Question of the Week February 27 - March 3, 2024

Each week Information Dissemination will present a Question of the Week for professional consideration and discussion. The question will remain at the top of the blog from Monday at 12:00am until Friday 5:00pm. Please scroll down for new contributions. This weeks question:

How should reduced manning concepts on ships and the move to unmanned aviation platforms impact graduating classes of USNA that currently graduate 1,200 students to fill pilot/NFO billets that will be directly impacted by reduced manning concepts being deployed to the fleet?

The Hollow Force is Here

Navy leadership needs to be very blunt and very honest about how this happens.

Over the past six months, the service has instituted measures to address gaps in critical positions, offering cash and other perks to compel sailors to head back out to sea. While those measures are still taking hold, Navy officials said last week that more must be done to address the at-sea manning issue -- including involuntary measures -- as nearly one-third of its total enlisted ratings are currently unfilled.

As a result, existing programs are being expanded and new measures implemented to ensure these billets are staffed properly, according to a Navy news release.

“As our Navy is in ever-increasing demand around the world, filling these gap billets at sea has become more critical,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Scott Van Buskirk said in the release. “These actions should reduce the short-notice actions to man high-priority billets, such as cross-decking and diverts.”

The Navy is separating nearly 3,000 midcareer sailors this year in 31 other fields that are overmanned.

This is data specific to the hollowing of the force. It isn't the cost of building ships that is shrinking the fleet, it is the cost of manning ships that is shrinking the Navy. Those costs aren't coming down, and the fiscal environment for the Navy isn't getting better anytime soon. In my opinion the Navy needs to be very transparent on this issue.

In the end, hollowing the force is not necessarily the worst option, and can be done selectively as the Navy gets over small hurdles. The problem is that without more transparency from the Navy, we have no idea what size the hurdle is, and whether the measures being taken are to simply stop the bleeding or fix the problem.

More likely, the measures Vice Adm. Scott Van Buskirk has put into action are simply intended to stop the bleeding, because the sense I get talking to folks in those units and on those ships with serious manpower shortages is that the problem isn't going to be solved quickly.

LockMart LCS Gets more Billets

Everyone knows the Littoral Combat Ship needs more people. I think the question has always been how many people would the Navy add? The answer to that question for the Lockheed Martin version of the LCS is being answered.

Twenty additional berths will be permanently installed onboard Freedom — two for officers, two for chief petty officers and 16 for other enlisted — but the final manning plan has yet to be decided, Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, the director of surface warfare, said during a June 26 interview at the Pentagon. The ship right now has a core crew of 40, but because there is no manning plan, it’s still unclear how many sailors will be added to the crews.

The added billets “will run the gamut, from support to engineering to operations to boatswain’s mates,” Rowden said. “We’ve got to get the right skill set and the right seniority.”

Among the known manning deficiencies is the need for more junior sailors, Rowden said. LCS crews tend to be more senior, reflecting the need for sailors with multiple qualifications in a small ship.

Sailors also could be added to the mine warfare mission module, he said, in addition to the core crew.

20 is a lot, more than I would have thought. The LCS has several technologies that were supposed to reduce the core crew significantly. While one part of the story is that the Navy is adding billets, the other part of that story is finding out why technology was so ineffective in replacing billets? I think it is an important question, because it is the question that informs next time the Navy tries to do that to a warship - which will be next time the Navy designs a warship.

How does a 50% increase in billets impact the total cost-of-ownership for the Littoral Combat Ship? Manpower is consistently cited as the highest cost in the Navy. This addition of billets on half the total planned Littoral Combat Ship purchase will raise cost-of-ownership for the entire class significantly, and because a similar increase is possible on the Austal variant, another increase is coming.

I see this as the first of many, many changes to the Littoral Combat Ship program coming. My sense is these changes will require a bit of a redesign in the future ships of the class, and I do have questions where that will come from. You just added 50% more crew, did the ship just increase galley stores 50% as well or will the duration of galley supplies simply go 50% shorter than yesterday. Big changes typically have broad impacts across a ship, and while this is almost certainly a necessary change, it isn't a simple one and it will carry previously undisclosed costs.

Optimal Manning Still Lives

I think everyone will remember this Navy Times article which at the time, was celebrated as great news.

The surface Navy’s optimal manning experiment is over, the Navy’s No. 2 officer declared in a speech before the Surface Navy Association’s national symposium on Tuesday.

“We’re going to effectively migrate, reconstitute in a way, the surface fleet afloat,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told the audience of about 200 contractors, sailors and officers. “We’ve just taken too much risk in things like optimal manning and others and that’s pretty well documented.”

Greenert’s comments come less than a week after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Navy plans to return 6,000 personnel to sea and operational support jobs. This largely followed the Balisle report, a panel of senior active and retired officers that recommended adding 6,500 billets back to ships and maintenance facilities.

I went back and looked at the video of ADM Jonathan Greenert's presentation put up by Surface Navy Association and I did not find where he said this, so maybe it was in a different speech?

What we are learning is that there is some fine print, because while the Fleet Review Panel did recommend adding 6,500 billets back to ships, the number 6,000 that is quoted in the article is misleading. The actual number of billets returning to the fleet is only 2,200, while the rest of the 6,000 mentioned in the article will be for ships in the FYDP. In San Diego, Bob Work used the numbers 2,200 for fleet reconstitution billets and 3,900 for the FYDP billets.

That graph in this post is from the Balisle Report to illustrate the number of billets that have been reduced as a result of the optimal manning experiment, and it breaks down billets by ship type and configuration. If you do the math, you'll find that the 2,200 billets returning to the fleet are not even enough to replace the total billets lost in just the Arleigh Burke class - never mind the rest of the fleet.

It is not accurate to say that the optimal manning experiment is over, as the Navy Times article implies based on comments sourced to ADM Greenert, what is accurate to say is that the use of the phrase "optimal manning" is over.

2,200 billets returned to the fleet / 6500 billets recommended by the Balisle Report suggests that the Balisle Report resulted in a ~33% increase in fleet maintenance billets. While I am sure that will have a positive impact on the maintenance of the fleet, I think it also suggests it is way too early for the Navy to suggest they have solved addressed the maintenance challenges the Balisle Report revealed.

Only time will tell.

Surface Navy Association - Day One News

There are a couple of news items that have come from Day 1 of the Surface Navy Association conference worth mentioning. The first is fantastic news from the Navy Times.

The surface Navy’s optimal manning experiment is over, the Navy’s No. 2 officer declared in a speech before the Surface Navy Association’s national symposium on Tuesday.

“We’re going to effectively migrate, reconstitute in a way, the surface fleet afloat,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told the audience of about 200 contractors, sailors and officers. “We’ve just taken too much risk in things like optimal manning and others and that’s pretty well documented.”

...

“We’ve got to sustain the fleet. We’ve had a decade of higher op tempo than we anticipated and we planned for and that has taken its toll. We have got to get to the expected service life of our units.”

Now we know what it meant when Gates said he was shifting 6000 billets back to sea and maintenance duty. This is the first major policy change we have seen publicly as a result from the Balisle Report. Is there anyone, anywhere, who would suggest this is a bad thing? There is certainly a cost involved, but given the cost of maintenance to ships that fall into disrepair without proper crew sizes for upkeep, I'm thinking the overall costs become a wash in the long run.

The second news item is the announcement by Rear Admiral Pandolfe regarding a replacement for NLOS. As mentioned back during LCS selection, the Navy has been evaluating a replacement for NLOS for several months, and has finally found one. This was first reported by Sam LaGrone of Janes, but DoD Buzz also has an article.

The U.S. Navy is moving towards selecting Raytheon’s Griffin missile as the replacement for the cancelled Non-Line of Sight missile on its Littoral Combat Ships, according to the director of the service’s surface warfare division.

After evaluating its options for replacing one of the key parts of the LCS’ surface warfare mission systems for six months, the surface warfare division settled on the Griffin due to the fact that it can hit targets at acceptable ranges for less money than the NLOS system, said Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe today during a speech at a Surface Navy Association convention in Arlington, Va.

The Griffin — with its launchers pictured above mounted on a Humvee — will also be cheaper to install on the LCS than the larger NLOS system, according to Pandolfe.

The Griffin missile uses parts of the Javelin anti-tank and AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and was originally designed as a replacement for the Hellfire for Reaper UAVs. The Griffin has a 13 pound warhead and semi-active laser seeker. As an missile system evolved from existing weapon systems, it probably will cost a lot less. Too bad it will need to be integrated into two combat systems, but that's part of the gig at this point.

Thoughts on SNA

Sam LaGrone mentioned that the "SNA staff that was upset" that he posted to Twitter the news of the Griffin revealed by Rear Admiral Pandolfe at SNA. I think that is ironic in context. According to the Surface Navy Association, the purpose of the SNA is:

• To promote recognition of the role of the Navy and Surface Forces in United States' security.
• To recognize and publicize professional excellence in Surface Naval Forces.
• To deal with the challenges in the role of Naval Forces in national security.
• To promote liaison and communication among military, academic and business communities.
• To foster and preserve the heritage of the Surface Naval Forces in the United States Navy.
• To provide forums on professional matters affecting Surface Naval Forces and the United States Navy.

You mean to tell me that on the same day ADM Mullen is noting the difficulty of communicating with the American people, warning of the dangers of the military-civilian divide, the SNA staff is complaining because a reporter is discussing news about the Navy, and surface warfare related topics specifically, to a broad external audience through Twitter? Give the SNA website a look tonight and you will find exactly zero - nothing - regarding the days events of the conference.

Well done SNA, you effectively perpetuate the perception of the military-industrial complex by insuring that the communication network SNA is focused on is military and industrial, and has no bandwidth with the American people. Perhaps a casual review of the first paragraph here might suggest more thought towards why communications are warranted.

You know how many news items promoted the Navy as a result of the SNA conference today? According to Google - there were two articles written (both linked above) and two press releases by companies there (here and here). I don't know what the communications strategy is for communicating the priorities of the Surface fleet are, but the board of directors might as well be signaling the American people with flags in their promotion of Navy surface forces.

You know what we learned today? That VADM Derwood C. Curtis, USN, FLTCM (AW/NAC) Mike Stevens, USN, and MCPOCG Michael P. Leavitt, USCG gave keynote addresses and apparently no one found what they said very interesting, because no one who was in the room mentioned their speech even in passing online. Put another way, in the digital communication age, absent a late entry by a reporter or a random review of the SNA website at some later date to see a video, the only way the content of what those folks says reaches a broader audience is through word of mouth.

Since the SNA Conference appears to be run by folks more comfortable in the telegraph era of communications, perhaps the Navy can make use of their available tools to get the word out regarding what is said by the Navy at SNA. Just a suggestion. In all honesty, if ADM Mullen thinks the civilian-military divide is a legitimate problem, and I agree with him it is, it takes almost no brainpower to highlight opportunities for communications the DoD fails to take advantage of all the time. I find it interesting how the Navy sends a lot of Flag clout to talk at these high dollar conferences where information is solely disseminated to broader audiences through external press channels, and at the same time the Navy can't figure out why Americans don't understand the Navy?

Probably the same reason three active duty officers post on a blog (here, here, and here) to an average internet audience of 14.3k individual readers on a navy inside baseball issue, but CLIPS doesn't even run the articles. I must be the fool on the issue. Maybe I am missing something. Everyone says SNA is a really big deal. These news items are clearly big news items for discussion. But if SNA is really such a big deal, why does it generate so little buzz?

Maybe I am the fool on the issue, but I don't think so. Later this month I'll be in San Diego at AFCEA/USNI West, and the amount of buzz that got generated from that conference last year was incredible. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? How many people does that riddle apply to today from SNA? Since virtually every speaker at the conference works for the taxpayer, it is more than a legitimate question.

Break Out the Scissors

Navy Times is reporting that the next round of cuts to the Navy may be coming to a Flag near you.

Since 2003, the Navy’s active-duty end strength has dropped from about 380,000 to about 330,000, a reduction of about 15 percent. And yet, the size of the admiralty has grown from 271 in 2001 to 275 last year, according to the U.S. Naval Institute, which maintains a running tally.

Now, Gates and others may be setting their sights on flag officers. Two wars and tightening defense budgets have prompted the Pentagon to look at trimming the ranks of flag officers and other high-level officials as a way to save money.

“How many of our headquarters and secretariats are primarily in the business of reporting to or supervising other headquarters and secretariats, as opposed to overseeing activity related to real-world needs and missions?” Gates said May 8 at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kan.

Time to break out the hard copy of your May 2010 Proceedings and scratch a few X's with the magic marker I suppose.

If there is a 10% cut that would drop the number of Admirals to 248. A 25% cut would drop the number of Admirals to around 207. The Navy Times article mentions so financial figures, so lets borrow them:

Admirals are not cheap. The Navy estimates that each admiral costs about $230,000 each year in salary and benefits.

Lets presume for a minute that the Navy cuts 25% of the Flag Officer ranks and 10 staff positions for each Flag officer, and the average cost of a staff billet is $120,000. That means 69 Flag officers and 690 staff billets. The savings come to about $98,670,000.

Would such a move pay for itself, or cost the Navy ~$100 million somewhere else? Would that ~$100 million represent efficiency or lost productivity? I see this approach similar to how I see all calls in government to cut manpower - a shot in the dark. This isn't about reform and SECDEF doesn't seem concerned with the ramifications of the changes he is making, so the impression is that cutting Flag officers is a way to give the perception that the DoD is doing something to cut costs.

The July 28 House Hearing

The House Armed Services Committee hearing back on July 28th was quite interesting - at least to nerds like me. If you haven't seen it, the webcast is available on the HASC website. The hearing on surface fleet readiness was prompted by the Balisle Report.

I've had about 5 weeks to think about the Balisle Report, and the only thing I know for sure 5 weeks later is that I have more questions now than I did after I read the report. I find it interesting that ADM Harvey was who pushed for the independent review with ADM Willard, and then had retired VADM Balisle lead the Fleet Review Panel.

What is interesting to me is that the report is ultimately critical regarding many failures of leadership over a span of nearly 2 decades until today - which if you think about it, means that ADM Harvey had VADM Balisle (ret) lead a team to issue a report that was critical of the job performance of VADM Balisle (ret) and ADM Harvey - because among many others, those two are among the leaders responsible during the period where problems occurred.

Was the ultimate purpose of the report to clarify and justify changes to fleet readiness that ADM Harvey knew needed to be made? Was the intended function of the report to ultimately help produce the evidence necessary to make those changes? The answer is probably - YES, which is noteworthy because it highlights the level of effort necessary (efforts which includes producing a report that intentionally casts doubt on ones own ability to properly do a job) just to properly fund an obviously broken maintenance system in the Navy today.

When was the last time a 4 star in our military pushed for an independent report that was directly critical of the job performance of the 4 star who pushed for the report? Just a small detail, but since the report basically calls into question the job performance of those who have served as head of Fleet Forces Command - what was the CNOs last job before he became CNO? I understand he wasn't there but for a few months, but at what point do the excuses end and does taking ownership of problems begin? The Balisle Report doesn't really build confidence in the Navy when you think about who those leaders were who dropping the ball. Just saying...

Ownership though is what distinguished ADM Harvey in the hearing - because he took ownership of the problem. When you account for the style of ADM Harvey - which I have noted over the last few years is one of a leader who leads from the front - the final result of the hearing is that ADM Harvey spent July 28th throwing his name in the hat for the next CNO. It is never too early - because the big change is only 13 months away. ADM Harvey made a really good impression with the HASC - something I think is clearly obvious in the webcast.

Something else I found really interesting about the hearing is how no actual specific information was revealed in discussion regarding what the Navy is specifically doing to solve the fleet readiness problems. Don't get me wrong - there is clearly work being done - but no details of that work was mentioned. Part of me sees this as a problem - because whatever the Navy is going to do about the conclusions of the Balisle Report, they certainly didn't tell anyone what that would be. However, another part of me noted a sharp change in the way VADM Burke, VADM McCoy, and ADM Harvey talked about the manpower, training, and maintenance topics surrounding surface fleet readiness...

They spoke with an authority of being results oriented. It is the distinguishing difference between the usual generic speak of Navy leaders giving Congressional testimony and the tone established during this hearing. The blunt speak - despite being absent detailed substance - was different and exceeded my own expectations of the hearing. I'm used to Navy leadership saying nothing in long hearings, but I'm not used to hearing Navy leaders talk about accomplishing goals (at least in a believable way). Seriously - go watch more hearings if you dispute that very fair and accurate characterization of Navy leaders testifying in front of Congress.

In all - including about an hour and a half of testimony - we only learn one specific change taking place regarding the fleet readiness issue. Buried, and I mean six feet deep within the submitted written statement (PDF) and never once mentioned during the hearing itself is this not so trivial organizational change:

Clear lines of authority and accountability for ship man, train, equip and maintain issues. Specific corrective actions include establishing clear and unambiguous Type Commander accountability for ship man, train, equip and maintain issues and standing down CLASSRONs and transfering manpower/functions to a "Readiness ISIC", Afloat Training Group and Type Commander as appropriate.

Wait... what!?! So let me get this straight... For no obvious or stated reason, the Navy is going to stand down CLASSRONS - even though we have spent over half the 21st century to date standing them up? Yep... and that was basically the only specific detail of change learned from the entire hearing.

I guess I'm the only person who read this fairly major organizational change in the report and thought to myself such a change certainly deserves a bit of explanation, but it would appear nobody in the House Armed Services Committee caught this rather enormous rearrangement of the deck chairs. The hearing spends a great deal of time discussing the Littoral Combat Ship - but in paragraph 1 on page 4/4 of the written statement - LCSRON just got tossed overboard with the trash.

WTF?

Random Musings on Surface Ship Manning

Surface ship manning has been somewhat of a hot-button issue lately. In the past decade, we've seen various manning experiments including the CPO as divos program, "optimally" manned DDGs, and the current rumint about a proposal to man USN amphibs with MSC personnel. It's also interesting to see the Coast Guard's view of manning. The National Security Cutter (NSC) is key to reconstituting the USCG's fleet and the third NSC, CGC STRATTON (WMSL 752), will be christened this Friday inPascagoula, MS. The 418' long NSC has 148 racks in 2-8 man staterooms for 127 or so core crew.

Today's (and tomorrow's) IW operations require ships to be adaptable and one of the best ways to achieve adaptability is by embarking different detachments for different missions. A by product of manning cuts on the DDGs and amphibious ships deploying without Marines in the past few years has been the flexibility to embark extra staffs, special ops forces, UAS detachments, etc. I think one of LCS's biggest designdrawbacks is not necessarily her small crew, but her inability to embark a significant number of additional personnel (outside the planned mission modules). JHSV should not have this problem and will be better suited for IW operations in many ways because of this design factor. Crew size certainly is a factor in mission effectiveness, not just in damage control, but measuring this impact is not an exact science.

Is there an apples to apples way to compare crew sizes on various surface combatants? Tonnage/Sailor is an imperfect ratio, but for the lack of anything better, here are some random comparisons: A WMSL is 4,300 tons with a crew size of 148 (including embarked air det) equaling 29 tons per Sailor. The NSC is designed for maritime homeland security, law enforcement and national defense missions. Contrast this ship with the similarly crewed (about 145) forthcoming DDG-1000 Zumwalt class, which is designed to perform the traditional DDG high end combatant missions of BMD, AAW, ASW, strike, NSFS, etc. At 15,000 tons, she rates at 103 tons per Sailor. An optimally manned Burke DDG (9200 tons/260 Sailors) is about 35 tons/Sailor. LCS 2 would be 37 tons/Sailor. And a WWII Fletcher Class destroyer would have a ratio of only 7 tons per Sailor. Some of the largest ships in the world -- VLCCs, run with only thirty or so crew compared to their USN multi-thousand crew CVN counter-parts, but of course the missions and propulsion of these vessels are extremely different.

Maybe "Sailors per mission" would be a better metric for comparing multi-mission combatant crewing. If it hasn't already been done, an enterprising NPS student could breakout the ROC/POEs for several ship types (including international) and do comparative study of crew sizes for his thesis.

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 the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

The Balisle Report

The Balisle report is starting to gain traction with the latest reporting in the press. What has been reported in the press already is only a sample of the blunt nature of the report regarding all the issues surrounding Surface Force Readiness. This report is serious and all business, and I mean it when I say the language is blunt and direct. I also find the quality of the report to be very high - rich in detail, and with a quality of depth to many issues.

I currently have no intention to release my copy of this report to the public, although I have to admit that the casual dismissal as a response to the report as reported in Phil Ewing's first news article about the report has me thinking I should just print the whole thing in small pieces on the blog (or the USNI blog actually). The impression that the contents of this report can be casually or flippantly addressed by the Navy kind of ticked me off as a taxpayer. The contents are entirely too serious for such a response.

I'll add to the discussion of the Balisle Report started by Phil Ewing in his press reports to date by quoting from the Financials section which, in theory, should hold some value for our Congressional readers.

Observations/Findings. Surface ship maintenance has been significantly underfunded for over ten years. This is manifesting itself in the degraded material condition of the ships as reflected in recent INSURV reports, corrosion audits, and CASREP data. The decision to transition to condition based maintenance from an engineered operating cycle maintenance resulted in the reduction of over 500 man days per month of depot level maintenance from DDG 51 class ships alone and a corresponding reduction in programmed operations and maintenance dollars for ship depot level maintenance.

While the difference was intended to be compensated by an increase in funding and opportunities for continuous maintenance availabilities throughout the year, that never translated into reality. A clear indicator of the fallout of the lack of funding is the steady increase in TA-4 (ship force capable) level work.

It may legitimately be said that insufficient funding applied over recent years has not been the result of an unwillingness to fund to the requirement as much as the result of not having a properly identified requirement.

For example, as programmed, it may appear that overall ship maintenance is funded at 95-99%. In reality, since we don't know the true maintenance requirement for conventional surface ships (the "denominator"), it is reasonable to assume that our surface ships receive a lower percentage for maintenance funding when compared to a true requirement. Currently as maintenance dollars are allocated by the Fleets, public shipyards (where the majority of CVN and submarine work is performed) are funded at levels between 97-100%. That leaves the balance of the maintenance funding left to be allocated to conventional surface ship maintenance. Currently one of only two items in the CNO's Unfunded Requirement list to Congress is $200M for ship maintenance.

The end result is the surface navy is funded below their identified requirement at the start of the year with the goal of making up the balance as money becomes available during the execution year. This unstable funding environment almost exclusively impacts the private shipyards, where most of the non-nuclear ship maintenance is performed, and results in higher work rates aas jobs get screened into the availability package laer due to uncertainty of funding commitments. The end result is an understanding requirement that has been underfunded in the budgeting process that is frequently going to cost more in actual execution because of an unpredictable funding stream, in other words, a low return for maintenance dollar invested. To further impact material readiness, the surface Type Commander frequently has to make irrevocable mitigation decisions earlier in the fiscal year due to projected uncertain (or unfavorable) levels of funding. If a CNO availability is subsequently canceled, or de-scoped prior to a midyear money bring available, that maintenance most likely will not be made up later in the year. Alternatively, cash flowing throughout the year on the hope that more money will be available later is a tenuous business plan that can leave availabilities scheduled for the end of the fiscal year exposed and unfunded.

I was very tempted not to post or quote any part of the Balisle Report until I read the response given by the Navy to Phil Ewing in his first article. Now that I have read the report in full, this kind of answer doesn't satisfy me, as a taxpayer, none.

Capt. Cate Mueller, a spokeswoman for Fleet Forces Command, said Balisle's report didn't tell the Navy anything it didn't already know.

"Fleet leaders, based upon their own prior analysis, believed that many of the problems that the panel subsequently identified - including manning shortfalls, inadequate shipboard and shore maintenance, and insufficient training - were taking a toll on surface force readiness," she said. "In that regard, the fleet review panel confirmed, in context and in detail, what fleet leaders had suspected."

She also reaffirmed what senior Navy leaders have hinted for the past few months: They're swinging the pendulum in the other direction by looking to increase crew sizes, improve training and re-teach the fleet to maintain its ships and equipment.

If any leader wants to strut around with a position that the findings "didn't tell the Navy anything it didn't already know" then I see serious problems. I understand that some of the issues raised in the report are well known and had previously been identified - ADM Harvey himself has discussed the manpower shortfalls and insufficient training issues on several occasions, and has been direct when discussing solutions. The report is so much more than that though, and if Navy leaders already knew what the report would find - you've been intentionally covering your ass by not disclosing this information to Congress or the taxpayer. The American public deserves a better answer than a 'nothing new here to see' type of response.

The part of the Balisle Report I quoted identifies the absence of a "properly identified requirement" for maintenance funding going back over a decade - meaning that every single Admiral who is also a surface warfare officer has only known the broken system of maintenance that has existed for over the same period of time every single Flag SWO was in major Command.

This report is seriously troubling, and raises legitimate questions regarding the quality of the fleet in reality vs paper, and an even more serious question whether the US Navy is a good steward of taxpayer investment. There are so many areas to discuss that I understand why Phil Ewing is putting out a new article that only covers part of the Balisle Report every week.

If you didn't read Phil Ewing's contribution this week, take a look. That is such an enormous issue it deserves its own blog post, and absolutely should have every Congressman on the HASC demanding to get an informed and impartial brief on the Balisle Report.

I don't see how Gene Taylor avoids a hearing on the findings of this report - because it raises serious questions regarding the quality of testimony the US Navy has been giving the HASC Seapower Subcommittee over the past few years on questions related to maintenance and the quality condition of the surface fleet. The Navy has stated in testimony they are going to extend the surface fleet out to 40 years life, and yet the report makes clear that under the current maintenance condition of the past decade, ships would be lucky to make it past an average of 28 years - below the prior expected life of the ship. WTF? The report also raises serious questions regarding new maintenance concepts in development - LCS comes to mind.

The Balisle Report is too blunt, too detailed, and too revealing of serious problems to go ignored or be casually dismissed as 'something the Navy already knows.' That is an unacceptable dismissal of a rather lengthy and damning report on the status of the surface fleet with detailed analysis of numerous problems.

Best Navy Times Article Ever

Give credit to Phil Ewing, this is one hell of a phenomenal article. Throw in this Navy Times article by Andrew Tilghman and a pattern is developing.

There are several posts by VADM John Harvey over at his Fleet Forces Blog on some of the topics discussed in these articles. Presuming sailors want to be heard on the topic of optimal manning, there is a place to offer an opinion to the guy who appears to be working this problem as we speak.

An Interesting Case Study in Readiness

This article from Phil Ewing on the Insurv prep for USS San Jacinto (CG 56) is interesting. Several parts to highlight, which I'll touch one at a time.

For the Norfolk, Va.-based cruiser San Jacinto, it took the ship’s company, plus as many as 87 extra people from 16 commands working as much as three months in advance, to set the ship up for its material inspection by the Board of Inspection and Survey. A Navy message detailing those arrangements, written by the cruiser’s commander, Capt. John Cordle, made clear that without the extra help, San Jacinto would have failed.

“Bottom line: The maintenance community is not currently structured and the business practices do not currently support the large volume of work which inevitably must take place to prepare a ship for InSurv,” said the message, obtained by Navy Times. “The significant labor pool which rallied in support of SJA contributed greatly to preparations for the M.I. Without this additional manpower SJA would not have been ready for the M.I.”

This is the manpower issue.

According to Cordle’s message, cruisers today have about 44 fewer sailors than before the onset of “optimal manning.” And because San Jacinto had recently come back from a deployment, its ship’s company was even smaller, Butler said.

He didn’t have an exact number of the deficit in the ship’s crew, but generally the dip can be as many as 20 people.

"Optimal Manning" needs to focus on what is optimal to keep the material condition of ships fit to fight. If ships are not in condition to pass Inserv, then your manpower configuration is not optimal. There is a debate between shipbuilding and readiness here that deserves a lot of attention by Congress.

Senator Webb has been all over this issue lately, one can bet this Navy Times article is on his desk ready for the next hearing in the Senate. This will come up again.

The cruiser San Jacinto needed help from 16 commands throughout Naval Station Norfolk, Va., to get ready for its inspection. The commands that shared people and the number of sailors they gave, from 30 to 90 days before the inspection:

Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, 4; carrier Enterprise, 4; cruisers Leyte Gulf, 1; Monterey, 1; Vella Gulf, 2; destroyers Bulkeley, 1; Gravely, 10 people per day for 90 days; Jason Dunham, 10 people per day for two weeks; Ramage, 1; Roosevelt, 1; dock landing ship Carter Hall, 2; amphibious assault ship Nassau, 1; Cruiser Class Squadron, 3; Destroyer Class Squadron, 10 people per day for 90 days; Transient Personnel Unit Norfolk, 10 people per day for 90 days; Navy Reserve: 26 sailors for a total of 511 workdays.

It is unclear where this information reported by the Navy Times comes from, but if it is from Capt. John Cordle in his report, then that guy has earned a beer. It is basically an accounting of the mess he found himself leading up to the inspection, and a list of rabbits he pulled out of the magic hat to get his ship ready for successful inspection.

He shouldn't have been in this situation though. The Navy may have found a magic formula to stabilize shipbuilding costs for the near term, but this story reminds us that the magic formula to fix the maintenance issues is yet to be found. Clearly a bit of realism in the "optimal manning" discussion is part of the yet to be determined magic formula.

For the record, this is yet another reason why moving quickly to build a bunch of Littoral Combat Ships is a recipe for disaster. That ship class has two undermanned crews and an untested maintenance plan, or what I would call a perfect brew for a future dumpster fire.

Serious Accusations About Diversity at Annapolis

Professor Bruce Fleming is being cited over at Tom Ricks blog on the subject of diversity. It is fairly long piece with several accusations. For some background, there is also this piece on the USNI Blog that Bruce Fleming references (and another here), and a bit more here at CDR Salamanders.

I have very little to add to the discussion. I do know the Navy is very proud of its record on diversity with the incoming class at Annapolis, and I also think Professor Fleming is throwing bombs at USNI for no reason, after all, the USNI building is on the USNA campus, if he has a question about his article he could simply WALK over and ask them about it.

On the subject, I have a few thoughts. The Navy statements do not always match their actions on diversity. They will give a definition of diversity that is different than how they speak about it, and different than how policy is applied to the subject of diversity. I also know diversity policy is generally unpopular on the deckplates, and generally seen as a waste of time and money among the vast majority of younger officers I speak to, of any race/sex/etc btw. Unpopular does not necessarily mean 'waste of time' to me though...

When any organization has inconsistency between the objectives in statements and the objectives of policy, it will find problems. In general I think the Navy leadership has begun treating diversity as a tool for political triangulation, attempting to find political alignment with policy for purposes of building political goodwill as a government organization. The Navy is often cited as one of the most diverse working environments in federal government, and has independently been described as a model for the rest of federal government.

I think it is clear that Professor Fleming strongly disagrees with the diversity policy at Annapolis. He hasn't exactly stood silent on the issue. It probably doesn't help that the current Navy leadership isn't known for thick skin; they do not take criticism well. This looks like an issue worth keeping an eye on, because when any organization ignores serious allegations... it is exactly the kind of issue that can snowball politically, and take on a life of its own.

ADM Mullen on Diversity

Very interesting piece covering ADM Mullen on Diversity. It is also very timely.

I have always looked at race as a generational issue, and I believe racism is in steep decline today. There is evidence everywhere you look, particularly with the recent discussions of racism in the media as it relates to the Healthcare debate.

I note that the charges of racism recently discussed in the press appear to lack the power to influence public opinion. This is measurable progress and itself an excellent sign for race relations. If the charges of racism continue to prove ineffective in the political debates we see today, it is likely we will see the racism accusation disappear as a tactic in politics.

In politics, people often reveal the worst of themselves and become assholes - and that's OK. America is not against Healthcare in the current debate because the President is black, they are against Healthcare because they don't understand the plan, they don't have enough trust in ANYONE in government to know who to believe, and no elected official has an actual plan in hand that has built enough support to pass. That isn't racism; that is the same pattern of American politics since day 1 this country was founded.

I read the Maureen Dowd piece like everyone else, and all she did was remind us she is old and remains heavily influenced by her experiences of decades ago. In her world, a white guy from South Carolina who acts like a jackass on national TV to an African American in a position of authority translates into racism, because she herself comes from a generation that easily forms that stereotyped conclusion of race based on experience. As I read ADM Mullen, I noted he does too. Experience trains us; this is not good or bad, it can be either - sometimes both.

As a white younger American (I'm 33) with a completely different generational view, I understand their perspectives even as I cannot relate to them. My experiences are different. I grew up outside Little Rock, AR in a mostly white suburb. In 1989, the state agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit that claimed the state did too little to desegregate Little Rock area schools. One of the solutions that emerged was that white kids in the county could go to schools that had predominately black students, and black students could go to schools with predominately white students.

The dirty secret of Pulaski County was that the county schools, predominately white, were complete shit holes while the inner city schools in Little Rock that had predominately black students had better teachers, facilities, and curriculum. In High School, thanks to desegregation law, I went to a majority black inner city Little Rock school and it was absolutely the best choice I made in my teenage years. The county schools were incubators for prejudice while the inner city schools were incubators for gang activity. In hindsight, I think the gang activity was easier to manage for me as a white guy in an inner city school than the prejudice would have been for a black student bused out to a county (read country) school. I have no statistical evidence to support that opinion, but can remember plenty of anecdotal examples.

Before I moved to NY I saw racism in Arkansas society and the damage it did to people and communities, but in the workplace like what Mullen is discussing, I have never seen it since moving to New York. I have seen racism used as a political tactic in NY, but I have never seen it used legitimately as a politically tactic in NY. I have owned my own business for the last many years, and racism has never really been something I have encountered. In IT, I am generally one of very few white American males in the circles I am working in, mostly because everyone else is either female, Hispanic, African American - or part of the foreign (mostly Indian and Chinese) majority.

So when I read ADM Mullen's perspective and Maureen Dowd's perspective, I understand it but I have trouble relating. Having returned to Arkansas and met up with a bunch of my old High School classmates, I can tell you that our collective experiences and exposure to racism has nothing in common with Jim Crow or the Watts Riots.

Indeed, I often find that the folks I grew up with who attended the shit hole white county schools ended up adults who threw off any racist tendencies they may have had when they were younger. Not all though, there are still isolated pockets of hate filled rednecks, but the key point is that they are a tiny minority and are isolated primarily because their opinions are no longer acceptable or tolerated in southern society.

Watching my kids grow up in a diverse middle class community and witnessing the often baseless cry of racism in politics suggests to me that racism in America will never again influence American opinion at large like it did in my parents day. There will always be plenty of prejudice in the world, and there will always be social problems resulting from economic conditions, but I think the story of hate based on race in America is slowly coming to a conclusion, and the story ends in triumph.

Today's diversity policy in the Navy gets interesting reactions in the blogosphere. The Navy measures diversity with statistics in comparison to greater American society, and finds that as the officer’s rank gets higher, the statistics no longer match greater society. I don't know the exact reasons, only today's Flag officers were commissioned into the Navy in the 70s, with the 80s ensigns just recently making it into the Flag ranks.

If it requires ~30 years in the Navy to become a Flag officer, shouldn't the statistics measuring diversity measure against the diversity of the ensigns commissioned ~30 years ago? It seems to me that measuring an organization like the Navy against today's greater American society is akin to statistical manipulation. The statistics that measure the Navy career system, say for Rear Admirals, should measure diversity statistics of today against diversity statistics for the officers commissioned between 1975 - 1981.

That data would be more relevant I think, because if the Navy is losing a larger percentage of minority officers earlier in their career than the percentage of white officers leaving early, that could be covered up by simply promoting more minorities among a much smaller pool of eligible minorities using the statistical comparisons ADM Roughead uses. By comparing diversity statistics within the Navy to diversity statistics of America instead of diversity statistics of peer commissioning classes, we don't really get a feel for the trend lines to suggest the priority of diversity in the Navy is working or not.

The Navy has lost a lot of talented Commanders and Captains to early retirement this decade. I'd be curious to see how the statistics of officers who retired early measure in a diversity comparison with the commissioning classes of the 80s. Finally, if we knew the diversity of the commissioning classes from 1980 - 1995, this would give us a good sense of whether diversity in the Navy will resolve itself with Generation X, or whether we will have to wait for Generation Y. After all, in an organization like the Navy where one must work their way up through a system, statistical forecasting can be done and historical change can be both measured, and predictive.

I know diversity in the Navy is about more than race btw, but the ADM Mullen article is specifically about race.

The Human Side

I have to link that discussion. It is too important not to bookmark on this blog.

McCullough: Retire the Frigates

The lack of consistency in talking points is disturbing. Our collective memories can't be this short, can it?

The Navy has few small-ship options if its littoral combat ship program continues to lag behind schedule, the service’s top requirements officer said Tuesday, because the fleet’s frigates are too old or maxed-out on equipment to upgrade further.

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough told lawmakers at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee that the fleet’s Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates’ hulls were rusting and wearing thin, that the ships couldn’t bear the weight of additional weapons or sensors, and that it generally wouldn’t be worth trying to extend their lives to have them around in place of the planned LCS platforms the Navy thought it would have by now.

I might be mistaken, but wasn't there a frigate symposium in Mayport just a few weeks, or maybe a few months ago? Wasn't the topic something regarding the options to upgrade weapon systems and how to SLEP the frigates? It doesn't make much sense to me that US frigates cannot support additional weapons or sensors, but every foreign ship of the exact same ship type can.

Feel free to flame me, but I believe Vice Adm. Barry McCullough takes the longest and perhaps hardest to believe route to finally making the point that should have come first. Investing money into the frigates at this point wouldn't be "worth" it, and the value decision can't be undersold.

When operating helicopters, we are still putting over 200 people on frigates being deployed, and that ends up becoming a ship too expensive to operate for the capability being provided. Manpower costs will sink the Navy long before spending money on programs like the LCS.

The whole idea of value, highlighting a discussion of whether or not the gains outweigh the costs, is the key point in the frigate discussion. I'm not sure anything else Vice Adm. Barry McCullough said is even believable, but no one can fault the Navy for whatever decision they make on the value argument because quite honestly, it is very difficult to make the counterargument to value in a time of constricted budgets.

If you read the Navy Times article, the key point isn't really whether or not the Navy should SLEP the frigates. The key point of the article is the deteriorating material condition of the ships, including the minesweepers. It fits in with vague discussions of other platforms, suggesting a broader pattern that should be of concern to Congress.

Observing Hard Choices and Fiscal Reality in DoD Budget Discussions

Barack Obama's comments on Tuesday night regarding his strategic vision for the Department of Defense. The following is from the transcript of Obama’s Tuesday night speech.

Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules - and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.

We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.

And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism. Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away.

As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: we honor your service, we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support. To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay, and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.

To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend - because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists - because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.

In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun. For we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We cannot shun the negotiating table, nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand.

To seek progress toward a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century - from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty - we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power.

Navy Times is reporting the Obama administration is expected to announce the Pentagon's top line budget for the next 10 years will be pegged at $537 billion adjusted only for inflation. The DoD top line budget was $512.7 billion in FY2009, so the 2010 figure of the Obama administration represents a 3% increase from last year. On top of $537 billion top line DoD budget for FY2010, the Obama administration intends to seek $75.5 billion in supplemental funding to cover war costs through the rest of 2009, and the budget estimate for war costs in 2010 is $130 billion. For comparison purposes, the war costs in 2008 were $182 billion. To date, $66 billion of supplemental funding has been provided for 2009, so adding in an additional $75.5 billion makes the 2009 estimate $141.5 billion.

The question is, how do we look at these numbers. It is inaccurate to add the baseline fiscal year budget and the supplemental budgets for totals, because the fiscal year budget ends on September 30th, while the supplemental budgets run until December 31st. This makes it very difficult to determine how much the actual operational cost of war and the DoD operational cost of business is, but we can do some estimating. The supplemental funding for the war in 2008 was $182 billion. The supplemental funding for the war in 2009 is estimated to be $141.5 billion. If we take 1 quarter from 2008 we get $45.5 billion, and three quarters from 2009 gives us $106.13 billion. Add in the FY2009 budget of $512.7 billion, and the defense budget for FY 2009 is actually somewhere around $664.33 billion.

That number is very important, because it not only describes how much money it costs to run the Department of Defense, but it also accounts for the amount of money our nation must spend in order to execute the political policies tasked to the DoD. Everyone who reads this blog should already be aware that since the cold war, there has been a steady increase, not decrease of operational demands on the DoD. With the current issue of Foreign Policy describing the emerging environment as the Axis of Upheaval, with the CIA now giving intelligence briefings to the President that include global economic conditions, and with John McCain giving his latest "We can't afford to lose" speech, this time for Afghanistan; the global security environment of the incoming Obama administration looking forward appears to be at least as uncertain as the Clinton or Bush administrations when they entered office.

I for one am very happy to see Barack Obama discussing the need for tough choices, because I think the first choice to look into is whether the Bush administration policy to increase the size of the Army and Marines was a smart choice. The Bush administration plans to permanently increase the active-duty end strength of the Army by 65,000 and the Marine Corps by 27,000 troops was done in large part based on expectations that the US would continue a policy of large scale troop deployments in major land operations. According to some estimates, this increase of troop strength is expected to add about $100 billion to the cost of the DoD budget over the next six years.

A modest 3% increase in the defense budget does not seem to account for that, but Barack Obama seems intent on continuing that Bush administration policy. That suggests defense procurement costs will be cut. While there is lots of noise about the good things that could come from the Levin-McCain initiative (PDF), and I agree success in those efforts can be helpful, Barack Obama is absolutely wrong if he is talking about defense when he says "This is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what’s necessary." The fact is, if we are going to have a realistic debate on Defense costs, then both Obama and McCain (and Levin) are guilty of taking the easy road on choices because they are outright ignoring the tough challenges.

Lets go back to the 2009 defense budget and break it down.

Total budget = $664.33 billion
Base DoD budget = $512.7 billion
War Supplemental = $151.63 billion

If you break down the major categories of the base DoD budget of $512.7 billion, you see where the costs are.

Military Personnel = $124.8 billion
Procurement = $102.1 billion
Research and Development = $79.6 billion

Because funding in the war supplemental also pays for additional manpower costs, and because I lack a breakdown of that spending, I cannot calculate exactly how much manpower costs are on the total budget, only the base budget. For the base budget, manpower costs run about 25%, about 20% higher than procurement costs. According to Aviation Week, the Pentagons health care costs for manpower are up about 144% since 2001, and this is before we add 92,000 additional troops. These figures also do not include base construction costs directly associated with existing and increasing DoD manpower, and we must also assume additional equipment costs will already cut into the current procurement budget to account for additional land forces.

The cost of operations related to the wars runs around 23% of the total Pentagon budget. This figure can be described as the real cost of political policy. While this number is going to continue to come down over the long term as forces are reduced in Iraq, troop increases in Afghanistan are likely to slow any cost decreases in the short term.

It is very easy for politicians to complain about the high cost of procurement, and there is certainly cost growth in procurement that needs serious congressional oversight. However, it is inaccurate to suggest any hard choices are being made and that oversight is being applied evenly when health care costs are up 140% and the Obama administration is continuing a Bush policy of increasing the size of the total DoD force structure by 92,000 while not also increasing the budget to support those costs. Cost growth isn't unique to procurement, manpower costs related to health care, pay, and benifits is in reality adding a greater strain on the DoD budget, but the way media coverage is regarding defense costs, that fact appears to be largely missing from the discussion. It raises several questions what the strategic vision for the Pentagon is of the Obama administration, including whether or not the Obama administration actually has one yet. Did the Obama administration speech yesterday represent a well defined strategy already prepared looking to the future, or a bookmark pending a future strategic analysis?

The DoD faces enormous cost challenges, but while the procurement budget gets the bulk of the attention because it impacts the private sector, the data suggests the serious cost challenges are primarily due to the out of control growth in costs related to manpower. Where is the strategic discussion for the Department of Defense regarding Economy of Force among our political leaders? McCain and Levin are doing the right thing, but why did they make the easy choice to go after cost growth in procurement, when the hard decision was clearly to take on the challenge of cost growth in supporting the massive manpower of the military services? In the United States, Congress sets troop levels, not the President. Are the executive and representitive branches on the same page regarding manpower issues, or has there even been a discussion?

The DoD faces serious challenges in meeting the political obligations being placed on it for the common defense of our country. Not only must the DoD maintain superiority for our defense tomorrow, but as the largest and most capable political instrument of policy in dealing with international problems, the DoD ultimately finds itself providing security globally today. The Department of State, indeed the nation’s entire foreign policy apparatus can certainly take enormous strides in relieving the DoD of carrying the burden, but getting to that point will take time to develop. Let's be honest, the Bush administration both inherited and left the State Dept. a mess, continuing a pattern of degraded US diplomatic capabilities that began with the end of the cold war. It will take years to redevelop the serious diplomatic skills necessary for the 21st century. Until State can get fixed, America's public diplomacy will continue to wear combat boots.

The challenges we face with emerging global instability combined with rising great powers globally requires a clear strategy for Defense, and as Barack Obama says, tough choices. The question I have is when we will start seeing evidence that our political leaders are ready to take on the tough challenges, like the enormous increasing inflation associated with manpower costs in the DoD, as opposed to the easy choices of simply blaming the high costs associated with a shrinking industry in a country with a slowly dwindling industrial capacity. We need new, creative, and innovative ideas to accompany hard choices. I intend to discuss a few over the coming weeks, I hope others do to.

I leave you with an interesting accounting of how expensive the combination of manpower and operations has become in regards to our nations defense. Even in the worst examples of procurement inflation, nothing approaches this kind of cost growth. From Steven Kosiak of CSBA (PDF):

Estimates of the cost of conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have grown substantially and consistently over the past half-dozen years. This is true even adjusting for the changes in force levels (i.e., on a cost per troop/year basis). In September 2002, CBO estimated that—based on the costs incurred in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Desert Shield/Desert Storm—sustaining an occupation force consisting of 75,000-200,000 US troops in Iraq would cost some $19-52 billion a year. This equates to an average cost of about $250,000 per troop/year. CBO’s high-end estimate turned out to be fairly close to the mark in terms of the number of troops deployed in and around Iraq after the invasion in the spring of 2003. However, the costs per troop have turned out to be much higher than CBO anticipated based on the cost of past military operations.

In 2004, CBO released another estimate. This estimate projected the incremental cost of sustaining all US forces engaged in military operations, including not only US forces in Iraq, but those in Afghanistan and personnel assigned to Operation Noble Eagle. This new estimate equated to costs per troop/year of some $325,000. Part of the reason for this higher cost per troop/year is that CBO’s new cost estimate included some funding for classified programs, as well as support to other countries (“coalition support”). According to CBO, its new, higher estimate also resulted from a refinement and reevaluation of its methodology for estimating war costs. At the time, CBO noted that, even with these refinements, its methodology appeared to produce estimates that were some 12 percent below those that would be derived by simply extrapolating from DoD’s expected obligations from 2004 appropriations.

CBO also indicated that it was unlikely that this difference was attributable to increases in the pace of military operations (operational tempo, or OPTEMPO) caused by the worsening security situation in Iraq. It pointed out that most of the costs incurred in overseas military operations are associated with personnel, base support and other factors that are not usually correlated with OPTEMPO. Indeed, CBO noted that, based on DoD reports, costs driven by OPTEMPO appear to account for only about 10 percent of the total costs associated with the war in Iraq and other military operations.

In 2005, CBO again increased its estimate of war-related costs. This time, its estimate equated to costs per troop/year of about $450,000. However, unlike CBO’s 2004 revision of its earlier cost estimates, this change does not appear to have resulted, at least primarily, from a refinement of its methodology. The new estimate made use of a new CBO methodology to estimate the costs of equipment repair and replacement requirements. But for all military personnel and other operations and support (O&S) activities (representing the bulk of the costs associated with military operations), CBO based its estimate not on an independent “bottom-up” assessment but on a simple extrapolation of obligations data reported by DoD in 2004, adjusted to take into account inflation and changes in personnel levels.

Since 2005, CBO has revised its estimates of GWOT costs several more times. Most recently, in March 2008, figures released by CBO indicate that, over the long run, costs per troop/year would average some $775,000. This is some three times more than CBO projected in 2002, based on the cost of recent past wars, and about 70 percent more than its estimate from 2005. In this case, the estimate appears to be based primarily on an extrapolation of funding levels included in the 2008 supplemental request, adjusted for inflation and changes in force levels.

Hopefully the Obama administration takes time to invest in some creative peacemaking strategies that export security globally. Hopefully, someone in the Obama administration has the courage to make hard choices regarding DoD manpower, and tackle the challenges associated with the increases associated with manpower costs in the DoD. We need to begin discussing Economy of Force as part of our security approach to low intensity warfare challenges so we can maintain our strategic advantages over potential high intensity warfare challenges in the future.

The 8 years of George Bush resulted in 10% steady budget deficits, which means we can realistically suggest that at least 10% of the costs of war operations have been borrowed. These debts mean there is interest to pay down the road, thus making actual operational costs as a result of political policy much higher than just what we have spent to date.

This is the only war in our nations history where we have not raised taxes. The American people have largely not felt the burden associated with the costs of our national security policy in the 21st century. Something has to give. I say bring on the hard choices debate our President is calling for, but when that debate comes, I hope the American people arm themselves with good information because many politicians will take the easy road and just blame procurement. The costs of political policy and the costs of manpower are greater than the costs of procurement, have much greater long term consequences to our defense strategy, and raise the question whether we will make hard choices when it comes to defense, or simply take the easy way out and put all the blame on industry.

Additional budget resources in this post can be found here (PDF) and here (PDF).