Ripon Forum


Vol. 48, No. 2

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In this Edition

by LOU ZICKAR One of the storylines in Washington this year has been the inability of Congress and the President to come together on some of the key challenges facing our nation.

The Holy Grail of Defense Reform

The former Pentagon comptroller looks at the elusive effort to fix the acquisition system at the Department of Defense and shares his insights on the latest reform effort today.

The Scope of the Challenge

With the House Armed Services Committee launching an effort to fix the Pentagon’s broken acquisition system, a look at the importance of the effort and the obstacles blocking reform.

Hollow Arguments on Military Entitlements

The former Senator from Wyoming argues that it’s not just the Pentagon’s acquisition system that needs reform – the military entitlement system needs fixed, as well.

The Fiscal Fantasy Behind U.S. Defense Strategy

According to this defense expert, military planning needs to be based on fiscal reality instead of unrealistic budget assumptions that call for more spending than we can afford.

Two Visions, One Reality

The President and Congressional Republicans have very different views about the future of America’s nuclear weapons complex. Who is right?

A Q&A with Mike Rowe

The host of TV’s Dirty Jobs discusses the lessons he’s learned from America’s workers, the value of the skilled trades, and how the definition of what constitutes a “good job” has changed.

Republican Reboot

A look at the effort to bridge the gap between the technology sector and the conservative political sector.

A Necessary Investment

Federal spending on basic research has not only saved lives over the years, but has also resulted in medical breakthroughs and helped fuel America’s economic growth.

The Risks of Rescue

Amid calls for the U.S. military to get involved in the rescue of 200 school girls held hostage in Nigeria, this terrorism expert explains why a rescue attempt would be a mistake.

Ripon Profile of Kelly Ayotte

“Among other issues, we care about jobs and the economy, fiscal responsibility, a strong national security, and school choice. These are issues that are a priority for Republicans, and we’re on the right side of these issues.”

The Fiscal Fantasy Behind U.S. Defense Strategy

It’s time for Congress to wake up and make sure our budgetary resources match our security needs
Kori_Schake

Republicans ought to own the issue of responsible defense planning. We are a party that has long stood for a strong national defense, accountability in government, and concern for the nation’s fiscal outlook. These issues should come together in developing a defense program that achieves all three of those necessities. We should hold the commanding heights. But we do not.

We do not own the issue of responsible defense planning because we have not embraced a program that brings our spending into line with our revenue. We have shied away from tackling the cause of our deficit spending: entitlements. We cannot cut discretionary spending enough to surmount the obstacle that entitlement spending creates — zeroing out the defense budget in its entirety wouldn’t get spending out of the red. In the depths of the Euro crisis, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg summarized a challenge that applies equally to us: “We all know what needs to be done, but we don’t know how to get elected after we do it.” The American political party that can build consensus around a solution will dominate the political landscape.

The Congress is allowing itself to be painted as the irresponsible party on defense, when in reality it is the Executive branch that deserves the blame. But by refusing even small reductions in the rate of increase in pay and retirement and health benefits to our military, we are making the all-volunteer force unaffordable. If we are going to expect the military to absorb the magnitude of reductions envisioned in current law, we ought to give them the managerial latitude to develop a cohesive defense program. That means allowing them to close bases, retire cost-inefficient platforms, determine the right mix of pay and incentives, and reform the acquisition process.

By refusing even small reductions in the rate of increase in pay and retirement and health benefits to our military, we are making the all-volunteer force unaffordable.

The 2011 Budget Control Act reined in discretionary spending and incentivized a broader budget balancing agreement with the threat of sequestration. Inability of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to achieve that broader agreement ought to have alerted the Defense Department to the importance of developing a defense program that would not exceed the BCA top line, since doing so would trigger sequestration and dramatically reduce their leeway in programming their spending.

But the Department of Defense instead has submitted three budgets in excess of the BCA top line. The Office of Management and Budget guidance instructed departments to ignore sequestration in their budgeting, and DOD accepted that politicized guidance. The White House chose to exclude personnel costs (which represent fifty percent of defense spending) from sequestration, forcing all cuts into the procurement and readiness accounts. These are not immutable laws of nature, they are political choices, and they exacerbated the problems.

It needs to be said that the Joint Chiefs of Staff allowed themselves to be enlisted by the White House in the political gamesmanship of sequestration. As a result, they bear some culpability for the tumult in the defense program. General Dempsey developed a defense strategy he claimed could not be carried out with any further reductions; now that further reductions have been taken, he has not developed a more resilient strategy. The Chiefs decried sequestration’s damaging effects without taking responsibility for their part in triggering it or developing alternative strategies and force structures to buffer against its effects.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff allowed themselves to be enlisted by the White House in the political gamesmanship of sequestration. As a result, they bear some culpability for the tumult in the defense program.

The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review ought to have been the vehicle for such exploration. Secretary Hagel claims the QDR “matches our strategy to our resources,” but it doesn’t. The QDR force is unaffordable without $115 billion more than the top line legislated in 2011 — and that is in addition to the $80 billion annual fund of war operations and separate from the $26 billion “Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative” submitted as a wish list along with the budget itself. That completely negates the $113 billion in cuts that the President’s budget “imposes.” So they’re actually cutting nothing. Hagel says “it would have been irresponsible not to request these additional resources.” It was irresponsible not to develop a strategy consistent with available resources. This QDR has failed in its fundamental purpose.

The most important part of the QDR is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s assessment. U.S. code requires that the QDR identify the budget and force structure required to accomplish them at a “low to moderate level of risk.” General Dempsey concludes that current strategy can only be achieved at the maximum risk consistent with the legislation. That is significant, even if he is only whispering fire during a fire.

Dempsey also cautions that “we must avoid procuring expensive and exquisite systems that can be neutralized by adversaries with far less investment,” but that is the force this Quadrennial Defense Review would produce. Because DOD did not conduct a serious QDR, the responsibility for evaluating how different choices might aggravate or mitigate risk will be left to an independent review panel that Congress wisely wrote into the law. It will fall to them to try and meet the standard President Eisenhower set out of providing the country both security and solvency.

Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She previously served as Director for Defense Strategy and Requirements on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.