Leaders Who Are Busy Looking Busy

Chris Cavas of Defense News has some quotes from Bob Work that need special attention.

For now, Work said, worrying about the so-called Sword of Damocles cuts will have to wait. Planners have enough to do preparing for the near term.

"It's up to Congress to decide where those cuts will be taken" in the 2012 budget, Work said.

The need to know the 2012 numbers is crucial.

"Anything Congress does in '12 will have cascading effects that we will have to consider in the fall," Work said.

This tells me everything else is on hold while the Navy waits to find out the final budget for FY 2012. Hopefully Congress gets the message and puts the pedal down and gets the FY12 budget done quickly. Since it has been a couple years since the DoD had a regular budget passed by Congress, that appears easier said than done.

More Bob Work...

Press leaks of the discussions are expected, Work said, but he cautioned against quick assumptions.

"I tell people all the time, when they see these leaks, they shouldn't get too excited," Work said. "Everything's on the table, everything's being discussed. There are all sorts of scenarios. We're looking at every aviation program, every shipbuilding program. We're trying to wring out cost wherever and whenever we can find it. "Everybody is focused," he said, "on maintaining the highest number of ships possible, the highest number of aircraft, the highest number of sailors and Marines."

That approach "is uniformly held, across the services."

Work said leaders are striving to avoid mistakes of previous generations.

"We would much rather have a smaller force than a larger, hollow force. So what everybody's doing in these what-if drills is how we keep the best capability for the least amount of money," he said.

I don't disagree with the way the Honorable Undersecretary is describing the situation, but I would note he isn't being very specific. Service leaders are not striving to avoid the mistakes of previous generations in the generic, rather they are trying to avoid the specific mistakes of the 90s generation of military downsizing. It is akin to fighting the last war, which is exactly what the budget battle of 2011 is doing - fighting the last budget war known to everyone (in particular the current generation of General and Flag Officers as the 1990s). Indeed I would take it a step further and suggest the Navy specifically is doing very little to apply the lessons of the 70s budget cuts managed under CNO Zumwalt, suggesting it isn't necessarily previous generations - rather specifically the last generation.

The conclusion is particularly noteworthy.

Taking a step back, Work noted that the severely compressed pace at which major decisions are about to be made is a rare opening.

"Opportunities like this only happen only once every 20 years or so," he said. "If you're going to be in government, this is the time to be in. The decisions we make over the next six to eight months are going to have an enormous impact on the way the Department of Defense looks over the next 10, 15, 20 years.

"It really is an exciting time," he said. "A time for our best and brightest to come up with good ideas, because we sure need them."

The reason I love Bob Work is because he sees opportunity in every challenge, something I believe exists here as well. With that said, with Ray Mabus out selling bio-fuels to the American people, Bob Work has also become the defacto civilian leader in the Navy. As such that probably means he is 10 minutes late to his next appointment which is a meeting that actually started an hour ago. I'd love to believe there are folks looking at the compressed pace of major decision making as an opportunity, but I don't see any evidence of this.

For example, Ray Mabus is the actual Secretary of the Navy, and as the head civilian leader of the Navy representing the Obama administration, he should be out leading the budget charge for the Navy in public. Apparently not, because he is apparently too busy talking about alternative energy, Navy museums, or 9/11 to be engaged in the most important Navy discussion since the end of the cold war. Maybe I think the debate is overrated though, because other Obama administration leaders are just as busy trying to look busy... Secretary of the Army John McHugh is out talking about Ground Combat Vehicles, dwell and deployment schedules, and alternative energy. Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley has been on a whirlwind tour through Australia, Singapore, Iraq, and Guam where he has basically made news by being there but not actually saying anything relevant to the budget discussion.

These guys are really busy looking busy, but with less than four months to budget the next decade of defense, they aren't even talking about the challenges the services they represent face nor the strategic environment over the next decade that must be budgeted for. Go ahead and Google the top leaders in the individual services and you will also struggle to find evidence there are signs of enormous budget pressures facing the DoD - because none of them want to publicly give a speech that addresses their unique contribution to the country at a time when ROI of the entire Federal government budget is under a microscope.

With all due respect to Bob Work, the lack of public leadership by the appointed leaders of this administration is the single most obvious attribute of the defense debate in the United States today. Defense policy for the next decade is apparently going to be determined in a vacuum absent any public discussion, so how is it even possible the best and brightest are going to be able to pitch new ideas when all but about 50 accountants have been excluded from the entire discussion?

The Obama administration is nowhere to be found on defense policy, with nothing in the public space for anyone to even promote an idea - which is scary unless you believe closed door discussions in OMB represents the best way to craft defense policy. The President gave a speech about a roles and missions debate for the DoD, and yet all rumors inside the Pentagon bubble suggests that "debate" is a bullshit popsicle. All the various budget documents being leaked to the public represents evidence supporting that claim, because those documents continue to reveal that it appears the only real division of consequence in the roles and missions debate is the equal shares of a 1/3 fraction applied to each services budget. How would the best and brightest know where to begin when suggesting an idea when the strategic theory guiding DoD budget choices is - literally - a fraction? The Obama administrations own National Security Strategy (PDF) offers no guidance at all to the Department of Defense or Congress regarding what choices need to be made, and in my opinion that document is epic failure because it is all style and no substance. The QDR is just as bad for the same reason, but the QDR is actually worse when one considers Bob Gates basically discredited the QDR in public speeches on his way out of office.

The nation has less than four months to budget the next decade of national defense strategy, and this comes as we mark the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 - which marks our nation at war for the previous 10 years. You can't make this up.

In my opinion, any topic discussed by a civilian administration leader in the DoD right now not related to the budget discussion or the policy discussion that is supposed to guide the roles and missions discussion in the DoD represents epic failure of the Obama administrations people to lead this country. Alternative energy is an important topic, but it is difficult to believe Ray Mabus could say anything on the subject of alternative energy in the next 4 months that couldn't wait until next year. 10 years ago today we had no idea we were about to fight a land war in Asia for a decade, so yes it is a big deal we are budgeting the next 10 years of defense right now in the context of a process that has given ourselves a tiny window to get it right.

It is just as big a deal that all the top civilian defense leaders appointed by this administration can't articulate a single speech in support of their services during this crucial budget and national defense policy debate.

Crisis Time for US Seapower

In reading around the news lately, I've seen some silly discussions related to the Navy. There is a discussion over at DoD Buzz, for example, that asks if the Navy should be building frigates instead of the Littoral Combat Ship. Talk about a hypothetical discussion completely disconnected from the reality facing the Navy today. Lets do some simple hypothetical math to get people refocused on the real problem.

This was the original Navy POM12 baseline budget plan (all numbers below in billions):

FY12 $161.4
FY13 $165.4
FY14 $168.9
FY15 $173.0
FY16 $175.9

This is the original Navy POM12 Assumption | Less OMB 5% | Less OMB 10%

FY12 $161.4
FY13 $165.4 | (-$8.27) | (-$16.54)
FY14 $168.9 | (-$8.44) | (-$16.89)
FY15 $173.0 | (-$8.65) | (-$17.30)
FY16 $175.9 | (-$8.80) | (-$17.59)

So before we even deal with the current $350 billion in defense cuts as outlined by the Budget Control Act of 2011 that partially funds the government just until the end of the first term of the Obama administration - a process which includes the yet to be decided super committee plan; the Navy is facing heavy cuts quickly from OMB unless they can find some way to completely dismiss OMB guidance (which they might).

Now, I fully expect the DoD to be hit by big budget cuts in the neighborhood of $850 billion over 10 years, more or less the budget cut that comes if the super committee fails to produce an alternative (I believe all alternatives seriously considered will have the same defense cuts included). That means we will see cuts to the Navy like this based solely on the Congress plan, not the additional OMB additional guidance:

FY12 $161.4
FY13 $165.4 (-$3.9)
FY14 $168.9 (-$7.54)
FY15 $173.0 (-$11.02)
FY16 $175.9 (-$14.79)

For those curious how I am drawing these figures, I'm basically assuming a flatline defense budget at $560B for FY13 numbers (which is a high number btw) for 10 years and presuming $850 billion in cuts over those 10 years, then extrapolating what the Navy's share might be if 29% of the total DoD cut is applied to the Navy.

If the Navy gets hit with both the Super Committee cuts and just the OMB 5% cuts (not 10%), this is what the currently planned POM12 budget | Post POM12 cut budget | Total Budget Cut looks like:

FY12 $161.4
FY13 $165.4 | $153.23 | (-$12.17)
FY14 $168.9 | $152.92 | (-$15.98)
FY15 $173.0 | $153.33 | (-$19.67)
FY16 $175.9 | $152.31 | (-$23.59)

In other words, if the Super Committee fails to find a deal and the trigger kicks in for the Budget Control Act of 2011, and OMB guidance for POM13 cuts the DoD 5% like it probably will for every other government agency, the Navy POM13 budget must be introduced with a budget that is ~$100 billion less than expected.

Who in the hell seriously thinks the Navy is going to immediately move to design a new frigate in this fiscal environment? The Navy will be lucky to afford a DDG-51 Flight III design, much less a frigate from scratch.

Lets get back to real issues, shall we?

How long before those 29 Perry class ships in active commission or active reserve status are decommissioned? The best bet is the Navy will retire every single one of them next year. The USS Peleliu (LHA 5) will be retired immediately. The USS Cleveland (LPD 7), USS Denver (LPD 9), and USS Ponce (LPD 15) will all be retired immediately. The USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20) will both be retired immediately. All of the Coastal Patrol Ships will be retired immediately. Those 10,000 sailors will be the tip of the iceberg in terms of pink slips.

Will the Navy also retire the first 8 Ticonderoga class cruisers because they lack the radar for BMD? Maybe. Will the Navy move all of the MCMs into reserve status immediately? Maybe. The F-35C will likely be immediately canceled. The impact to the Maritime Sealift Command won't be pretty, and those Submarine Tenders among other MSC vessels will be retirement targets.

I honestly have no idea how the Marine Corps will deal with the cut. I can only speculate that there will almost certainly be no new medium vehicle nor an AAV replacement. The F-35B likely would survive, as would the Osprey and H-1 upgrades. The AV-1Bs would likely be retired immediately though, and the CH-53K would be pushed back indefinitely.

Think folks, think. The Navy will do what they have always done when budget cuts come - they will retire old ships quickly and throw everything they can towards building new ships. The LCS is one of the safest shipbuilding programs the Navy has, because it has known costs with fixed price contracts. There is ZERO possibility of a new frigate of any kind in this fiscal environment unless the Navy decides to drop the DDG-51 Flight IIIs, and Congress will absolutely insist the Navy protects the shipbuilding budget so the nation doesn't drop below 5 major shipyards. Surface ship and Aviation Maintenance will suffer as it always does in lean fiscal times, and deployments will drop significantly - as will training.

These silly discussions on LCS are a distraction, because they aren't rooted in either the history of how the Navy deals with budget crisis nor the realities of where the Navy is today. For all those folks who don't like the LCS, I'd suggest you find something to like or suggest affordable ideas to make it better, because the cold truth is those 20 LCS are likely to make up a significant percentage of the entire US Navy surface fleet by the time they are commissioned. If the Navy does in fact build 55 of them, as some still foolishly suggest, the LCS could represent 40% of the entire surface force by 2025. The only way that changes is if you have several hundred billion dollars laying around for the Navy over the next several years, and my guess is you do not.

The American taxpayer doesn't understand the value of seapower to them. That indifference by the American taxpayer who doesn't believe the Navy underwrites and secures the economic vitality of the worlds only superpower represents an existential threat to the US Navy today - and there is no evidence that US Navy leadership understands this. Specific programs in the Navy are not the problem, they are a symptom of a much bigger problem that likely won't be realized or effectively addressed until it is far too late.

New OMB Directive Cuts Defense Beyond Budget Control Act Agreement

The White House has published this OMB directive (PDF), which comes as guidance on top of the debt discussions agreed to in the Budget Control Act.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D. C . 20503
THE DIRECTOR
August 17,2024
M-II-30

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

FROM: Jacob J.Lew
Director

SUBJECT: Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Guidance

The President has defined our fiscal challenge as demonstrating that we can live within our means so that we can invest in job creation and economic growth now and in the long term. In April, he proposed a balanced framework for $4 trillion in deficit reduction that would put us on path to achieve fiscal sustainability by the middle of this decade. Over the summer, in negotiations with the Congress, the President pursued deficit reduction of this magnitude. Once it was clear a bipartisan agreement could not yet be reached, the President signed into law a down payment toward this goal: the Budget Control Act of 20 11. This legislation set ceilings on total discretionary spending and a target of $2.4 trillion in total deficit reduction over the next decade.

In light of the tight limits on discretionary spending starting in 2012, your 2013 budget submission to OMB should provide options to support the President's commitment to cut waste and reorder priorities to achieve deficit reduction while investing in those areas critical to job creation and economic growth. Unless your agency has been given explicit direction otherwise by OMB, your overall agency request for 2013 should be at least 5 percent below your 2011 enacted discretionary appropriation. As discussed at the recent Cabinet meetings, your 2013 budget submission should also identify additional discretionary funding reductions that would bring your request to a level that is at least 10 percent below your 2011 enacted discretionary appropriation.

By providing budgets pegged to these two scenarios, you will provide the President with the information to make the tough choices necessary to meet the hard spending targets in place and the needs of the Nation. These 5 and 10 percent reductions from the 2011 enacted level should not be achieved by proposing ~cross-the-board reductions or reductions to mandatory spending in appropriations bills, reclassifications of existing discretionary spending to mandatory, or enactment of new user fees to offset existing spending. The latter types of proposals may be included in your package as separate proposals on their merits or for consideration as alternatives to other cuts proposed in the main request. You may also submit priority add-backs with your request.

At the same time as your submission shows lower spending overall, you should identify programs to "double down" on because they provide the best opportunity to enhance economic growth. Finding the savings to support these investments will be difficult, but it is possible if budgets cut or eliminate low-priority and ineffective programs while consolidating duplicative ones; improve program efficiency by driving down operational and administrative costs; and support fundamental program reforms that generate the best outcomes per dollar spent.
Consistent with these guidelines, I ask that your 2013 budget and management plans address the following mechanisms for efficiency increases:

• If relevant, identify priority investments related to economic growth which the Department proposes to expand or protect, stating the strongest possible case for the positive economic impact.
• Identify and include in the budget submission cost-saving efforts that will improve operational efficiency and improve the rate of return to taxpayers, including more program integration, reorganizations within and between agency components, and realignment of resources (such as information technology, facilities, and staff) to improve service delivery to the public.
• To drive long-term productivity increases, your 2013 budget and management plans should explain how your agency will acquire, analyze, evaluate, and use data to improve policy and operational decisions, and how you will reallocate and strengthen your analytic and evaluation capacity to set outcome-focused priorities, identify the most effective and cost-effective practices and programs, and speed their adoption.
• Finally, agency submissions should take into consideration areas of duplication or overlap identified by the Government Accountability Office, as well as others.

I expect this year's budget formulation process to be a collaborative dialogue between OMB and agencies that emphasizes the best options for improving the Government's effectiveness while lowering costs. OMB will strive to offer ideas and assistance to agencies where we can, and to facilitate problem-solving on issues that cross agencies. In addition, I invite agencies to recommend ways that OMB or other Government-wide processes or requirements can be modernized and improved to help your agency meet its objectives more cost -effectively.

I know this will bc a difficult year, but it will also offer an opportunity to make the hard decisions to invest where we can get the most done and pare back in other areas.

I have already seen one source saying the DoD is not immune to this. The FY11 enacted DoD budget was $530 billion (includes military construction), so a 5% reduction would make the FY13 DoD budget $504 billion. The 10% reduction would place FY13 closer to $475 billion. Remember when Secretary Panetta said that more defense cuts would seriously hurt defense? The President wasn't impressed. The budget savings across the board are likely being made to free up FY13 budget money for the President to roll out his new jobs program set to be announced in early September.

Thoughts on the Future of the DoD Budget

By now everyone has had a chance to review where we stand with the debt agreement reached in early August. This post is simply a way to document the process and consider where it may be heading, and specifically how that will impact the maritime services.

The White House fact sheet on the deal notes a $350 billion reduction to the base DoD budget over the next ten years that is part of the initial +$900 billion in discretionary spending cuts. The cut is similar to the President's April 13 speech, where $400 billion cut in national security spending was proposed over 12 years. The $350 billion reduction is intended to be implemented after completion of the current DoD roles and missions review, which is expected to be completed by October of this year.

The bipartisan debt deal includes a trigger that adds another $1.5 trillion in total spending cuts, which are to be identified by the new super committee. The super committee is to report its recommendations by November 23 and by no later December 23 Congress is expected to vote on the committee recommendations. If the super committee proposal doesn't pass by December 23, an automatic trigger to ensure that at least $1.2 billion in cuts over ten years will kick in. Within this $1.2 billion cut, the White House fact sheet says "If the fiscal committee took no action, the deal would automatically add nearly $500 billion in defense cuts on top of cuts already made."

The super committee consists of the following Senators and Representatives.

• Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas (Republican and committee co-chair)
• Sen. Patty Murray of Washington (Democrat and committee co-chair)
• Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland (Democrat)
• Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona (Republican)
• Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts (Democrat)
• Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania (Republican)
• Sen. Max Baucus of Montana (Democrat)
• Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio (Republican)
• Rep. Xavier Becerra of California (Democrat)
• Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan (Republican)
• Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina (Democrat)
• Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan (Republican)

There are several ways to look at this, but I note the final total of security spending cuts in the bipartisan deal brokered on August 2 would call for $884 billion over 10 years if no other deals were reached. That figure is noteworthy, because the Gang of Six deal was $886 billion in security spending.

Moving ahead, there is a timeline to watch this unfold from a DoD perspective.

September

In September Congress will return from vacation and are likely to be dominated by the politics of a new Obama job program. To date the Obama administration has been able to get passed all previous economic related bills, so there is no reason to expect this one (whatever it is) would get passed. I have no idea what the Obama administration will recommend, but it is hard to believe the Obama administration would recommend anything favorable to the maritime services.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't. I strongly agree with the economists who have been critical of the Obama administrations implementation of Keynesian economics, because I believe it has been a spectacular failure primarily because the focus on service related jobs has done almost nothing to create legitimate supply chains throughout the economy with the government investment. Several economists have noted that most of the money headed to the private sector ends up going to suppliers that are outside the United States, and have thus far produced far less economic impact (and jobs) than the administration was hoping for. The only manufacturing industry in the United States where money is almost guaranteed to hit suppliers in the United States is shipbuilding, which ironically is largely a government dependent manufacturing sector anyway. It is hard to imagine a scenario where the Obama administration would consider the option of increasing spending in shipbuilding as a jobs program for manufacturing. If they did, building Coast Guard vessels would be as much if not more important priority than building Navy ships, but the likelihood the Obama administration would try something as intelligent as spend government money on the shipbuilding sector as a jobs program is fairly close to zero. One of the primary reasons is because shipbuilding could takes years to produce desired economic results, and it is hard to imagine the Obama administration has a long term vision for jobs with an election only 15 months away.

By the end of September, the FY12 budget will pass. The House approved budget is $544 billion, but events have likely changed this. It is estimated the final DoD budget will be somewhere between $513 and the $544 billion in the House bill. I suspect the low number will ultimately win given the recent budget cut in the debt deal.

October

Sometime in early October the details of the DoD strategic review will begin to leak, and we will know a lot more about where we are with the future budget. I think I can speak with everyone that the notes by Tim Walton as discussed by Bryan McGrath are troubling. It is hard to imagine a scenario where a "strategic review" conducted by the Pentagon begins with the starting place of budget division 1/3 Army, 1/3 Air Force, and 1/3 Navy/Marines and is taken seriously in this political climate, but that is exactly what Under Secretary of the Army Westphal implied with his answer.

As I have mentioned before, the only way the public will know whether the Pentagon has conducted a legitimate strategic review of roles and missions is if the review details are politically untenable by the vast majority of politicians. It is my sincere hope that throughout the entire month of September the Navy comes out swinging slapping the Army around as a bloated service that needs to be downsized considerably. Undersecretary Westphal is only fooling an uninformed public when the Army claims they can't make dwell time when at the same time they are sending forces to Iraq instead of Afghanistan (see here and here). Don't get me started on the high numbers of people in the bloated Army yet to make a deployment, nor how all of the strategic objectives in Afghanistan are military objectives - not political or economic objectives. The Navy can cream these guys in a public debate, if they try.

But they won't, and we all know it. The think tank community, which is 70-80% retired Army, will encourage 'strategic' policy that keeps the balanced budget approach towards DoD funding. Here is the one ultimate truth, if the DoD proves incapable of producing a real strategic review that makes serious choices based on strategy, and member of the House or Senate that defends the DoD should be called out and probably voted out of office. If the starting place for a DoD strategic review is a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 budget division, then strategy isn't guiding DoD choices. That basically means the DoD cannot justify their budget of any size, so no total amount of cuts can be regarded as too much. No matter what conclusions the DoD reaches in their review, if it begins with an arbitrary budget division as a non-negotiable starting place, any plan the super committee regardless of how deep the cuts will be just as viable as a DoD plan. October is going to reveal more about the character of DoD leadership than anytime in the last 10 years of war, because for the first time in the 21st century the DoD faces an existential threat - themselves.

October 14 is the deadline for for each committee in the House and Senate to convey their recommendations to the Special Committee.

November

By no later than November 23 the Special Committee is to vote on its report to enact additional cuts towards the $1.5 trillion goal. The politics and political rhetoric leading up to November 23 is unlikely to be coherent, so until we see the final deal on November 23 everything else is just noise.

December

The Budget Control Act of 2011 requires Congress to vote on the Super Committee recommendations no later than December 23, 2011.

Additional Thoughts

See the polls for yourself, the fact is nobody sees defense as the top priority. That doesn't mean folks don't care, only that there are aspects of politics today that have more importance. The nation has been here before, in Vietnam, and depending upon your study of history you can presume how that outcome will be similar to the outcome in this case.

I thought it was noteworthy that both times Ron Paul mentioned militarism of the United States during last weeks Republican debate, the crowd cheered.

Finally, I believe it is difficult to believe that defense will somehow avoid the massive cut. I do not believe the strategic review will be a legitimate review, so I don't see a scenario where the DoD makes a good case for itself. I do believe it is entirely plausible that the final vote on the super committee fails to pass, which kicks in the $884 billion triggered cut. I also believe it is entirely possible that the cut can exceed current levels of suggested cuts if politics begins moving the super committee towards a budget cut greater than proposed $1.5 trillion. It is important to note, the massive $2.4 trillion in cuts will only pay for the budget through March of 2012 and not actually cut much of anything - rather reach a balanced budget through that time frame. If the GDP of the US doesn't grow by 3% as CBO predictions require for all these numbers to work, the cuts to the DoD could go much, much higher.

The number of scenarios that end worse than expectations number greater than the number of scenarios where the DoD doesn't take a major budget cut, and in the context of a poorly conducted strategic review, I have very little faith this will end as optimistic as some presume it will. As Stephen Carmel suggested in his recent speech, the shipping industry is not seeing high volume - indeed is seeing very low business activity for this time of year. All global economic signs, of which the shipping industry is only one, suggests the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Is the DoD preparing for the worst? Show me one sign, any sign, that they don't need to.

"Fundamentally Different"

ADM Roughead had some comments last week on budget cuts. This is posted without comment or analysis, as something to think about.

The Navy will probably cut sailors and could decommission ships because of the $400 billion in military budget reductions passed Monday, said Adm. Gary Roughead, the Navy’s top officer, who was in San Diego Thursday.

But the Navy will still resemble its current self.

If more-draconian Pentagon cuts of $600 billion come later — the scenario if a special congressional committee can’t agree on savings elsewhere — the basic outline of the Navy will have to change, the chief of naval operations said.

“You are cutting deep into muscle at that point,” said Roughead, who will retire in September.

“If you get to that, you are going to have to look at a fundamentally different Navy, probably a fundamentally different military. How it’s postured to respond, where is it, how much of it is there.”

Noonish Random Thoughts

With major defense cuts looming, we should expect to see certain things. We should expect the Heritage Foundation to scream very loud about how many Americans will die because the DoD didn't have enough money, and we should expect the Center for American Progress to suggest cutting specific programs randomly as a 'rational' approach to national security. We should also expect the defense lobbying in Washington to hit an all time, war time high.

Loren Thompson has written some really good and really bad ideas down on the Lexington Institute blog. This is one of his all-time worst. Serious question, who besides Loren Thompson seriously believes a rational approach to dealing with serious defense cuts begins with a protection list of programs to protect instead of list of priorities to inform policy?

As I have said many times, there will be two obvious signs that the Department of Defense conducted a legitimate strategic review in response to defense cuts.

1. The strategic review conclusions will favor certain military services over others in both policy priority and funding.
2. The strategic review conclusions will be politically untenable.

If I was advising the Secretary of Defense, I would insure that whatever comes from the strategic review meets those two features as part of the conclusion. I also think it would be a huge mistake to suggest protecting any single program is a priority, because the possibility of cutting any program is leverage that should not be conceded.

I would also have that review completed before the Super Congress panel makes any recommendations regarding future spending cuts. It appears that John Kerry might be the closest thing the DoD has to a defense advocate on this super panel. If you are in uniform, say that out loud a few times until you fully understand exactly where defense funding stands today as a national priority.

Down To Nine

Interesting. OPNAV NOTICE 5400 (PDF) from August 1st is worth a few comments.

1. Purpose. To approve the change in permanent duty station (PDS) for Carrier Strike Group (CSG) NINE per reference (a).

2. Background. Per POM-12 guidance, Navy will resource and align CSG staffs equal to the number of operational CVNs. CSG-9 will change PDS from Everett, WA to San Diego, CA and will change carrier assignment from USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN-72) to USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN-76). LINCOLN will shift homeport from Everett, WA to Newport News, VA for Refueling and Complex Overhaul in August 2012. CSG-9 will be reassigned to REAGAN, homeported in San Diego, replacing CSG-7 due to CSG-7 deactivation.

The deactivation of CSG-7 brings the total number of carrier strike groups to nine, and there is no reason to believe the Navy will operate more than nine carrier strike groups for the next several years, despite the US Navy currently owning 11 carriers. This is one example of where budget cuts to the Navy are already having impacts.

The key word in POM12 guidance is "operational CVNs." Neither USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) nor USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) are being considered operational right now because of Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH). USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) will not complete her RCOH until around September of next year, and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) won't begin her RCOH until sometime next year and will not be considered operational again until sometime in 2015. The key point is that the Navy appears to be skipping a deployment for USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), probably to save more money.

With the retirement of USS Enterprise (CVN-65) looming after one more deployment, the Navy will simply transfer the CSG-12 from Enterprise to Roosevelt after the deployment, allowing the number of CSGs to remain 9 until the USS Ford (CVN 78) is ready - which may not be until all the way out until 2017-2018 time frame as shake downs for the first in class tend to take awhile. That basically allows the Navy to buy time and keep only 9 Carrier Strike Groups all the way out until after the complex overhaul of USS George Washington (CVN-73) - in the 2018 time frame.

Why is this important? Because the Navy will only maintain 9 CSGs for the next 7-8 years instead of 10 CSGs, even though throughout some portions of that time the Navy will have 10 or even 11 available (not operational) aircraft carriers. This simple organizational move means the Navy doesn't have to support an extra air wing for awhile, and limits the total F-18 fighter shortfall so the Navy doesn't have to buy that extra wing either. The Navy is also avoiding the costs of supporting the personnel of the extra air wing, and this move also buys extra time for working out problems with the F-35C.

The law may say the Navy must operate 11 aircraft carriers, with an exception for the drop to 10 aircraft carriers after the retirement of USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and the completion of USS Ford (CVN 78), but as far as the Navy is concerned there will only be nine operational carriers for most of this decade.

These are the efficiency moves the Navy is doing to shave costs during lean budgets, but note this move is in response to the cuts already made - not the future cuts coming. Operations and readiness are almost certainly going to take a hit with budget cuts, because they always do. Little moves like this - organizing below actual capacity - is a way to avoid hollowing the force in the short term, but it does result over time in contracting the force.

Fighting for Pieces of a Smaller Pie...

I have a few thoughts on how the politics of defense cuts may play out in the next five or ten years. Long story short, it's not going to be pretty; even if you think that cuts in defense spending are a good idea (and I do), the actual process of cutting is likely to be very messy.

Ideally, cuts to defense will reflect a careful, rational approach to maintaining the military means for accomplishing America's foreign policy ends. The major players would debate and evaluate the grand strategic rationale for American military power and develop a somewhat more modest political framework for the Department of Defense.

In the real world, actual defense cuts will result in bitter bureaucratic infighting and interest group mobilization in support of particular systems and programs. While service amity in the United States has managed to hold across several previous rounds of defense cuts, most notably during the post-Vietnam and post-Cold War drawdowns, there are some indications that this set of cuts may shatter the norm of collaboration that has developed between the military services.

Unfortunately, the result of this intra-constituency battle will likely be messy. Programs that lack a rationale will survive, while weapons that lack an interest group will die. The connection between means and ends will be lost, because no specific constituency has a vested interest in a rational consideration of foreign policy values or the capacity to consider value trade-offs. Little consideration will likely be given to the notion of a meaningful drawdown of U.S. military commitments, resulting in a force even more badly overstretched. In the long run, defense cuts are necessary, good for not only the economic health but also the overall security of the United States. In the short run, cuts are going to lead to bloody fights that will leave behind a diminished military and a nasty bureaucratic mess.

Red Lines, Fair Shares, and Inflection Points

The headlines this morning try to tell a story. Spencer Ackerman at Danger Room goes with the headline that reads Top Brass Unloads on Austerity Plan. Not to be outdone, Hugh Lessig of the Daily Press has the headline Military brass warns against deep cuts. Phil Ewing at DodBuzz has a similar headline that reads Vice chiefs bemoan readiness in bid to save budgets. If we were to read these headlines alone we might get the impression the proposed cuts to the Department of Defense was the story that came from the hearing, but unfortunately we would not be very informed if we didn't dig deeper.

The story from Tuesday's House Armed Service Committee's Readiness hearing isn't that military leaders do not want budget cuts - no government agency leaders like budget cuts. The real story is that the Department of Defense leadership sent a clear signal to political leaders where the red lines are and what those red lines mean. Representative Forbes choose the number - $400 billion - and each service defined what that red line means to them. Lets start with the Marine Corps.

FORBES: General, you have heard the same statements that we have heard about potential cuts from different sources, $400 billion to $1 trillion.

Assuming that we divided those equally and the Marine Corps had to take as much as $200 billion of cuts over the next 10 years, could you absorb those? And what would the impact be on the readiness state of the Marine Corps if that were to come your way?

DUNFORD: Chairman, we have taken a look at the figure of $400 billion and we've taken a look at what our fair share would be, if it would come down to the Department of Navy and we would take a cut of those reductions inside the Department of the Navy.

I think, within $400 billion, we would have some challenges in taking those cuts. I think, if they would exceed $400 billion, we would start to have to make some fundamental changes in the capability of the Marine Corps.

Did anyone else catch the important point that the Marine Corps has 'taken a look at what their fair share' of the cuts would be? If the military services have already divided the pie regarding the budget cuts before the strategic review is completed, then the Obama administrations strategic review is little more than a bullshit popsicle. General Dunford ultimately does not disclose the figure that would form the red line for "their fair share" of cuts, but if the strategic review is real and not the bullshit popsicle it appears to be, crossing the magic "fair share" total means "fundamental changes in the capability of the Marine Corps." That is a red line.

Forbes asks the same of the Air Force next.

FORBES: I'm looking right now at the average age of some of your fleet. And it could be a few years either way, but as I look at it, your strategic bomber's about 34 years old; tanker aircraft, 47; your airlift aircraft, 19.

What impact would those cuts have on the readiness for the Air Force?

BREEDLOVE: We have also looked at the conversation which is happening about our fair share of $400 billion. And it would cause us quite some concern in the recapitalization of just what you talk about, Mr. Chairman.

We do have an attack air fleet and a bomber fleet that is in bad need of recapitalization. And our plans throughout this period would be challenged by -- by those cuts.

Similarly to General Dunford, what we have looked at is that, in a $400 billion cut, our capacity would have to come down. We have determined that we will not go hollow.

When I came into the flying business in the '70s, I looked at what hollow was on Air Force bases as I walked down the line and saw holes in aircraft where there were no engines, and we had maintained a certain amount of infrastructure and iron but it was unflyable.

And we can't afford to go there with the requirements of our COCOMs today. So a $400 billion cut would force us to constrict our force in order to maintain a ready and fit force to fight.

And we come to almost the same conclusion that General Dunford did. Beyond $400 billion, we would have to go into a fundamental restructure of what it is our nation expects from our Air Force.

There is that phrase "fair share" again - adding more credibility to skeptics of legitimacy of any DoD strategic review by the Obama administration. Can anyone explain how a legitimate "roles and missions" analysis based on strategic thought leads to "fair shares" of budget pies?

General Breedlove has a good answer overall though, because he not only defines the red line as "beyond $400 billion" but also describes what a hallow force is. It is very smart, because by outlining what a hollow force looks like, the US Air Force positions themselves to make cuts that they deem necessary rather than allowing others to dictate - and this testimony makes clear the Air Force will choose to contract itself rather than spread itself out too thin to be effective. These signals are important because smaller Air Force means fewer planes, and fewer planes means local job impacts to specific districts.

Just like the Marines, the US Air Force makes clear that beyond their "fair share" of cuts the Air Force will have to go into a "fundamental restructure of what it is our nation expects from our Air Force." That is a red line.

Forbes then moved on to the Army next.

FORBES: General Chiarelli, again, thank you for being here. No-surprise question to you -- you've heard the questions that I've asked to General Dunford and also to General Breedlove. I'd like to ask you the same thing.

In your best professional military judgment, given the demands of the Army currently, are you currently able to provide the combatant commanders, all of our combatant commanders, with the resources they need to meet the operational requirements of the missions that they currently face?

CHIARELLI: No, we cannot meet all the other COCOM commander's validated demands. Those are prioritized through the global force management process. We work hard to meet them. We are not able to meet them all, and we help them manage that risk.

We are looking very, very hard at a $400 billion cut. We don't totally understand the total impact that's going to have on the force, but when you double that to $800 billion or more, you're reaching an area there that I think would definitely we'd have to look very, very hard at our strategy, what we can and cannot do.

The Army budget is currently enormous - two wars will do that. Even if we take just the baseline DoD budget, excluding the war costs, the Army budget for the last decade has held a higher percentage of the overall DoD budget than it has at any time since WWII, around 26%. What is noteworthy here is the Army doesn't really understand what the $400 billion budget cut figure means, but the red line for the Army is apparently $800 billion.

The Army also receives about $70 billion annually in war supplemental funding, so that might explain in part why $400 billion isn't too bad a hit to the service compared to the other services, but why closer $800 billion would be.

Finally, Rep Forbes brought up the issue with the Navy, but what is remarkable is the extraordinary detail that went into asking the question.

FORBES: Admiral, last question I'm going to ask is this. When Admiral Burke was here a little over a week ago, he said that the COCOM demand was for about 16 or 18 subs at any one time. He said we could only deliver about 10 subs at any one time, not because they didn't need them, but because that's all we could afford to deliver -- big difference.

I'm looking at the shipbuilding plan that has been submitted by the Navy in looking out. We had Admiral Willard testify before one of our subcommittees a little over a year ago that the Chinese now for the first time in our lifetime had more ships in their navy than we did in ours. And I know we can argue about capability, but at some point in time, numbers become capability.

The second thing we looked at is the Navy has said we needed a floor of 313 ships. Then they came back and somewhat tweaked that and said 328. You know, and we've chatted about this before, in the QDR independent panel that did an analysis on that number, they came up and felt we needed 346 ships.

Regardless of whether it's 313, 328 or 346, in CBO's review of the shipbuilding plan that has been brought forward, they asked the question how the numbers work out, because based on their numbers and the cost of the ships, they feel instead of going to 313, we could be going down to 270, 250, even 170, depending on the cost of the ships.

Here's the question I have for you. This year this committee put $14.9 billion in shipbuilding. The average over the last three decades, as you know, has been $15 billion that Congress has put in for shipbuilding. We know we can't supply enough subs right now for our combatant commanders' request.

We know, as you mentioned and also as CRS has come out and told us, if we were to delay a carrier, that carrier cost for either not building one or delaying them would increase not just our carrier cost, but the cost of our subs and the cost of doing the maintenance on our ships.

We also know that last year the Navy had a $367 million shortfall in their ship repair account. Admiral Burke, Admiral McCoy testified about a week or so ago that when we don't do the maintenance on the ships, we reduce the lifecycle for those ships, and we increase the cost of the maintenance.

The number differentiation on that shipbuilding plan is this. If we had the $15 billion, we can't reach even a 313-ship goal. You heard General Breedlove say when the Chinese say they're going to do something, they normally do it. And they're talking about building a lot of ships over the next few years.

My concern to you is if we are short already, and I think the numbers are between -- that we need $17 billion to $19 billion, so we could be short $2.5 billion to $19 billion, what in the world would the navy do on its shipbuilding plan, if you have to take further reductions coming down from some of these budget hits?

GREENERT: Well, Mr. Chairman, you really eloquently described the conundrum we're in, the balance.

FORBES: I try.

GREENERT: And it's really all about that balance.

If we have a reduction of a kind that was passed around here, $400 billion, $886 billion, without a comprehensive strategic review, a fundamental look at what we were asking our forces to do, without a change in activity, as I described, we won't be able to meet the global force management plan today. I'm pretty sure of that.

It will exacerbate our readiness trends, which you're familiar with. And if we have to go to force structure, reduction of force structure, which you mentioned, I'm concerned about the industrial base. You're familiar with it, and you know that it's a fragile item.

Later in testimony, this exchange also takes place.

FORBES: And, Admiral Greenert, the last question I have for you, going back to the numbers we were chatting about earlier on our shipbuilding plan, I think it would be fair to say that the Congress has been averaging about $15 billion over the last three decades.

This year, we put in $14.9 billion. As you know, CBO has come out with their report, suggesting that to follow your plan, you would need about $19 billion per year.

I think some of your earlier figures -- but I don't want to throw these at you -- show that we'd need about $17.3 billion. But let's just take the CBO figures.

How realistic do you think it is with the budgets that we're seeing and proposed cuts that we're going to have those kind of increases going into the shipbuilding plan over the next several years?

And if we can't come up with a realistic scenario of getting those dollars, does that mean our shipbuilding plan is not a realistic plan?

GREENERT: If I may, Mr. Chairman, I looked at the CBO report and as we know, in the -- in the -- the differences vary by year, a few are by tranche years (ph).

First 10 years, we're pretty close. It's about inflation indices, labor differences, cost differences, and really the foundation, if you will, or the assumptions put into the design of the ships. We vary slightly on what the future ship might look like.

But, nonetheless, to get to the -- to your question at hand, if we receive a reduction of the ilk we were talking about, $886 billion, and we have to reduce force structure, and we can't build ships to the level that we need to.

Then, you know, our shipbuilding plan, it gets back to strategy. I have to change the strategy. So we, as stated by all our leadership, we need a change in strategy.

Admiral Greenert had a great day on the Hill in my opinion, particularly considering he is in a somewhat difficult position with the CNO confirmation hearings looming. In his opening statement, ADM Greenert said this very interesting bit:

I can't tell you for sure, Mr. Chairman, if we're at an inflection point or a tipping point. But I can't -- but I don't see how we can sustain this pace of operations indefinitely and meet the readiness standards.

If we try to do so, I think it'll consume the expected service life of our force structure earlier than designed and planned, and we'll face a cascading increase in the cost to achieve the expected service life for those ships. And reaching that expected service life is a foundational element of our future ship inventory and, accordingly, our shipbuilding plan.

ADM Greenert nailed his testimony. The news folks can afford to be simplistic and frame headlines as a DoD vs the budget drama, but it is clearly more complicated than that. There are serious strategic and political issues on the table, and there is nothing simple about the challenges.

The approach Admiral Greenert consistently took was a strategic view calling for a strategic review. It's brilliant, because the Navy faces very difficult decisions and this approach results in burden sharing - specifically when the Navy takes the strategic road it shifts the burden of the political consequences onto elected leaders - and the consequences are enormous.

The shipbuilding industry in America is almost exclusively supported by the government sector, as it lacks the private sector alternative like the airline industry - for example. Loss in shipbuilding capacity by reduced government sector spending cannot be made up via other means, and neither Congress nor the Obama administration has a policy that could help the shipbuilding industry become more competitive globally in the private sector. When Admiral Greenert says he is "concerned about the industrial base," he is speaking directly to capacity now and into the future. Loss of that capacity will translate into regional impacts to economy likely to have election outcomes, and that is particularly true in states like Virginia and Florida.

The Navy needs the strategic review more than the other services do right now, and ADM Greenert has sent a clear message the Navy faces difficult choices, and only with a legitimate strategic review can the Navy make informed choices based on the budget cuts to the Navy. The decisions by the Navy must be guided by a political policy with a clear objective. In many ways, the US needs to decide whether we are Sparta or Athens, because in this economy the nation can no longer afford to be both.

ADM Greenert specifically used the phrase "inflection point," which I think is brilliant in describing exactly where the Navy - if not the nation - is today. Whatever the strategic review decides, what is clear is that Congress will want to have a copy of it for evaluation, because ADM Greenert made it pretty clear that while the Navy can adapt to the review decisions, the political consequences of the choices that will need to be made will be very real.

Did we learn anything? I think we learned a lot. We learned the Navy is standing on the red line. We learned that the 313-ship plan is almost certainly dead. We learned that ADM Greenert is going to present the Navy to Congress as guided by his strategy, and he has signaled that will probably be a new strategy for the Navy. We learned the demand for naval forces is around 400 ships, so the Navy is well below and unlikely ever to be sized to meet COCOM demands.

Most importantly, we learned that right now the Navy is at an inflection point, and the Navy has given clear indications the Tipping Point exists, potentially at $400 billion in budget cuts and absolutely at higher numbers.

POM 13 News Expected Today

This Aviation Week article is important, and I want to highlight something as we move towards the hearing this afternoon that is likely to discuss the budget challenges facing the DoD. This was the article that really kicked off the legitimate discussion regarding the potential of big deck aircraft carrier cuts.

Cartwright acknowledges the Pentagon is considering delaying deliveries of the proposed next-generation Ford-class carriers — or even more severe options such as canceling one of the carriers and reducing the overall carrier fleet size.

Further, he acknowledges, the Pentagon is mulling whether to cancel the proposed SSBN(X) ballistic missile submarine replacement and instead use a more “evolutionary” approach by elongating SSN Virginia-class attack subs.

“It’s certainly something that’s being considered,” he says. “Nothing is off the table.”

The Pentagon is “relooking” at its overall strategy to determine not only how carriers, for example, can be used, but what types of other ships or assets could be employed or deployed with what kind of capability and at what cost, Cartwright says.

Referring to Cartwright’s comments, Navy spokesman Cmdr. Danny Hernandez said, “Specific details and discussions are pre-decisional and part of program objective memorandum (POM) 13.”

While none of these ideas are particularly new, they seem to be getting much greater traction as Defense Department officials struggle to make deeper budget cuts than they had thought they would have to.

The options on the table have been speculated as delaying a carrier by 2 years, cutting an aircraft carrier, or even retiring an aircraft carrier early instead of the mid-life refuel. But the key point here is the specific target of POM 13 - the next budget.

What is likely to come up later today is that POM 13 has been reopened by the DoD who has been instructed to find more defense cuts. These cuts are not what is being discussed in debt discussions, rather the latest mandate for DoD cuts by the Obama administration. The Navy number is $15 billion. I don't know what the Air Force and Army numbers are, nor what the total number is.

This is one more thing to watch for during the 3:00pm hearing today in the House.

Gang Of Six Will Cut Deep Into Defense - Updated

So when I gave a few personal thoughts regarding the Navy at the Tipping Point this morning, did you give it a casual glance before you dismissed it, or did you actually read it and take my advice to start thinking about alternative futures? My sense is most Americans - much less DoD employees - are still not ready to be serious about the debt problem, but maybe a bit of cold water will help get the point across.

Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg reported today on Twitter that House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon has warned a panel of GOP members today that the Gang of Six proposal will cut $886 billion in defense spending over 10 years. This number is compared to the $400 billion President Obama proposed, not on top of.

With the Navy budget running between 27% and 31% of the defense budget over the last 15 years, that means between $239 and $275 billion in cuts to the Navy over the next 10 years, or an average of $23.9 - $27.5 billion in cuts annually to the Navy over the next decade if the pie is distributed the same way moving forward. This suggests a budget cut for the Navy will fall between 17% and 19% annually.

With the Ford class aircraft carrier running around $14 billion to procure the first ship, and the Joint Strike Fighter running around $3 billion just to procure the aircraft for two squadrons for the carrier, not to mention the remarkably high per-hour flight cost of the JSF, nor to mention the coming UCAS addition to the air wing, and stack on costs for the loss of efficiencies that occur when supporting multiple types of aircraft instead of 1 type (F-18), and before you get to other operational costs and organizational costs you find that the cost of building and fielding a single big deck aircraft carrier is simply unaffordable by any metric.

To be perfectly honest, the costs on everything related to carrier strike groups has grown so high over the last few years that the Ford class carrier centric organizational model for US Navy forces is almost certainly a worse investment than other credible alternatives even if the money did exist. The budget challenges facing the Navy simply force the issue.

August 2nd is rapidly approaching, and the Gang of Six option is the most likely idea to be reconciled by all sides. The DoD number will likely remain part of the debate, but expecting a better result means hoping for the Presidents $400 billion defense cut proposal as the floor.

Regardless how it goes down now, US Navy is out of money. It's time to start thinking.

Update: This is the memo sent out by Buck McKean:

In addition to other analysis being done on the potential tax implications regarding the Senate’s Gang of Six budget proposal, “A Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits,” I wanted to provide a quick analysis for HASC members on the impact on defense.

Gang of Six Proposal Impact on Defense:

Based on what we’ve read the proposal would result in $886 Billion in security cuts over 10 years. Due to a firewall in the proposal between security and domestic spending, nearly half of the discretionary savings in this proposal comes from security programs. The Department of Defense spending accounts for roughly 85% of security spending.

Additionally the proposal would require changes to military retirement and other benefits our men and women in uniform fought so hard to earn. It is our belief that this proposal raises serious implications for defense and would not allow us to perform our constitutional responsibility to provide for the safety and security of our country or keep faith with men and women in uniform. Keep in mind, since the President originally submitted his budget proposal for FY2011, defense has already shrunk $439 billion over 10 years.

In its current form, I cannot support the Gang of Six proposal.

Secretary Gates May 24, 2011:

“I am determined that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where the budget targets were met mostly by taking a percentage off the top of everything, the simplest and most politically expedient approach both inside the Pentagon and outside of it. That kind of “salami-slicing” approach preserves overhead and maintains force structure on paper, but results in a hollowing-out of the force from a lack of proper training, maintenance and equipment - and manpower. That’s what happened in the 1970s - a disastrous period for our military - and to a lesser extent during the late 1990s.”

And the battle continues...

Observing H.R. 1540 as It Moves Through the House

I've been reading H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, as reported by HASC on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. As I go through it, I sometimes find myself looking at H. Rept. 112-74 (the committee report). There are several dozen things that stand out, but in H. Rept. 112-74 a few things in this section really stood out.

Navy Shipbuilding Program

The budget request contained $14.9 billion for Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy.

The committee is pleased that the Navy has turned around the downward spiral in battle force ship quantities, and the plan to achieve the floor of 313 ships appears to be achievable. To obtain the required capability and to provide the required stability to the fragile shipbuilding industrial base, the committee believes the following programs are crucial.

CVN-78 is the lead ship of the Ford-class of aircraft carriers. The committee was critical when the Navy changed construction starts of these carriers from 4-year to 5-year centers. The committee encourages the Secretary of the Navy to keep these aircraft carriers on 5-year centers at the most, with fiscal year 2013 being the first year of detail design and construction funding for CVN-79. The committee believes one key to success in this program will be to minimize changes from ship to ship in the class.

The Virginia-class submarine program has proven itself to be a model shipbuilding program. Cost reduction efforts and ever-decreasing span time for construction and delivery allowed the Navy to fund two ships a year starting in fiscal year 2011, 1 year earlier than previously planned. The committee believes that modularity of payloads and open interfaces for its weapons systems, including electronic warfare, will improve capability while being more affordable. To continue to get the most efficiency from this program, the committee encourages the Secretary of the Navy to ensure that advance procurement for the next block of Virginia-class submarines is funded to required levels.

Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of the shipbuilding program is that it will be difficult to fund and maintain the current plan once the Navy begins to acquire replacements for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine fleet. In testimony before the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, Navy officials suggested that there may be options to fund these boats outside of the Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy account. The committee believes that the industrial teaming arrangement has been successful on the Virginia-class submarine program and would encourage the Secretary of the Navy to use the capabilities of both submarine shipbuilders in crafting an affordable acquisition strategy for the Ohio-class Replacement Program.

The re-start of the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class of destroyers is an important step in maintaining highly capable surface combatants in sufficient quantities, especially given the increased reliance on these ships to provide additional ballistic missile defense capabilities. Elsewhere in this title, the committee includes a provision that would grant multi-year procurement contract authority for these ships. The committee encourages the Secretary of the Navy to continue pursuing an open architecture, data sharing approach to the maintenance and sustainability of existing weapons systems. This approach will allow for more competition and affordable upgrades.

The committee received testimony that the Marine Corps’ requirement for amphibious ships is 38 ships, but that the number of ships that are absolutely necessary with acceptable risk is 33. The committee encourages the Secretary of the Navy to continue pursuing a minimum of 33 amphibious ships.

I see three interesting details here.

First, Congress remains focused on CVN-79. This is not trivial, because there is real concern regarding how the transition to a 5 year cycle for construction will impact the industrial base. You lose the industrial base, aircraft carriers become cost prohibitive.

Second, the committee report explicitly mentions that there may be "options to fund these boats (SSBN(X) outside of the Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy account." This is a discussion the Navy must have with Congress every year this decade.

Finally, it is not good for the amphibious ship force when the committee explicitly says it "encourages the Secretary of the Navy to continue pursuing a minimum of 33 amphibious ships." The Marine Corps has lost the MPF(F), the 2.0 MEB assault metric, and the EFV over the last few years, and all they will have to show for it is new stationary that says "The Department of Navy and Marine Corps." That's token, if not insulting.

Finally, the House Republicans deserve a lot of credit for the transparency the public has into the FY12 defense budget process to date. Obviously there is still a ways to go before any of this becomes law, but the transparency into the committee reports and other aspects of the process from an online observer is a very nice new feature.

Latest Selected Acquisition Reports

The Department of Defense has released details on major defense acquisition program cost, schedule, and performance changes since the September 2010 reporting period. This information is based on the Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) submitted to the Congress for the December 2010 reporting period.

A news release by the DoD is available here, and the Program Acquisition Cost Summary (Dollars in Millions) as of December 31, 2024 is available here (PDF).

A few thoughts.

1. LCS is very high. That enormous cost needs to be explained. I would like to see the numbers broken up so we can see how much to date for the first 24 in the multi-year contract vs how much the costs are down the road. I ask because I am curious if the budget numbers include design block modification costs for the remaining 31 LCS expected to be purchased, or if the LCS budget estimates are pigeon holed on the existing LCS designs.
2. Joint Strike Fighter is an acquisition tragedy. The estimate for the per unit F-35 is only $25 million more than the F-22, and that is before a single F-35 is operational. This program is also part of Secretary Gates legacy, and it isn't pretty.
3. Why was a 3rd LHA-6 added, and why did building another LHA-6 suddenly cost $4.5 billion, which is much higher than the first two? What is the rest of the story with this program that no one knows about?

The Navy did not have any Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breaches for 2010. In the DoD news release, a few significant change items related to the Navy were cited:

DDG 51 - Program costs increased $8,008.9 million (+9.7 percent) from $80,407.7 million to $88,416.6 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of 4 ships from 71 to 75 ships (+$4,376.1 million) and associated schedule, engineering, and estimating allocations* (+$2,585.8 million), and related outfitting and post delivery for the revised quantity (+$265.8 million). There are also increases in engineering costs for Advanced Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) integration plans for Flight III (+$646.7 million), additional Flight III/AMDR requirements in fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2017 (+$1,558.0 million), and the application of revised escalation indices (+$363.8 million). These increases are partially offset by decreased estimates for ship construction and government furnished equipment associated with multi-year procurement, program efficiencies, and inflation impacts on future ships (-$1,670.3 million).

F/A-18 E/F - Program costs increased $2,888.8 million (+6.0 percent) from $48,091.4 million to $50,980.2 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of 41 aircraft from 515 to 556 aircraft (+$3,105.4 million) and associated schedule, engineering, and estimating allocations* (+$208.6 million), the application of revised escalation indices (+$392.2 million), and an increase in initial spares for the additional 41 aircraft (+$94.1 million). These increases are partially offset by a reduction due to multi-year procurement contract award (-$390.4 million), adjustments for current and prior escalation (-$397.8 million), and decreases in other support costs (-$56.5 million).

Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) Block 4 - Program costs increased $126.7 million (+17.2 percent) from $736.5 million to $863.2 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of 24 ALQ 214 systems from 166 to 190 systems (+$51.2 million), additional funding for ALQ 214 software/firmware improvements (+$63.3 million), and increases in other support costs and initial spares (+$12.2 million).

Joint Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle - Program costs increased $4,614.9 million (+12.7 percent) from $36,291.6 million to $40,906.5 million, due primarily to a net quantity increase of 3,670 vehicles from 22,882 to 26,552 vehicles (+$2,266.3 million) and associated initial spares and other support (+$2,325.0 million).

Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) - Procurement and construction cost estimates for LCS have been incorporated into the SAR following approval of Milestone B (entry into Engineering and Manufacturing Development) on April 8, 2011. Previous reports were limited to development costs in accordance with section 2432 of title 10, United States Code. Since the December 2009 SAR, development costs increased $1,080.4 million (+3.0 percent) from $36,358.4 million to $37,438.8 million, due primarily to fully funding the required planning and execution of the post-Milestone B program, to include the requirements for developmental/operational testing and live fire test and evaluation (+$822.0 million). There are also increases to complete shipboard trainers (+$189.3 million) and post delivery efforts for LCS-1 and LCS-2 (+$60.9 million).

LHA 6 America Class - Program costs increased $4,498.5 million (+65.9 percent) from $6,826.8 million to $11,325.3 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of one ship from two to three ships.

Trident II Missile - Program costs increased $1,087.3 million (+2.8 percent) from $39,546.0 million to $40,633.3 million, due primarily to the addition of the Joint Warhead Fuze Life Extension Program, which will conduct a one-time refurbishment of the Mk5 Reentry Body during a planned W88/Mk5 Arming, Fuzing and Firing Limited Life Component Replacement (+$668.0 million). Costs also increased due to the addition of the Explosive Handling Wharf #2 project to rebalance the Trident fleet between the east and west coasts (+$700.6 million) and the D5 Life Extension Program restructure (+$93.9 million). These increases are partially offset by the realignment of funding from procurement to operating and support for the replacement of rocket motors for the previously delivered missiles (-$363.2 million).

For the record, the success of naval aviation procurement in controlling costs (except JSF, which is everyone's problem) is a quiet good news story.

President Calls for Roles and Missions Debate

I found a transcript of the President's speech as prepared for delivery at the Weekly Standard. These speeches sometimes get adjusted before or during presentation, but as prepared these were the specific comments President Obama made regarding cutting defense spending.

The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt.

Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.

To answer those who asked me the question today..., yes, some the Obama folks read the blog, because they enjoy telling me how wrong I am all the time with my fiscally conservative views. I'd point out they did that before the most Progressive President in American history joined the crusade in Washington DC towards spending cuts.

I think President Obama has done something remarkably brilliant politically in proposing the defense cuts, because as was previously discussed, the President used the same vernacular and proposed the same process in determination of cuts that existing conservative and libertarian defense thinkers have made in their arguments framing defense cuts in the past.

It is unclear how the internal review process will take place, but it is likely the review will be conducted as required in Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 2 USC Sec. 118b (as amended by FY08 NDAA) as part of the Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review following the FY2012 budget already submitted. The details of the QRM are outlined below:

(a) Review Required.— The Secretary of Defense shall every four years conduct a comprehensive assessment (to be known as the “quadrennial roles and missions review”) of the roles and missions of the armed forces and the core competencies and capabilities of the Department of Defense to perform and support such roles and missions.

(b) Independent Military Assessment of Roles and Missions.—

1. In each year in which the Secretary of Defense is required to conduct a comprehensive assessment pursuant to subsection (a), the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall prepare and submit to the Secretary the Chairman’s assessment of the roles and missions of the armed forces and the assignment of functions to the armed forces, together with any recommendations for changes in assignment that the Chairman considers necessary to achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness of the armed forces.
2. The Chairman’s assessment shall be conducted so as to—

(A) organize the significant missions of the armed forces into core mission areas that cover broad areas of military activity;
(B) ensure that core mission areas are defined and functions are assigned so as to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort among the armed forces; and
(C) provide the Chairman’s recommendations with regard to issues to be addressed by the Secretary of Defense under subsection (c).

(c) Identification of Core Mission Areas and Core Competencies and Capabilities.— Upon receipt of the Chairman’s assessment, and after giving appropriate consideration to the Chairman’s recommendations, the Secretary of Defense shall identify—

1. the core mission areas of the armed forces;
2. the core competencies and capabilities that are associated with the performance or support of a core mission area identified pursuant to paragraph (1);
3. the elements of the Department of Defense (including any other office, agency, activity, or command described in section 111 (b) of this title) that are responsible for providing the core competencies and capabilities required to effectively perform the core missions identified pursuant to paragraph (1);
4. any gaps in the ability of the elements (or other office, agency activity, or command) of the Department of Defense to provide core competencies and capabilities required to effectively perform the core missions identified pursuant to paragraph (1);
5. any unnecessary duplication of core competencies and capabilities between defense components; and
6. a plan for addressing any gaps or unnecessary duplication identified pursuant to paragraph (4) or paragraph (5).

(d) Report.— The Secretary shall submit a report on the quadrennial roles and missions review to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The report shall be submitted in the year following the year in which the review is conducted, but not later than the date on which the President submits the budget for the next fiscal year to Congress under section 1105 (a) of title 31.

You can find the last Quadrennial roles and missions review from January 2009 here (PDF).

Initially, there is likely to be some debate on how big a defense budget cut $400 billion over ten years really is. It is really about how you look at it. The FY2011 total defense budget that includes defense spending in the Dept of Energy and supplemental spending for the wars goes for about $700 billion. Some of that spending though, like war operations, simply won't be cut because the President isn't going to cut the budget money allocated towards conducting the 3 wars, for example. Another point of view might be the base defense budget topline number, which is about $533 billion in FY2011. In my opinion, what the Obama administration has essentially suggested is a top line total defense cut excluding certain war operations that is basically 15% of the defense budget, give or take ~2% either way depending upon what you believe the real annual spending number is for the defense budget over the next decade.

I personally believe ~15% (or $400 billion) is the right target, because it is a politically achievable number.

What To Watch For

If the process for conducting "a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world" is in fact going to be the QRM, then the QRM just beginning development right now is likely to be more important than the QDR released last year - and perhaps even invalidate the QDR released last year.

The most important question is: with Secretary Gates set to retire very soon, will he conduct the QRM or is it important that the administration names a Secretary of Defense replacement sooner and have that person conduct the QRM? The Politico reported today only three names remain in contention for the Secretary of Defense position: Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, and Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy.

Whoever gets picked will inherit the defense cuts debate, and that debate is going to be the legacy of the next Secretary of Defense no matter who it is. The most important early decision of the QRM is going to be whether the defense budget will continue to be divided equally or be changed towards unequal distribution of funding among the services. I believe the new Secretary of Defense must make and own that decision in order to be effective in this debate, which means I believe the announcement for who is the new Secretary of Defense will be coming very soon.

I also fully expect that the unequal distribution of the defense budget is going to happen, because if the budget is divided equally - the military industrial establishment will have reason to align in unity against the President for attacking the defense budget. If the QRM recommends unequal distribution of funds between the services, the military services themselves will then forced to compete against each other and articulate a national defense argument in the context of national strategy that has very little politically to do with the administration.

In other words, unequal distribution of the defense budget favors both national strategy and the President politically. The down side to unequal distribution is that it might divide Congress, which is actually an upside for the administration with political control of the Senate and House already divided anyway. In that context, it is really hard to see any downside for the Obama administration pushing towards an unequal distribution of the defense budget between the services, which is why it will almost certainly happen and make the upcoming defense cuts debate a lot more than just another DoD budget cut rock drill.

I admit to being impressed. President Obama is set to cut the DoD budget while also kick starting the much needed strategic debate in national security that many have been calling for since 9/11. Sharpen your arguments folks, because over the next year the most influential defense debate since the cold war will be taking place, and the military service that loses the debate will be completely different than they are today.

The New Navy Logo?

From the SailorBob community.

Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget Sets Stage for Much Needed Defense Reforms

Colin Clark has a story today for AOL News discussing the protections Republicans made for defense spending leading up to the release of the recently announced Paul Ryan budget plan. I have not taken a close look at the Paul Ryan budget details, but I am very encouraged that someone in Washington DC has become serious about the federal government fiscal situation and has put together a serious plan.

We have all been following various sources for coverage of the Paul Ryan budget release, and for me I've been watching Andrew Sullivan, who predictably, has been brilliant in recognizing that this is a serious plan for serious people during serious times. Sullivan has two complaints I strongly agree with, the lack of substance in the tax policies proposed and the lack of defense cuts. I think there are several ideas that can be debated regarding the tax policy, so that is another discussion, but I want to focus on the lack of defense cuts in Paul Ryan's plan.

According to the AOL article, the two House members influential in protecting the defense budget were House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon and Rep. Todd Akin, with Rep. Akin being the key figure. I like Todd Akin a lot, he is Chairman of the House Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee and has been a strong advocate for the Navy, but I have to be honest - when I read his blog post on the Heritage Foundation Foundry blog, I liked him less. He lists four reasons why he opposes defense cuts right now, and I think if the Democrats are smart, they will shoot holes through these arguments with no problems.

1. Our military is already stretched thin.
2. Disagrees that cutting the defense budget is reasonable because there is waste
3. The budget crisis is driven primarily by entitlement spending
4. The preamble of our Constitution talks about providing for a common defense and promoting the general welfare

This is intellectually weak stuff that represents boiler plate political talking points to an uninformed partisan audience, and certainly not the arguments found within the serious defense thinker community. For political reasons, Todd Akin has become married to the Heritage Foundation, and it strikes me that this is a tremendous weakness for the Republicans and the Navy specifically in the national security debate. Since 2006, and likely before, the defense wing of the Heritage Foundation (with one exception I know of) has been in decline primarily because they form a single conclusion of which all arguments are made to support.

MORE MONEY.

I believe Rep. Paul Ryan and many other Republicans will be ready to deal on the defense budget if the Democrats come back with a strong case of their own, because the Republicans will quickly realize that folks like Rep. Todd Akin will be standing on a ledge with James Carafano and no one else should a serious defense debate occur. The key though is whether Democrats are ready with a strong case for a serious defense debate. If Democrats are looking for a serious defense debate that works politically towards real reductions in defense spending, Democrats should start with the blue print already in the public by some of the leading conservative and libertarian thinkers in the national defense community, because a quick search will reveal these same arguments are made by liberals, progressives, and non-partisan think tanks (like CNAS (PDF)). For example:

Seth Cropsey

To prevent bureaucratic strife, the defense budget has for years been divided equally. This was not always the rule. As American grand strategy once made deliberate choices, the division of the defense budget once reflected them. In 1958, when the Eisenhower administration placed its hopes for strategic deterrence primarily in the Strategic Air Command, the Air Force received 48 percent of the budget. The Navy's portion was almost 29 percent, and the Army received 21 percent, down by nearly a half from its 39 percent share during the Korean War.

After Washington ends our large-scale commitment to wars in the Middle East, it must commit a division of the defense budget toward maintaining the current balance of power in Asia and the western Pacific region. This should of course include a stabilizing US presence carried out by the military services best situated to the task. If "strategy" has any meaning, it must choose among competing claims and place informed bets. Is the contentment of our three military services a greater good than an allocation of resources that sustains our power in Asia and prevents the continued rise of a rival regional hegemon? If the US cannot make such strategic decisions under the burden of increasingly straitened national resources, are we still capable of maintaining international leadership, much less our own security?

Better division of resources and cuts in the bloated network of centrally run defense agencies can also help fund strategic restructuring. The Defense Logistics Agency, for example, which purchases food, fuel, medical supplies, and a host of other items from spare parts to uniforms, employs 26,000 people, or 3,000 more than the number staffing the Pentagon. The Defense Contract Audit Agency operates more than 300 field offices with 4,000 employees. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which mails paychecks and travel reimbursements, employs 12,000 people. Another 10,000 work at the Defense Contract Management Agency. The Defense Commissary Agency, which sells groceries and household supplies to the military, has 6,000 employees. Taken together, that's 58,000 employees, or more than one-fourth the size of the Marine Corps.

Christopher A. Preble

Significant cuts in military spending must be on the table as the nation struggles to close its fiscal gap without saddling individuals and businesses with burdensome taxes and future generations with debt. Such cuts will also force a reappraisal of our military’s roles and missions that is long overdue.

The Pentagon’s base budget has nearly doubled during the past decade. Throw in the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus nuclear weapons spending in the Department of Energy, and a smattering of other programs, and the total amount that Americans spend annually on our military exceeds $700 billion. These costs might come down slightly as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are drawn to a close—as they should be—but according to the Obama administration’s own projections, the U.S. government will still spend nearly $6.5 trillion on the military over the next decade. Surely Rep. Ryan could have found a way to cut…something from this amount?

Defense is an undisputed core function of government—any government—and spending for that purpose should not be treated on an equal basis with the many other dubious roles and missions that the U.S. federal government now performs. But please note the emphasis. The U.S. Department of Defense should be focused on that purpose: defending the United States. But by acting as the world’s de facto policeman, we have essentially twisted the concept of “the common defence” to include the defense of the whole world, including billions of people who are not parties to our unique social contract.

Bryan McGrath

Rather than unleashing debate within the Pentagon as to whether equal or near equal shares of the defense budget parceled out to the military departments--irrespective of the strategy pursued—makes sense, we will continue to spend massive amounts of money on defense inefficiently building, improving, and maintaining capabilities and capacities that sap our resources and do little to extend and sustain our position of global leadership. We will continue to pay for military power that has little or no use in peacetime, which begs the question as to whether that investment invariably contributes to its promiscuous use. All the while, we will wring our hands about the “massive expenditure” of 2% of the total defense budget on shipbuilding, assets which provide return on investment throughout their service lives...

I urge the House Armed Services Committee to begin a round of hearings to assess the status of our strategy/resources match, in a manner that leaves open the possibility of fundamental re-alignment. The HASC and the Administration should embrace "creative tension" in order to determine how best to protect, preserve and extend American leadership in a changing world, and the value and logic of equal or near equal shares of the budget pie to each of the Services should be on the table from Day 1.

Like the wise man in the Pentagon once told me, when you run out of money, it is time to think.

And

Perhaps now, the vapidity of the equal share budget formula will be exposed for the bureaucratic crutch that it is. Perhaps now, the budget will begin to reflect the reality of Secretary Gates' words at West Point, in which he told a group of cadets wondering if they had made a poor choice in Service academies that the nature of conflict in the future will be abidingly Naval and Air. Perhaps now, we'll recognize the fact of our drawdowns in Asian land wars even as our East Asian friends and allies nervously urge us to become more engaged in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The coming defense budget crisis offers opportunity to think anew, to recognize that we spend PLENTY on defense, but that it is spent inefficiently and without recourse to strategy. It is time to UNBALANCE the defense budget, to fund those elements of national power more central to preserving and sustaining our national power while modestly de-emphasizing those with little peacetime return on investment. Some believe this debate will be central to the 2013 Quadrennial Defense Review. I disagree. The debate is upon us. The only question is whether we will answer.

And

The coming strategic dialogue will take place amid the backdrop of three potentially irreconcilable considerations. The first will be a natural, increased hesitance toward land war after a costly decade or more in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many Americans will eventually ask what was gained by the expenditure of over 5,500 lives and over a trillion dollars. The second will be the growing appetite for domestic infrastructure investment and entitlement spending even as the nation confronts mounting debt. The final consideration will be the desire of the American public to play the leading role in a world increasingly marked by the rise of Asia and the emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations) as counterweights to US and EU influence.

The support of the American people for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been remarkably durable, but it would be unwise to think such support would extend to another land war of choice in the near term, a sentiment echoed by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who wrote that “The United States is unlikely to repeat another Iraq or Afghanistan -- that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire -- anytime soon.” While there are other foreseeable reasons the US might wish to employ massive land force, Afghanistan and Iraq appear emblematic of the chaos and untidiness many observers feel will mark the future strategic landscape. This landscape will grow ever more dangerous as sophisticated weapons continue to proliferate into the hands of insurgents and terrorists. If these types of conflicts are unlikely to summon similar US resolve, there is a question of continuing to sustain and resource those capabilities and capacities necessary to address such conflict at the same levels. Might the nation be better off working to preclude these situations before they erupt, rather than react at great cost to the Treasury?

Grand strategy discussions will also reflect fallout from the diminished state of the American economy as a result of the recent recession and financial crisis. Many economists are wary of growing levels of institutional debt in the US, and austerity measures are likely to be considered. These measures will almost certainly include aggressive efforts to cut the defense budget, as automatic entitlement costs as a proportion of the federal budget grow. Pressure to cut the defense budget is likely to result in equal or nearly equal shares being assigned each of the armed services, as such “Joint” burden sharing is the norm in a Pentagon bereft of inter-service rivalry in the post Goldwater-Nichols era. While the defense budget is not the cause of the nation’s economic situation, policy makers will be sorely tempted to include it in the solution, rather than by curbing dramatically rising entitlement spending. A final strategic consideration likely to color discussions will be the almost certain desire of Americans to continue to be the acknowledged global leader—diplomatically, militarily, and economically—even as the resources available to continue or exercise such leadership are in jeopardy. Political leaders in the US will pay a heavy price at the ballot box if seen by voters to be supporting or enabling a decline in US power and influence.

There is a very serious core group of about 300 highly respected civilian defense thinkers in Washington DC that fall along every kind of political fault line, and I believe all 300 would immediately agree that Seth Cropsey, Christopher A. Preble, and Bryan McGrath are three of the leading voices in defense in conservative and libertarian politics.

Of the twenty-one years that have passed since the United States invaded Panama, the US has been at war on the ground for fourteen years. The DoD has been conducting military operations in multiple theaters since 9/11. Funding for national defense has nearly doubled in the last decade alone, and almost none of this funding has been in response of rising powers like China or India, or a resurgent Russia. The allies that make up the strongest strategic alliance, NATO, have reduced their military budgets dramatically over the last decade. There is a global balance of power shift taking place from west to east as Asia rises economically, diplomatically, and militarily. From almost every serious defense thinker in the United States, there is a consistent drumbeat of published articles calling for a serious debate in Washington on roles and missions in the national security debate.

If the Democratic Party is serious about deficit reduction in the way that Paul Ryan is, and wants that serious discussion to include a serious debate on defense spending, then the President of the United States and Democrats on the Hill must address the "equal shares" model in Goldwater Nichols that divides the defense budget into equal shares for the three services.

If Republicans or Democrats cannot address this incredible flaw in our strategic thinking for developing military capabilities tailored to requirements, roles, and missions - then top line defense cuts will be politically impossible due to the treaty commitments already made that forms the backbone of US global posture today.

The Goldwater Nichols debate should happen over FY12 and FY13 so that the DoD can formulate budgets properly with the strategic reset opportunity that will come when the US draws down from Afghanistan. Today the top line DoD budget is around $700 billion. By cutting out the "equal shares" model in Goldwater Nichols, there is no reason why the DoD budget couldn't be reduced.

The United States is facing several major strategic challenges that should be driving this debate anyway, including Cybersecurity Defense and Nuclear Deterrent policy in a post cold war era. The Air Force is spending more on space and cyber security than they do on aircraft, and the Navy spends more on aircraft than the Air Force does. The global basing situation needs a thorough reexamination in the wake of recent events in the Middle East, South Korea, and Japan combined with the rise of China and decline of Europe, and it cannot be ignored that while global military power on land is in decline, global naval power and in particular lethal submarines is increasing.

The world is different in 2011 than it was in 1986, 1991, and 2001, and yet the defense budget is still operating under the "equal shares" model in Goldwater Nichols that was designed during the cold war. If neither Republicans and Democrats are unwilling to take on the lack of strategic flexibility built into the "equal shares" model in Goldwater Nichols, then our nations political leaders are not serious about defense cuts.

Goldwater Nichols is step one, without reform nothing changes for defense spending without very serious legitimate risk of clear political consequences related to both domestic and global perception of American decline.