6/17/10 

An intense discussion is underway between the administration and Congress about how Pentagon spending fits within the context of a recovering economy, tightening government spending due to budget deficits, and the development of a 21st century defense strategy.  The need for defense spending reform is deep, and extends beyond even what the Obama administration, despite significant effort, has so far delivered.  Secretary Gates has acknowledged this point, reminding audiences both inside and outside the Pentagon that aligning resources with current security challenges and overall budgetary demands will require "hard choices" in the future. 

Congress should take advantage of this opening and take the first step in this process by eliminating funding for wasteful, unwanted defense programs.  With the Defense Authorization bill out of the House and being considered by the Senate, this conversation will intensify in the weeks and months ahead.  In particular, there is likely to be a vigorous debate over the costly alternative engine for the F-35, which the Pentagon has insisted it does not want, but has crept back into the House's defense bill.  Congress is also considering inserting funding for more C-17 cargo planes, which again, the Pentagon does not want. 

As the debate unfolds, Congress would do well to remember that strong, bipartisan support for reforming military spending exists among both defense experts and its own Members, as evidenced by the bipartisan Sustainable Defense Task Force, led by House Financial Services Committee Chair Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), which has called for such reforms.    The reform process is part of a larger push toward establishing a 21^st century defense strategy, which balances the threats of today with those of tomorrow, meets our military, diplomatic, and development goals, and recognizes that for America to effectively project power, it must have its economic house in order.

Congress should support the administration and Secretary Gates's effort to discipline Pentagon spending. Yesterday, before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Secretary Gates restated his position on the need for disciplining the defense budget, which he explained would require "political will and a willingness to make hard choices."  Gates explained that, "As a matter of principle and political reality, the Department of Defense cannot come to America's elected representatives and ask for budget increases each year unless we have done a better job, indeed everything possible, to make every dollar count."  Experts on both sides of the aisle agree that defense spending should not be exempt from the deficit reduction.  Kori Schake, Hoover Institution Fellow and Bush Administration NSC and State Department official recently wrote that "Defense has for too long lived immune from economics... Conservatives need to hearken back to our Eisenhower heritage, and develop a defense leadership that understands military power is fundamentally premised on the solvency of the American government and the vibrancy of the U.S. economy."  Similarly, Gordon Adams, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center recently testified that "...no part of federal spending, including defense, should be exempt from budget discipline. Defense budgets were not exempt from this effort during the Cold War."

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress and Christopher Preble of the CATO Institute place defense budget reform in a broader context of American power, writing the National Interest that:  "President Obama made restoring the nation's strength at home the centerpiece of his just-released national-security strategy. The nation's top military leaders agree. "Our financial health is directly related to our national security," explained Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen in a recent interview.  Such sentiments aren't new. Over fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower explained that a nation's security was directly tied to the health of its economy. He understood that if military spending rose too high it would ultimately undermine U.S. security, which he saw as a product of both military strength and economic strength. And he consistently resisted calls from the Joint Chiefs and some members of Congress to outspend the USSR. ‘Spiritual force, multiplied by economic force, multiplied by military force is roughly equal to security,' he explained. For Eisenhower this was the ‘Great Equation.' ‘If one of these factors falls to zero, or near zero, the resulting product does likewise.'"  [Secretary Gates, 6/16/10. Kori Schake, 2/1/10.Gordon Adams, Testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, 2/23/10. Lawrence Korb and Christopher Preble, National Interest, 6/16/10]

Congress needs to recognize the reality of defense cuts and resist inserting unwanted spending into the Defense bill.  If Congress is serious about reducing the federal deficit, it needs to terminate funding for defense programs that the Pentagon has said it neither wants nor needs.  For example, Secretary of Defense Gates has repeatedly said that the Pentagon does not need an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or additional C-17 cargo planes, yet some Congressional Members have insisted otherwise.  Speaking yesterday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Secretary Gates once again said that the Pentagon does not want this funding: "Let me be very clear:  I will continue to strongly recommend that the president veto any legislation that sustains the continuation of the C-17 or the F-35 extra engine."

Nonetheless, Congress has continued to ignore these calls from the administration.  For example, last month, the House Armed Services Committee "recommended unanimously sticking with the [F-35 alternate] engine competition, citing the prospect of long-term savings. The House panel also cited a ‘significant' national-security risk in case of a single engine for the F-35, which is to make up 95 percent of the U.S. tactical fighter fleet," reported Reuters.  There are powerful advocates of the programs in Congress.  Politico reports that Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), Chairman of the House Republican Conference, "supports the second engine for the F-35 JSF. Rolls-Royce - which has secured the first procurement contract related to the F-35 - is the second-largest employer in...[Indiana]. The company has more than 4,000 employees in the Indianapolis area alone, demonstrating once again that all politics is local, even for tea party backers." The Defense bill passed by the House of Representatives contained $485 million for a second F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine.  While the bill has moved out of the Senate Armed Services Committee without the programs opposed by the Pentagon, there will be advocates trying to reinsert them when the bill hits the Senate floor.   Stripping the funding for unwanted programs such as the F-35 second engine and additional C-17 cargo planes is a necessary starting point if Congress is serious about reducing our federal deficit while meeting our national security objectives.  As Larry Korb and Chris Preble explained, it will not be easy. "No doubt some hardliners and members of the military-industrial complex will dismiss talk of tradeoffs by pretending that we have an infinite reservoir of public will and public money just waiting to be tapped. They do this to free themselves from having to make hard choices about what we can do, as opposed to what we should do, or must do; in the process, however, they lose any reasonable claim to call themselves strategists. And they should have no credibility when advising policymakers who must operate in a world of constraints." [Secretary Gates, 6/16/10. Politico 6/7/10. Reuters, 05/27/10. Larry Korb and Christopher Preble, National Interest, 6/16/10]

There is broad, bi-partisan appetite for constructive solutions aimed at trimming the fat from the defense budget. Where defense spending was once considered a sacred cow, it increasingly possible to have a serious, pragmatic conversation on what it will take to develop a 21^st century defense budget based on fiscal discipline and strategic realities, not outdated or non-existent threats.  In a clear demonstration that the taboo has been lifted, Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA), who chairs the Defense Subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee, told Defense Daily that cuts to the White House's 2011 request were not only possible, but sensible.  "It would not shock me if that were the case," said Dicks.  He went on to identify undisciplined government spending, including on defense, as a risk to America's national security: "Ultimately, if we are unable to constrain spending at some point, that itself will be a threat to our national security. So we will do the best we can in a way that preserves what is--and has been--a consensus in Congress to provide the best defense of this nation."

In response to the warming attitudes toward defense reform, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) put together the bipartisan Sustainable Defense Task Force, comprised of a bipartisan group of defense and national security experts. The Atlantic's senior editor Joshua Green wrote about the group's efforts in yesterday's Boston Globe: "They share a belief that unrestrained military spending is a danger to the budget, and to the country. And they make a persuasive case that we can spend less without sacrificing security."  Citing how the U.S. spends more on its military than during the height of the Cold War, Green went on to encourage Congress to examine the group's proposals for tackling wasteful defense spending. Among the recommendations that could be considered for future budgets are:

Reduce waste, fraud and abuse by auditing the Pentagon: "Donald Rumsfeld, while Secretary of Defense, once speculated that waste and mismanagement accounted for at least 5% of the Pentagon budget annually - a loss that today would amount to more than $35 billion." An independent audit of the Pentagon's programs should help greatly in reducing this problem. [Report by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, 6/11/10]

Cut the V-22 Osprey: "The residual requirement - 193 aircraft - can be met at much lower cost by a ‘high-low mix' of reliable MH-60S and CH-53K helicopters. Implementing this option will save between $10 billion and $12 billion during the next decade." [Report by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, 6/11/10]

Rely on proven alternatives to the USMC Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: "This option would terminate the USMC Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program, estimated by GAO to require $11.2 billion to complete. The Marine Corps' stated requirement for 573 of these vehicles can be met by a combination of refurbished AAV7A1s - the Corps' current armored amphibious vehicles - and a newly built, updated version of the current vehicle." [Report by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, 6/11/10]

[Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA), 6/16/10. Joshua Green, 6/17/10]

What We're Reading

Israel announced it is loosening its blockade of the Gaza Strip, agreeing to "liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza" and "expand the inflow" of building materials for civilian construction projects under international supervision.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his government is looking to seize the assets of the owner of an anti-government television channel.

A Dutch court has convicted five Somalis of piracy and sentenced them to five years each in prison in the first piracy case to come to trial in Europe.

Some 400,000 people have been displaced by ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, the United Nations announced Thursday, dramatically increasing the official estimate the refugee crisis.

The European Union will pursue additional sanctions on Iran beyond those passed by the U.N. Security Council, following similar moves by the U.S. yesterday.

Iranian incursions into Iraq to attack Kurdish guerillas are testing the ability of Iraq to protect its borders.

A new coalition initiative to lure Afghan insurgents away from the battlefield allows the Taliban and other militants to keep their weapons if they sign on to a government peace plan.

EU leaders are meeting to tackle the challenge of getting economic growth back on track while reining in the worst public debts for decades.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's ruling party outlined its determination to rebuild the nation's finances and slash its deficit in its new manifesto ahead of elections next month.

At least 19 people have been killed in flash floods in southern France, and at least seven more people are missing following unusually heavy rain.

Commentary of the Day

Joshua Green argues that cutting boondoggle projects in the defense budget should be on the table and that doing so could boost Obama's credibility with voters concerned with the deficit.

Sam Charap says the charge that U.S. allies have been betrayed by the Russian reset is simply false.

Michele Flournoy and Ashton Carter plot the way forward on missile defense and say the New START treaty won't stand in the way.