अमेरिकी वायु सेना. सन 2012.
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120201-027.pdf

राहेल Gerber मेमो नीति, स्टेनली फाउंडेशन, 1 सन 2012.
http://defensealt.org/AymAmo

अंश:

18 जनवरी, 2012 पर, स्टेनली फाउंडेशन, न्यूयॉर्क के कार्नेगी निगम और मैकआर्थर फाउंडेशन के साथ साझेदारी में, दायित्व के ऐतिहासिक और समकालीन विकास के लिए महत्वपूर्ण सिद्धांत की मौजूदा स्थिति का आकलन करने के लिए रक्षा और विकसित पर विचार आंकड़े बुलाई वैश्विक गतिशीलता कि फ्रेम, ड्राइव, होगा और आने वाले वर्षों में चुनौती नीति विकास.

एच. Cordesman - ब्राडली Bosserman साथ एंथोनी. सामरिक और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय अध्ययन के लिए केंद्र, 30 जनवरी 2012.
http://defensealt.org/xpBqhn

अंश:

अमेरिकी मौलिक अपने दृष्टिकोण पर पुनर्विचार "वैकल्पिक युद्ध." यह स्पष्ट से दूर है कि यह इराक युद्ध जीतने के लिए, बजाय एक मजबूत सैन्य और सहायता की उपस्थिति के बिना ईरान, सशक्त. यह निर्णायक अफगानिस्तान और पाकिस्तान संघर्ष खो अगर यह जल्दी से एक सैन्य और राजनयिक उपस्थिति के लिए योजना नहीं विकसित करता है, और विदेशी सैन्य और आर्थिक खर्च पर निर्भरता से दूर 2012-2020 के दौरान संक्रमण में मदद अफगानिस्तान सहायता जाएगा. अमेरिकी सैनिकों की कटौती एक संक्रमण योजना नहीं हैं, और वापसी पर ध्यान केंद्रित हार के लिए एक नुस्खा है.

कि अमेरिकी नहीं कर सकते, और कहा कि यह इराक और अफगानिस्तान में बीच में बनाया गलती नहीं दोहराना चाहिए,. यह nontraditional धमकियों के साथ वैश्विक, क्षेत्रीय, राष्ट्रीय और रणनीति है कि मध्य पूर्व और दक्षिण और मध्य एशिया, और एक वैश्विक आधार पर आतंकवाद और अस्थिरता में उथलपुथल जैसे मुद्दों के साथ सौदा कर सकते हैं की एक बहुत ही अच्छा और अधिक किफायती मिश्रण के साथ सौदा होगा. यह अनुकूल राज्यों, निवारण, नियंत्रण, और हस्तक्षेप की कहीं अधिक सीमित है और कम महंगा रूपों सहायता पर भरोसा करना चाहिए.

रक्षा वैकल्पिक, 26 जनवरी 2012 पर परियोजना से

भविष्य के वर्षों पेंटागन आधार बजट 26 जनवरी 2012 को सचिव Panetta द्वारा जारी योजना खर्च वापस 2008 के स्तर के लिए रोलिंग की उम्मीद है, मुद्रास्फीति के लिए सही है. अगले पांच वर्षों (2013-2017) के दौरान बजट का हिस्सा गैर युद्ध पर खर्च के बारे में 4% वास्तविक रूप में पिछले पांच (2008-2012) के दौरान की तुलना में कम हो जाएगा. 2012 से वास्तविक परिवर्तन (है कि, "मुद्रास्फीति सही") 3.2% की कमी होगी

नीचे चार्ट 2012 डॉलर में सभी रकम प्रतिपादन द्वारा मुद्रास्फीति के लिए सही है. यह पता चलता है कि आधार बजट खर्च 1998 और 2010 के बीच मुद्रास्फीति के बाद 55% कूद गया था. नए बजट की योजना $ 525 अरब, जो 1998 के स्तर से ऊपर 46% पर 2013 खर्च सेट.

नए बजट की योजना हरी प्रवृत्ति रेखा द्वारा प्रतिनिधित्व - ज़ब्ती के लिए प्रावधानों (लाल प्रवृत्ति लाइन के द्वारा प्रतिनिधित्व) के तहत बजट नियंत्रण अधिनियम के द्वारा अनिवार्य कटौती करने के लिए विपरीत में खड़ा है. ज़ब्ती 2004 के स्तर है, जो अभी भी 1998 के स्तर (मुद्रास्फीति के लिए सही) के ऊपर 31% होगा पेंटागन आधार बजट खर्च वापस रोल होगा. नए बजट योजना और ज़ब्ती आम में एक बात है: दोनों शीत युद्ध के वर्षों के लिए औसत मुद्रास्फीति से समायोजित ऊपर पेंटागन खर्च (क्षैतिज डैश लाइन के द्वारा प्रतिनिधित्व) रखना होगा.

क्रिस्टोफर Preble और चार्ल्स नाइट Huffington पोस्ट, 20 जनवरी 2012.
http://defensealt.org/ysCbHQ

अंश:

शेष तुम पर खड़े हैं पर निर्भर करता है. हमारे भौतिक सुरक्षा के लिए सम्मान के साथ, संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका महाद्वीपीय शांति और शक्तिशाली दुश्मनों की कमी के साथ ही धन्य है. हमारे सैन्य सबसे अच्छा प्रशिक्षित, सबसे अच्छा के नेतृत्व वाली है, और दुनिया में सबसे अच्छा सुसज्जित. यह हमारे अस्थिर वित्तीय और हमारे सुस्त अर्थव्यवस्था है कि हमें ठोकरें खाते हुए चल करने के लिए असुरक्षित है.

दुर्भाग्य से, नई रणनीति पूरी तरह से हमारी ताकत की सराहना करते नहीं करता है, और न ही यह पूरी तरह से अपनी कमजोरियों का पता है. अंत में, यह में आइजनहावर vaunted संतुलन हासिल नहीं होता.

__________________________________________________

मैथ्यू रोसेनबर्ग. न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स, 20 जनवरी 2012.
http://pulse.me/s/5a33j

अंश:

अमेरिकी और अन्य गठबंधन बलों के साथ बहुत अफ़ग़ान सैनिकों वे लड़ाई और ट्रेन के द्वारा किया जा रहा है बढ़ती संख्या में मारे गए, गहरे बैठा माना जाता है कि मित्र देशों की सेनाओं के बीच दुश्मनी से प्रेरित हमलों में अमेरिकी और अफ़ग़ान अधिकारियों और एक वर्गीकृत गठबंधन रिपोर्ट के अनुसार.

संपादक टिप्पणी:

बहुत मजबूत सबूत है कि अमेरिकी सेना उनके स्वागत overstayed है की तरह लगता है!

एंड्रयू टेलर एपी, 20 जनवरी 2012.
http://defensealt.org/xN9mYD

अंश:

व्हाइट हाउस की योजना है, के लिए नए करों और शुल्क प्रस्ताव है कि कैपिटल हिल रिपब्लिकन साथ nonstarters प्रतिदान की संभावना नहीं है, पूरे नौ साल, खर्च में कटौती, एक के रूप में निर्दिष्ट बोर्ड भर में 1.2 खरब डॉलर की बारी होगी पृथक. "

"हम एक पृथक अब से एक साल से भी कम आ रहा है जब तक कि कांग्रेस कार्य करता है," प्रशासन के एक वरिष्ठ अधिकारी ने कहा. "हम कांग्रेस के लिए हम क्या लगता है कि कांग्रेस दिसंबर, जो घाटा कमी के बारे में अधिक से अधिक $ 1.2 ट्रिलियन अधिनियमित, पृथक से दूर बारी और खर्च (टोपी) को बनाए रखने में किया होना चाहिए पूछने के लिए जा रहे हैं."

DefenseTracker.com, 18 जनवरी 2012.
http://defensetracker.com/web/?p=1681

अंश:

"कयामत का दिन तंत्र" रक्षा मंत्री Panetta और बजट युद्ध, कांग्रेस में अपने साथी से फैल उन्माद का एक हिस्सा. बक McKeon भर में बोर्डों कटौती की automaticity कि पृथक रक्षा बजट पर होने की संभावना घटना है कि लंगड़ा बतख कांग्रेस और उसके उत्तराधिकारी अगले साल दोनों के रूप में कर सकते हैं लाल के रूप में बेकार हो जाएगा जनवरी में अगले लगाएगी किया गया है और नीले रंग के कीड़े हम अब है. (हिस्टीरिया के अन्य भाग के आधार बजट रक्षा खर्च के 2007 के स्तर तक लौटने का आतंक है.)

ऐसा लगता है कि राष्ट्रपति मौजूदा सांविधिक पृथक तंत्र नहीं बल्कि आवश्यक कटौती की राशि को संशोधित करने का अधिकार है.

फिलिप Taubman. न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स, 08 जनवरी 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/reducing-the-nuclear-arsenal.html

अंश:

यदि अध्यक्ष पेंटागन और परमाणु याजकपद की अन्य redoubts में पुरानी व्यवस्था के रक्षक के खिलाफ वापस धक्का है, वह अमेरिकी सुरक्षा बनाए रखने, जबकि संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका आज के सबसे महत्वपूर्ण मुद्दों में से एक पर एक और अधिक विश्वसनीय नेता बना सकते हैं परमाणु प्रसार युक्त हथियार. एक श्रृंखला धूम्रपान न करने की तरह दूसरों को पूछ सिगरेट दे, इसके फूला हुआ शस्त्रागार के साथ संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका,, पाखंडी लगता है जब यह दूसरे देशों पर दबाव डालता हथियार कटौती और बम ग्रेड उच्च संवर्धित यूरेनियम का उत्पादन बंद करो ...

संबंधित:

रक्षा रणनीति की समीक्षा पेज परमाणु बहस

रक्षा वार्ता मेमो पर कार्ल Conetta परियोजना. # 53, 05 जनवरी 2012.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1201bm53.pdf

अंश:

खर्च की योजना और बजट के लिए वास्तविक कटौती में वापस रोल करने के लिए हर कार्यालय और पेंटागन में कार्यक्रम को शामिल करने के लिए पर्याप्त हैं. यह एक विवादास्पद बहस के रूप में अच्छी तरह के रूप में दलगत राजनीति के लिए चारा की एक लोड करने के लिए बनाता है. यह अगर हम परिप्रेक्ष्य में चीजों को रख सकते हैं मदद मिलेगी. कटौती हम आज का सामना करना कहीं कम शीत युद्ध के बाद उन लोगों की तुलना में नाटकीय हैं. 1991-1996 के दौरान कुल बजट अधिकार 1987-1990 के दौरान लगभग 20% की तुलना में वास्तविक रूप में कम थी - पांच बार से अधिक क्या प्रशासन आज प्रस्ताव गिरावट. हमारे देश के मौजूदा आर्थिक straights को देखते हुए, पेंटागन अधिवक्ताओं वास्तव में राहत का एक झोंका साँस लेने चाहिए.

रक्षा विभाग के. 05 जनवरी 2012.
http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf

विंस्लो व्हीलर समय Battleland, 13 दिसंबर, 2011.

अंश:

युद्ध, "प्रलय का दिन तंत्र के तहत DOD आधार बजट खर्च के शामिल किए जाने के बिना पर या पास इसके बाद द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के उच्च नहीं रह गया है, लेकिन यह भी ऐतिहासिक lows से किसी के पास नहीं है. वास्तव में, यह शीत युद्ध के दौरान लगभग 38 अरब डॉलर सालाना खर्च से ऊपर है ...

स्टीफन एम. वाल्ट विदेश नीति, 01 दिसंबर, 2011.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/01/a_bandwagon_for_offshore_balancing~~V

अंश:

... अपतटीय संतुलन भी जब हमारे खजाने को पूरा कर रहे हैं सही रणनीति है, बशर्ते कि कोई सहकर्मी प्रतियोगियों के लिए महत्वपूर्ण रणनीतिक क्षेत्रों पर हावी करने की धमकी दे रहे हैं. अच्छे समय के दौरान भी, यह नहीं समझ में आता अनावश्यक बोझ पर लेने के लिए या मुक्त चाचा सैम hubristic इच्छा पर सवारी करने के लिए सहयोगी दलों के "अपरिहार्य" राष्ट्र दुनिया के लगभग हर कोने में होना करने के लिए अनुमति देते हैं. दूसरे शब्दों में, अपतटीय संतुलन कठिन समय के लिए सिर्फ एक रणनीति नहीं है, यह भी एक दुनिया में सबसे अच्छी उपलब्ध रणनीति है, जहां संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका मजबूत शक्ति है अनावश्यक विरोध को ट्रिगर करने के लिए प्रवण, और अनावश्यक युद्ध में घसीटा जा रहा है कमजोर है.

सारा Sorcher राष्ट्रीय जर्नल, 29 नवम्बर 2011.

अंश:

राष्ट्रपति ओबामा हाल ही में ऑस्ट्रेलिया सब करते हुए आग्रह है कि अमेरिका के रक्षा खर्च में कोई कटौती की कीमत पर नहीं आ जाएगा में एक आधार के 2500 सैनिकों को तैनात करने की योजना सहित प्रशांत, पर नए ध्यान के साथ एक अमेरिकी विदेश नीति की वास्तुकला को मजबूत करने के लिए कदम की घोषणा की एशिया - प्रशांत क्षेत्र में प्राथमिकताओं की. भी रूप में वॉशिंगटन में बहुत सावधानी से आंख चीन तेजी से सैन्य आधुनिकीकरण रहा है और प्रशांत में नौसेना उपस्थिति का विस्तार, अंदरूनी सूत्रों का 39 प्रतिशत ने कहा कि अगले कदम के लिए बीजिंग के साथ अमेरिकी सगाई में सुधार करते हुए किसी भी सैन्य से संबंधित कदम से परहेज है.

पाउला जी Thornhill सीएनएन, 23 नवम्बर 2011.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/23/opinion/thornhill-defense-cuts/index.html

अंश:

या आशा के बारे में भविष्य के युद्ध की unlikelihood अनजाने सामरिक आपदा के लिए नेतृत्व नहीं करता है राष्ट्र के नेतृत्व में एक योजना बी ताकि एक वीर धारणा की जरूरत है. यह मुश्किल से यह लगता है. योजना B को पूरा करने के लिए और अधिक लचीलापन क्या सिर्फ बजट में कटौती करने के बजाय सामरिक माहौल में गलत जा सकते हैं अनुमति होगी.

संपादक टिप्पणी:

योजना B के लिए एक अच्छा बनाए रखना है सामरिक आरक्षित. के रूप में नव परंपरावादियों बाहर बात करने के लिए पसंद है संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका अपने सैनिक पर अपने सकल घरेलू उत्पाद का केवल 4.5 प्रतिशत खर्च करता है. नए खतरों चुटकी अगर, अमेरिका आसानी से खर्च रैंप कर सकते हैं और इसके अभी भी काफी औद्योगिक और ज्ञान के आधार संलग्न. समस्या इस देश एक पुनर्गठन रणनीति के साथ चेहरे राजनीतिक इच्छाशक्ति की कमी है. असैनिक नेताओं के लिए अमेरिकी लोगों को बलिदान करने के लिए पूछना घृणा कर रहे हैं. एक मजबूत राष्ट्रीय रक्षक और रिजर्व बल है कि अनावश्यक युद्ध और सामाजिक उम्मीद राष्ट्रीय आपातकालीन स्थिति के बार में कर अधिभार का भुगतान करने के लिए लगातार तैनाती द्वारा दुरुपयोग नहीं किया है इस देश के लिए रणनीतिक जबकि एक छोटे से खड़े शांतिकाल बल को बनाए रखने के लिए तैयार किया जाना चाहिए बुनियादी बातों . इस तरह के रणनीतिक योजना के साथ अमेरिका अच्छी तरह से किसी भी खतरे के लिए प्रावधान किया जा सकता है.

मैथ्यू Leatherman. ब्लूमबर्ग सरकार ने 21 नवम्बर 2011.
http://defensealt.org/veAUPs

एंथनी एच. Cordesman और ब्राडली Bosserman के सामरिक और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय अध्ययन के लिए केंद्र, 17 नवम्बर 2011.
http://csis.org/files/publication/111511_Defense_Resources_Threats.pdf

माइकल ई. O'Hanlon न्यू यॉर्क टाइम्स, 14 नवम्बर 2011.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/1114_defense_budget_ohanlon.aspx

अंश:

एक जहाज विदेश में वर्ष की एक जोड़ी और रखने के लिए दो कैमरों शेयर कि के रूप में के रूप में अच्छी तरह से घर पर एक प्रशिक्षण जहाज पोत, नौसेना के जहाज प्रति 40 प्रतिशत तक की अपनी तैनाती दक्षता में सुधार, के बारे में तीन को पूरा कर सकता है और एक आधा जहाज , औसत पर, पांच की आवश्यकता हो सकता है. नौसेना के बड़े सतह लड़ाकों, क्रूजर और विध्वंसक पर केंद्रित है, इस दृष्टिकोण सैद्धांतिक रूप से लगभग 60 जहाजों (थोड़ा विदेश में तैनात एक समय में उनमें से आधे से भी कम के साथ) वैश्विक उपस्थिति बनाए रखने के लिए है कि नौसेना का कहना है कि यह 94 के बजाय की जरूरत है, की अनुमति दे सकता है जहाजों यह वर्तमान में पीछा कर रहा है.

Loren बी Thompson लेक्सिंगटन. संस्थान, 11 नवम्बर 2011.
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/gen-odierno-breaks-the-code-on-why-weapons-cost-so-much?a=1&c=1171

अंश:

जनरल के Odierno नवंबर 2 टिप्पणी से संकेत मिलता है कि वह यह जानता है कि यह सिर्फ ठेकेदारों जो कार्यक्रमों की लागत को ड्राइव नहीं है. लागत overruns अक्सर शुरुआत में कर रहे हैं में baroque की मांग है कि अधिग्रहण प्रणाली डेवलपर्स पर लगाता द्वारा पकाया. इन लंबे शेड्यूल देरी, unaffordable इकाई लागत, और हथियार सुविधाओं कि appropriators की उम्मीदों को पूरा नहीं कर सकते हैं में परिणाम की मांग. इससे भी महत्वपूर्ण बात, वे warfighters करने के लिए बेहतर लड़ाई प्रणालियों के वितरण को धीमा.

पॉल रोजर्स खोलें. लोकतंत्र, 11 नवम्बर 2011.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-regional-blowback

अंश:

पास - अपरिहार्य वास्तविकता है कि टकराव की बाहर ईरान जल्द ही एक सीमित परमाणु शस्त्रागार होगा हासिल है. क्योंकि यहां तक ​​कि ईरान के एक सीमित बमबारी जहां ईरान हमले के बाद क्षेत्र के केंद्र में है एक नया गतिशील पैदा करेगा, कई नए विकल्प है करने के लिए अपने विरोधियों पर लागत लागू होगा, और अपने स्वयं के निवारक के लिए पूर्ण झुकाव जाना होगा.

Kelsey हार्टिगन शस्त्रागार लोकतंत्र, 10 नवम्बर 2011.
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2011/11/if-you-want-peace-stop-clamoring-for-war.html

अंश:

यदि रोमनी का मानना ​​है कि वह ओवल ऑफिस में वाल्ट्ज, कुछ किसी न किसी और कठिन भाषण दे सकते हैं और अचानक ईरान आईएईए के निरीक्षकों को अपने दरवाजे खोल देगा, अच्छी तरह से, वह एक असभ्य जागृति के लिए है.

युद्धरत बयानबाजी ईरान के साथ स्थिति को हल नहीं होगी. वास्तव में, ज्यादातर विशेषज्ञों तुम बताओ कि यह यह बदतर कर देगा. केवल सैन्य कार्रवाई की धमकी, या बुरा, वास्तविक सैन्य कार्रवाई, ईरान के कट्टरपंथियों के हाथों में खेलने के लिए ... यदि एक अमेरिकी सैन्य उपस्थिति ईरान सहयोग मनाने के लिए जा रहा था, मैंने सोचा है कि यह अब तक क्या हुआ होगा.

ब्रायन फिलिप्स AntiWar.com, 9 नवम्बर 2011.
http://original.antiwar.com/bphillips/2011/11/08/10-factors-that-may-lead-to-war-with-iran/~~V

कार्ल Conetta. पीडीए वार्ता मेमो # 52, 25 अक्टूबर 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm52.pdf

अंश:

1998 (वास्तविक रूप में 46%) के बाद से पेंटागन के आधार बजट में तीव्र वृद्धि काफी रणनीतिक विकल्प है, से प्रति सुरक्षा आवश्यकताओं के कारण है. : यह एक प्राथमिकताओं के रूप में एक कदम के रूप में अच्छी तरह से अधिक महत्वाकांक्षी समाप्त होता है के लिए सैन्य निवारण, नियंत्रण, और रक्षा की परंपरागत लक्ष्यों से दूर सेट से इनकार खतरा रोकथाम कॉमन्स की कमान, और वैश्विक सुरक्षा वातावरण के परिवर्तन को दर्शाता है. नियमित अमेरिकी सैन्य गतिविधि के भौगोलिक क्षेत्र में भी विस्तार किया गया है.

साथी टुकड़ा: पेंटागन नई मिशन सेट: एक सतत विकल्प कार्ल Conetta?. संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका अगस्त, 2011 के लिए एक एकीकृत सुरक्षा बजट (USB) पर टास्क फोर्स की रिपोर्ट से एक अद्यतन और विस्तारित अंश. http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/111024Pentagon-missions.pdf के

चार्ल्स नाइट. रक्षा वैकल्पिक वार्ता मेमो # 51, 25 अक्टूबर 2011 पर परियोजना.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm51.pdf

अंश:

अमेरिकी सैन्य रणनीति और वैश्विक मुद्रा अगले दस वर्षों में कार्यान्वित करने के लिए मामूली परिवर्तन मज़बूती से घाटा कम करने के पेंटागन के बजट से एक साल 73 अरब डॉलर से 118 अरब डॉलर एक वर्ष से लेकर बचत की पेशकश कर सकते हैं.

बचत प्राप्त करने के लिए केवल सामरिक लक्ष्यों को प्राप्त करने के लिए अलग अलग अर्थ के आवेदन की आवश्यकता है. यह ठीक है किसी भी अच्छी रणनीति क्या करता है जब स्थिति बदल.

Abubakar सिद्दीकी रेडियो फ्री यूरोप, 25 अक्टूबर 2011.

अंश:

अनुभव ने हमें दिखाया है कि विदेशी बलों शांति अफगानिस्तान में नहीं ला सकता है. [विरोध आयोजक] Mozhdah हम शांति है जब हम [अफगानिस्तान] लोगों के बीच संघर्ष के कारणों को दूर करेंगे "कहा. "यहाँ से लड़ने के लिए प्रमुख कारणों में से एक है कि हम एक दूसरे पर भरोसा नहीं है. हम बैठते हैं और एक दूसरे से बात करने के लिए एक दूसरे के विश्वास हासिल करने की जरूरत है.

दान डे ल्यूक Agence फ्रांस-Presse की, 19 अक्टूबर 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=SEA&s=TOP&i=8003142

अंश:

, "एशिया स्पष्ट रूप से एक प्राथमिकता है और हम अपने अभियान को तदनुसार समायोजित करेगा, नौसेना संचालन के प्रमुख एडमिरल जोनाथन Greenert एक teleconference में संवाददाताओं से कहा.

नौसेना अब लगातार एक विमान वाहक का कहना है - या तो किट्टी हॉक या जॉर्ज वॉशिंगटन - प्रशांत क्षेत्र में 10 साल पहले की तुलना में जब एक वाहक समय का केवल 70 प्रतिशत उपलब्ध था, उन्होंने कहा.

अबू Muqawama. नई अमेरिकी सुरक्षा, 13 अक्टूबर 2011 के लिए केंद्र.
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/10/looking-trim-defense-budget-start-qdr.html

अंश:

कल घोषणा की है कि रक्षा विभाग के एक "सामरिक विकल्प समूह" प्राथमिकताओं जोखिम और संभावित कटौती में 450 अरब डॉलर के बजट के लिए आगे की पहचान के फार्म का होगा चारसाला रक्षा की समीक्षा (QDR) के worthlessness की नवीनतम उदाहरण है. एक रणनीतिक दस्तावेज जरूरी जोखिम और प्राथमिकताओं की पहचान होता है, लेकिन बाद से QDR न तो करता है, रक्षा विभाग पूरी तरह से एक नया काम है कि सिर्फ समूह की स्थापना की है.

इन्हें भी देखें: QDR एक पीआर स्टंट या आसन और रणनीति के साथ बजट में सामंजस्य के लिए एक गंभीर प्रयास है?

एंड्रयू Tilghman रक्षा. समाचार, 12 अक्टूबर 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=LAN&s=TOP&i=7935114

अंश:

Panetta कहा सेना के आरक्षित घटक सैनिकों की उम्मीद करने के लिए भविष्य बल का एक महत्वपूर्ण हिस्सा होना चाहिए.

"जैसा कि हम इन युद्धों से नीचे खींचना, हम गार्ड और रिजर्व परिचालन और अनुभव प्राप्त रखने की जरूरत है. यह हम पिछले 10 वर्षों में किया है सबसे अच्छा निवेश है ", उन्होंने कहा. "हम करने के लिए एक मूल्यवान परिसंपत्ति के रूप में बनाए रखने के कारण आरक्षित बल एक शक्ति है कि संकट का उपयोग, अद्वितीय नागरिक कौशल सेट है कि उपयोगी हो सकता है घटना में राष्ट्र रणनीतिक गहराई देता है के रूप में खेलने के लिए एक विशेष भूमिका है करने के लिए सक्षम होने के लिए जारी रखने की जरूरत है आधुनिक और संघर्ष में सेना की एक व्यापक असैनिक आबादी के लिए पुल के रूप में. "

कार्ल Conetta. रक्षा वैकल्पिक वार्ता मेमो # 50, 11 अक्टूबर 2011 पर परियोजना.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm50.pdf

अंश:

क्या करता है अव्यावहारिक ज़ब्ती (और यह एक डराने रणनीति के रूप में निशान) ढालवाँ तरीके में यह कटौती लागू होगा. एक क्रमिक दृष्टिकोण को पूरा कर सकता है
तुलनीय विघटन के बिना बराबर बचत. के रूप में तैयार है, प्रावधान के लिए है
के लिए प्रेरित करने के बजाय कम करने, राजस्व बढ़ जाती है और पात्रता कार्यक्रमों में कटौती.

इराक पुनर्निर्माण के लिए विशेष महानिरीक्षक. अक्टूबर 2011.
http://www.sigir.mil/publications/quarterlyreports/October2011.html

एतान समुद्री मछली, आर्थिक नीति संस्थान, ब्लॉग, 20 सितंबर 2011. http://www.epi.org/blog/militaristic-foreign-policy-saves-money/

राष्ट्रपति ओबामा वित्तीय योजना की लगातार आलोचनाओं में से एक है कि यह बचत के रूप में युद्ध खर्च में कटौती मायने रखता है. असल में, कांग्रेस के बजट कार्यालय के हिस्से में सबसे हाल के युद्ध पूरक (तकनीकी प्रवासी आकस्मिक संचालन, या OCO कहा जाता है) ले रही है और यह सोचते हैं कि मुद्रास्फीति प्रत्येक वर्ष निकट क्षितिज पर खर्च के लिए राशि समायोजित द्वारा अपनी रक्षा आधारभूत की गणना. इस बारे में 10 साल में 1.73 ट्रिलियन डॉलर करने के लिए कहते हैं. राष्ट्रपति का प्रस्ताव है, तथापि, केवल OCO खर्च में 10 से अधिक वर्षों के बारे में 1.1 खरब डॉलर की बचत के लिए 653 अरब डॉलर, शामिल हैं.

हालांकि कुछ आलोचकों का आरोप है, कि इन बचत क्योंकि सीबीओ OCO आधारभूत ही यथार्थवादी नहीं है गिनती नहीं कर सकते हैं, इसलिए उदाहरण के लिए "असली" बचत नहीं कर रहे हैं, एक जिम्मेदार संघीय बजट (CRFB) के लिए समिति का तर्क है कि इन बचत की गिनती एक बजट नौटंकी है कि राष्ट्रपति का उपयोग करता है इस आलोचना, OCO व्यय के लिए एक और आधारभूत के अनुसार "उसकी बचत और बढ़ा देते हैं." इस्तेमाल किया जा चाहिए या तो राष्ट्रपति के बजट का अनुरोध या सीबीओ जलावतलन नीति विकल्प जो आधारभूत कम करना होगा यह व्यावहारिक रूप से असंभव युद्ध के खर्च को कम करने से बजट बचत उत्पन्न करने के लिए.

CRFB और अन्य आलोचकों को पूरे सम्मान है, लेकिन इस आलोचना मूर्खतापूर्ण है. सीबीओ OCO आधारभूत - बल्कि "अवास्तविक" नहीं है, यह राष्ट्रपति बुश की आक्रामक आक्रमण केंद्रित दृष्टिकोण विदेशी शाश्वत में बढ़ाया नीति की लागत का प्रतिनिधित्व करता है. राष्ट्रपति ओबामा, शुक्र, विदेश नीति को अमेरिका के दृष्टिकोण को बदलने के लिए, इराक और अफगानिस्तान से सैनिकों ड्राइंग और एक अधिक बहुपक्षीय, रोगी, राजनयिक, और सबसे महत्वपूर्ण बात, कम खर्चीला दृष्टिकोण की ओर बढ़ रहा है की कोशिश की प्रक्रिया में है. इसके अलावा, वित्तीय योजना OCO खर्च टोपी, जिससे सुनिश्चित करें कि उन बचत महसूस कर रहे हैं बनाने का प्रस्ताव है.

राष्ट्रपति ओबामा के विदेश नीति दृष्टिकोण राष्ट्रपति बुश की तुलना में कम पैसे खर्च होते हैं, और बजट दृष्टिकोण उन बचत को प्रतिबिंबित करना चाहिए.

संपादक टिप्पणी:

यह कितनी बुरी बातें progressives कि महामारी अब ओबामा प्रशासन से एक धूम्रपान का बड़ा कश वास्तविक बजट में कटौती और विशेष रूप में, से ध्यान हटाने के लिए आगे राजकोषीय लड़ाई में कटौती से पेंटागन की रक्षा करने के लिए भेजा मनाता है के लिए कर रहे हैं की एक हस्ताक्षर होना चाहिए . एतान समुद्री मछली OMB के लिए काम किया है, तो वह निश्चित रूप से लेखांकन सीबीओ आधारभूत वर्तमान कानून के आधार पर अनुमानों में निर्मित विरूपण समझता. दुनिया में व्यक्ति नहीं एक (सीबीओ पर जो आधारभूत तैयार) का मानना ​​है कि OCO व्यय 2011 के रूप में एक ही स्तर पर इराक और अफगानिस्तान में युद्ध के निधि जारी रहेगा. सीबीओ एक क्यों "नीति विकल्प आकर्षित" संभावना OCO लागत का अनुमान है. कि बाद व्यायाम "मूर्ख", नहीं है और न ही सुझाव है कि इस तरह के अनुमान बजट में कमी की योजना पर विचार करने के लिए आधार हो.

Mr. Pollack must also know that President Obama's FY12 budget submission to Congress contains only $50 billion a year for OCO for future years. Which is it? $118 billion forever or $50 billion forever? आप इसे दोनों तरीके नहीं हो सकता है.

CBO's draw down option is surely better for budget (and deficit
reduction) planning that either the unrealistic “placeholder” (which
is simply irresponsible budgeting) or the CBO baseline artifact of
$118 billion forever.

If President Obama wishes to announce a plan to save meaningful
amounts from OCO he would need to announce more rapid withdrawals from Afghanistan… but then no one really believes he is leaving
Afghanistan in 2014. So this is all smoke and mirrors…and progressives should feel terrible about it, not celebrate.

It is disingenuous to claim that the CBO's baseline OCO is somehow a Bush responsibility. It is simply a methodological artifact of how CBO does its baseline.

President Obama has been in charge for nearly three years and has not brought all the troops home from Iraq and has hardly begun a draw down in Afghanistan. The current year OCO of $118 billion is his responsibility as is the phoney-ness of projecting it forward ten years and then claiming savings from spending “$653 billion…over ten years.” If he was really willing to end the war in Afghanistan soon he might be able to cut that OCO in half and offer $325 billion from reduced future war costs to deficit reduction.

And until this year's budget imbroglio in Congress forced his hand he
has continued to feed the Pentagon with higher and higher base budgets every year. There is no evidence that President Obama's “approach to foreign policy…[is] less expensive”… not as far as the largesse offered up to the Pentagon is concerned.

We must not base progressive policy on smoke and mirrors. Such
politics only hurts us in the long run.

Another critique of this budget gimmick can be found at: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/gordon-adams/2369/how-about-those-defense-savings .

___________________________________________________________

व्हाइट हाउस. सितंबर 2011.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66998459/WH-Report-on-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan-September-2011

डब्ल्यू एंड्रयू Terrill. सामरिक अध्ययन संस्थान, अमेरिकी आर्मी वार कॉलेज, 2 अगस्त 2011.

मैथ्यू Leatherman. विल और वॉलेट, 26 जुलाई 2011.
http://thewillandthewallet.squarespace.com/blog/2011/7/26/dods-64b-question-where-is-that-64b.html

अंश:

सीबीओ लंबे समय से कहा है कि DoD के underestimates कार्यक्रम लागत सहित, सबसे हाल ही में, 2012 भविष्य वर्षों रक्षा कार्यक्रम के दीर्घकालिक प्रभाव पर अपनी रिपोर्ट. अध्ययन निष्कर्ष निकाला है कि "सीबीओ और FYDP के के लिए प्रक्षेपण DOD अनुमान के बीच अंतर के बारे में 2%, या पांच वर्ष की अवधि में लगभग 64 अरब डॉलर है कि" "

डेविड ई. Mosher, राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा, कांग्रेस के बजट कार्यालय के लिए सहायक निदेशक. बजट, अमेरिकी प्रतिनिधि सभा, 7 जुलाई 2011 पर समिति के समक्ष गवाही.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12162/07-07-FYDP_Testimony.pdf

संपादकीय. बोस्टन ग्लोब, 30 जून 2011.

जब लियोन Panetta रक्षा विभाग में कल पतवार लेता है, वह अफगानिस्तान, इराक, और लीबिया में अमेरिकी सेना के प्रयासों के बारे में मुश्किल विकल्पों का सामना करना पड़ जाएगा. लेकिन एक समान रूप से दबाव है - और संभवतः भी अधिक असभ्य समस्या पेंटागन बजट और खर्च है. निवर्तमान सचिव रॉबर्ट गेट्स खर्च को नियंत्रित करने की जरूरत करने के लिए होंठ सेवा का भुगतान करने में अच्छा था, वह हाल ही में कहा कि "संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका के रूप में आवश्यक के रूप में राष्ट्रीय रक्षा पर ज्यादा खर्च करना चाहिए, लेकिन और अधिक पैसा एक नहीं लेकिन विभाग की आधारभूत बजट बढ़ गया है गेट्स के बाद से हर साल पदभार संभाल लिया है $ 450 अरब से अधिक $ 550 अरब चार साल बाद. इस साल अकेले, पेंटागन अपने 2010 के बजट से एक 3.4 प्रतिशत वृद्धि की मांग है.

यह सिर्फ युद्ध नहीं है, वे पेंटागन भारी बजट अनुरोध के कम से कम 30 प्रतिशत का प्रतिनिधित्व करते हैं. अन्य सरकारी खर्च के संदर्भ में, पेंटागन एक behemoth है. सरकार विवेकाधीन खर्च के हर $ 100 के लिए, $ 30 से अधिक गैर - युद्ध रक्षा व्यय के लिए चला जाता है. गुंजाइश भारी है, है विफल प्रणालियों की तुलना में अधिक टुकड़ों में कटौती के लिए तत्काल जरूरत है.

गेट्स ने हाल ही में दावा किया है कि पेंटागन पहले से ही 300 अरब डॉलर की कटौती की है, लेकिन गणित नहीं तो पता चलता है. कि पैसा पहले ही समाप्त हो निर्धारित कार्यक्रमों से आया है. बचत केवल अन्य सैन्य प्राथमिकताओं में डाल रहे थे. ध्यान देने योग्य बात है कि नौसेना के 11 वाहक लड़ाई समूहों अत्यधिक थे करने के बाद गेट्स के लिए एक एक को खत्म करने से इनकार कर दिया.

Panetta के लिए बजट में अधिक अनुशासित और प्रणालीगत देखो लेने की आवश्यकता होगी. प्रभावशाली लगता है कि टैंक और पिछले साल सहित स्वतंत्र अध्ययन, से सलाह की कोई कमी नहीं है सतत रक्षा टास्क फोर्स की रिपोर्ट , एक द्विदलीय समूह के प्रतिनिधि बार्नी फ्रैंक द्वारा बुलाई. उनकी सिफारिशों 2011 और 2020 के बीच 960 अरब डॉलर ट्रिम, अगर केवल पेंटागन उन पर कार्रवाई करेगी.

1000 warheads के लिए तैनात परमाणु हथियारों की संख्या आधे से काटना परमाणु युद्ध और शस्त्र नियंत्रण अधिवक्ताओं के प्रयासों पर कम जोर देने के साथ संगत है. यह अकेले कदम 10 वर्षों में 100 अरब डॉलर से अधिक बचा होगा. द्वारा 50,000 पारंपरिक बलों को कम करना है, जो अभी भी 100,000 यूरोप और एशिया में तैनात कर्मियों को छोड़ना होगा, और अधिक यथार्थवादी बल संरचना है. बस कुछ प्रणालियों है कि न तो लागत प्रभावी और न ही आवश्यक हैं रद्द अधिक बचा होगा. MV-22 Osprey और अभियान लड़ वाहन परेशानी पर लंबे समय है, और क्षमता पर कम कर रहे हैं. इसके अलावा, कांग्रेस के बजट कार्यालय और सरकार के जवाबदेही कार्यालय दोनों प्रस्तावित परिवर्तनों रखरखाव, आपूर्ति और बुनियादी सुविधाओं, जैसे प्रयास है, कि अगले दशक में 100 अरब डॉलर बचा सकता है समर्थन.

यह सब राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा से समझौता किए बिना पूरा किया जा सकता है. Panetta राजनीतिक ताकतों का दावा है कि किसी भी कटौती को देश के विभिन्न दुश्मन की चपेट में है पर वापस धक्का की जरूरत है. घाटा बहुत अधिक सुरक्षा जोखिम है.

दुर्भाग्य से, पेंटागन के सबसे बड़े संघीय एजेंसी रहता है कि बस एक स्वतंत्र लेखा परीक्षक की परीक्षा पास नहीं कर सकते, जब सामान्य बहीखाता प्रक्रियाओं के अधीन है, यह किसी भी सटीकता के साथ नहीं कर सकते, ट्रैक खर्च, धोखाधड़ी, बेकार, या अतिरेक. यह अपने आप लेखापरीक्षा "तत्परता के लिए एक सितंबर 2017 की समय सीमा दी है.'' वह जल्द ही पर्याप्त नहीं है. Panetta, जो प्रबंधन एवं बजट कार्यालय के पूर्व प्रमुख के रूप में, राजकोषीय अनुशासन के लिए एक कठोर सेनानी के रूप में एक प्रतिष्ठा है. वह एक दिन पर पेंटागन के क्रम में घर पाने के लिए की आवश्यकता होगी.

Task Force on A Unified Security Budget Institute for Policy Studies , July 2011.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/Unified_Security_Budget_FY2012.pdf

Melvin Goodman. Baltimore Sun , 29 June 2011.

अंश:

In his recent lectures, Mr. Gates warned against any freeze in defense spending, leaving Mr. Panetta to deal with weapons systems and military missions that the United States can no longer afford. As the former director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Panetta presumably understands that the United States, with less than 25 percent of the world's economic output and more than 50 percent of the world's military expenditures, will have to curtail certain weapons and missions. The defense budget has grown more than 50 percent in the past 10 years and now exceeds the pace of spending of the Cold War era, including the wars in Korea and Vietnam as well as the peacetime buildup of President Ronald Reagan.

A reexamination of current troop deployments must include the tens of thousands of troops in Europe and Asia more than six decades after the end of World War II; hundreds of bases and facilities the world over; and the excessive willingness to project power in areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, where vital national interests are not at stake.

The White House, 29 June 2011.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/29/fact-sheet-national-strategy-counterterrorism

White House Fact Sheet National Strategy for Counterterrorism

व्हाइट हाउस
June 29, 2011

“As a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror: Justice has been done.”

–President Barack Obama
1 मई, 2011

The National Strategy for Counterterrorism, found here, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/counterterrorism_strategy.pdf formalizes the approach that President Obama and his Administration have been pursuing and adapting for the past two and half years to prevent terrorist attacks and to deliver devastating blows against al-Qa'ida, including the successful mission to kill Usama bin Laden.

Rather than defining our entire national security policy, this counterterrorism strategy is one part of President Obama's larger National Security Strategy, which seeks to advance our enduring national security interests, including our security, prosperity, respect for universal values and global cooperation to meet global challenges.

This Strategy builds upon the progress we have made in the decade since 9/11, in partnership with Congress, to build our counterterrorism and homeland security capacity as a nation. It neither represents a wholesale overhaul—nor a wholesale retention—of previous policies and strategies.

Threat —This Strategy recognizes there are numerous nations and groups that support terrorism to oppose US interests, including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and HAMAS, and we will use the full range of our foreign policy tools to protect the United States against these threats.

However, the principal focus of this counterterrorism strategy is the network that poses the most direct and significant threat to the United States—al-Qa'ida, its affiliates and its adherents.

Al-Qa'ida has murdered thousands of our citizens, including on 9/11.

Al-Qa'ida affiliates—groups that have aligned with al-Qa'ida—have attempted to attack us, such as Yemen-based al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25, 2009.

Al-Qa'ida adherents—individuals, sometimes American citizens, who cooperate with or are inspired by al-Qa'ida—have engaged in terrorism, including the tragic slaughter of our service members at Fort Hood in 2009.

Our Ultimate Objective —This Strategy is clear and precise in our ultimate objective: we will disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat al-Qa'ida—its leadership core in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, its affiliates and adherents to ensure the security of our citizens and interests.

Our Posture —We are at war. We are waging a broad, sustained, integrated and relentless campaign that harnesses every element of American power to defeat al-Qa'ida.

Our Goals –To defeat al-Qa'ida, we are pursuing specific counterterrorism goals, including:

Protecting our homeland by constantly reducing our vulnerabilities and adapting and updating our defenses.

Disrupting, degrading, dismantling and defeating al-Qa'ida wherever it takes root.

Preventing terrorists from acquiring or developing weapons of mass destruction.

Eliminating the safehavens al-Qa'ida needs to train, plot and launch attacks against us.

Degrading links between al-Qa'ida, its affiliates and adherents.

Countering al-Qa'ida ideology and its attempts to justify violence.

Depriving al-Qa'ida and its affiliates of their enabling means, including illicit financing, logistical support, and online communications.

Our Principles —Our pursuit of these goals is guided by several key principles, including:

Upholding core American values, including rule of law and the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of all Americans;

Harnessing every tool at our disposal, including intelligence, military, homeland security and law enforcement, and maximizing cooperation between communities;

Building partnerships to with international institutions and partners so that nations can take the fight to al-Qa'ida, its affiliates and adherents in their own countries;

Applying tools appropriately, recognizing that different threats in different regions demand different tools;

Building a culture of preparedness and resilience at home to prevent terrorist attacks and ensure we can quickly recover should an attack occur.

Devastating Blows Against Al-Qa'ida—guided by this Strategy, we have achieved significant progress against al-Qa'ida over the past two and a half years.

We have put al-Qa'ida under more pressure than at any time since 9/11, affecting its ability to attract new recruits and making it harder for al-Qa'ida to train and plot attacks.

Al-Qa'ida's leadership ranks have been decimated, with more key leaders eliminated in rapid succession than at any time since 9/11.

Virtually every major al-Qa'ida affiliate has lost its key leader or operational commander.

More than half of al-Qa'ida's leadership has been eliminated, including Usama bin Laden.

“On a Path to Defeat” —As President Obama stated in his June 22 remarks on our way forward in Afghanistan, “we have put al Qaeda on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done.”

Information seized from his compound reveals bin Laden's concerns about al-Qa'ida's long-term viability.

Bin Laden clearly saw that al-Qa'ida is losing the larger battle for hearts and minds.

Bin Laden knew that he had failed to portray America as being at war with Islam.

He knew that al-Qa'ida's murder of so many innocent civilians, most of them Muslims, had deeply and perhaps permanently tarnished al-Qa'ida's image in the world.

Editor's Comment:

In terms of military means of countering terrorism it has been reported that this Counterterrorism Strategy signals the shift away from large-scale ground interventions in foreign countries and consequently will reduce the requirement for counter-insurgency capabilities in the armed forces. Instead it relies more on special forces assisted by drones to target principals in terrorist organizations.

Time will tell whether COIN is on the way out.

William Hartung. Huffington Post , 28 June 2011.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-hartung/afghanistan-for-real-savi_b_886241.html

अंश:

There won't be large scale savings from the winding down of the Afghan war until virtually all US forces are withdrawn. Even then there are still likely to be ongoing costs for training, equipping and possibly even paying Afghan security forces, which could cost up to $10 billion or more per year if current rates are maintained. But the vast bulk of the $120 billion per year now being spent on the war will be freed up for other purposes: deficit reduction, or public investments, or some combination of the two.

An end to the Afghan and Iraq wars may also open the way to a more comprehensive public debate on the Pentagon's $550 billion-plus annual base budget — a sum over four times as large as what we spend on the wars. Politically, making real cuts in Pentagon spending during a time of war is a tough sell, even given our current budgetary predicament. But an end to the wars combined with the pressure from the deficit could lead to real cuts in the Pentagon's base budget as well, especially if we adopt a new strategy that forswears major wars of occupation or large-scale insurgency campaigns of the kind our nation has waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we cut the war spending and bring the Pentagon's larger budget into line with reality, then we'll be talking real money.

Jeff Jacoby. Boston Globe , 22 June 2011.

अंश:

…with great power come great responsibilities, and sometimes one of those responsibilities is to destroy monsters: to take down tyrants who victimize the innocent and flout the rules of civilization. If neighborhoods and cities need policing, it stands to reason the world does too. And just as local criminals thrive when cops look the other way, so do criminals on the world stage.

Our world needs a policeman. And whether most Americans like it or not, only their indispensable nation is fit for the job.

Editor's Comment:

When three-quarters of Americans reject a role of global policeman for the US perhaps they understand something fundamental about policing that Jeff Jacoby doesn't. A police force without oversight by a judiciary and a guiding body of law is surely a formula for tyranny .

Jacoby would never endorse tyranny, but the avocation to be global policemen by White House occupants who are elected by and responsible to only 10% of the world's people is a decision to be a vigilante on the global stage. Consider that Americans would be up in arms if China or Russia took it upon themselves to be global vigilantes.

For the leaders of the US to so gladly to take up this role only serves to delay the day when we have capable international judicial and policing institutions. If our leaders attempt to think even a few years into the future it should be clear to them that the practice of vigilantism does not serve American interests.

[A version of this comment was published as a letter to the editor in the Boston Globe , 28 June 2011.]

Sandra Erwin. National Defense , 10 June 2011.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/lists/posts/post.aspx?ID=441

अंश:

Not only are there internal disagreements within the Pentagon and the Obama administration over what the military services will be doing in the future, but factions within Congress also will be pushing individual agendas. “In Congress, you have 535 individuals and every one of them thinks they're in charge,” O'Keefe said. “If you don't have some benchmark to work with to start the discussion,” the Pentagon will lose control over what gets cut in future budgets.

“If there is no strategic framework, that is what will happen: The process takes over,” said O'Keefe. Defense leaders should come up with a reasonable strategic framework as early as possible that they can sell to Congress, he said. “Absent that, it is going to be the programmers and bean counters driving the train to meet a number.”

A coherent message from the Defense Department is “missing right now,” said John J. Hamre, president of CSIS and former deputy defense secretary.

“What are we really trying to plan for, as a Defense Department, that is good for 20 years?” he asked. “Are we going to get the hell out of these wars and never fight them again? What are we preparing for?” he added. “That, I think, is the work for the next six months.”

There has to be a sense of urgency about articulating a plan for the future of the US military, because increasingly the American public is losing patience with seemingly endless wars and gridlock over how to move forward, Hamre said

Steps Toward Defense Budget Discipline , a Hill briefing sponsored by Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Project on Defense Alternatives, 7 June 2011, video by the Stimson Center . Featuring: Amy Belasco, Carl Conetta, Benjamin Friedman, Matthew Leatherman, Laura Peterson and Winslow Wheeler.

Carlton Meyer. G2mil.com, June 2011.
http://www.g2mil.com/OBCL.htm

अंश:

Here is a list of outdated US military bases overseas that can be promptly closed to save billions of dollars each year…

Close Outdated US Military Bases in Japan – Futenma & Atsugi

Pull Aircraft and Airmen Out of Osan – now in a kill zone

Cut Army Fat in Korea – 8th Army and Daegu

Vacate Two Army Bases in Germany – as once planned

Close Torii Station – a US Army base on Okinawa?

Vacate RAF Lakenheath – the Russians aren't coming

Close Gitmo, the Entire Base – it has no purpose

Close Chinhae Tomorrow – it commands nothing

[There is more argumentation about each of these at the source.]

विंस्लो व्हीलर. Guest Post, 24 May 2011.

The National Defense Authorization bill, HR 1540, will be debated by the House of Representatives this week. The bill is the work product of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Chaired by Congressman Buck McKeon, R. – Calif..

The Operation and Maintenance section (Title XLIII) of the bill is one of its largest and most important. “O&M” deals with the support, logistics, maintenance, training and much else needed to enable our armed forces to function effectively. $170.8 billion was requested by President Obama; the committee increased that by $361 million to $171.1 billion. However, to get there the Committee took some detours.

Sprinkled throughout the O&M title the HASC added various earmarks (one minor example: $4.0 million for “Simulation Training Systems for the Army” [p. 430 of the Committee Report]). All of these came to a lot more than the $361 million net add to the bill. The Committee and its staff had to find offsets to help pay for these earmark goodies and other additions.

In past years, the HASC (and the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Defense Subcommittees of both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees) has listed strange sounding reductions in the O&M sections of their bills – “unobligated balances.” These should be technical alterations for money previously appropriated to the various military services for various programs; they become “unobligated” when the planned expenditure does not occur, and they presumably become available for offsets for new spending, or – if the Committee were to be more forthcoming to the taxpayer – return to the Treasury.

For example, on p. 432 of the HASC Committee Report, the tables for Army O&M show a reduction of $384.6 million labeled “Army unobligated balances estimate.” That amount happens to be 1.1% of the president's request for total Army O&M ($34.735 billion).

The Navy section on O&M in the HASC bill shows a $435.9 million reduction for “Navy unobligated balances estimate.” For some strange reason, that amount also calculates to 1.1% of the President's request for Navy O&M ($39.365 billion).

Stranger even, the Marine Corps O&M reduction for unobligated balances as also 1.1% ($66 million of a $5.960 billion request).

Same thing for the Air Force; the same 1.1% ($400.8 million from a $36.195 billion request).

None of these are discussed or explained in the text of the committee report; the only “explanation” we get is that they are “Army [or Navy, or Air Force, etc.] unobligated balances estimate.”

That all of these “estimates,” which should be technical in their nature, come to 1.1% reeks of gaming the system. Two relevant questions: Who did it? And Why?

First, I seriously question if these conveniently similar estimates did indeed come from the military services. That would require a rather strange (and specious) amount of coordination by them all to all come to 1.1% of their respective O&M budget requests.

Secondly, why are there no “unobligated balances” in the procurement and R&D titles, which are heavy with the kind of spending that can end up “unobligated”?

Third, why isn't this money being returned to the Treasury, from whence it came and now belongs if indeed the money is no longer needed by the Defense Department?

There are lots of other questions, but hopefully you get my drift. The offsets the HASC took, calling them “unobligated balances,” are nothing but across the board whacks at one of the most importance accounts in the DOD budget – the one that makes for a well trained and supported military. Why is the HASC doing these across the board cuts, and why are they doing it in O&M?

There are some other “unobligated balance” issues in the bill. The defense wide part of O&M also took a $456.8 million hit from a request of $30.940 billion. This comes to 1.47%. Why does the part that supports the special forces and others take a bigger proportional hit than the other military services?

Also, the Defense Health Program takes a $225 million hit which is “explained” as a “GAO estimate,” but no GAO analysis or other explanation is offered.

The Military Personnel budget that pays military salaries takes a $693 million hit from a $142.828 billion request (.48%). I found no explanation.

Finally, section 2107 permits the Secretary of the Army to use $115 million in previously “unobligated” spending to fund a water treatment facility at Fort Irwin California. शायद फोर्ट इरविन क्षेत्र से प्रतिनिधि सभा की व्याख्या कर सकते हैं यह सब कैसे काम करता है और कैसे वह या वह इन सर्वव्यापी धन से जिले में कुछ खर्च निधि है.

In my judgment, the HASC, which is charged with oversight of DOD, could use a little oversight itself.

Pentagon's Phantom Savings: $330B Claim Erodes as Programs Reappear
Marcus Weisgerber. Defense News , 16 May 2011.
http://rempost.blogspot.com/2011/05/pentagons-phantom-savings-330b-claim.html

अंश:

Nearly 40 percent of that sum [$330 billion] is going straight back into US military programs that replicate the canceled ones, and it's unclear where another 10 percent came from at all, according to a Defense News analysis and to several analysts.

…many of the military services' capability requirements remained in place. More than $130 billion is back on the books, or will be soon, for follow-on or replacement programs. Of the programs canceled in 2010, at least five have already been relaunched, or are in the planning stages to begin again.

Editor's Comment:

When President Obama addressed the nation about the Federal deficit on April 13th he said, “Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again.” A number of us military budget analysts looked at each other and said, “Huh, did we miss something?” We hadn't notice any significant cuts in Pentagon spending that could count toward reducing the Federal deficit. Where did the President get that big number?

Of course, we had taken notice when Defense Secretary Gates had announced $78 billion in budget cuts for the FY12 five year defense plan. We noted that the DoD budget would still continue to grow, that some of these cuts were fairly soft (dependent on assumptions about future inflation rates) and most savings would be generated in the out-years. (See: Pentagon Resists Deficit Reduction )

And we had noted that Secretary Gates had cancelled a number of programs in 2009. But we also noted that many of the cancelled programs were being replaced by others substantially reducing the putative savings (see Gordon Adams, Defense Budgets: Still Need to Get it Right! )

In the days following the President's speech we commented on how there was much less real savings than the President attributed to Secretary Gates' “courageous” efforts. I pointed out that $68 billion of the January $78 billion in savings had been consumed when 2012 war costs appeared in the budget released in February, replacing small placeholder numbers.

Benjamin Friedman observed that “current 'savings' consist entirely of spending that the Pentagon reprogrammed and kept, and the future 'savings' come by reducing planned spending growth, rather than reducing actual spending.”

Carl Conetta reviewed the history of these supposed cuts going back to 2009 and compared successive Obama budgets, 2010 through 2012, finding no more than $233 billion in “maybe” DoD reductions in projected out years.

The collective skepticism of independent analysts about the $400 billion no doubt reached the attention of the editors of Defense News , the leading defense industry weekly, where Marcus Weisgerber sought to justify Secretary Gates' claim of $330 billion in savings from the 2009 program cancellations. When DoD officials refused a request to give a program-by-program breakdown of the figure Defense News “used budget justification documents, DoD officials' public statements, annual acquisition reports and Government Accountability Office estimates to project program costs. For classified and far-term programs not on the books – but factored into DoD's projections – think tank and analysts' estimates were used.” The Weisgerber article title, “ Pentagon's Phantom Savings “, sums up the results of Defense News' effort to justify Secretary Gates' claim of savings.

Defense News editorial, 16 May 2011.
http://rempost.blogspot.com/2011/05/us-defense-budget-get-real-pentagon.html

अंश:

There is an old Washington saying that no money is less real than out-year money. This means that anything that is beyond the immediate spending bill is purely notional.

Requirement control is a popular method of limiting the costs of new weapons, but it's equally important to control the growing number of missions.

The first step should be to ensure the roles-and-missions review ordered by Obama slashes unnecessary and costly redundancies in capabilities.

Second, the Pentagon must avoid doing what it did – portraying soft numbers as hard ones that do little other than expose it to criticism.

Lastly, to make wise cuts, the Pentagon must improve its internal financial management processes to pinpoint what it's spending and how. Without hard data, it's hard to come up with hard savings.

चार्ल्स नाइट. Project on Defense Alternatives Note , 12 May 2011.

Word is that two principals in the production of 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review will be charged with producing the “fundamental” defense review President Obama ordered in his April 13th speech on the deficit. They are Kathleen Hicks , Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Planning, who was the lead 2010 QDR author and David Ochmanek , Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development, who headed the “analysis and integration cell” which pulled together all the analytical aspects of the last QDR.

Update

Defense News reports (23 May 2011) that “The missions and capabilities review will be led by Christine Fox , director of cost assessment and program evaluations [and formerly the President of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)]; Michele Flournoy , defense undersecretary for policy [and the Pentagon official in charge of the 2010 QDR]; and Adm. Michael Mullen , Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Editor's Comment:

Putting the same people who did the 2010 review in charge of producing the new review raises an obvious question of whether we should expect anything much “new” or “fundamental” from this review. QDRs in the past have certainly failed to be “fundamental” in any meaningful sense of the word.

One suspects that the foregone sub-text of what Ms. Hicks writes into the new review will be, “We got this pretty much right when we did it last year. Now, of course, if you are willing to take greater security risks you can cut some pieces out of the force posture, but that is a political decision…”

If the new review makes such a smug presentation it will serve the President and the nation poorly. The 2010 QDR did not make any real effort to set clear priorities among the many military requirements it listed, failing one of the principles of strategy development which is to set a practical path within resource constraints. A new fundamental review must present a variety of low-risk options that can be achieved at various resource investment levels. Its authors should not be allowed to simply push the matter of security risk into the political domain.

President Obama would be smart to solicit ideas from a wide variety of sources, reaching far beyond the Pentagon's strategy, policy and force planning staff. If a fundamental review is needed, it is wise to hear and consider diverse voices.

Winslow Wheeler. Center for Defense Information, May 2011.
http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/GreenbookInflationMay11.pdf

अंश:

The comparison of DOD's prediction of inflation for itself compared to the commonly accepted GDP measure looms as a major consideration when one considers the time frame that President Obama and Congress are contemplating in the context of deficit reduction. The President's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform assumed a budget window of 10 years from 2011 to 2020. In his April 13 speech on deficit reduction the president addressed a budget window going out to 2023, when he implied, but did not explain, a reduction in the planned “security” budget of $400 billion in the 2012 -2023 time frame.

There are multiple caveats and uncertainties in the defense related reductions the president appears to have been talking about; these should be identified before identifying how the inflation issue impacts any contemplated savings. They are the following:

• The manner in which the president addressed past and future “savings” made it unclear the extent to which he was addressing actual reductions in spending, or “savings” as efficiencies (ie internal transfers inside the DOD budget as Secretary of Defense Gates has for the most part been conducting);

• No DOD budget figures exist for some of the years the president addressed; available DOD figures go out to only 2016; available OMB figures for defense spending go out to 2021, but the amounts for 2022-2023 are unknown; it is also notable that in recent budget history, most deficit reduction plans have spanned either five or ten years, not twelve; the latter spreads out the annual amount required to be saved, and – more importantly – moving savings out to years as far as ten or twelve years away literally moves them to never-never land;

• No figures were released for any reductions in any year, whether the pre-existing annual budget was known or unknown;

• The target for these $400 billion in “savings” is the “security” budget, not just the Defense Department's budget. The security category includes not just DOD but the State Department/International Affairs budget function, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the nuclear weapons activities of the Department of Energy, and other miscellaneous programs and agencies; the Defense Department's proposed share of the $400 billion “savings” is unknown, and

• Materials released by the White House at the time of the speech asserted that the new plan had a “goal” to hold DOD spending “below” the rate of inflation. While DOD's preferred rates of inflation will – as always – be used for the DOD budget, the differences between the DOD and GDP inflation indices for the years beyond 2016 have also not been made available.

… if the Department of Defense is held to the rate of inflation – or just “below” – as calculated by the DOD inflation indices, it is clear from the above analysis that it will be quite possible for the Pentagon to enjoy “real” growth – under the more generally accepted GDP indices.

Carl Conetta. Project on Defense Alternatives Note , 30 April 2011.

Why is our defense spending so high and apparently out of control? Plenty of ink has been spilled addressing this question, including my own short, The Pentagon's Runaway Budget .

Andy Bacevich may get closer to the key political dynamics in Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable .

There is no better example of the dysfunctional political dynamic governing the Pentagon budget than President Obama's affirmation (April 13, 2011) of the claim that Secretary of Defense Gates has “already saved” the nation $400 billion in defense expenditure. And there is no better illustration of the poverty of our discourse on this subject than the fact that the claim goes largely unchallenged.

Most of the $400 billion in earlier DoD “savings” that President Obama has attributed to Secretary Gates are not “savings” in the ordinary sense of the word. They do not show up as reductions in DoD budget plans from one year to the next, as shown below. At best, they represent DoD marginally adjusting its programs and aspirations to marginally deal with spiraling cost growth.

Rough analogy: Having said it would deliver a “fully-loaded” Cadillac for a specified price X, and having discovered that this estimated price is entirely unrealistic, a car dealer trims back some of the features and delivers something less for the full promised price. Most consumers would call this a gyp, not a savings.

The alternative would be for DoD to further boost subsequent budget requests to fully reflect cost growth, and let Congress and the Executive reconsider what they wanted to buy. I suppose one could say that DoD has “saved” these authorities from the headache of making this decision. Fully confronting a realistic pricing of current programs might lead to a thorough-going rethink of our defense posture and modernization efforts. But that's too much to consider.

Now, let's try to find those $400 billion in “savings”….

THE $400 BILLION

1. Much of the $400 billion that Secretary Gates is claimed to have saved derives from his April 2009 announcement of program cuts. Gates claims that the systems and programs he cut in 2009 would have eventually cost more than $300 billion. However, at least some of this was immediately reprogrammed, meaning: DoD used the savings to buy other things.

April 2009 Gates Defense Budget Recommendation Statement

2. In August 2010 and January 2011, Secretary Gates outlined additional “cuts” and “savings” totaling $178 billion. Of this, $100 billion was immediately reprogrammed to purchase other things or cover other costs. The remaining $78 billion was supposed to be released from the Pentagon orbit to help pay down the deficit. In the August 2010 statement, we find Gates' claiming that his earlier 2009 effort has already saved more than $300 billion.

August 2010 Gates Statement on Department Efficiencies Initiative

Jan 2011 Gates Statement on Department Budget and Efficiencies

PDA summary chart re: the $178 billion

3. How much (if any) of the earlier “more than $300 billion” in savings was similarly given over for deficit reduction? Looking at actual budget plans, what do we see? The first $300 billion was announced in April 2009 and it might reasonably have shown up as difference between the last Bush budget plan (FY09) and the first Obama budget plan (FY10).

Comparison between these two budget plans is easy for the years 2010-2013:
- Bush FY09 planned total spending for 2010-2013 = 2.155 trillion
- Obama FY10 planned total spending for 2010-2013 = 2.183 trillion

An increase is not a reduction, therefore: no savings apparent in the near years.

4. Obama's next budget plan (FY11) foresaw a significant increase over his first. So, no savings apparent there either.

5. Only in the next plan – the FY12 plan – do we see a reduction in planned spending between FY12 and FY11 plans. In the nine years that overlap between the FY11 and FY12 plans, we see a reduction of about $233 billion.

But the FY12 plan follows Gates' second announcement of cuts and savings (summarized in #2 above). So, at least, $78 billion derives from that and not the earlier cuts. Indeed, when we compare the FY12 plan with the FY11 plan for the years 2012-2016, there is a reduction in planned spending of $76 billion. Still no apparent impact from the April 2009 “cuts,” however.

6. Well, as noted above, the total difference between the FY11 and FY12 plan for the years 2012-2020 is $233 billion. 233 minus 78 = 155. This additional planning rollback of $155 billion shows up for the years after 2016. So maybe we've found at least $155 billion of the earlier supposed cut? Maybe it just took 2 years to register? Maybe.

“Maybe” because the Obama FY12 budget rolls back planned spending almost exactly to the levels foreseen in the Obama FY10 budget …being the budget that was larger than the final Bush budget and being the budget that showed no impact from Gates' April 2009 offer. To put it another way: Obama's FY12 budget simply rolls back the future spending plan he produced in FY11 to the level he had proposed in FY10. The FY12 plan simply disappears the increase proposed in FY11.

7. The other possible (likely) reading of all this is that: (i) None of the original $300 billion “saved” ever left the Pentagon,
(ii) The $78 billion that Gates offered up to deficit reduction is the only “savings” really specified so far to actually show up as a reduction in planned spending, and (iii) The other $155 billion that the FY12 plan subtracts from the FY11 plan involves as yet unspecified cuts and efficiencies.

Project on Defense Alternatives Budget Brief , 28 April 2011.

The Obama Administration to date has made three successive Pentagon budget requests: FY10, FY11, and FY12. Each has looked ten years into the future.

On 13 April, the President offered a new proposal and framework — a revision to achieve greater deficit reduction. It looks forward 12 years. How do all these compare?

In order to compare the President's successive plans, we must stretch the earlier ones out to the new horizon set in his April 13 speech, which is 2023. Reviewing the budget requests shows that in each case the projections for the “out years” — the tail-end years — have been generated by the application of a simple inflator. We can adopt these inflators to stretch all the requests out to 2023. Of course, the result must be regarded as only an estimate of the administration's intent.

The difference between the FY11 and FY12 plans for the 10-year period 2012-2021 is around $240 billion. Stretch it out two more years and the difference grows to about $400 billion. This shows that the differences among the plans (when measured in “then year” dollars) really begin to accumulate as we go further and further into the future.

Keeping in mind that Congress must consider and pass the budget year by year, any series of budget projections going out twelve years, spanning three Presidential terms and differing economic conditions, must be judged distinctly uncertain.

Below are the total budget figures (in “then year” dollars) for the President's successive plans. Each plan is also weighed as a percentage of the earliest one (ie FY10):

FY10 plan for 2012-2023: 7543 billion = 100%

FY11 plan for 2012-2023: 7947 billion = 105%

FY12 plan for 2012-2023: 7512 billion = 99%

New (April 13) proposal for 2012-23: 7112 billion = 94%

The most consequential years for national policy are the next five: 2012-2016, which constitute the FYDP. The President's successive requests for these years are more firm and we needn't do any estimating to derive them. All the Administration budget requests have been explicit about these years. And reviewing the successive requests for 2012-2016 shows that the difference among them is not as substantial:

FY10 plan for 2012-2016: 2878 billion = 100%

FY11 plan for 2012-2016: 2995 billion = 104%

FY12 plan for 2012-2016: 2919 billion = 101%

We don't yet know what the President's April 13 proposal will imply for the 2012-2016 period. It's a fair bet, though, that he will want to reinstate his earlier request to DoD that $150 billion be “saved” in the near future and not just the $78 billion pledged earlier this year by Secretary Gates. That would produce the following:

New plan for 2012-2016: 2845 billion = 99%

If this proves true, the rollback in planned spending for the five years that matter most will be modest, verging on insignificant.

Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo #49, 25 April 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1104bm49.pdf

There is good reason to welcome a strategic review, as promised by President Obama on 13 April. For nearly 14 years, US defense policy has been guided by the “QDR consensus” – a set of axioms and imperatives that won adherence among defense planners in the course of four Quadrennial Defense Reviews, beginning in 1997. In retrospect, this consensus has produced a syndrome of profligate and desultory military activism. It has fed the dysfunctions of our military procurement system and helped drive the Pentagon's base budget to unsustainable heights. Certainly, it is time for a fresh start. But will the promised review deliver?

Will the review be more open and critical than the QDRs it aims to rectify? How deep will it dig? Will it even aim to “rectify?” Or will it serve a more narrow purpose: a revised bargain among the Commander-in-Chief, his defense secretary, and the chiefs of the armed services to exchange modest new constraints on budget growth for a strong rationale, a bulwark, against any further cuts.

What the President seeks is only $400 billion in savings over 12 years – about 6.5% of planned base budget expenditures. Last year, the President's Fiscal Commission and other independent task forces identified more than twice as much in potential defense savings over a period of just ten years. And it is unclear whether the President intends to extract the $400 billion from the Pentagon's budget alone or from the larger “security basket,” which includes International Affairs, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs.

Also, it is not encouraging that the President applauded Defense Security Gates for having “already saved” $400 billion in previous years, when most of those “savings” never left the Pentagon's coffers, nor dented the government's deficits. What the nation needs now are “savings” in the colloquial sense of an actual decrease in defense spending.

A serious strategic review should enable considerably more than a 6.5% retraction in planned future expenditures. It should do more than limit future growth. And maybe it will. But we should recognize at the start that what the President has proposed is not itself substantial enough to actually necessitate a strategic review. Yes, we need one – but not because the President hopes to modestly dampen Pentagon growth.

To be meaningful, such a review must look well beyond $400 billion in savings, and even beyond what the Fiscal Commission and other task forces have proposed. Of course, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen disagree. They have already publicly derided any substantial new constraints on their spending as putting the nation and its armed services at risk. The strategic review should be more than a conciliatory concession to their concerns, which are tendentious.

We can gain needed perspective by comparing recent budget submissions and proposals in historical context. This table prepared by PDA converts recent plans and proposals into average annual Pentagon base budgets, expressed in 2010 dollars. It shows that the President's requests and proposals, including his recent one, would produce average annual budgets that occupy a narrow band of spending. They are all close cousins.

Even the more ambitious proposal by the Sustainable Defense Task Force does not go far afield.

All of the President's requests and proposals produce average annual budgets that, in real terms, exceed previous spending, exceed Reagan-era levels of spending, and substantially exceed average spending during the entire Cold War period. (And, notably, the budget average for the Cold War years includes war spending, while the more recent averages do not.)

We should gladly accept the opportunity for a review of defense planning and work to make it worthwhile. But we need not and should not accept the idea that modest revisions in budget planning give good reason to hit the “strategy panic” button.

Sebastian Sprenger writing in Inside Defense on 21 April 2011 reports that the QDR Red Team headed by Gen. James Mattis (USMC) and Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net Assessment, raised concerns in 2009 about the fiscal restraint effects of the deep recession on military plans to be represented in the QDR.

The Red Team report was not made public. When the QDR was published in early 2010 it did not include a presentation of the effects of fiscal constraints.

Last week, a little more than a year later, President Obama asked Secretary Gates to find $400 billion in additional security budget cuts over a twelve year period and called for a new review of military roles and missions.

The effect of this development will be an update of the 2010 QDR which will likely now heed the concerns of the 2009 Red Team concerning fiscal constraints.

On Wednesday April 13th 2001, President Obama announced an initiative to roll back planned security spending by $400 billion over the next 12 years. The nature of these “savings” is not yet clear. Nor is it clear how much will be subtracted from the Pentagon's spending plans.

Nonetheless, Secretary Gates and the Chiefs are not pleased and have begun to make noise about risks to security. Apparently, they were not briefed on the proposal until Tuesday.

Part of the initiative is to begin a “fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world.” What and how much is subtracted from the Pentagon will depend on this review. Notably, the United States just completed a Quadrennial Defense Review last year. What the President proposes is some sort of “second look.” The President, Secretary Gates, and the service chiefs will be the prime movers of this process. How deep their “second look” will go is unclear. And it seems battle lines are already being drawn.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell said the review would likely affect the 2013 budget. It will not be ready by June, when congressional debate of the 2012 budget commences.

How open will the review process be? We don't yet know. But the experience of recent defense reviews is not encouraging. Still we should welcome this first step and strive to open up the process. The need for a rethinking our defense strategy and posture was emphasized in the 2010 report of the Sustainable Defense Task Force :

[I]n order to ensure significant savings, we must change how we produce military power and the ways in which we put it to use. Significant savings may depend on our willingness to:

Rethink our national security commitments and goals to ensure they focus clearly on what concerns us the most;

Reset our national security strategy so that it reflects a cost-effective balance among the security instruments at our disposal and uses those instruments in cost-effective ways; and

Reform our system of producing defense assets so it.

News links on President Obama's proposed rollback in planned security spending, his call for a strategic review, and the Pentagon's reaction:

DOD: Finding More Savings In Defense Budget Means Nixing Missions . Christopher J. Castelli. Inside Defense , 13 April 2011.

Obama Calls for Sweeping Review of US Military Strategy . Sandra Erwin. National Defense , 13 April 2011.

Pentagon warns on big defense cuts . Missy Ryan and Jim Wolf. Reuters , 13 April 2011.

Defence chief warns against planned cuts . Daniel Dombey and James Politi. Financial Times , 14 April 2011.

Events frequently overtake long-term Pentagon planning . Megan Scully. Government Executive, 14 April 2011.

Editor's Commentary

13 April 2011 (revised and updated 16 April 2011)

In President Obama's April 13th “deficit speech” he says:

Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again.

What might “do that again” mean?

Actually contribute $400 billion from projected Pentagon budgets to deficit reduction?

That would require the Pentagon to take in and spend $400 billion less. But it is very difficult to identify much actual contribution to deficit reduction in the first $400 billion in Pentagon savings President Obama refers to and believes can be repeated.

Let's take a quick look at the components of that first $400 billion working backward through time.

This past January Secretary Gates announced $78 billion in cuts over five years. In February when the President's FY12 budget appeared all but $70 billion of this as regards deficit reduction evaporated. $68 billion was consumed by the special Overseas Contingency Operations (war) budgeting as the FY11 projected placeholder of $50 billion was replaced by the FY12 real OCO budget of $118 billion. Another $2 billion in the savings appears to have simply vanished in the five year budget projections, perhaps due to those pesky “rounding errors” that plague Pentagon budgets.

In 2010 Secretary Gates announced $100 billion in “efficiency” savings. He was quite forthright at the time, saying that he was keeping all the savings within the Pentagon to pay for other requirements. So we can't legitimately count those toward deficit reduction, and presumably the President did not count those toward the $400 billion that has been saved.

So that leaves about $322 billion in Pentagon savings the White House needs to account for.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 17 February 2011 Secretary Gates said:

…over the last two defense budgets submitted by President Obama, we have curtailed or canceled troubled or excess programs that would have cost more than $330 billion if seen through to completion.

Connecting this to President Obama's speech Defense News reports (13 April 2011) that:

Of the $400 billion already saved, $330 billion is supposed to come from Gates' cuts to weapons programs – for example the cancellation of the Army's Future Combat Systems program and the Air Force's Next-Generation Bomber, both of which Gates terminated in the 2010 budget. However, those two programs have been replaced: The Army is developing the Ground Combat Vehicle, and the Air Force has launched a scaled-back bomber program.

“Supposed” and “However” are the key words in the preceding paragraph. To be real savings that contribute in any meaningful way to deficit reduction the the program cancellations would have to lead to a declining Pentagon budget topline… and not be replaced by some other expenditure.

Gordon Adams of the Stimson Center assesses the $330 billion savings claim in a 5 November 2010 post this way:

Gates has not cut $330 billion from defense. When he announced hardware cuts, he said the out-year savings were estimated at $330 billion, but he didn't cut a nickel from the projected defense budgets; he wants, as he has clearly said, to use those savings for other investments, not give them back to the taxpayer. And the figure is way too big, anyway, because he terminated the F-22 and the C-17 cargo plane when neither one of them was in the long-term budget (he has been trying to let both programs arrive at a normal death, as planned, and Congress keeps getting in the way.) It is even more too big because his savings figure did not net out the alternative investments he proposed for the same missions, like replacing the terminated Future Combat Systems (FCS) vehicle with a new Army vehicle R&D program. So a big kerfuffle over a non-number, but no big cut in defense here.

To date the Pentagon or OMB have not produced any accounting of these supposed savings from Secretary Gates' program cancellations which indicate where they come out of the topline. Meanwhile it would be wise to substantially discount their value when thinking about overall Federal spending.

What we know for sure is that Pentagon budgets continue to rise despite the “savings.” The Pentagon and the Administration might argue that the Pentagon budget would have grown faster if Secretary Gates had not made those “courageous” program cuts. Possibly. But that “would have been” is simply not the same as actually contributing to deficit reduction which requires real cuts in the topline of the Pentagon budget.

In terms of cutting the topline of the Pentagon budget, when we remove the long-awaited reductions in war costs, we can count just $8 billion that Secretary Gates has given up to deficit reduction in the five year defense plan (FYDP) through FY16.

Looking out ten years there are more savings in the President's projections. My colleague Carl Conetta finds $164 billion less Pentagon spending in the overlapping four “out years” (FY17-20) when comparing the President's FY11 and Fy12 budget submissions.

We might speculate that this is where we realize some of Secretary Gates' $330 billion in savings, but it would be only speculation…

So far no one in the Administration has demonstrated in sufficient detail how the Pentagon will contribute much of anything toward reducing the Federal deficit, rounding errors notwithstanding.

Joshua Thiel. Small Wars Journal , 12 April 2011.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/732-thiel1.pdf

अंश:

Maneuver warfare at its core is a mechanistic endeavor and fits with a corresponding necessity of top-down hierarchies. Conversely, counterinsurgency is a more ambiguous environment that varies in its complexity and context; it is the chess match of war. It is different in every locale and can cover the entire spectrum of war simultaneously. Consequently, counterinsurgency is difficult to put on a bumper sticker, to trademark as a catch phrase, or sell to a population and their representatives. In 2006 the United States (US) public's perception of success or failure of the Iraqi counterinsurgency strategy was concentrated around the concept of massing combat power in time and space, often called the “The Surge.” The term, “The Surge,” condensed a new counterinsurgency strategy into a simple and quantifiable slogan for the sound bite culture surrounding current affairs in the modern world. Unfortunately, counterinsurgency is more complex than “add more and then you win.”

Comment by Gian Gentile:

Joshua said this at the end of the piece:

“…in Afghanistan in 2011, will the victor once again write the history by touting the Afghanistan troop surge of 2010-2011 rather than the decisive operational changes.”

What evidence, I mean hard evidence (and beyond what officers who were part of the Surge recall)that there was a “decisive operational change.”? How much “decisive” operational change can there be in an area security mission where combat forces are dispersed widely and operate in a decentralized manner? This operational framework was in place in Iraq from spring of 2003 on. The answer is that there was not a decisive change in the operational framework. Oh to be sure there were some tweaks made here and there, a few more outposts here and there, but by and large it remained the same.

Unfortunately a narrative has been constructed that posits that a savior General named Petraeus came on board, reinvented his field army operationally and combined with an increase of troops was the primary cause of the lowering of violence. This is a chimera.

Yet folks, especially us in the Army who have spilled blood in these places, want to believe that what happens or doesnt happen is because of us and what we do or dont do, or because of savior generals riding onto the scene.

Yet the foreign policy elite (and many military leaders) in this country love this narrative and want it to stick because it places emphasis and criticism on the mechanics of doing these wars of intervention and state building and away from the strategy and policy that put them into place. Since success in these wars and conflicts are simply a matter of getting the right number of troops on the ground with the right tactics and with the savior general, then they can be won again and again.

As senior Army generals in Afghanistan argue “the right inputs are finally in place,” so too are we already seeing calls in certain quarters for bog in Libya.

But in Iraq it was neither the increase in troops as part of the Surge (as Joshua effectively argues) nor was it a decisive change in operational framework (as he incorrectly asserts) and instead the lowering of violence had to do with other more critical conditions (the spread of the Anbar awakening, the Shia militia stand-down, the physical seperation of Baghdad into sectarian districts) occurring.

Budget Memo by Charles Knight. 14 February 2011.

For several years now White House budget projections have included a “placeholder for outyear overseas contingency operations” most of which are accounted for by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This placeholder number has been and remains $50 billion. Every year actual OCO (overseas contingency operations) spending turns out to be several times that number. FY11′s OCO is $159 billion and FY12′s is $118 billion .

Adjusting for the effect of the new OCO for FY12, the $68 billion budgeted above the placeholder of $50 billion eats up most of the $78 billion in Pentagon cuts that Secretary Gates offered up in January to fiscal responsibility (only $76 billion actually shows up in the 14 February budget release.) The remaining $8 billion (and much more) will go to the war budgets when reality collides with placeholder projections.

On 14 February Pentagon Comptroller Hale confirmed that the $50 billion placeholders for FY13 and beyond was the “best we can do.” Others make an attempt to be more realistic. The high tech industry association called Tech America annually projects DoD budgets for ten years out. In their 2010 projection they estimate that OCO spending will be $102 billion in FY13 , $69 billion in FY14 and $57billion in FY15 . When we subtract the $50 billion placeholder for each of those years and total the remainder we find that the Pentagon is likely to spend $78 billion more in the years FY13 through FY15 than in the White House budget projections.

In sum, not only does the President's FY12 budget plan give an exemption to the Pentagon from contributing anything substantial to deficit reduction, but the likely cost of the war in Afghanistan will push up the national debt substantially higher than the White House budget projections.

Decoding the Defense Budget by Winslow Wheeler, from The Pentagon Labyrinth , 09 February 2011.

अंश:

What Is the Defense Budget?

Each year in early February, the Pentagon releases what is invariably called the “defense budget” in press articles. The numbers presented do not address all forms of defense spending; they do not even address all forms of Pentagon spending.

For example, a table included in the Pentagon's press materials for the 2011 budget shows the “base” (non-Iraq or -Afghanistan war) budget request at $549.8 billion. The materials presented by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are more complete. The 2011 budget request for “base” (non-war) Pentagon spending was $554.1 billion. The additional $4.3 billion was for “mandatory” spending (also known as “entitlement” spending) mostly for personnel programs. The number the Pentagon released was for the “discretionary” (new annual appropriations) spending. The difference may be a minor one in this case, but it can be significant; in past years Congress has added scores of billions in new mandatory spending for military healthcare, and retirement and survivors' benefits.

The more complete exposition of DOD budgets in the OMB materials is not easy to find; it is usually buried in the “Supplemental Materials” to a volume called “Analytical Perspectives” that is released each year the same day the Pentagon releases its version of its budget. Unfortunately, the DOD press corps roundly ignores the more complete OMB materials. To be better informed in future years, track it down.

The same OMB table yields other important information: the additional DOD spending requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not just for the budget year but also for succeeding “out-years,” and the non-DOD spending for what OMB calls the “National Defense Budget Function,” which includes nuclear weapons, the Selective Service, the National Defense Stockpile of minerals and commodities, and more. The total for 2011 comes to $738.7 billion in “total” (discretionary plus mandatory) spending.

The same table also yields the budget amounts for the departments of Homeland (domestic) Security, State (for economic and weapons aid and other national security programs) and Veterans Affairs (for what might be called the human cost of wars). Each is clearly related to national security or “defense,” writ broadly. Finally, if you know where to look near the bottom of this long OMB table, you can find some additional spending in the Treasury Department for military retirement and healthcare, and finally the data needed to make a calculation of how much of the 2011 payment for interest on the national debt can fairly be attributed to the Pentagon.

The results of this more complete compilation of the president's 2011 budget request for “defense” is summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Defense Related Budget Requests for 2011.
(President's 2011 Budget Request – in $ billions)

“Base” DOD Budget (Discretionary only) 548.9

DOD (Mandatory only) 4.3

DOD War Spending 159.1

DOD Total 712.3

DOE (Defense) 18.8

Miscellaneous Defense-Related Agencies 7.6

National Defense Budget Function Total 738.7

Homeland Security (DHS) 43.6

Veterans Affairs (DVA) 122.0

International Affairs 65.3

Treasury Dept. Military Retirement Payments 25.9

Interest on DOD Retiree Health Care Fund 5.7

19% of Interest on Debt (DOD Proportional Share) 47.7

Grand Total $1,048,900,000,000.

The next time someone tries to tell you that the numbers DOD throws at you in its press releases are what you should use to understand monies spent for national security, give him a polite smile; then, go to that obscure table in the Supplementary Materials in OMB's “Analytical Perspectives.” It is published online the same day as the Pentagon press release. A few minutes of checking can give you a more complete understanding than what the press will report.

Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo 46 , 26 January 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1101bm46.pdf

अंश:

* Although described as a “cut,” Gates' offer would allow defense spending to rise steadily over the next five years.

* Although Gates says that any bigger cuts would court “catastrophe,” all the savings plans grant DoD more money in real terms during the next ten years than it had during the last ten.

* The proposals for bigger cuts would produce average Pentagon base budgets during the next ten years that are only about 5% below Reagan-era spending, adjusted for inflation.

* The Pentagon seeks future budgets that average more than 12% above the Cold War highs.

Sandra Erwin. National Defense Magazine , 24 November 2010.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=258

अंश:

An AESA equipped Super Hornet is “generation four-and-a-half,” says [Michael “Ponch” Garcia, a reserve Navy pilot and manager of business development at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems]. “All the sensors are fifth generation. You won't have super cruise. You won't have 360 stealth. You lose that. But you're getting it for half the price.”

Sandra Erwin. National Defense Magazine , 22 November 2010.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=255

अंश:

“The Defense Department's biggest weakness is its budget strategy: the absence of strategic choice,” says Gordon Adams, American University professor who authored the defense recommendations in the Domenici-Rivlin proposal that was presented by former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (RN.M.) and White House Budget Director under Clinton, Alice Rivlin.

Cutting the defense budget should not be about doing the same with less, Adams says. The reaction to the Simpson-Bowles report, which takes aim at many big-ticket weapon programs and calls for work force reductions, was predictable. Every targeted program or agency, as was seen recently with US Joint Forces Command, is making a case that it is essential to national security, and its supporters already are mobilizing lobbyists and advocacy groups.

The smarter approach would be for the Obama administration and Congress to agree to a scaled-back military strategy, says Adams. “At the end of the day, it's about policy makers restraining their impulse to use the military in the reckless way it's been used in the past 20 years,” he says.

18 November 2010

Dear Co-chairman Bowles and Co-chairman Simpson:

We are writing to you as experts in national security and defense economics to convey our views on the national security implications of the Commission's work and especially the need for achieving responsible reductions in military spending. In this regard, we appreciate the initiative you have taken in your 10 November 2010 draft proposal to the Commission. It begins a necessary process of serious reflection, debate, and action.

The vitality of our economy is the cornerstone of our nation's strength. We share the Commission's desire to bring our financial house into order. Doing so is not merely a question of economics. Reducing the national debt is also a national security imperative.

To date, the Obama administration has exempted the Defense Department from any budget reductions. This is short-sighted: It makes it more difficult to accomplish the task of restoring our economic strength, which is the underpinning of our military power.

As the rest of the nation labors to reduce its debt burden, the current plan is to boost the base DOD budget by 10 percent in real terms over the next decade. This would come on top of the nearly 52 percent real increase in base military spending since 1998. (When war costs are included the increase has been much greater: 95 percent.)

We appreciate Secretary Gates' efforts to reform the Pentagon's business and acquisition practices. However, even if his reforms fulfill their promise, the current plan does not translate them into budgetary savings that contribute to solving our deficit problem. Their explicit aim is to free funds for other uses inside the Pentagon. This is not good enough.

Granting defense a special dispensation puts at risk the entire deficit reduction effort. Defense spending today constitutes over 55 percent of discretionary spending and 23 percent of the federal budget. An exemption for defense not only undermines the broader call for fiscal responsibility, but also makes overall budget restraint much harder as a practical economic and political matter.

We need not put our economic power at risk in this way. Today the United States possesses a wide margin of global military superiority. The defense budget can bear significant reduction without compromising our essential security.

We recognize that larger military adversaries may rise to face us in the future. But the best hedge against this possibility is vigilance and a vibrant economy supporting a military able to adapt to new challenges as they emerge.

We can achieve greater defense economy today in several ways, all of which we urge you to consider seriously. We need to be more realistic in the goals we set for our armed forces and more selective in our choices regarding their use abroad. We should focus our military on core security goals and on those current and emerging threats that most directly affect us.

We also need to be more judicious in our choice of security instruments when dealing with international challenges. Our armed forces are a uniquely expensive asset and for some tasks no other instrument will do. For many challenges, however, the military is not the most cost-effective choice. We can achieve greater efficiency today without diminishing our security by better discriminating between vital, desirable, and unnecessary military missions and capabilities.

There is a variety of specific options that would produce savings, some of which we describe below. The important point, however, is a firm commitment to seek savings through a reassessment of our defense strategy, our global posture, and our means of producing and managing military power.

■ Since the end of the Cold War, we have required our military to prepare for and conduct more types of missions in more places around the world. The Pentagon's task list now includes not only preventive war, regime change, and nation building, but also vague efforts to “shape the strategic environment” and stem the emergence of threats. It is time to prune some of these missions and restore an emphasis on defense and deterrence.

■ US combat power dramatically exceeds that of any plausible combination of conventional adversaries. To cite just one example, Secretary Gates has observed that the US Navy is today as capable as the next 13 navies combined, most of which are operated by our allies. We can safely save by trimming our current margin of superiority.

■ America's permanent peacetime military presence abroad is largely a legacy of the Cold War. It can be reduced without undermining the essential security of the United States or its allies.

■ The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have revealed the limits of military power. Avoiding these types of operation globally would allow us to roll back the recent increase in the size of our Army and Marine Corps.

■ The Pentagon's acquisition process has repeatedly failed, routinely delivering weapons and equipment late, over cost, and less capable than promised. Some of the most expensive systems correspond to threats that are least prominent today and unlikely to regain prominence soon. In these cases, savings can be safely realized by cancelling, delaying, or reducing procurement or by seeking less costly alternatives.

■ Recent efforts to reform Defense Department financial management and acquisition practices must be strengthened. And we must impose budget discipline to trim service redundancies and streamline command, support systems, and infrastructure.

Change along these lines is bound to be controversial. Budget reductions are never easy – no less for defense than in any area of government. However, fiscal realities call on us to strike a new balance between investing in military power and attending to the fundamentals of national strength on which our true power rests. We can achieve safe savings in defense if we are willing to rethink how we produce military power and how, why, and where we put it to use.

निष्ठा से,

This letter reflects the opinions of the individual signatories. Institutions are listed for identification purposes only. The letter is the result of a joint effort by The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy and the Project on Defense Alternatives .

by Winslow Wheeler.
November 2010.

Based on my experience at the Senate Budget Committee, I learned that reading different deficit reduction plans can be tricky. Some use CBO or other “baselines” as a basis for comparison, but those baselines can be a mystery to some and differ – sometimes by huge amounts – from more readily understood future budget proposals for departments, such as the Pentagon's. Other sources of confusion can be whether the plan applies just to the Pentagon or the larger National Defense Budget Function, uses outlays rather than budget authority, and does or does not include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes the dollars used are “constant;” sometimes they are “current.”

Sometimes the press and others simply misunderstand elements of an overall plan, such as by reporting a plan's savings for one “illustrative” year as the entirety of the plan's savings. Sometimes uncovering what a plan really means requires close reading of the text and footnotes; in still other cases, it requires prolonged discussion with the authors.

This information paper attempts to remove the various impediments to an apples-to-apples comparison of the major plans to reduce defense spending that have been publicly proposed to the Obama Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. It compares all the plans to the Obama/Gates Plan for National Defense Spending for the years 2011 to 2020; it addresses only “base” budgets (which exclude spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere), and it applies budget authority in “current” dollars.

Budget Authority Savings
Relative to the Obama/Gates “Base” National Defense Budget 2010-2020
Billions of Dollars, All Dollars Are “Current” Dollars

After the above table each plan is addressed briefly , pointing out its major characteristics. I have attempted to do so objectively, with as little editorial comment as possible.

Editor's Commentary

There are at least as many reasons to think that significant real reductions in defense spending will be hard to achieve as there are reasons to doubt that significant revenue increases will be found or that substantial reductions in entitlement spending will happen. “Political realities” are indeed daunting for any of the options the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will consider. If there were quick, easy and obvious decisions to be had there would be no need for the Commission.

Political realities change over time in part because underlying realities eventually change political calculation. Such is the case with defense spending. After more than a decade of rapid growth there is likely to be some retrenchment in the middle of this decade, notably by 2015.

The likely path of defense spending this decade was recently forecast by the high-tech industry association Tech America Foundation in their DoD Topline Forecast 2011-2020 .

Tech America's forecast is for a real reduction in the base Pentagon budget (not including Overseas Contingency Operation war supplemental funding) of 9% or $45 billion (USD 2011) in 2015 relative to the 2011 base budget.

When taking into account the Pentagon's preferred budget path this decade of at least 1% real annual growth, Tech America forecasts a reduction in defense spending by 2015 of 16%.

Tech America's forecast of Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) war supplemental spending during the decade is also important to consider. Since FY10 (President Obama's first budget) there has been an OCO war supplemental DoD budget line for FY12-FY15 of $50 billion per year. The OCO war supplemental in the FY11 budget is $159 billion.

Although the actual OCO war supplemental might come down in FY12, with the military operational demands in Afghanistan remaining elevated it is unlikely the OCO war supplemental will come down even $50 billion, let alone $109 billion in FY12. Tech America forecasts OCO war expenditures of $122 billion in FY12.

These likely under-budgeted OCO war supplemental costs should be counted as probable additions to the national debt beyond those already projected by the government.

Tech America's forecast is for the OCO supplemental to be $122 billion in FY12, $102 billion in FY13, $69 billion in FY14 and $57 billion in FY15. That adds up to $150 billion more than is budgeted in the Five Year Defense Plan … an un-budgeted addition to the national debt.

For the target year of the federal budget reaching “primary balance” in FY15, the forecast OCO war supplemental will add $7 billion to the problem that the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform faces in attempting to balance the budget in that year.

Adam J. Hebert. Air Force Magazine , November, 2010.
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2010/November%202010/1110edit.aspx

अंश:

…ill-advised calls to cut the Pentagon budget follow as predictably as the tides. Without credible analysis of strategy or requirements, critics are once again declaring defense spending to be out of control.

Editor's Comment:

In his editorial Security Isn't Cheap Adam J. Herbert cites the work of the Sustainable Defense Task Force as a case in point of critics of Pentagon spending recommending cuts “without credible analysis of strategy or requirements.” As a member of the task force I differ over the credibility of our analysis. But let me speak to where I agree with Mr. Herbert:

• “Security is not cheap.” In fact it is extremely expensive. When the country is hit with a financial disaster we owe it to the country and our military to reexamine our national security strategy and make sure priorities are clear and that our military investments are cost-effective. In the last twelve years of Pentagon budgets the planning has proceeded as though there is no resource constraint. Unfortunately, that is true of the last QDR as well. Those days are clearly over – Secretary Gates has said as much.

• “A well-trained, well-equipped, professional military is not cheap. If the nation wants it to cost less, the nation will probably have to ask it to do less.” Exactly. Since the end of the Cold War the US military has steadily advanced its global reach and engagement. Missions have proliferated, including many that should be done by civilians in the State Department and other agencies. Significant numbers of US troops still remain in Europe, even though there is no military threat to Europe that allies can't handle. The most important take-away lesson from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that long low-intensity land wars are not cost-effective uses of US military power and should be avoided whenever possible. Hopefully we can all agree there should never again be such a “war of choice.”

• “There are certainly ways to reduce defense spending…” Yes, and one that will save around $45 billion in Air Force modernization accounts is available in a choice about how to modernize the fighter fleet. The Air Force has decided to replace its aging F-16s with just about the most expensive new fighter one can dream up, the F-35. In today's fiscal environment either the Air Force will end up with a lot fewer of these planes than planned, or they will choose to get ahead of the budget crunch and modernize with new block versions of the still best of class F-16s and limit the buy of F-35s this decade to a few squadrons for high-intensity air-superiority missions. If serious air competition emerges a decade from now we can then roll out production of F-35s (or perhaps a less costly follow-on to the F-16), planes presumably much improved with ten years or more of further fighter technology development.

Thomas PM Barnett. China Security , October 2010.
http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/1010Barnett.pdf

अंश:

In sum, ending China's free-riding is arguably more important for long-term system-wide stability than continuing to deter China's military invasion of Taiwan. As globalization's networks continue to expand at a rapid pace, America's ability to play sole Leviathan to the system naturally degrades dramatically. That means, while the likelihood of China's military invasion of Taiwan dissipates with each passing year, the likelihood of America's “imperial exhaustion” most certainly surpasses it in strategic importance in the near term.

History will judge US strategists most severely if our choice to maintain “access” to East Asia by triggering a regional arms race precludes our ability to draw China into strategic co-management of this era of pervasively extending globalization—without a doubt America's greatest strategic achievement. I cannot fault the AirSea Battle Concept as an operational capability designed to keep us in the East Asian balancing “game.” But my fear is that it will—primarily by default and somewhat by “blue” ambition—serve America badly in a strategic sense, absent a proactive political and military engagement effort to balance its negative impact on the most important bilateral relationship of the modern globalization era.

Editor's Comment:

Barnett alerts us to a prospective instance when leading with military capability is likely to be a disservice to strategic interests.

Daniel Goure. Early Warning Blog , Lexington Institute, 03 September 2010.
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/future-defense-budget-choices-require-clear-strategic-priorities

अंश:

The United States cannot afford and the people will not pay for a military that can do battle with uncertainty.

As a consequence of the need to do battle with uncertainty, emphasis was placed on a military that can cover all bases and do all things. This would not be a wise strategy even if resources were unconstrained. Not all threats are equal. Nor are all interests equally important. Finally, it is possible to make reasoned and reasonable judgments regarding how the future security environment will unfold and define a set of demand signals that would require shifting strategic priorities.

In the past, when US leaders refused to make choices they allowed the military to shrink symmetrically, by cutting every program or service a little. That approach is self-defeating. It makes no sense to keep a so-called full spectrum military but continually reduce it in size.

Editor's Comment:

Relevant passages from the archives ($3 trillion later):

Carl Conetta and Charles Knight. “Dueling with Uncertainty”, February 1998.
http://www.comw.org/pda/bullyweb.html

There is no escape from uncertainty, but there is relief from uncertainty hysteria. It begins with recognizing that instability has boundaries — just as turbulence in physical systems has discernible onset points and parameters. The turbulence of a river, for instance, corresponds to flow and to the contours of the river's bed and banks. It occurs in patches and not randomly. The weather also is a chaotic system that resists precise long-range forecasting, but allows useful prediction of broader trends and limits.

Despite uncertainty, statements of probability matter. They indicate the weight of evidence — or whether there is any evidence at all. The uncertainty hawks would flood our concern with a horde of dangers that pass their permissive test of “non-zero probability.” However, by lowering the threshold of alarm, they establish an impossible standard of defense sufficiency: absolute and certain military security. Given finite resources and competing ends, something less will have to do. Strategic wisdom begins with the setting of priorities — and priorities demand strict attention to what appears likely and what does not.

The world may be less certain and less stable today than during the Cold War, but it also involves less risk for America. Risk is equal parts probability and utility — chances and stakes. With the end of global superpower contention, America's stakes in most of the world's varied conflicts has diminished. So has the magnitude of the military threats to American interests. This permits a sharper distinction between interests and compelling interests, turbulence and relevant turbulence, uncertainties and critical uncertainties. And this distinction will pay dividends whenever the country turns to consider large-scale military endeavors, commitments, and investments.

Among the visions that guide present policy, one is absent conspicuously: a world in which economic issues have displaced military ones as the central focus of global competitions and concerns. Failing to engage this prospect, the recent defense policy reviews are oblivious to the opportunity cost of military spending. And it is this lapse that gives license to their speculative methods and overweening goals.

The United States continues to invest more of its national product in defense than does its allies, more than the world average, and much more than its chief economic competitors. By disregarding the requirements and consequences of increased global economic competition, present policy makes an unacknowledged bet about the future: The Soviet Union is gone and no comparable military challenge to the West exists, except as distant possibility. Nonetheless, the American prospect depends as much as ever, if not more, on the specifically military aspects of strength. Of this much, the uncertainty hawks seem certain.

Army Training and Doctrine Command. TRADOC Pam 525-3-1, 19 August 2010.
http://www-tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/tp525-3-1.pdf

अंश:

This pamphlet revises the conceptual and operating focus of the Army from major combat operations to that of operational adaptability employing full-spectrum operations under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.

TRADOC Pam 525-3-1 describes how future Army forces conduct operations as part of the joint force to deter conflict, prevail in war, and succeed in a wide range of contingencies in the future operational environment. The pamphlet describes the employment of forces in the 2016-2028 timeframe and identifies capabilities required for future success to guide Army force development efforts.

Reva Patwardhan. Peace Action West Groundswell Blog , 29 July 2010.
http://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2010/07/29/wikileaks-war-logs-roundup/

Jason Sherman, Inside Defense , 26 July 2010.

A bipartisan independent review of the Obama administration's 20-year blueprint for the Defense Department calls for increasing the size of the Navy to a 346-ship fleet and increasing the US military's posture in the Western Pacific to counter China's growing influence in the region, according to a draft report of the Independent Quadrennial Defense Review Panel.

InsideDefense.com obtained a draft copy of the report titled “ The QDR in Perspective: Meeting America's National Security Needs in the 21st Century .”

The 20-member blue-ribbon panel — co-chaired by former Defense Secretary William Perry and Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to President George W. Bush — also finds a significant increase in funding is needed to bolster capabilities necessary to counter anti-access challenges, strengthen homeland defense; and to deal with cyber threats.

The panel's report argues that a centerpiece of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review — a force-planning construct that downplayed the significance of preparing to fight and win two, nearly simultaneous major wars, a bedrock of defense planning since 1993, in order to prepare US forces to deal with a wider set of possible contingencies — is unreliable. Instead, the independent panel recommends the Pentagon adopt force levels required by analysis conducted 17 years ago.

The “panel recommends the force structure be sized, at a minimum, at the end strength outlined in the 1993 Bottom-Up Review,” an assessment prepared by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin, which Perry then worked to implement during his 1994 to 1997 term as secretary. “We further recommend the department's [weapon system] inventory be thoroughly recapitalized and modernized,” states the draft report.

Funding to pay for these capabilities, as well as to recapitalize equipment consumed in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, will require resources beyond the $100 billion efficiency savings recently directed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to the report.

The “panel believes that substantial additional resources will be required to modernize the force. Although there is a cost to recapitalizing the military, there is also a price to be paid for not recapitalizing, one that in the long run would be much greater.”

Tasked by Congress — and composed of members appointed by lawmakers and Gates — the panel's report delves into nearly every dimension of the US military enterprise — from personnel policy to weapons acquisition to defense policy formulation — and offers an “explicit warning” about the shape of US weaponry after a nearly a decade of persistent conflict.

“The aging of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the Navy, and the growing stress on the force means that a train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force structure,” states the draft report.

The draft document argues that the Pentagon's force-structure plans “will not provide sufficient capacity” to deal with a major domestic catastrophe while also conducting contingency operations abroad. The panel also asserts that the recently established US Cyber Command should be prepared to assist civilian authorities in defending this domain “beyond” the Defense Department's current role, to support civilian agencies.

The Pentagon's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review did not include a force-planning construct that explicitly quantifies the number and type of contingencies for which the US military must prepare, removing a formula the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have relied on since the end of the Cold War to justify their force structures and their investment plans, an omission the independent panel laments.

The Pentagon's 1993 Bottom-Up Review, the first major assessment of the the US military's needs after the fall of the Berlin Wall, advanced a requirement to fight and win two major-theater wars nearly simultaneously, a construct that was incorporated in the 1997, 2001 and 2006 QDRs.

“The 2010 QDR, however, did not endorse any metric for determining the size and shape of US forces,” states the independent panel's draft report. Rather, it put diverse, overlapping scenarios, including long-duration stability operations and the defense of the homeland, on par with major regional conflicts when assessing the adequacy of US forces.”

The current size of US ground forces “is close enough to being correct,” according to the draft report.

In addition, the panel argues that the Army is “living off the capital accumulated” during the Reagan administration. “The useful life of that equipment is running out; and, as a result, the inventory is old and in need of recapitalization,” states the draft report, which calls for inventory replacement on a one-for-one basis “with an upward adjustment in the number of naval vessels and certain air and space assets.”

A larger Navy and Air Force, according to the panel, is needed to protect US interests in the Pacific region.

“The force structure in the Asia-Pacific needs to be increased,” states the draft report. “The United States must be fully present in the Asia-Pacific region, to protect American lives and territory, ensure the free flow of commerce, maintain stability, and defend our allies in the region. A robust US force structure, one that is largely rooted in maritime strategy and includes other necessary capabilities, will be essential.”

The panel advances recommendations to reform the structure and organization of both Congress and the executive branch in order to improve oversight of national security matters. The panel also advances suggestions for the Defense and State departments to shore up “institutional weaknesses of the existing security assistance programs and framework.”

Hearing on Achieving National Security through Sustainable Spending, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, National Security and Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, 20 July 2010.

This hearing continued the Subcommittee's oversight of defense spending by examining recent scholarship and policy research on defense budget reform, including the conclusions and recommendations made in a recent report by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, Debt, Deficits, & Defense: A Way Forward , which presents a series of recommendations to reduce the budget of the Department of Defense by $960 billion by 2020.

Witnesses offered perspectives on the Department of Defense's plan to cut military spending in the context of national security priorities and the current economic environment. The Department of Defense's budget has accounted for nearly 65 percent of the increase in federal discretionary spending since 2001. Citing the role of defense spending in the overall economic health of the United States, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently called for reductions in defense spending by eliminating wasteful spending and unnecessary weapons systems, and reducing overhead costs at the Pentagon.

To watch a webcast of the hearing, click here: http://groc.edgeboss.net/wmedia/groc/nationalsecurity/2010/07.20.10.ns.defense.budget.wvx

Witnesses:

* Carl Conetta, Co-Director, Project on Defense Alternatives
* Benjamin Friedman, Research Fellow, Cato Institute
* Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
* Gary Schmitt, Ph.D., Director, Advanced Strategic Studies, American Enterprise Institute
* Gordon Adams, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center

Opening Statement of Chairman John F. Tierney

Prepared Statement of Mr. Carl Conetta

Prepared Statement of Mr. Benjamin Friedman

Prepared Statement of Mr. Todd Harrison

Prepared Statement of Dr. Gary Schmitt

Prepared Statement of Dr. Gordon Adams

Lance M. Bacon. Navy Times , 28 June 2010.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/06/navy_force_cuts_062810w/

अंश:

With an eye on diminishing budgets and rising tensions with Iran and North Korea, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead on June 24 called for continued international partnerships to hone a “just and sustainable international order.” He also continued his call for fiscal restraint, emphasizing that the Navy “cannot afford a tailor-made solution to every need that we have.” But the CNO still is adamant that a 313-ship Navy is needed to maintain maritime security.

Editor's Comment:

Lance M Bacon quotes from a speech by Chief of Naval Operations Roughead at the Maritime Systems and Technology seminar on June 22nd. These quotes are misleading because Roughead is speaking not about reducing the national deficit, but rather about the Navy's need to watch its spending in the context of growing fiscal pressures on service budgets.

Roughead remains committed to the goal of a 313 ship battle fleet. He also supports Secretary Gate's initiative to save $105 billion within DoD accounts over the next five years. Gates' savings will not contribute a penny to deficit reduction. He plans to plow all savings back into Pentagon programs and it is the Navy's share of this money that Roughead wants to use to help grow the battle fleet to 313 ships.

Not only is Gates not offering to contribute to deficit reduction, but he is sticking to his goal of real growth of 1 to 2% a year for in Pentagon budgets. This will increase annual national deficits somewhere in the range of $6 to 12 billion.

Gates' position is untenable and will not hold. If the nation is going to meet its deficit reduction commitments the Pentagon will have to contribute its share — which is at least 40% of the $230 billion a year increase in its base (non-war) budget during the last decade. This is the level of cuts the task force has suggested — it is not “extreme”, but rather responsible and realistic.

In the context of the coming national fiscal restraint, the worst thing the CNO can do is continue pushing to grow the Navy battle fleet to 313 ships. The more success he has in buying now what will prove to be unaffordable new ships, the further the fleet will have to shrink when austere budgeting arrives.

Far wiser is to start reconfiguring and trimming the fleet now and save procurement dollars for a more realistic set of priorities and a more restrained strategic posture. The task force has put forward one set of priorities for lean times. Let others suggest theirs.

Michael Hastings. Rolling Stone , 22 June 2010.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

अंश:

When it comes to Afghanistan, history is not on McChrystal's side. The only foreign invader to have any success here was Genghis Khan – and he wasn't hampered by things like human rights, economic development and press scrutiny. The COIN doctrine, bizarrely, draws inspiration from some of the biggest Western military embarrassments in recent memory: France's nasty war in Algeria (lost in 1962) and the American misadventure in Vietnam (lost in 1975). McChrystal, like other advocates of COIN, readily acknowledges that counterinsurgency campaigns are inherently messy, expensive and easy to lose.