Highlights
News: The Project on Defense Alternatives, a long-time advocate of Pentagon reform, is joining the Center for International Policy as part of its growing Common Defense Campaign.
News: Appearing on Meet the Press
this weekend, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said that
sequestration of defense funds is probably “going to happen,” since both
political parties cannot agree on ways to replace the automatic cuts.
News: Inside Defense
reports that the “Office of Management and Budget has issued key budget
guidance to the Pentagon, advancing the Defense Department's efforts to
finalize its fiscal year 2014 budget plans.”
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State of Play
Leading headlines this week, former vice-presidential candidate and current House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) took to Meet the Press
to defend the GOP’s stance on spending cuts and austerity. Following
up on similar comments recently made by House Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH), Ryan indicated that sequestration
is “going to happen,” because “Democrats have rejected [the GOP’s]
efforts to replace those cuts with others and have offered no
alternatives.” Since passage of the Budget Control Act in 2011, Republicans have been warning of the calamitous effects
of sequestration cuts to the military, but now seem resigned to the
automatic cuts. Ryan further noted that those whom castigate deep cuts
to government spending as “savage,” are doing a “disservice to the
quality of debate we’re trying to have.” During the interview, Ryan also indicated
that Republicans were open to another six-month Continuing Resolution
until the broader outlines of a long-term budget deal can be reached.
Opinion in Washington seems to be split
as to whether Republicans are being sincere in their proclamation that
sequestration is going to occur. Some, like Max Hoffman of DoD Buzz,
believe that by delaying the vote on the debt limit, attention will now
turn intensely to sequestration and the potential impact it could have
on the economy thereby increasing the chance that Congress will again
delay the automatic cuts. Other analysts believe that both parties
have exhausted their negotiating positions and will allow sequestration
to take effect simply because the alternatives are politically
unpalatable. National Journal reports
that “For Republicans, the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts
are an increasingly palatable option among deficit hounds, even if it
means opposing their party's defense hawks, who staunchly oppose the
deep cuts to military spending. Democrats, on the other hand, would
prefer to replace some of the spending cuts with new revenues -- an
approach that is a nonstarter with Republicans. And Democrats refuse to
entertain the Republican preference of replacing the military decreases
with cuts to other programs.” Meanwhile, Politico’s
David Rogers argues that Republicans are willing to let sequestration
occur as “payback to President Barack Obama for humiliating them over
taxes.”
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who recently assumed control of the Senate Budget Committee, issued a statement
responding to Republican demands that the sequester be replaced with
deeper cuts to domestic discretionary or mandatory spending, saying that
cuts to domestic programs must be matched with equal cuts to the
Pentagon. “Should Republicans insist on additional cuts to this small
slice of the overall budget, defense should contribute at least as much
as nondefense. This equal sharing of the burden of discretionary
spending reductions has been a key element of every bipartisan deficit
reduction proposal, including Simpson-Bowles.”
Seeing no other choice but sequestration,
Republicans are increasingly joining ranks behind the automatic cuts.
Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) recently remarked
that, “I certainly do not want the sequester to go away. Or at least,
let me put it this way, the amount of reductions that are in sequester I
do not want to go away,” while Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) proclaimed,
“The only thing worse than the sequester is no sequester. We have got to
hit those budget targets.... If we can do it another way, fine, but if
not, we’ve got to have that hammer.”
While recent analysis has centered on the
notion that Congress must eliminate the Fiscal Year 2013 sequester in
its entirety with commensurate cuts elsewhere or increased federal
revenues, Congress and the White House still have the option of simply
punting the automatic cuts again or allowing them to take effect for a
few months before negating them later in the fiscal year. Talking Points Memo’s Brian Buetler writes,
“Perhaps the parties can’t agree on a complete sequester replacement.
But they can pay it down for a few months with popular cuts and revenue
raisers.”
Defense consultant Jim McAleese tells Morning Defense that he expects sequestration to last three months until the debt limit suspension expires on May 19. In an interview with AOL Defense,
House Armed Services Committee member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) agreed that
sequestration would likely take hold before Congress will nullify it.
The Project on Defense Alternatives’ own Charles Knight writes that
Republicans “main objective is to use the pain of sequester to force
Democrats into accepting reductions in the public social and health
security accounts. To achieve this end they are willing to let the
Pentagon take a temporary hit. They believe it will be temporary.”
Despite disagreement in Congress over how
to proceed with sequestration, the Pentagon seems to acknowledge the
likelihood of it now occurring is strong. The Pentagon’s number two,
Ashton Carter, recently said
“From what I hear, I have to conclude that it is more likely than
unlikely that we’ll actually have to do this. We are serious about being
ready.” As a result, the armed services continue to release details on
how they would respond to forecasted funding shortfalls resulting from
another six-month Continuing Resolution as well as sequestration.
Last week, it was reported that the Navy
faces an approximately $10 billion shortfall if Congress maintains FY12
funding levels and allows sequestration to occur. Subsequent
instructions from the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan
Greenert list a number of ways
that the service will attempt to shore up short-term funding: fleet
commanders will have to cut third- and fourth-quarter ship maintenance;
carrier strike groups and amphibious readiness groups may be prevented
from engaging in “non-deployed operations;” overhauls on 30 of the
service’s 187 surface ships will be cut; ten percent of shipyard workers
will be terminated; base modernization and ship maintenance will be
deferred; funding for the Blue Angel demonstration squad will be
reduced; and funding for the hospital ship, USNS Comfort, will be
eliminated. (For additional details on the Navy’s planned reductions, click here) Special Operations Command also expects an approximately $1 billion shortfall as a result of flat-lined appropriations.
Short of nullifying sequestration or
providing a full-year military appropriations bill, Admiral Greenert
would like Congress to provide the services with reprogramming authority
in order to shift funds between accounts and prioritize funding
shortfalls. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the new ranking member on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, is drafting legislation
that would provide the Pentagon with authority to reprogram funding
cuts where it sees fit. The services may also seek an exemption from
prohibitions contained in the current Continuing Resolution that prevent
the Pentagon from initiating new programs.
Not to be outdone, the Army has now also detailed the budget woes
that it faces over the coming year: Army Chief of Staff General Ray
Odierno recently explained that the Army’s share of sequestration for
Fiscal Year 2013 would be $6 billion in cuts. Because the current
Continuing Resolution funds the Army at FY12 levels, the service is also
facing a $6 billion shortfall in its operations and maintenance budget
as well as a $4 billion shortfall in OCO funding.
All told, the Army expects to face a
$17-19 billion reduction in expected funding levels for Fiscal Year 2013
if Congress does not provide a full-year appropriations bill or fails
to prevent sequestration. Chief amongst Odierno’s concerns is that the
service could “quickly go to extremely low levels of readiness in the next six months” and potentially even over the next two fiscal years.
As a result of the budget impasse, the
services’ fixed-contract procurement programs, including the CH-47
Chinook and the KC-46 aerial refueling tanker, are especially vulnerable
to cancellation or renegotiation. The Army recently announced that it
was delaying development of and reforming the Ground Combat Vehicle
program in order to yield savings. Another cost-saving measure that the
Pentagon is contemplating is the furlough of its approximately
800,000-strong civilian workforce. The Associated Press’ Robert Burns
reports that, “Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a small
group of reporters Friday that the furloughed employees would lose one
day of work per week for the remainder of the budget year, which ends in
September,” for projected savings of approximately $5 billion.
Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel
(R-NE) is testifying before Congress today on his nomination to succeed
Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense. In prewritten answers submitted
to the armed services committees, Hagel agreed with his predecessor that
sequestration cuts to the military would be “devastating,” would
disrupt nearly 2,500 procurement programs, and result in reduced buys
and increased prices for weapons systems. Hagel also sounded the alarm
against enacting another six-month Continuing Resolution, saying it
would put the department in a “straightjacket,” while spending money on
“last year’s priorities, not this year’s.”
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Polling
The Pew Research Center has released the results of a new poll
which demonstrates Americans changing attitudes with respect to the
military and deficit reduction. The results show that Republicans and
Independents have grown increasingly concerned about the federal
deficit. In 2013, 84 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of
Independents said that addressing the deficit was their top priority, up
from 65 percent for Republicans and 68 percent for Independents in
1994. The percentage of Democrats who are concerned about the deficit
grew from 61 percent in 1994 to only 67 percent in 2013.
In 2013, 31 percent of Democrats said
that strengthening the military was their top priority, while 58 percent
of Republicans agreed. For Republicans, this is less of a priority
than it was in 2001, when 63 percent of them listed strengthening the
military as their top priority. The poll was conducted by interviewers
at the Princeton Data Source from January 9-13, 2013 using a national
sample of 1,502 adults.
In a separate poll
conducted by Princeton Data Source and commissioned by Reason-Rupe,
respondents were asked on which programs the federal government spends
too much money. Twenty-one percent of respondents, the largest
plurality, selected defense, military, and wars; while 17 percent of
respondents chose government salaries and campaigns; and 13 percent of
respondents chose welfare and social programs.
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Project on Defense Alternatives Perspective
Congressional leaders, the Pentagon, and a few senior Republican hawks
in the Senate are prepared to put President Obama in a classic squeeze:
What’s their game?
As reported by Bloomberg,
Republican leaders in Congress may let the sequester of discretionary
accounts, including the Pentagon’s, go into effect on March 1: “Last
year, Boehner, of Ohio, warned that the cuts would ‘hollow our
military,’ and Ryan, of Wisconsin, said they would ‘undercut’ critical
government operations. Now, Boehner said he has support in his
conference for the sequester, and Ryan said last weekend on NBC that it
‘is going to happen.’” Their main objective is to use the pain of
sequester to force Democrats into accepting reductions in the public
social and health security accounts. To achieve this end they are
willing to let the Pentagon take a temporary hit. They believe it will
be temporary.
The Pentagon is ‘preparing’ for this eventuality in ways that are
fundamentally unsustainable by planning furloughs, suspending
nonessential travel, imposing hiring freezes, reducing depot maintenance
activity, cutting base operating expenses, 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. And they show no inclination to take the lead on such
adjustments. The Pentagon’s game is keep all cuts temporary… they still
expect to get back on a growth path.
Finally, Senators McCain and Graham
continue their persistent refrain warning of impending ‘hollowing,’
even ‘destruction,’ of the armed forces if the Pentagon’s budget is
cut. McCain has been playing the ‘hollow military’ card since the
1990s, often with considerable success.
President Obama needs to break out of this squeeze by announcing some
modest Pentagon posture changes and budget cuts for FY14. As Gordon Adams has argued, “We will go deeper. We have always gone deeper after a war.”
The budget reduction for the coming fiscal year should be on the order
of $25 billion and the adjustments should include bringing several more
Army brigades home from Europe together with accelerated end strength
reductions for the Army and Marine Corps, planning to reduce strategic
nuclear forces, demobilizing a wing of fighter jets from the active
component of the Air Force, and reducing the size and frequency of Navy
forward patrols and scaling back new ship buying accordingly. Obama
should also announce that his new Secretary of Defense will be charged
with coordinating a careful and orderly drawdown of the forces on the
order of 15 to 20 percent over the remainder of the decade.
The squeeze play that is now underway will force a temporary yet
poorly-implemented drawdown at the Pentagon and make President Obama
appear to be an ineffective and irresponsible Commander in Chief. To
avoid this he must move now to set forth the vision and reasoning for a
decisive drawdown which will sustain a top notch military with a lighter
and smaller global footprint. That is the best strategy for
America…and the best play for the White House.
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News and Commentary
Foreign Policy: Atomic Bond: Does Hagel’s nomination mean Obama will cut the nuclear arsenal? – Kingston Reif
“As it begins its second term, the Obama
administration faces a number of key nuclear and budget decisions left
over from its first term that will have profound consequences for U.S.
national security. If confirmed, Secretary of Defense Hagel would be a
key player in formulating and implementing those choices. While it
remains to be seen how vigorously the Obama administration will pursue
nuclear threat reduction over the next four years, Hagel's past writings
and affiliations suggest that he would strongly support reshaping U.S.
nuclear strategy and spending to address today's threats and the budget
crunch. Indeed, few Americans, including secretaries of defense, have
thought as seriously about the appropriate role of nuclear weapons as
Chuck Hagel.” (1/30/13)
Huffington Post: Defense Budget Faces Cuts To Personnel After Decade of War – David Wood
“For more than a decade, Congress and the
Pentagon have lavished money on the nation's 1.3 million active-duty
troops and their families. Salaries and benefits soared far above
civilian compensation, military bases and housing were refurbished,
support services like day care, family counseling and on-base college
courses were expanded. Now comes the reckoning. These personnel costs,
necessary and warranted for those bearing the burden of war, are
threatening to wreck the military, squeezing the accounts meant to fix
or replace gear worn from a decade of war, for research and development,
and for new missions in, say, Africa. So stubbornly are personnel
costs rising that at the current rate of increase, they would consume
the entire defense budget by the year 2039, leaving well-paid troops
standing around with their tanks, ships and airplanes rusting and out of
gas.” (1/30/13)
Mercatus Center: A Comprehensive Look at Defense Spending, FY 2012 - Veronique de Rugy
“How much are we actually spending on
national security and defense–related programs? A whole lot more than
you think. This chart puts into perspective the amount of spending that
is not being accounted for in widely cited figures by the Pentagon (DOD)
and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Using data calculated by
Winslow Wheeler of the Project on Government Oversight, line items from
other areas of the federal budget relevant to defense and security
issues are added to the FY 2012 base. The findings suggest that reported
defense spending figures underestimate the overall cost of defense and
national security programs by up to $400 billion in FY 2012.” (1/29/13)
The New Yorker: How much military is enough? – Jill Lepore
“The United States spends more on defense
than all the other nations of the world combined. Between 1998 and
2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred
billion dollars a year—more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since
the Allies were fighting the Axis. The 2011 Budget Control Act, which
raised the debt ceiling and created both the fiscal cliff and a Joint
Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which was supposed to find a way
to steer clear of it, required four hundred and eighty-seven billion
dollars in cuts to military spending, spread over the next ten years.
The cliff-fall mandates an additional defense-budget reduction of
fifty-five billion dollars annually. None of these cuts have gone into
effect. McKeon has been maneuvering to hold the line.” (1/28/13)
Foreign Policy: Is America Training Too Many Foreign Armies?– John Norris
“Since 1985, the United States has
sponsored approximately 156 Malian military officers and
non-commissioned officers at U.S. professional military schools and
given them training focused on professionalizing the military forces.
Over the past three years, this funding has reached at least roughly
$400,000 annually, and it is possible U.S. intelligence agencies have
also funneled in support as well. Sadly, Mali is hardly an isolated case
of U.S. military assistance programs operating with dangerously little
oversight and lacking a compelling central rationale… In looking at the
patterns of U.S. military assistance the question is not who gets
American military aid, but who doesn't. In 2012 the United States
delivered bilateral security assistance to 134 countries -- meaning that
every country on Earth had about a 75 percent chance of receiving U.S.
military aid. Once you weed out places like North Korea and Vatican
City, you are pretty much assured of receiving military aid no matter
how large or small your country, no matter how democratic or despotic
your regime, no matter how lofty or minimal your GDP.” (1/28/13)
Stars and Stripes: DOD urged to stop ignoring 'full cost' of personnel– Tom Philpott
“This time last year the Air Force
unveiled a plan to cut Air National Guard strength by 5100 members along
with more than 200 Guard aircraft, touting this as a reasonable
efficiency, in part because Guard squadrons cost more to operate than
active duty squadrons. That argument was dead wrong, says Maj. Gen.
Arnold L. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps reservist and chairman of the
Reserve Forces Policy Board. In a new report, the advisory board he
leads urges the Department of Defense to stop ignoring the true and
increasingly “unsustainable” costs of active duty forces.” (1/27/13)
Army Times: Report: No post to lose more than 8K personnel – Michelle Tan
“Installations and communities bracing
for pending troop cuts and a major reshuffling of the Army’s brigade
combat teams should not expect to lose more than 8,000 military and
civilian personnel, according to a recent report. The report, which
assessed the environmental impact of adding or cutting troops from
various Army posts, looked at 21 installations that would likely
experience population changes and studied scenarios ranging from cutting
8,000 military personnel to adding 3,000.” (1/26/13)
Huffington Post: GAO Says No Pentagon Audit: Why Aren't Republicans and Rep. Issa Irate?– Michael Shank
“Amid Pentagon pontification about
sequestration cuts to defense spending and their supposed deleterious
impact on national security, it turns out that the department of defense
has no clue at all about its own fiscal outlook. The Pentagon is crying
wolf on a sequestration deal without even knowing how many sheep are at
pasture. Take a look. This month, the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) -- the independent, non-partisan "congressional watchdog"
that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars --
was unable to audit the department of defense or the department of
homeland security. The majority of the 24 other agencies were auditable,
but neither defense nor homeland security were among them. Curious.” (1/24/13)
Battleland: Powering the Pacific “Pivot” With Leon and Chuck – Winslow Wheeler
“It’s old, and likely thoroughly forgotten now, but last summer the Washington Post ran an excellent article
on the U.S. military‘s ‘pivot’ toward Asia, its origins, and its budget
implications. It presented some meaningful background on where the
pivot came from, and how it so quickly became dogma in Washington as the
decade-long ground wars receded in the national rear-view mirror.
Beyond that, Greg Jaffe’s article last August offers a good explanation
for Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s hysteria about defense budget
cuts, and a useful criterion to assess Panetta’s nominated replacement,
former Senator Chuck Hagel.” (1/23/13)
U.S. News and World Report: Start Cutting Government Spending With the Defense Budget – Ryan Alexander
“As we look ahead to the many fiscal
milestones Congress will face in the coming months, it is worth spending
a few minutes thinking about the largest portion of our discretionary
budget: defense. At more than $600 billion annually, national security
takes up more than half of U.S. discretionary spending and outstrips the
cost of all entitlement programs save Social Security. So as we think
about how to reduce future deficits and make responsible decisions about
reducing wasteful spending throughout government, the defense budget is
a great place to start.” (1/16/13)
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Reports
Heritage Foundation: The Measure of a Superpower: A Two Major Regional Contingency Military for the 21st Century (1/25/13)
Congressional Research Service: Department of Defense Food Procurement: Background andStatus (1/24/13)
Congressional Research Service: Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress (1/23/13)
Government Accountability Office: Pension Costs on DOD Contracts: Additional Guidance Needed to Ensure Costs Are Consistent and Reasonable (1/22/13)
Congressional Research Service: Algeria: Current Issues (1/18/13)
Government Accountability Office: Security Force Assistance: DOD's Consideration of Unintended Consequences, Perverse Incentives, and Moral Hazards (1/8/13)
Reserve Force Policy Board: Eliminating
Major Gaps in DoD Data on the Fully-Burdened and Life-Cycle Cost of
Military Personnel: Cost Elements should be Mandated by Policy (January, 2013)
Reserve Force Policy Board: The Operational Reserve and Inclusion of the Reserve Components in Key DoD Processes (January, 2013)
Office of the Director of National Intelligence: FY 2013 Congressional Budget Justification (February, 2012)
Office of the Director of National Intelligence: FY 2009 Congressional Budget Justification (February, 2008)
