This Week at War: Winners and Losers of the Defense Budget

Is Donald Rumsfeld still at work at the Pentagon? The twice-former defense secretary came to the Pentagon in early 2001 with a plan to shift expenses away from manpower and toward technology, but 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan pulled him away from that course and eventually pushed him out of the building. But judging from the news out of Washington this week, Rumsfeld's high-tech, lean headcount vision for the U.S. military has finally prevailed. The Pentagon's new way forward could hardly be more Rumsfeldian.

On Jan. 26, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlined the Pentagon's next five-year budget plan, beginning in fiscal year 2013. Budget Day at the Pentagon always gets the attention of defense contractors and congressmen concerned about maintaining the flow of federal dollars to their districts. But things were a little more dramatic this year. Panetta was required to chop $259 billion over the next five years, enroute to a $487 billion cut over the next decade.

Panetta and his lieutenants used the strategic defense guidance released earlier this month to steer the new budget. That guidance calls for the Pentagon to focus on the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions and prepare for high-technology threats rather than the extended counterinsurgency operations that had been the focus over the past decade. Those who expected a shift in funding from ground forces to naval, air, and space capabilities were not surprised by Panetta's briefing. Like an aging Rust Belt industrial corporation, Pentagon budget planners realize that they need to save money on headcount, cull unneeded capacity, and reinvest in where the future will be.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, said that listing today's winners and losers was the "least productive" way of analyzing the budget. He and Panetta asserted that the reshaped U.S. military will be a much better match for the strategic situation the U.S. will face in 2020. Contrary to Dempsey's view, discussing the budget's winner and losers is the best way to understand the 21^st century Pentagon that Panetta and his team are trying to build. Here are a few:

Winners

1. Long-range bombers. After steady declines over the past two decades, the new budget puts a stop to further cuts to the Air Force's long-range bomber forces. Plus, the Air Force's next-generation bomber will receive full funding for its development and rollout, presumably by the end of the decade. The new focus on the Asia-Pacific region, with its vast spaces and relatively few bases for U.S. short-range strike planes, means that long-range bombers are now more important than ever. Panetta apparently agrees.

2. Aircraft carriers. The Navy will retain all 11 of its big flat-tops, with the new Gerald Ford-class generation of carriers presumably fully funded. The new emphasis on the Pacific and Indian Oceans are the justifications for protecting the Navy's crown jewels. Last year, there were rumors that the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, based in Japan, would be scrapped rather than go through an expensive mid-life overhaul. In putting an end to that talk, Panetta has also attempted to dispel doubts about the U.S. commit to its Asian allies.

3. Attack submarines and cruise missiles. Although the construction of one Virginia-class attack submarine, scheduled beyond 2017, will be slightly delayed, the Navy's attack subs are otherwise a high priority in the new budget. And future subs will be fitted with an extra module allowing them to carry more land-attack cruise missiles. Once again, the need for long-range striking power against potential adversaries in Asia and the Middle East is good news for the Navy's submarine force, and for Northrop-Grumman, one of the sub's contractors. Navy cruise missiles played a major role in the opening phase of the Libyan campaign last year. In a potential showdown with Iran, these subs and cruise missiles would undoubtedly be back in action.

4. Special operations forces. Bin Laden raid heroes SEAL Team Six pulled off a dramatic hostage rescue this week in Somalia, putting special operations forces back in the news. (Not to mention the major attention they received in the president's State of the Union address.) With stabilization and counterinsurgency now out of favor, the White House and Panetta are counting on special operations forces to hunt terrorists and assist in suppressing threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. Less discussed, but a large part of Panetta's strategy, will be the use of special forces and other adviser teams to maintain training programs that build the military capacity of allies in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, areas that have been downgraded by the new strategy.

5. Electronic warfare, drones, and cyber operations. Panetta repeatedly emphasized the need for the U.S. military to maintain its technological superiority, to compensate for its reduced numbers and stretched geographical responsibilities. Even after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end, the Pentagon intends to keep its ability to maintain continuous drone surveillance over 65 spots on the globe, with the capability to surge that to 85 if necessary. Advanced radar and electronic jamming are high priorities. Generous new funding for cyber operations reflects the Pentagon's concerns about the vulnerability of its networks and its interest in offensive cyber capabilities in the post-Stuxnet era.

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ALANCHRISTOPHER

6:25 PM ET

January 27, 2012

Future US Wars

The US military plans for its future. It never heeded my advice to use the War Powers Resolution as wise policy advice. The 2 wars should have lasted no more than 3 months each, for a total of 6 months. Instead, the US spent 105 months in Iraq and 123 months in Afghanistan as of 12-31-2011 for a total of 228 months. Afghanistan has 36 more months to go, so the total will be 264 months by 12-31-2014. The US will use more robots, but no tactical doctrine exists in the US to combine human and robotic forces for land, sea, and air operations for a comprehensive, coordinated combat mission. The US may want to check with the Chinese government that has already developed a tactical doctrine and a TO&E for its human and robotic land, sea, and air forces. However, the Chinese use a new computer system for command, coordination, and control that they may not want to share with the US at this time, but their aid may allow to US to cobble together some form of command, coordination, and control that will work adequately for US forces until the US can improve its military computer systems. In addition, the US may seek assistance from China in cyber warfare because China created cyber warfare units in the 1990's. After the 1991 Gulf War, China studied US military capabilities and noticed the main weakness: US war machines need computers that can be hacked, so Americans see US war machines and say, "Wow," and Chinese see US war machines, smile, and type in commands to make US war machines into Chinese war machines awaiting commands from China. That is a simplified account, but a defensive version of the hacking program, developed with Iran, let Iran capture the US RQ-170 drone. That is one reason that I suggest that the US military work with China's military because China has the most advanced systems at this time. The US has an economic competition with China, and both countries share a need to keep sea lanes open for trade. The Chinese navy held joint naval exercises with Australia, with Japan, and with Vietnam, and China has maintained warships with the international force fighting Somali pirates for years, so US-China naval cooperation is not new. China built and sold three warships for Pakistan that now help patrol the Indian Ocean. Politicians often say silly things to get votes, but there is no reason that professional officers and men should allow pompous words to get in the way of accomplishing their missions.

REPLY

BEINGTHERE

11:21 PM ET

The Military needs to suck it up; Read Hastings' book

The U.S. military has had its way far too long in this country, rolling in its imagined glory and taxpayer money. The two latest U.S.-sponsored wars show a military complex out of control. Wasted treasury and lives - billions of dollars, unspeakable acts devastating countries and the lives of its citizens, and the blood shed by NATO troops for ... what?

Michael Hastings's "The Operators" puts the wars in perspective, especially Afghanistan. Passages that struck me were references to the arrogance and self absoprtion of the top military leadership, especially the generals.It isn't all their fault, especially the West Point-educated crowd that commanded the wars and had devoted their insulated, military-soaked lives to often-brutal pursuits. For example, when McChrystal was named commander to Afghanistan, he was insulted that Obama didn't do back flips over him when they met for phot opps. Petraeus, of course, is the poster boy for arrogance and self-serving behavior. Obama, we hope, has finally put big military in perspective. A strong military is n important thing, yes. But it's not the main thing in 2lst century America that makes the country tick. Patriotism and security don't necessarily align with a sprawling, bloated, stunningly expensive military.Time for another symbol of our invincible spirit and power as a people.

AK1976

7:42 AM ET

January 30, 2012

Hastings Full of S***

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577137803126269954.html?KEYWORDS=Mark+Molar

Why is Hastings' so believable and trustworthy, and McChrystal and Petraeus, men that put their life on the line for this country, inherently not? Hastings' misrepresented himself and wrote a counterfactual article clarified by other facts in his later book. Hmmm.

Hastings' also tried and failed to take down General William Caldwell as well, on some trumped up charges of using PSYOPS against congressional delegations. Hubris and arrogance have anything to do with this?

If you don't want an all volunteer military, then don't pay for it. I'm sure our country would love to return to conscription. In any case, serious budget choice aren't being made. The low hanging fruit of defense spending has been picked.

JONESGP1996

5:13 AM ET

January 28, 2012

Cutting ground forces

Ground forces seize and hold territory. For all of the great & wonderful things the Air Force and Navy do, they cannot retain terrain, which is key to imposing your will on an adversary. That was a fallacy of the Kosovo war in '99, i.e. that the Air Force won it. Without the NATO ground troops, the Allies would not have been able to impose their desired outcome on the Serbs. 13 years later, NATO soldiers are still in Kosovo.

I hope that our leaders understand that they are limiting their options by cutting ground forces, but after 10+ years of war, maybe that's an intentional step in order to keep us from getting involved wars like Iraq & Afghanistan in the next decade.

9:45 AM ET

Generation Next has a different world view

Points taken, but you're referencing a world that was. Technology advances by the moment. Younger generations know its power and will learn its limits. This goes for the military as well as the workplace, education and the home, especially in a world still reeling from and being defined largely by a severe financial crisis.

Younger people are seamless with technology and the idea of it. They're down with Ron Paul's vision, though radical to older people, of what the future should look like.

As for ground forces, as I recall the article, they will be limited but will never disappear. But where were the boots on the ground and the celebrity generals when the U.S. had two attempted attacks on our soil not many months ago? The would-be bombers were inept, but what if they had been successful? Then where would the next war(s) have been staged? What U.S. taxpayers must be mindful of now is that the MIC is quickly becoming the SIC. Who is accountable for and within Homeland Security and agencies such as the FBI and CIA? Have they become coordinated? How much of our money do they spend, and how do they spend it? Oh, yeah, that's secret. That's classified.

TEBBETTS

8:55 PM ET

Pay and Benefits

Many politicians and journalists are quick to point out how much more military pay has grown over the last decade as compared to the civilian sector. What they have apprently forgotten is why that happened. Military pay had lagged behind the civilian sector for decades. It was creating a gap in certain ranks among the military, because soldiers could earn considerably more in the civilian sector than they could in the military. In order to maintain critical compentencies, military pay had to increase. Even now, within certain sectors, IT being one, civilian pay is better than what military pay is. If the military plans on increasing its cyber capabilities, it will have to pay those soldiers for their skills, or we will be right back where we started from.

GOOGOOYOU

2:26 AM ET

January 29, 2012

selective amnesia

We have miscalculated these defense strategies for several decades now. We believed that we could win two and hold one with the Clinton era force reductions (changed to win hold win when we saw we couldn't), but we could barely conduct two and have not won either. Clinton era reductions put a huge amount of resources and capability in the reserves, because the "strategy" said we would only temporarily need to tap the reserves in the event we went to war, and then the war would not last long. The result was that the active force found itself woefully short of and lacking many personnel it once had. In order to offset, and because reserves could not be tapped for non-activation situations, DoD relied more and more on contractor force in order to remain under force ceilings. These contractors were paid much higher than a corresponding soldier. The the Afghanistan and Iraq came along, and what was meant to be a temporary tapping of the reserves and temporary use of contractors now became a decade plus endeavor.

If we want to talk about high personnel costs, then we need to look at why we are paying contratractors 5-10 times more than a soldier doing the same job, and why that is shorting our soldiers in this debate about high personnel costs. High personnel costs did not come from the active force, but from having to pay contractors much more, as well as DoD civilian force double their salary in order to deploy them to war zones. If we are going to compare civilian pay with soldiers pay, then let's compare what a PSD contractor makes to a private in the war zone, or a truck driver makes in a war zone compared to a private truck driver in a war zone.

I have nothing against contractors who do good work, and they cannot be faulted for DoD's reliance on them in order to maintain under force ceilings and to fill personnel specialties and gaps which DoD eliminated or reduced. However, as the past decade has proven, DoD will be woefully short of personnel in another contingency or war and will again rely on contractors who have no loyalty except to money. Machiavelli on mercenaries made this clear. DoD and DoS now relies on contractors to train in Africa, provide security for personnel, etc.

Now the new strategy is win won and hold? We have yet to win the two decade long wars, actually losing one, and still engaged in the other. At current force strength, we can't even win and hold as the new defense strategy prescribes, so how is reducing the force going to result in something we can't do now?

So, we are going to rely on more special operations forces, which takes longer to make and cost more. At what point does "special" no longer mean "special" and means conventional?

DoD seems to have myopia in seeing the killing of OBL and the toppling of Qaddafi. Neither has changed the course of: first, the war against terrorists, or the relationship with Pakistan; second, stability in Libya. In exchange for privates, we are going to replace with expensive contractors in Libya and heavy FMS like we are doing in Iraq.

Overal budget: the way Iraq has gone, we will shift a larger amount of funding to DoS in order to maintain a huge embassy, because civilians in dangerous areas cost far more than putting a private there. Where is the cost savings there?

Last, we are going to increase the number of flag officers while reducing enlisted ranks. How absurd is that?

Foreign Policy Magazine

Who benefits from the Pentagon's Rumsfeldian shift toward technology and special ops?

BY ROBERT HADDICK | JANUARY 27, 2012

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