This realism has not yet seeped in deeply at the Pentagon. As evidence, the Congressional Budget Office, one of the best sources in town for hard numbers and objective analysis, took a look at the current defense plans and said that the current plans for forces, weapons systems, and defense operations were unaffordable, even without sequestration. Losing another $500 billion in the 10-year plan will only make matters worse, according to the CBO.
Military pay, the CBO analysts said, is going to grow faster than the Pentagon projects, because the politics of pay don't make restraint easy. Healthcare costs will grow because they always do, despite optimistic DOD projections. Military hardware programs will cost significantly more than the DOD projects, because a perpetual and definitive history of underestimating almost all hardware costs tells us so. And the costs of operating the forces (training, exercising, moving around the globe) will be higher than DOD forecasts because that has been true for decades. Put it all together and, using realistic cost estimates, the Pentagon's plans will cost 20 percent more than they are likely to have over the next 10 years.
Secretary Hagel should pay attention here. A realistic review has to use good numbers, or the forces are going to find themselves seriously short-changed.
There are at least three ways of dealing with this funding gap. One of them is to revisit strategy, as Hagel might do in his review and as the QDR should do. There are lots of good ideas about how to do that out there, which I summarized in a column four months ago. The world hasn't changed a lot since November. We still live in a moment of extremely low threat to our national security, a good moment to step back and review strategy.
The second way is the "peanut butter" way. Whatever a strategy review comes up with, spread the costs and benefits over everyone. This way, nobody comes up short. The Army doesn't have to batter its way into a "Pacific Pivot," they can pretend they are part of the strategy in that region and keep their share of the budget. The Navy doesn't get to grow, or buck the budgetary trend, it has to hold its share and live with the strategic consequences. And the Air Force still gets to invest in some technology. That's the "good service partners" way and nobody's ox gets too badly gored, but we don't necessarily end up with the best force for the world we live in.
A third way is to mix a strategy revisit with some tough love for the perpetual drivers of Pentagon budgets: weapons costs, the back office, and pay and benefits. Of course, that's the politically hard way. The Iron Triangle (services, members of Congress, and the defense industry) resist the idea of tough choices on hardware and tough love on costs. The services like to hold on to their infrastructure and find letting go of offices and processes pretty hard, as Secretary Gates found out with his effort to find efficiencies a couple of years ago. And most members of Congress (and a lot of the military) would sooner re-invade Iraq than touch the third rail of pay and benefits.
But it's like bank robber Willie Sutton said: "That's where the money is." And there is growing recognition inside the Beltway that constrained budgets are forcing closer attention to at least two of these.
Don't believe me? Take a look at a paper out this week by conservative defense analyst Mackenzie Eaglen from the American Enterprise Institute. Set aside the politically necessary rhetoric she opens with -- a readiness "crisis," "slashed" programs, and Pentagon budget "cuts." Go to the back of the piece where the facts are. Where she discusses pay growth and pay differentials and higher healthcare contributions by retirees. Or where she recommends another BRAC round because the services have way more infrastructure than they need. Or where she says the back office needs to shrink, which means bringing down the number of both civilian and military personnel to levels below where we were in 2000.
Some of these things are not controversial to conservatives, who generally take a "cut the waste; save the forces and weapons" position. But some of them are, and the "gung ho" advocates of "defending defense" might take offense. The proposals suggest two things that are truly important. First, the number of people outside the Pentagon who think long-term planning for a drawdown is necessary is growing and spreading across the political spectrum. And second, there may just be a constituency out there in the "aware public" for some realism in the Pentagon. Some support for the kind of tough love Hagel needs to bring to the services and the bureaucracy.
That -- and some serious, budget-constrained options inside the Hagel planning process -- could get us started on the drawdown management the Pentagon badly needs.
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