general’s office said.”  (4/24/13)
 
 
Reports
 
 
 
 
Department of Defense: DoD Counterfeit Prevention Policy (4/26/13)
 
 
 
Department of Defense: Use of Excess Ballistic Missiles for Space Launch (4/25/13)
 
 
Department of Defense: DoD Nuclear Weapons Surety Program (4/24/13)
 
 
Congressional Research Service: The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations (4/24/13)
 
 
Congressional Research Service: Intelligence Issues for Congress (4/23/13)
 
Congressional Research Service: Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses (4/4/13)
 
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