Galrahn's all over the budget like a hobo on a ham sandwich, so I'll leave the continuing analysis to him. But CNAS has its own analysis up and look at what I found nestled within its recommendations (numbers refer to footnotes):
"First, DOD should streamline its operations by making force structure tradeoffs among the military services.10 Regrettably, DOD’s major defense planning documents continue to shy away from such tradeoffs. A major contributing factor is the Pentagon’s golden ratio: the near equal division of its budget among the military services. Since FY 1948, the Army, Navy and Air Force have on average received 28 percent, 31 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of DOD’s annual budget.11 Hot war, cold war or no war - the allotment of the
services’ budgets has remained relatively constant over time.12 While a full complement of ground,
naval and air forces are needed to defend America’s global interests, the tripartite apportionment of the services’ budgets also represents “mere math, and very political math at that,” as columnist Fred Kaplan observed.13 In an era of increasing fiscal pressure, decisions about the services’ capabilities should be based on tailoring investments to national security requirements, not simply ensuring that everybody gets an equal share."
CNAS is right, but it is folly to think DoD can reform itself. The Services have too much invested in their perception of what it takes to go along to get along in the post Goldwater Nichols era. If CNAS would like to take up the challenge of identifying these force structure trade-offs based on a coherent reflection of national strategy, I'd be happy to lend a hand. A definitive statement from a first rate thought-house like CNAS would go a long way toward moving this discussion along.
Bryan McGrath
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