2,500 years ago the warrior philosopher Sun Zsu said:
“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death,
a road to safety or to ruin. Therefore, it is a subject that must be thoroughly
studied.”
I start out with a quote from the old guy because the Defense Department folks are tasked with the difficult problem of designing a military that protects against 21st Century threats in an era of fiscal hardship. The challenges they face are not just financial but also in identifying what are the threats? Some are fairly obvious like North Korea and Iran and its “possible” nuclear weapon development program. I put possible in parenthesis because there are “declared” nuclear powers and those nations we suspect may have or are in the process of trying to develop nuclear weapons.
There are many other potential problems. Just because Bin Laden is gone does not mean terrorism will go away. Terrorism was a problem before Al Qaeda and it will remain one after that group is wiped out. The issue will always be which terrorists groups only have the capability of “trash talk” and which groups or lone individuals are real threats. Cyber also presents an ongoing threat which so far has not resulted in a Cyber Pearl Harbor because of the hard work of countless people working to counter the situation but much still remains to be done.
I initially wanted to name my book A Woman’s War, War On Any Given Day, because as I worked in military intelligence I knew if the intelligence community didn’t get it right war could erupt on any day. There are any numbers of potential flash points but it’s difficult to predict if, when and/or which ones will erupt. Speaking before a conference in San Diego last week, Marine Corps Lt. Gen George Flynn, Director, J-7, Joint Staff, speaking on potential threats said, “We guess wrong 100% of the time.” This is why I consider the concept of “reversibility”, one of the points mentioned in the Obama administrations new defense policy, probably the most important part of the strategy. Basically as I understand it if we have “guessed” wrong we can reverse our defense policy and strategies as needed.
George Little and Captain John Kirby. (Department of Defense)
This brings me to the main topic of today’s blog, the defense budget. Last week I participated in a Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable With Dr. George Little, Pentagon Press Secretary, and Captain John Kirby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations, on the subject: “Programmatic Preview of
the FY 2013 Defense Budget”.
Dr. Little opened the proceedings by stating the budget decisions “flowed from the strategic guidance that the department issued earlier this month…And that was the mechanism that secretary and other senior department officials insisted on, and that’s how we view these budget decisions…the Congress of the United States, through the Budget Control Act last summer, required that the department find nearly $500 billion in savings over the next 10 years. So we have undertaken a multi-month effort to define a strategy based way ahead for framing the budget decisions that we’re starting to see come out. We’ve kept in mind the men and women of the U.S. military. We want to make sure that we don’t break faith with them.”
Here is the guidance they were working on as presented in the January 2012 Department of Defense publication Defense Budget Priorities and Choices:
“I. Rebalance force structure and investments toward the Asia–‐Pacific and Middle East
regions while sustaining key alliances and partnerships in other regions
II. Plan and size forces to be able to defeat a major adversary in one theater while
denying aggression elsewhere or imposing unacceptable costs
III. Protect key investments in the technologically advanced capabilities most needed for
the future, including countering anti–‐access threats
IV. No longer size active forces to conduct large and protracted stability operations while retaining the expertise of a decade of war
V. To the extent possible, structure major adjustments in a way that best allows for
their reversal or for regeneration of capabilities in the future if circumstances
change “
Last Thursday, the day before the bloggers roundtable, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Army General Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the major changes. Panetta said there was a need to make $487 billion in cuts over the next 10 years. The budget request for 2013 is $525 billion with an additional $88 million for overseas contingency operations. Last year’s budget request was $531 billion plus $115 billion for overseas contingency operations.
Some of the major changes are a reduction in the size of the Army from 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000 by 2017. The Marines will go from 202,000 in 2010 to 182,000 by 2017. The Air Force will loose some of its transport aircraft, while the Navy gets to keep all 11 of its aircraft carriers and all of its amphibious ships but will loose some of its older cruisers.
Captain Kirby provided some more information on what the proposed cuts mean to the Navy:
“…there are some platforms in the fleet that are going to be curtailed in the near term, in
terms of the buys. And some of them, the purchases are going to be pushed a little bit beyond the future years’ defense plan — in other words, beyond the next five years.
But I think it’s also important to remember that we’re still at the end of the FYDP going to have a fleet that is roughly the same size as it is as you and I speak today — over 280 ships — so certainly, still the biggest, most capable navy in the world. And … while we may not have the same number of decks in some categories of some classes of ships that we do right now, we’re very comfortable that the — that what we will have will be commensurate with our Fleet Marine Force requirements. I mean, as the Marine Corps gets smaller, to the tune of about 20,000 Marines, there’s — we want to — they want to get back to expeditionary amphibious warfare, as does the Navy. But as the Marine Corps
gets smaller, so, too, will, probably, get smaller the requirement for sealift for them and for support. So we understand there’s a risk there, but we’re very comfortable that we’re able to mitigate that risk.”
I asked was there any provision in the budget to finance Black Swan (unpredicted bad events) in the budget. Dr. Little responded:
“…that’s something that we grapple with all the time in the national security community. I would not be credible if I said to all of you today that we could perfectly crystal ball the future. That is simply impossible. That being said, we think we have an understanding of the near-term strategic horizon and where the threats are likely to come from. And we’re adapting to be able to meet those threats. Now we have factored in the possibility of surprise. As we’ve gone through this strategic review and the budget decisions, we’re preserving capabilities that enable agility — rapidly deployable forces, the most advanced technology to be able to account for and put capabilities against any challenges that come our way — any unanticipated challenges that come our way in the future. So I don’t know that we have a specific fund set up for that. That’s really something kind of that we believe we need to account for across the defense budget, because we know that we can’t always perfectly predict what’s going to occur. So your point is one that is well-taken, and I — and I appreciate it. And the bottom-line answer is: absolutely. We need to preserve the mix of skill sets and capabilities and of course people. People are the heart of our enterprise here. Without our people, the rest of it falls away. And we need to make sure that we’re ready for whatever comes down the pike.”
One of the bloggers brought up what he called the “monkey in the room”; the issue of health care for retirees and did the proposed health care (Tricare is the military health provider) cuts break faith with the retiree community. In the spirit of disclosure I have to remind the reader I am a military retiree. Here’s the response:
“Captain Kirby: these TRICARE fees, as you know, have not gone up since they’ve — since they were first implemented for our retirees. And the only retirees affected by this are those that are under 65. And therefore most — and most retirees under 65 are working and have other means of income and oftentimes have health care plans in conjunction with that civilian employment of theirs that can help offset their health care plans and needs. We understand that any change to compensation and health care fees is an emotional thing. And we understand that there’s — there is an impact. But we really believe that this was the right thing to do for — to help us get control of spiraling health care costs and to keep — to keep pace with the kind of — with the kind of commitments we — that we have to our people, our retirees, and realizing that they have other — these retirees under 65 have other options as well. Now, I say another thing that — you know, you talked about breaking faith. We would be breaking faith with our retirees and our active-duty if we didn’t make some of these difficult decisions because health care costs and the cost of personnel, which run roughly 60 (percent) to 70 percent of the department’s budget year to year, can very well eat you alive if you don’t try to take care of it. If we don’t try to do something to stem that, we’re going to — it would
force us to cut back on other things that are absolutely vital to the force, like training and readiness.”
I challenged the assumption that all military retirees under 65 were working and had other health care programs by telling Dr. Little and Captain Kirby I was under 65, self employed and had no other health insurance. I also told them I had undergone 3 surgeries since September. I suggested they do a survey with retirees before implementing any new health care policy. General Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Panetta say no new health care policy will affect those that are medically retired from the current conflicts. I believe if they go back on promises they’ve made to military retirees of my generation, they’re setting a precedent that might encourage future administrations to go back on promises to this current generation. Think I’ll end here. As always my views are my own.
