Call for (Sharing) Papers and Books: Political Histories of Building a Strong U.S. Navy

Carl Vinson (Image courtesy Library of Congress)

There have been several interesting articles of late that touch on the politics of U.S. naval strength. I’ve discussed the topic with a number of friends and colleagues, and unsurprisingly I’ve heard a wide range of views. One thing I think they’re all in agreement on is that we were clearly approaching a strategic precipice even before the Budget Control Act of 2011.

It strikes me that any political strategy for preserving a strong Navy ought to be informed by how that very strength was politically achieved in the first place. We know that the political path to a global U.S. Navy began with the naval authorization acts of the 1880s and 1890s, was amplified in the ‘second to none’ Naval Act of 1916, and was cemented in Naval Authorization Acts of 1934-1940. I personally can’t say I know much about how the sponsors of these acts or their navalist backers achieved what they did, though.

For example, while it’s well understood that Carl Vinson was the driving political force behind the pre-Second World War U.S. naval rearmament, how exactly did he gain the support of those in other positions of Congressional and Executive power who were necessary for passage? Granted, his efforts benefitted from the fact that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was an unabashed navalist, but Roosevelt was not always fully on board with Vinson’s initiatives. How did he obtain Roosevelt’s active cooperation when possible and Constitutional consent when necessary? What specific roles did the Navy’s leaders of the era play? The media? Advocacy groups? How did global events factor in? Did the general public play any roles, and if so to what degree did navalists reach out to them to obtain their support or otherwise get them engaged?

I find what Vinson achieved in 1934 particularly remarkable. Amidst substantial American political opposition to rearmament and overseas entanglements, Vinson and his Senate counterpart Park Trammell got the first of the major interwar naval authorization acts passed through Congress. It seems likely that selling naval investment as a Great Depression jobs program helped, but it’s not clear to me just how much that offset the arguments of those opposed.

Therefore, if you’ve read (or written) books or journal articles that contribute to answering questions similar to the ones I outlined for any of the aforementioned periods, please share the titles in the comments thread. And if you’re in college or grad school and are searching for historical naval policy topics of great contemporary relevance to write about for coursework—and then perhaps get published—I don’t think you can go wrong exploring the late 19^th and early 20^th Century political paths to U.S. naval strength.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.  

Navy Stuck Between the Rock and Hard Place on Joint Strike Fighter

F-35C Art

National Defense Magazine blog has what appears to me to be the most insightful tidbits of information to date on the Navy perspective of the F-35C. At the March 12 Credit Suisse/McAleese defense programs conference in Washington, D.C. Air Force LT. General Christopher C. Bogdan, program executive officer of the Joint Strike Fighter, and Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, both made comments that in my opinion, gives the current view of the F-35C program from DoD perspective. The implications of these comments are worth consideration.

Throughout his presentation, Bogdan repeatedly hammered the point that the F-35’s eight international partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands — are losing patience and becoming increasingly alarmed by the trends in the program.

“The cost is up by tens of billions,” Bogdan said. “Our partners are starting to put really big dollars into this program.” By the time F-35 reaches lot 8 low-rate production, more than half of the aircraft will be for non-U.S. customers. “They need to know where their money is going,” he said.

Adding insult to injury, the JSF program office classified all documents as “U.S. only,” which upset partner nations. Even if they are all buying the same aircraft, each country has its own air-worthiness qualification processes and other administrative procedures that require they have access to the aircraft’s technical data. JSF officials are working to re-classify the documentation, Bogdan said. “These airplanes are important to them [our partners], politically.”

Pressure to keep allies happy might be one reason why the U.S. Navy will not be allowed to dump the F-35C. It has been known for years that some Navy leaders would prefer to continue to buy the F/A-18 Super Hornet, and not have to bother with the expense and trouble of having to bring a new type of aircraft into the inventory.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert insisted that the Navy is fully on board.

“We need the F-35C,” he said at the Credit Suisse conference. “It has to be integrated into the air wing.” He said the Navy has not yet decided how many it will buy, however. And he recognized that the Navy ultimately has no choice but to buy the F-35C. “If we bought no C's, it would be very detrimental to the overall program” and to international partners, he said.

As most of you know, the F-35A is the Air Force version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the F-35B is the Marine Corps version of the Joint Strike Fighter, and the F-35C is the Navy carrier launched version of the Joint Strike Fighter. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor, and in order for all three versions of the Joint Strike Fighter to reduce costs per unit, the schedule for all three must improve. Scheduling delays and design flaws have turned the JSF program into the biggest runaway train wreck in modern DoD acquisition, if not of all time. The only version of the F-35 that everyone appears to agree is truly needed is F-35B, the vertical takeoff and landing version. The F-35A is the single most important of the three versions because current plans call for building thousands of these aircraft, and alliance interest is primarily for this version of the aircraft. The US Navy is the only purchasing client in the world for the F-35C, and my sense for the last year is that the US Navy would bail out of the program if they could.

In public statements, it has become very common to hear Admirals say the Navy 'needs the F-35C,' but it has become uncommon to hear any Admiral praise the aircraft. Why the Navy needs the F-35C is never addressed in context, primarily because the well documented problems of the F-35C make it clear that the Navy needs are not yet met by the F-35C at this time, and it is unclear if some of those problems can ever be truly fixed. Anyone who has read the latest annual report released by the Pentagon’s director of test and evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, - not to mention the latest GAO report on the Joint Strike Fighter, knows that the Joint Strike Fighter program still has very serious problems. The GAO report in particular is the kindest report to date for the Joint Strike Fighter program, but after reading that report my primary takeaway is that the Joint Strike Fighter is at least as technologically and electronically complicated as even our most sophisticated Unmanned Aviation platform concepts. Quite honestly I find it hard to believe that any aircraft with so many technological moving parts will ever be reliable on any modern battlefield. The Joint Strike Fighter is a logistical nightmare, and is literally a helmet malfunction away from being a mission kill during wartime - with hundreds of proverbial helmets built into the aircraft.

LT. General Christopher C. Bogdan is emphasizing the multinational partnership of the program for a good reason, and the reason is specific to bringing down the cost of the F-35A. Stable funding across all 3 models of the Joint Strike Fighter is required if the F-35A price is going to have any chance to drop to $90M per aircraft. That means the Navy must stay completely invested in the R&D of F-35C, and must - at least initially - buy F-35C aircraft at the scheduled rate to maintain stability in the production schedule. When  Adm. Jonathan Greenert mentions the Navy still hasn't determined how many F-35Cs the Navy will purchase, the implication is the CNO is looking for the bare minimum threshold the Navy must spend to stay invested in the program.

What is important about the comments of both LT. General Christopher C. Bogdan and Admiral Jonathan Greenert is that when it comes to the F-35C, the F-35C is now being purchased by the Navy primarily for reasons of National Security Policy and not for any reason related to maritime policy or strategy. The Navy is now required to continue to pay for the F-35C for purposes of cost consideration of the entire program - all variants, and that consideration is primarily being driven by the multinational character of the program. It is now fair to say that Navy budget spending for the Joint Strike Fighter is now more important to the Department of the Air Force and the Department of State than it is for the Department of the Navy, because it is more important for the National Security Policy of the United States for the F-35A to be affordable to multinational partners than it is for the F-35C to fly off US Navy aircraft carriers.

While it is extremely frustrating that the Navy is essentially being forced to spend huge sums of money on an aircraft the Navy no longer appears to want, it is also valid that the Navy be forced to continue investment in the Joint Strike Fighter for National Security Policy purposes - even when that purpose is primarily for insuring the cost of the platform is affordable to allies. It is completely legitimate that the Navy buying the F-35C is the right thing for the National Security interests of the country even while buying the F-35C itself is not good for advancing naval aviation. This is not a zero sum game.

It would be a mistake to interpret validity and legitimacy as good or bad, because the context matters. National Security Policy trumps maritime strategy, even if I would like to see maritime strategy have more influence in the crafting of National Security Policy. In my opinion if (and this is a BIG "if") the cost of the F-35A comes down to $90 million per aircraft because the Navy spends money on the F-35C, and if international partners ultimately buy a bunch of F-35As at that price, then the Navy's investment in F-35C is simultaneously a poor investment for the Navy and a good investment for the country. What makes all of this really frustrating though is that a poor investment for the Navy and a good investment for the country is the best case outcome of the Joint Strike Fighter as things are today, and it should be noted there is no evidence to date that this represents the most likely outcome. At this point, all it takes is one country to bail out and the whole plan falls apart.

The Politics of Fleet Constitution

I went back and reviewed the Navy Readiness Posture hearing in the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness back on March 22, 2012. The hearing was held 2 days after I wrote this blog post.

The panel included Vice Admiral William Burke, Vice Admiral Kevin McCoy, and Vice Admiral David Architzel. I have a few thoughts.

It should be noted that nobody, not Congress and not the Navy, wants to keep USS Port Royal (CG 73). Considering that the current CNO classified INSURV reports several years ago, the condition of the USS Port Royal (CG 73) has been previously concealed to Congress and the American taxpayer.

All discussions apparently focus on the remaining three FY13 cruisers and to some extent, the three FY14 cruisers also set for early retirement.

Rep. Forbes and the Navy both cited different estimates for the modernization and maintenance of the cruisers scheduled for decommissioning in the March 22 hearing, but in the hearing Admiral Burke does a great job of highlighting how the numbers are actually the same - from different point of views. Rep. Forbes cites an estimate of $592 million in FY 13 and $859 million in FY 14 to modernize the cruisers, while the Navy claims the estimate of savings for early retirement of the cruisers is over $4 billion. It looks like they are both right, and both sides are making interesting arguments.

Vice Admiral Burke and Vice Admiral McCoy's arguments are very smart. Basically what they are saying is that it will cost about $4.1 billion to modernize, maintain, and operate the cruisers through the FYDP (next 5 budget years), and the Navy number includes manpower, training, and equipment costs like the helicopters while the numbers used by Rep Forbes estimates only part of the bill for keeping the cruisers. The concern the Navy has is that just because Congress finds money for modernization and keeping the cruiser hulls, the Navy won't get the additional funding for maintenance and operations of the cruisers in the out years and thus down the road the Navy won't have the extra funding to properly maintain the ships that Congress spent just enough money to save and modernize. That partial support of the early retirement cruisers would force the Navy to maintain the cruisers at the expense of other ships in the out years, which the Navy does not want to do.

The hearing was very interesting to me to listen to the second time because this time I noted that from the opening testimony - the discussion was focused on the cruisers, which I think has been the plan from the beginning. Lets take a step back and observe objectively what is happening.

A few years ago the Obama administration drew up a new strategy for National Ballistic Missile Defense that centered on the Navy's AEGIS BMD capability. A lot of noise was made of this major change, but in terms of shipbuilding, maintenance, and modernization of naval forces capable of fielding ballistic missile defense - no plan has changed since that announcement and no additional funding for ships from the administration ever went to the Navy to take on that rather important strategic role. I think that is important, because it highlights the strategy the Navy has come up with to find more money from Congress during the tight FY13 budget season.

The Navy has put 7 cruisers up for early retirement. Keep in mind that all 7 cruisers put up for early retirement in FY13 and FY14 are capable of being modernized for ballistic missile defense (Port Royal already has BMD capability, but Port Royal is apparently a lemon). I think that is pretty remarkable, because the US Navy actually has 7 cruisers not capable of being upgraded to BMD - the baseline 3 Ticonderoga class cruisers CG 52-58 which do not have the proper radar for AEGIS BMD. In other words, despite being given a new national strategic mission in ballistic missile defense, the US Navy has put up 7 surface combatants capable of performing the BMD mission up for early retirement when in fact the Navy has 7 surface combatants not capable of performing that BMD mission. Why would the Navy do this?

It is fairly obvious to this observer that the Navy put these cruisers on the chopping block precisely because they expected Congress to swoop in and save the 6 cruisers the Navy wants to save, and allow the Navy to dump the amphibious ships and no one will care. Cruisers are shiny toys that represent power projection, and these specific cruisers have a significant future ahead of them if the money was to be found and made available for the US Navy to keep them. To big Navy, amphibious ships are dull and boring, and all they do is all the hard, unsexy stuff.

I believe it is fairly obvious Congress is doing exactly what the Navy and the Obama administration wants them to do - saving the 6 cruisers and allowing the Navy to retire USS Port Royal (CG 73), and in fact the House Republicans are saving the cruisers in exactly the way the Navy and Obama administration (by that I mean SECNAV and CNO) wants them to do it - by making it an issue the House Republicans feel ownership of and thus are able to find funding for when budgets everywhere are tight. The Obama administration is basically using Rep. Forbes and Rep. McKeon to find money and pay for the administrations ballistic missile defense policy that is otherwise neglected and unfunded by the administration. It is part of a political game, and the Republicans seem perfectly willing to be played like a political fiddle in this political game.

Meanwhile big Navy is getting exactly what they want out the game. When it came time to make budget adjustments to the FY13 FYDP, to pay for more surface combatants the Navy is moving amphibious ships to the right, and by putting up the cruisers for early decommissioning the Navy insures Congress will save them, and discard the amphibious ships (which are listed, and nobody is talking about). Whether the issue is new shipbuilding or early retirements, big Navy has framed the argument perfectly in a way that Congress focuses on saving the surface combatants while the amphibious force suffers. Meanwhile, it is the amphibious ships that are making record length deployments being further worn out, while the replacements for the ships being worn out faster are being pushed further and further to the right in the shipbuilding plan.

Apparently Congress doesn't think the short dwell time of amphibious ship sailors is a big deal, so why should the CNO care? Congress is trying to draw a line in the sand on the early retirement of the cruisers, which is exactly what the Navy and the Obama administration wants Congress to do. In my opinion, Congress needs to think for themselves and not get sucked into the political game they are being manhandled in. If the House Republicans were playing this smart politically, they would target the LSDs for saving and save USS Cowpens (CG-63) - which is the cruiser in the best condition of those listed, and let the Obama administration hang themselves with their political shenanigans. If Congress doesn't save the cruisers, it is the Obama administration that has to answer questions why they are now neglecting their own ballistic missile defense strategy. Nobody cares of course, except Congress - which is why it is a solid plan by the Obama administration.

Make no mistake, the Obama administration not only expects the House Republicans to save the cruisers, they are in full support of it - because Congress saving the cruisers is actually the Obama administrations plan. By the time the voting comes around, I fully expect broad bi-partisan support to save the cruisers, but I do not believe there would be bi-partisan support to save the amphibious ships. Why? Because that isn't the administrations plan.

The administration doesn't care how the cruisers are saved when there is no money to pay for them, because if they did they wouldn't have given that problem to the House Republicans to figure out.

I find it all fascinating. I also truly believe that if the Congress doesn't save the cruisers set for early retirement in the FY13 budget, those three cruisers set for early retirement in FY14 will suddenly find the money to survive early retirement. The Navy is only gambling as many as six cruisers because it is a safe bet that some of them will be saved. I still wonder to myself what the number of cruisers is the Navy expects to get back from Congress - in a worse case scenario - and if that number can be achieved while saving the amphibious ships.

If Congress wants to draw a line in the sand on early retirements, I hope they draw that line around the amphibious ships. The Navy will find a way to fund their major surface combatant force - and the FY13 budget itself is proof they always do. Come hell or high water, before a single cut is made to surface combatants in either shipbuilding or early retirement, observe that first the amphibious ships will be thrown overboard by big Navy until and only if/when Congress says otherwise.

Crowdsourcing Smart Defense Cuts

It’s inevitable that the Department of Defense (among other government agencies) will take significant funding cuts over at least the next few years. Therefore, thinking and discourse on maximizing joint capabilities while reducing cost to taxpayers is the order of the day.

Ideally, smart budget cuts should be connected to strategic security guidance, but history, especially recent history, has demonstrated that it is unlikely that sort of guidance will be provided. So we can expect decisions to be made in terms of many other factors, such as politics, personalities, and one would hope, an assessment of capabilities required to meet future warfighting needs. For example, in the latest edition of Proceedings, CAPT Tony Heimer (USN-retired), presents some compelling arguments for cutting the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) (USNI membership required), an offshoot of the MPF (Future) concept. CAPT Heimer notes that the Improved Navy Lighterage System can support the ship to shore logistics mission, while cutting the MLP program will result in an acquisition savings of $1.5 billion and total lifetime ownership cost of up to $6 billion.

Now it’s time for our readers to weigh in and give the thousands of others who read this blog, including many defense policy makers, their ideas. In the comments below, posters are invited to briefly identify which defense program, unit, mission, personnel specialty, etc. should be shed and why. If known, post the approximate amount of money that would be saved in cutting this particular budget item. Other readers should show their support to these ideas by “liking” the posted idea. In a few days, I’ll summarize the top rated recommended cuts, giving credit to the initial posters. Yes, this methodology is as scientific as Dancing With the Stars, but the results should also be interesting. Have at it.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Opportunity vs Catastrophe

To abuse a pun.... quite Frankly, Hoffman is making a lot of sense to me.

Only in Washington, D.C., could some of the cuts that are being contemplated — less than one percent between 2011 and 2012 — be called an “age of austerity,” said Frank G. Hoffman, director of the National Defense University Press.

Outside the Beltway, where people are living with 14 percent unemployment, this alarmist rhetoric would be laughable, he said. The facts are the facts, he added. “We are outspending the rest of the world on defense. We are outspending any combination of rivals by a factor of three. … We don’t need to spend more than we spent during the Cold War. I don’t see those threats out there,” he said. “We have to be honest about that.”

Even the worst-case scenario, which would call for defense budget reductions of 8-10 percent over the next decade, would be reasonable, he said. That is only half of what was trimmed in previous post-war military builddowns, he said.

While national security is a sacrosanct concern, it cannot be denied that it is contributing to the rising debt, Hoffman noted. “We borrow $200 billion a year for defense,” he said. “The idea that defense is immaterial to the deficit is something we have to be honest about. … Two trillion of our debt went into defense,” he said. “We are not in a crisis, we are not in an age of austerity.” What the nation is presented with is a “wonderful opportunity for strategic readjustment.”

Ok that pun was pretty horrible, but Frank can set me straight in person.

As I've been watching the defense budget battle unfold since early August, I note two distinct groups. There are those who see reduction in defense spending as an impending catastrophe, and those who see reduction in defense spending as an opportunity. That distinction is important, because I tend to find those who see an impending catastrophe have little or nothing to contribute to the strategic readjustment conversation, and those who see reduction in defense as an opportunity are almost entirely focused on the strategic readjustment part of the discussion. The impending catastrophe group is currently getting the most headlines, but the opportunity crowd is currently providing the more intelligent contributions worth consideration.

The impending catastrophe crowd producing scare material concerns me. For example, I have serious concerns regarding the House Armed Services Committee's recent reports on defense spending. When all they focus on is the impending catastrophe of cutting defense spending, the HASC gives the impression that are either ignoring or oblivious to the opportunities that are unique to their term at this time and place of their career now. Our leaders are theoretically elected to embrace opportunity when it is available, not ignore it.

Making difficult, important decisions that really matter and really makes a difference - that's hard work. I'm honestly skeptical if Congress is capable of that kind of hard work.

Jobs + Jobs - Jobs + Jobs - Jobs = Jobs - Jobs or Jobs + Jobs, Maybe

Loren Thompson is making sense with this.

An especially troubling aspect of the present situation is that the cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act to reduce deficits could grow bigger if the president’s jobs bill passes, because the special committee would need to find additional savings to cover the price-tag for its package of tax changes and targeted spending. So in the current environment where legislators are trying to cut deficits and stimulate the economy at the same time, the government could end up destroying many thousands of good jobs to create lots of not-so-good jobs in areas like construction. What kind of a tradeoff is that?

He goes on.

So let’s do the math. The number of jobs created by defense spending varies depending on the nature of the activity and how much each job pays, but it’s a safe bet that at least one direct job is created for every $200,000 in spending. Thus, the $100 billion in annual military spending cuts that might be spawned by deficit-control legislation potentially accounts for 500,000 direct jobs. But that’s just the beginning, because numerous additional jobs are created in retail, construction, education and other pursuits as defense workers spend their income. Analysts argue endlessly about what this economic multiplier effect might be, however a very conservative guess would be that each direct job leads to the creation of at least one indirect job (the real number is probably over twice that). So even a restrained analysis suggests that $100 billion in defense cuts will wipe out a million jobs.

This finding corresponds loosely with the fact that the U.S. gross domestic product of $15 trillion currently sustains about 140 million jobs. But you can find plenty of research outside the defense sector supporting the notion that each job resulting directly from government spending produces additional indirect employment. For instance, an analysis by Reid Cherlin in the September 11 issue of New York magazine estimated that if the Federal Highway Administration spent a billion dollars on repaving roads, that would create 9,536 construction jobs, 4,324 jobs in supporting industries, and 13,962 “induced” jobs — meaning jobs unrelated to the roadwork that nonetheless were made possible by the spending of people engaged in it. In other words, roughly half of the jobs created were indirect, a result of the economic multiplier effect from federal spending.

Since defense workers in both the public and private sectors usually make more money than people employed in the construction trades, their spending probably has a stronger impact on the rest of the economy. That is especially true of those engaged in developing and producing military technology, since U.S. combat systems are high-tech products that contribute positively to the balance of trade (America is the largest exporter of weapons in the world). As I noted in a recent commentary for Forbes, it appears the military accounts for over a tenth of all domestic manufacturing.

Loren Thompson doesn't suggest it, but defense advocates on Capitol Hill would be very wise to have the CBO score the impact of defense cuts to the job market. If the President's priority is truly jobs as he claims, then cutting defense is counterproductive towards that objective. I tend to think the better reason for cutting defense is as part of the solution to solving the national debt crisis and cutting government spending across the board, and not a jobs issue, but because the Budget Control Act of 2011 doesn't actually cut government spending (rather it pays for government spending at current levels of debt) - I don't see how defense budget cuts are really solving any of the economic problems the nation is facing right now, nor how the absence of a foreign policy discussion by the Obama administration is going to miraculously create a viable strategy in the DoD for the 21st century.

I will add this... the economic modifier for shipbuilding scores higher than most manufacturing industries in the US today. The reason is simple - most of the supply chain for shipbuilding is in the United States, while much of the supply chain for aircraft and automobiles is not, and that detail is often ignored when discussing economic modifiers for various manufacturing sectors. This is particularly true of automobiles where the direct economic spending impacts are high, but that high direct spending ends up overseas for parts.

Shipbuilding is always a good government investment when it comes to jobs, which is why I strongly believe the Obama administration really screwed up their stimulus spending choices. They should have invested in shipbuilding, starting with heavy investments early on with the US Coast Guard (Icebreakers and Cutters) and building up towards bigger investments in the Navy - specifically T-AKEs and Virginia class submarines, although LPD-17s would be useful and the MSC ships that made up the Sea Base would have been optimal from an economic stimulus point of view. What a fantastic failure of a missed opportunity considering that government spending would have contributed more to GDP and had far greater direct/indirect/induced spending impacts towards positive economic activity than the low-wage earning projects favored instead.

I for one would be very interested to see how the CBO scores the job loss of the $350 billion in defense cuts already made vs the job creation found in the Presidents $447 billion job plan, but I also hope the CBO looks at impacts of additional defense cuts including the Budget Control Act of 2011 automatic trigger cuts. Defense spending jobs typically mean higher wages but also favor higher education. Are we really about to replace those with lots of low wage earning jobs that require little education and call it progress? What are the probable comparative impacts on tax revenue when we trade lots of high income skilled labor jobs for a higher number of low income non-skilled labor jobs? It's a rhetorical question, unless you're CBO, but I think we all know the answer...

Something tells me the damage to jobs due to defense cuts is going to be a lot higher than people realize, and spell very bad news for the economy next year. Note to future political leaders, cut defense in the first year, not the last year, of your elected term - because it's about to suck being an incumbent.

On Defense Spending and Budget Cuts

I am waiting until after the Senate finishes their work and the President signs the dotted line before I go into the topic in detail, but until then I fully endorse this post by Andrew Exum.

The Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy

Matt Duss and I diavlogged about the Arab Spring, overweight Presidents, and Osama Bin Laden's porn. I also found the opportunity to tell a maritime-oriented appropriations story...

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.

USCG to DoD?

My Senator has a proposal:

Freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggests trimming $500 billion from the federal budget this year (Fiscal Year 2011). Among the new senator's suggestions for getting the numbers down is to cut the DHS budget by 43%, according to a watchdog group, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Paul proposes moving the Coast Guard - an armed, uniformed service - into DOD with all the other armed services. The Coast Guard would take its funding along with it to the Defense Department.

A summary explaining Paul's bill, which is labeled the “Cut Federal Spending Act of 2011,” states that the transfer from DHS “'will promote uniformity, administrative savings, and reduce duplicative functions.”

Is there any sense to this? I suspect that there might be some savings, but I can't imagine it would be all that large. Moreover, the act of shifting the USCG to DoD would probably incur a substantial one year cost, which wouldn't matter so much except that this is a plan to cut $500 billion in a year.

And another problem:

The way Paul and his advisers see it, the Coast Guard is practically a part of the DOD already because by law it operates under the authority of the Navy in time of war or when the president so directs. Coast Guard units are currently working with the Navy in the waters off Iraq as well as in anti-piracy operations near the Horn of Africa.

But Paul's folks seem to have forgotten, or ignored, the fact that the Coast Guard also has civilian law enforcement authority and is the only armed service exempt from the restrictions of the 1878 Posse Comitatus law that bars federal troops from enforcing civilian laws on U.S. soil (except in very limited situations like armed insurrection.)

Because of that law enforcement exemption, the Coast Guard's mission has been repeatedly expanded - especially since 9/11 - to include drug and illegal migrant interdiction, port security, vessel safety inspection and intruder interdiction in the airspace over Washington, D.C.

Coast Guard advocates also note the entire Coast Guard is never made a part of the Navy in wartime, just designated units, vessels and personnel. While Paul's plan to move the Coast Guard is considered highly unlikely to pass, it does raise the question of what would happen to the Coast Guard's role as the enforcer of U.S. maritime safety and security laws if it became just another one of the armed services.

The Posse Comitatus objection is legitimate, but surmountable through legislative action. I suspect that any modification that might weaken Posse Comitatus would worry Senator Paul, however. On the final point I'm not sure I understand the objection; the USCG is not a non-governmental organization, and doesn't belong to the UN. Why it should matter whether the USCG is part of DoD or DHS while enforcing US maritime safety and security laws isn't 100% clear to me.

Grafting and the Defense Industry

In my latest WPR column, I try to think through specifically who (if anyone) gets hurt by the migration of retired generals and admirals into the defense industry:

For a variety of reasons, traditional defense suppliers have huge advantages over newcomers, even when the technologies in question are non-traditional, because they already have an understanding of DOD requirements and a feel for the DOD procurement process — and because they employ many, many retired members of the armed forces. New suppliers lack these advantages, even when they have a superior or more-innovative product, and as a result have a hard time breaking into the defense business. This limits innovation to the small number of traditional defense suppliers, which in turn limits potential competition for even those products that civilian firms could theoretically supply.

The increasing number of senior military officers who have taken jobs in private-sector defense firms exacerbates this problem.

More of This

I think this is a very important conversation. Not everyone here is the intended audience, but it is a conversation that if it goes anywhere - and it should - would impact the audience here a great deal.

Defense cuts are coming, and the American public needs to get more informed on what that means and become better informed regarding not only the choices that need to be made, but why they need to be made. If the people aren't continuously educating themselves on military affairs - particularly in a post Afghanistan and Iraq war period, the defense industry will be the only voice Congress hears.

I see Rob's discussion as an important step in that process.

Parochial Interest

I am less convinced than Brian that the ascension of the Tea Party will lead to defense spending cuts:

However, hopes for a less-hawkish Republican congressional caucus probably won't come to fruition, for two reasons. First, budgetary concerns almost always fall victim to parochial interest. New GOP representatives will likely defend Defense Department and military industrial investment in their own districts at the expense of larger concerns about the budget deficit. The U.S. defense industry has carefully configured itself in order to maximize its congressional influence, by spreading contracts, facilities, and programs across as many states and districts as possible in order to vest interests for senators and representatives. Legislators rarely vote to kill projects that bring jobs and money to their districts, and Tea Party Republicans will feel this pressure just as much as any other elected official.

Second, the increasing prominence of a network of conservative think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, has restructured Republican politics. Since the 1970s, these institutions, which lean very heavily in favor of an interventionist posture, have effectively sidelined the "realist" and "isolationist" factions of the Republican Party. With impressive media operations and tight connections with the GOP congressional caucus, they can provide ready-made talking points for newly elected officials, while helping to rein in wayward politicians by restricting media attention and campaign funding. This framework provides crucial socialization for representatives who have not previously thought very long or very hard about foreign policy issues. It also provides a rote party line for those with little interest in establishing foreign policy expertise, or assembling a good foreign policy staff team. If newly elected officials rely on the expertise that these institutions can provide, they will likely begin to view the world in similarly hawkish terms, regardless of their positions on domestic issues.

The GOP and the Defense Budget

I've been writing and talking recently about my sense that a GOP House will move to cut the defense budget, in order to spur even deeper domestic and entitlement cuts.  Such talk hasn't gained much traction, as there seems to be a sense that the Republican Caucus is somehow reflexively pro-bigger defense budgets.

The fly in that ointment is the Tea Party, and while I've yet to make a full assessment of their likely impact on matters political, I don't find them to be particularly "big defense budget" oriented.  Linking to a story on Rand Paul is always likely to bring out passion from both sides, but I do so merely to illustrate a force that will have to be reckoned with in the coming legislative season.  I stand by my prediction.  We will see a REAL decline in defense spending, and we will see it REAL soon.

As always, my concern isn't that we cut the budget--it is that we are likely to cut it without recourse to strategy.

Bryan McGrath