US Air Force. Febbraio 2012.
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120201-027.pdf

Rachel Gerber. Policy Memo, Fondazione Stanley, 1 febbraio 2012.
http://defensealt.org/AymAmo

Estratto:

Il 18 gennaio 2012, la Fondazione Stanley, in collaborazione con la Carnegie Corporation di New York e la Fondazione MacArthur, convocata figure fondamentali per l'evoluzione storica e contemporanea della responsabilità di proteggere per valutare lo stato attuale del principio e considerare l'evoluzione dinamiche globali che faranno da cornice, guidare, e la sfida politica di sviluppo negli anni a venire.

Anthony H. Cordesman con Bradley Bosserman. Center for Strategic & International Studies, 30 gennaio 2012.
http://defensealt.org/xpBqhn

Estratto:

Gli Stati Uniti devono ripensare radicalmente il suo approccio alla "guerre opzionali." Non è affatto chiaro che può vincere la guerra in Iraq, piuttosto che responsabilizzare l'Iran, senza un esercito forte e la presenza di aiuti. Sarà decisamente perdere il conflitto afghano e il Pakistan se non sviluppare rapidamente piani per una presenza militare e diplomatica, e contribuire a facilitare la transizione in Afghanistan lontano dalla dipendenza estera spese militari ed economiche durante 2012-2020. Tagli delle truppe Usa non sono un piano di transizione, e concentrandosi sul ritiro è una ricetta per la sconfitta.

Detto questo, gli Stati Uniti non può e non deve ripetere l'errore ha fatto ad intervenire in Iraq e in Afghanistan. Essa deve fare fronte a minacce non tradizionali con un mix di gran lunga migliore e più accessibile delle strategie globali, regionali e nazionali in grado di affrontare questioni come le turbolenze in Medio Oriente, e Sud e in Asia centrale, e il terrorismo e l'instabilità a livello globale. Deve contare su favoreggiamento paesi amici, la deterrenza, il contenimento, e forme molto più limitati e meno costoso di intervento.

dal Project on Defense Alternatives, 26 gennaio 2012

Il futuro-anno del Pentagono piano di bilancio di base rilasciata dal Segretario Panetta il 26 gennaio 2012 prevede rotolare la spesa al livello del 2008, corretti per l'inflazione. La spesa per la non-guerra, una parte del budget nel corso dei prossimi cinque anni (2013-2017) sarà circa il 4% inferiore a quello negli ultimi cinque (2008-2012) in termini reali. Il vero (che è, "l'inflazione corretto") il cambiamento dal 2012 sarà una riduzione del 3,2%

Il grafico che segue corregge per l'inflazione rendendo tutte le somme in 2012 dollari. Essa mostra che la base-budget di spesa era saltato il 55% al netto dell'inflazione tra il 1998 e il 2010. Il nuovo piano di bilancio imposta 2013 la spesa a 525 miliardi dollari, che è il 46% al di sopra del livello del 1998.

Il nuovo piano di bilancio - rappresentata dalla linea di tendenza verde - si trova in netto contrasto con le riduzioni incaricati dalla legge sul controllo di bilancio ai sensi delle disposizioni per il sequestro (rappresentata dalla linea di tendenza rossa). Il sequestro sarebbe rotolata Pentagono base-budget di spesa al livello del 2004, che sarebbe ancora il 31% al di sopra del livello del 1998 (corretto per l'inflazione). Il nuovo piano di bilancio e il sequestro si dispone di una cosa in comune: entrambi sarebbero mantenere la spesa del Pentagono al di sopra della aggiustato per l'inflazione media degli anni della Guerra Fredda (rappresentato dalla linea tratteggiata orizzontale).

Christopher Preble e Charles Knight. Huffington Post, 20 gennaio 2012.
http://defensealt.org/ysCbHQ

Estratto:

Balance dipende da ciò che si sta in piedi su. Per quanto riguarda la nostra sicurezza fisica, gli Stati Uniti è benedetto con la pace continentale e una carenza di nemici potenti. Il nostro militare è la più addestrata, best-led, e meglio attrezzati del mondo. E 'instabili le nostre finanze e della nostra economia stagnante che ci rendono vulnerabili a inciampare.

Purtroppo, la nuova strategia non apprezzare pienamente le nostre forze, né pienamente affrontare le nostre debolezze. Alla fine, non raggiunge l'equilibrio vantata di Eisenhower.

__________________________________________________

Matthew Rosenberg. New York Times, 20 gennaio 2012.
http://pulse.me/s/5a33j

Estratto:

Le forze della coalizione americane e di altri qui vengono uccisi in numero sempre crescente dai soldati molto afghani che combattono a fianco e in treno, in attacchi motivati ​​da profonda ostilità tra le forze alleate si suppone, secondo gli ufficiali americani e afghani e un rapporto di coalizione classificato.

Commento della redazione:

Sembra una prova molto forte che le forze Usa hanno superato i limiti il ​​loro benvenuto!

Andrew Taylor. AP, 20 gennaio 2012.
http://defensealt.org/xN9mYD

Estratto:

Il piano Casa Bianca, probabilmente per riprendere nuove tasse e le proposte a pagamento che sono nonstarters repubblicani con Capitol Hill, sarebbe spegnere l'intera nove anni, 1.200 miliardi dollari in-the-board tagli alla spesa, di cui come un "sequestro".

"Abbiamo un sequestro venire meno di un anno da ora a meno che gli atti del Congresso", ha detto un alto funzionario dell'amministrazione. "Stiamo andando a chiedere al Congresso di fare ora quello che pensiamo il Congresso avrebbe dovuto fare nel mese di dicembre, che è adottare più di $ 1,2 miliardi di dollari di riduzione del disavanzo, spegnere il sequestro e mantenere i tappi (di spesa)."

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

Estratto:

Parte del "meccanismo di Doomsday" isteria diffusa dal segretario alla Difesa Panetta e il suo compagno nelle guerre di bilancio, Cong. Buck McKeon, è stata l'automaticità delle across-the-board tagli che sequestrano imporrebbe al bilancio della difesa prossimo mese di gennaio, nel caso probabile che l'anatra zoppa Congresso e il suo successore il prossimo anno saranno entrambi come disfunzionale, come la lattina di rosso e vermi blu che abbiamo ora. (L'altra parte l'isteria è il "horror" di tornare ai livelli del 2007 di spese per la difesa del bilancio di base.)

Sembra che il presidente ha già un'autorizzazione legale per modificare il meccanismo di sequestro, ma non la quantità dei tagli richiesti.

Philip Taubman. New York Times, 08 gennaio 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/reducing-the-nuclear-arsenal.html

Estratto:

Se il presidente spinge indietro contro i difensori del vecchio ordine al Pentagono e ridotte altri del sacerdozio nucleare, si può preservare la sicurezza americana rendendo gli Stati Uniti un leader più credibile una delle questioni più critiche di oggi - contenere la diffusione delle armi nucleari armi. Come un accanito fumatore chiedendo ad altri di smettere di fumare, gli Stati Uniti, con il suo arsenale gonfio, suona ipocrita quando si mette sotto pressione le altre nazioni per ridurre le armi e smettere di produrre bombe uranio altamente arricchito ...

Related:

Strategia di difesa Pagina Review Dibattito nucleare

Carl Conetta. Project on Defense Memo Briefing # 53, 05 gennaio 2012.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1201bm53.pdf

Estratto:

La Roll Back in piani di spesa ei tagli effettivi al bilancio sono sufficienti per coinvolgere tutti gli uffici e il programma del Pentagono. Questo porta ad un dibattito polemico e un carico di foraggio per politica di parte. Esso aiuterà se riusciamo a mantenere le cose nella giusta prospettiva. I tagli ci troviamo ad affrontare oggi sono molto meno drammatici di quelli a seguito della Guerra Fredda. Autorità di bilancio 1991-1996 è stata aggregata nel corso di quasi il 20% inferiore in termini reali che durante 1987-1990 - un calo di cinque volte superiore a quello che l'amministrazione oggi propone. Dato rettilinei economiche attuali della nostra nazione, i sostenitori del Pentagono dovrebbe effettivamente tirare un sospiro di sollievo.

Dipartimento della Difesa. 5 Gennaio 2012.
http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf

Winslow Wheeler. TEMPO Battleland, 13 dicembre, 2011.

Estratto:

Senza l'inclusione delle spese di guerra, il bilancio di base DOD sotto il "Meccanismo di Doomsday" non è più in o vicino al suo post-Seconda Guerra Mondiale alta, ma non è vicino anche uno dei minimi storici. In realtà, è di circa 38 miliardi dollari al di sopra della spesa annuale durante la Guerra Fredda ...

Stephen M. Walt. Foreign Policy, 01 Dicembre, 2011.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/01/a_bandwagon_for_offshore_balancing~~V

Estratto:

Bilanciamento ... off-shore è la strategia giusta, anche quando le nostre casse sono piene, a condizione che nessun concorrente peer minacciano di dominare principali regioni strategiche. Anche durante i tempi buoni, non ha senso assumere oneri inutili o per consentire alleati free-ride sul desiderio arrogante Uncle Sam di essere la "nazione indispensabile" in quasi ogni angolo del mondo. In altre parole, il bilanciamento del mare non è solo una strategia per i tempi duri, ma è anche la migliore strategia a disposizione in un mondo dove gli Stati Uniti è la più forte potenza, incline a scatenare inutili antagonismi, e vulnerabile ad essere trascinato in guerre inutili.

Sara Sorcher. National Journal, 29 novembre 2011.

Estratto:

Il presidente Obama ha recentemente annunciato iniziative per rafforzare l'architettura di una politica estera americana con la nuova attenzione sul Pacifico, compresi i piani per distribuire 2.500 soldati ad una base in Australia, per tutto il tempo insistendo sul fatto che eventuali riduzioni della spesa della difesa americana non avverrà a scapito delle priorità nella regione Asia-Pacifico. Anche se molti a Washington con circospezione occhi la Cina in rapida modernizzazione militare e di espansione della presenza navale nel Pacifico, il 39 per cento degli Insider ha detto che la prossima mossa è quello di migliorare l'impegno americano con Pechino evitando qualsiasi militare fasi relative.

Paula G. Thornhill. CNN, 23 novembre 2011.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/23/opinion/thornhill-defense-cuts/index.html

Estratto:

La leadership della nazione ha bisogno di un piano B in modo che un eroico ipotesi - o speranza - circa l'improbabilità di guerre future non inavvertitamente condurre al disastro strategico. Questo è più difficile di quanto sembri. Plan B consentirebbe una maggiore flessibilità per soddisfare ciò che potrebbe andare storto nel contesto strategico piuttosto che fare tagli di bilancio.

Commento della redazione:

Plan B è quello di mantenere un buon 'riserva strategica.' Come neo-conservatori piace sottolineare gli Stati Uniti spendono solo il 4,5% del PIL per il suo esercito. Se la nuova pizzico minacce, gli Stati Uniti possono facilmente dilagare della spesa e di impegnarsi ancora considerevole la sua base industriale e la conoscenza. Il problema di questo paese deve affrontare con una strategia di ricostituzione è la mancanza di volontà politica. I leader civili sono restii a chiedere il popolo americano a sacrificare. Una Guardia Nazionale e robusta forza di riserva che non è abusato da implementazioni frequenti guerre inutili e aspettative della società di pagare un supplemento d'imposta in tempi di emergenza nazionale sono i fondamenti di ciò che questo paese ha bisogno di essere strategicamente preparati, pur mantenendo una piccola forza di pace in piedi . Con un piano strategico degli Stati Uniti può essere ben fornito per ogni minaccia.

Matthew Leatherman. Governo Bloomberg, 21 novembre 2011.
http://defensealt.org/veAUPs

Anthony H. Cordesman e Bradley Bosserman. Centro per gli Studi Strategici e Internazionali, 17 novembre 2011.
http://csis.org/files/publication/111511_Defense_Resources_Threats.pdf

Michael E. O'Hanlon. New York Times, 14 novembre 2011.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/1114_defense_budget_ohanlon.aspx

Estratto:

Mantenendo una nave all'estero per un paio d'anni ed avendo due parti equipaggi tale nave così come una nave scuola a casa, la Marina potrebbe migliorare la propria efficienza di distribuzione fino al 40 per cento per nave, realizzando, con circa tre anni e mezzo che le navi , in media, avrebbe richiesto cinque. Concentrandosi sui combattenti della Marina grandi superfici, incrociatori e cacciatorpediniere, questo approccio potrebbe in teoria consentire circa 60 navi (con poco meno della metà dei quali distribuiti all'estero per volta) per mantenere la presenza globale che la Marina dice che ha bisogno, piuttosto che il 94 navi è attualmente perseguendo.

Loren B. Thompson. Lexington Institute, 11 novembre 2011.
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/gen-odierno-breaks-the-code-on-why-weapons-cost-so-much?a=1&c=1171

Estratto:

Gen. Odierno 2 novembre osservazioni indicano che si rende conto che non è solo imprenditori che guidano il costo dei programmi. I superamenti di spesa sono spesso cotti in all'inizio dalle esigenze barocche che il sistema di acquisizione impone agli sviluppatori. Tali esigenze risultato ritardi di pianificazione lunghi, costi unitari insostenibile, le armi e le caratteristiche che non possono soddisfare le aspettative degli accaparratori. Ancora più importante, che rallentano la consegna di sistemi di combattimento migliori per combattenti.

Paul Rogers. Open Democracy, 11 novembre 2011.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/israel-vs-iran-regional-blowback

Estratto:

La quasi inevitabile realtà è che di scontro con l'Iran sarà presto acquisire un arsenale nucleare limitata. Questo perché, anche un bombardamento limitato dell'Iran creerà una nuova dinamica in cui l'Iran è al centro del post-attacco regione; avranno diverse nuove opzioni per imporre costi sui suoi avversari, e andrà full-tilt per il suo proprio deterrente.

Kelsey Hartigan. Democracy Arsenal, 10 novembre 2011.
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2011/11/if-you-want-peace-stop-clamoring-for-war.html

Estratto:

Se Romney crede di poter valzer nello Studio Ovale, dare qualche discorso aspra e dura e improvvisamente l'Iran aprirà le sue porte agli ispettori dell'AIEA, beh, lui è in un brusco risveglio.

La retorica belligerante non risolverà la situazione con l'Iran. In realtà, la maggior parte esperti vi diranno che farà peggiorare la situazione. Minacce di azioni militari o, peggio, effettiva l'azione militare, si gioca solo nelle mani degli estremisti iraniani ... Se una presenza militare degli Stati Uniti stava per convincere l'Iran a cooperare, avrei pensato che sarebbe successo da ora.

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

Carl Conetta. Briefing Memo PDA # 52, 25 ottobre 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm52.pdf

Estratto:

Il forte aumento nel bilancio di base del Pentagono dal 1998 (46% in termini reali) è sostanzialmente dovuto alla scelta strategica, non i requisiti di sicurezza, di per sé. Essa riflette il rifiuto di definire le priorità, nonché un allontanamento dagli obiettivi tradizionali di deterrenza militare, contenimento, e la difesa a più scopi ambiziosi: la prevenzione delle minacce, il comando dei beni comuni, e la trasformazione delle condizioni di sicurezza globale. L'ambito geografico di routine l'attività militare degli Stati Uniti ha anche ampliato.

compagno pezzo: Nuovo set del Pentagono Mission: una scelta sostenibile, di Carl Conetta?. Un estratto aggiornata e ampliata dal Rapporto della Task Force on a Budget di sicurezza unificata (USB) per gli Stati Uniti, agosto 2011. http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/111024Pentagon-missions.pdf

Charles Knight. Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo # 51 del 25 ottobre 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm51.pdf

Estratto:

... Modeste variazioni alla strategia militare degli Stati Uniti e la postura globale attuato nell'arco dei prossimi dieci anni in modo affidabile offrire a riduzione del disavanzo del risparmio tra il budget del Pentagono che vanno da $ 73 miliardi l'anno per 118 miliardi dollari l'anno.

Per ottenere i risparmi richiede solo l'applicazione di mezzi diversi per raggiungere obiettivi strategici. Questo è esattamente quello che ogni buona strategia fa quando le condizioni cambiano.

Abubakar Siddique. Radio Free Europe, il 25 ottobre 2011.

Estratto:

L'esperienza ci ha dimostrato che le forze straniere non può portare la pace in Afghanistan. Avremo la pace quando abbiamo rimuovere le cause di conflitto tra [] le persone afgane, "[organizzatore di protesta] Mozhdah detto. "Una delle ragioni principali per combattere qui è che non ci fidiamo a vicenda. Abbiamo bisogno di sedersi e parlare tra loro per ottenere la fiducia di ogni altri.

Dan de Luc. Agence France-Presse, 19 ottobre 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=SEA&s=TOP&i=8003142

Estratto:

"L'Asia sarà chiaramente una priorità e ci si regola di conseguenza le nostre operazioni", l'ammiraglio Jonathan Greenert, capo delle operazioni navali, ha detto ai giornalisti in una teleconferenza.

La Marina oggi mantiene costantemente una portaerei - la Kitty Hawk o il George Washington - nel Pacifico, rispetto a 10 anni fa, quando un vettore era disponibile solo il 70 per cento del tempo, ha detto.

Abu Muqawama. Center for New American Security, il 13 ottobre 2011.
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/10/looking-trim-defense-budget-start-qdr.html

Estratto:

L'annuncio di ieri che il Dipartimento della Difesa formare un "gruppo Strategic Choices" per individuare le priorità ed i rischi prima di $ 450 miliardi di tagli potenziali al bilancio è l'ultimo esempio della inutilità del Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Un documento strategico dovrebbe necessariamente individuare i rischi e le priorità, ma poiché il QDR fa nessuno dei due, il Dipartimento della Difesa deve istituire un gruppo di lavoro del tutto nuovo di fare proprio questo.

Vedi anche: Il QDR 'un PR stunt' o un sincero sforzo di conciliare la postura e di bilancio con la strategia?

Andrew Tilghman. Defense News, 12 ottobre 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=LAN&s=TOP&i=7935114

Estratto:

Panetta dice che l'esercito dovrebbe aspettarsi riserva componenti truppe per essere una parte vitale della futura forza.

"Come abbiamo draw down da queste guerre, abbiamo bisogno di mantenere la guardia e la operativo Reserve e acquisendo esperienza. Questo è il miglior investimento che abbiamo fatto negli ultimi 10 anni ", ha detto. "Dobbiamo continuare ad essere in grado di mantenere che come una risorsa preziosa perché la forza di riserva ha un ruolo particolare da svolgere come una forza che dà la profondità strategica nazione in caso di crisi, l'accesso al set di abilità unici civili che possono essere utili nei conflitti moderni e come ponte dell'esercito ad una popolazione più ampia civile ".

Carl Conetta. Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo # 50, 11 ottobre 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm50.pdf

Estratto:

Ciò che rende impraticabile il sequestro (e segna come una tattica per spaventare) è il modo precipitoso in cui si attuerà tagli. Un approccio graduale potrebbe realizzare
risparmio equivalente senza interruzioni comparabili. Come messo a punto, la disposizione si intende
di motivare, invece di mitigare, all'aumento delle entrate e tagli ai programmi di assistenza.

Speciale Ispettore generale per la ricostruzione dell'Iraq. Ottobre 2011.
http://www.sigir.mil/publications/quarterlyreports/October2011.html

Ethan Pollack, The Economic Policy Institute Blog, 20 settembre 2011. http://www.epi.org/blog/militaristic-foreign-policy-saves-money/

Una delle critiche persistenti di piano fiscale del presidente Obama è che conta riduzioni di spesa di guerra come il risparmio. Fondamentalmente, il Congressional Budget Office calcola la sua linea di base della difesa, in parte prendendo la più recente guerra supplementare (tecnicamente si chiama operazioni d'emergenza all'estero, o OCO) e assumendo tale importo, al netto dell'inflazione, saranno spesi ogni anno oltre l'orizzonte prevedibile. Ciò aggiunge fino a circa 1.730 miliardi dollari in 10 anni. La proposta del presidente, però, include solo 653 miliardi dollari di spesa OCO più di 10 anni, per un risparmio di circa 1.100 miliardi dollari.

Alcuni critici, tuttavia, sostengono che questi risparmi non si può contare, perché la linea di base CBO OCO per sé non è realistico, quindi i risparmi non sono "reali". Ad esempio, il Comitato per un Bilancio Federale Responsabile (CRFB) sostiene che il conteggio questi risparmi è un "trucco di bilancio" che il presidente utilizza per "gonfiare i suoi risparmi." Secondo questa critica, un altro riferimento per le spese OCO deve essere utilizzato, sia il presidente richiesta di bilancio o di politica prelievo del CBO opzione-che abbassare la linea di base e rendere praticamente impossibile generare economie di bilancio da ridurre le spese della guerra.

Tutto il rispetto per CRFB e gli altri critici, ma questa critica è sciocco. La linea di base CBO OCO non è "irrealistico", piuttosto, rappresenta il costo del presidente Bush l'invasione aggressiva centrato approccio alla politica estera esteso a tempo indeterminato. Il presidente Obama è, per fortuna, nel processo di cercare di cambiare l'approccio americano alla politica estera, attingendo alle truppe dall'Iraq e dall'Afghanistan e lo spostamento verso una più multilaterale, paziente, diplomatico e, soprattutto, approccio meno costoso. Inoltre, il piano fiscale si propone di ricoprire la spesa OCO, rendendo in tal modo che tali risparmi siano realizzati.

Approccio di politica estera del presidente Obama costa meno soldi di quelli del presidente Bush, e le prospettive di bilancio dovrebbe riflettere tali risparmi.

Commento della redazione:

Deve essere un segno di quanto male le cose per i progressisti che l'EPI celebra oggi una grande boccata di fumo da parte dell'amministrazione Obama ha inviato per distogliere l'attenzione dalle riduzioni di bilancio reali e, in particolare, per proteggere il Pentagono da ulteriori tagli nelle battaglie fiscali . Ethan Pollack ha lavorato per OMB, così lui capisce sicuramente la distorsione di contabilità integrata proiezioni di riferimento il CBO sulla base della normativa vigente. Non una sola persona in tutto il mondo (compresi quelli a CBO che preparano la linea di base) ritiene che le spese OCO continuerà a finanziare le guerre in Iraq e in Afghanistan allo stesso livello nel 2011. Ecco perché il CBO ha fatto un "draw down opzione strategica" - per stimare i costi probabili OCO. Questo esercizio quest'ultimo non è "sciocco", né i suggerimenti che tali stime essere la base per la valutazione dei piani di riduzione di bilancio.

Mr. Pollack deve anche sapere che il presidente Obama FY12 presentazione del bilancio al Congresso, contiene solo 50 miliardi di dollari l'anno per OCO per gli anni futuri. Quale è? 118 miliardi dollari per sempre o 50 miliardi dollari per sempre? Non potete avere entrambe le cose.

Pareggio CBO premuto il tasto Opzione è sicuramente meglio per il bilancio (e deficit
riduzione) di pianificazione che sia il irrealistico "segnaposto" (che
budgeting è semplicemente irresponsabile) o il manufatto di base del CBO
118 miliardi dollari per sempre.

Se il presidente Obama vuole annunciare un piano per salvare significativo
importi dal OCO avrebbe avuto bisogno di annunciare il ritiro dall'Afghanistan più rapido ... ma poi nessuno crede realmente che sta lasciando
Afghanistan nel 2014. Quindi questo è tutto fumo e specchi ... e progressisti dovrebbe sentire di terribile, non festeggiare.

E 'falso affermare che il CBO baseline OCO è in qualche modo una responsabilità Bush. Si tratta semplicemente di un artefatto metodologico di come CBO fa la sua linea di base.

Il presidente Obama è stato in carica per quasi tre anni e non ha portato tutte le truppe a casa dall'Iraq e ha appena cominciato un progetto verso il basso in Afghanistan. Il OCO anno in corso di 118 miliardi dollari è la sua responsabilità come è il falso-ness di proiettare in avanti dieci anni e poi sostenendo il risparmio da spendere "653 miliardi dollari ... oltre dieci anni." Se fosse davvero disposto a porre fine alla guerra in Afghanistan presto potrebbe essere in grado di tagliare a metà che OCO e offrono 325 miliardi dollari dalla riduzione dei costi della guerra in futuro alla riduzione del disavanzo.

E fino imbroglio bilancio di quest'anno al Congresso ha forzato la mano
ha continuato ad alimentare il Pentagono con un budget di base più elevati ogni anno. Non ci sono prove che il presidente Obama "approccio alla politica estera ... [è] meno costoso" ... non per quanto riguarda la generosità offerto al Pentagono è interessato.

Non dobbiamo basare la politica progressista sul fumo e specchi. Tale
la politica fa male solo a noi nel lungo periodo.

Un'altra critica di questa gimmick di bilancio possono essere trovati all'indirizzo: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/gordon-adams/2369/how-about-those-defense-savings .

___________________________________________________________

La Casa Bianca. Settembre 2011.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66998459/WH-Report-on-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan-September-2011

W. Andrew Terrill. Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2 agosto 2011.

Matthew Leatherman. La volontà e il Wallet, il 26 luglio 2011.
http://thewillandthewallet.squarespace.com/blog/2011/7/26/dods-64b-question-where-is-that-64b.html

Estratto:

"CBO ha da tempo detto che DoD sottostima dei costi del programma tra cui, più di recente, la sua relazione sulle implicazioni a lungo termine del futuro programma di difesa anni 2012. Questo studio ha concluso che "la differenza tra la proiezione CBO e DOD le stime per il FYDP è circa il 2%, o circa $ 64 miliardi, nel periodo di cinque anni." "

David E. Mosher, assistente alla regia per la sicurezza nazionale, Congressional Budget Office. Testimonianza davanti alla commissione per il bilancio, US House of Representatives, il 7 luglio 2011.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12162/07-07-FYDP_Testimony.pdf

editoriale. Boston Globe, 30 giugno 2011.

Quando Leon Panetta prende il timone presso il Dipartimento della Difesa domani, sarà di fronte a scelte difficili circa gli sforzi militari statunitensi in Afghanistan, Iraq e Libia. Ma un altrettanto pressante - e potenzialmente ancora più intrattabile - problema è il bilancio del Pentagono e della spesa. In uscita il segretario Robert Gates è stato bravo a far finta di accettare la necessità di controllare la spesa, ha notato di recente che "gli Stati Uniti dovrebbero spendere quanto necessario per la difesa nazionale, ma non un centesimo di più'' Ma budget di base del reparto è aumentata. ogni anno dal Gates ha assunto - da $ 450 miliardi a oltre 550 miliardi dollari quattro anni dopo. Solo quest'anno, il Pentagono è alla ricerca di un aumento del 3,4 per cento dal bilancio 2010.

Non sono solo le guerre, che rappresentano meno del 30 per cento della richiesta di bilancio enorme del Pentagono. Nel contesto della spesa pubblica dall'altro, il Pentagono è un colosso. Per ogni 100 dollari di spesa pubblica discrezionale, più di $ 30 va alla guerra non spese per la difesa. Lo scopo è travolgente, la necessità di tagli più che frammentario dei sistemi falliti è urgente.

Gates ha recentemente affermato che il Pentagono ha già tagliato 300 miliardi dollari, ma la matematica suggerisce il contrario. Quel denaro proveniva da programmi già pianificati per essere terminato. I risparmi sono stati semplicemente messe in altre priorità militari. Dopo aver ricordato che la Marina Militare 11 gruppi di portaerei erano eccessivi, Gates ha rifiutato di eliminare uno solo.

Panetta sarà bisogno di prendere un aspetto più disciplinato e sistemica del bilancio. Non c'è carenza di consiglio ai influenti think tank e studi indipendenti, tra cui l'anno scorso relazione della Sustainable Task force della Difesa , un gruppo bipartisan convocato dal Rappresentante Barney Frank. Le loro raccomandazioni sarebbe tagliare 960 miliardi dollari tra il 2011 e il 2020, se solo il Pentagono avrebbe agito su di essi.

Tagliare il numero di armi nucleari schierate a metà - a 1.000 testate - è coerente con un accento ridotta sulla guerra nucleare e gli sforzi dei sostenitori del controllo degli armamenti. Questa mossa da sola permetterebbe di risparmiare 100 miliardi di dollari in 10 anni. La riduzione delle forze convenzionali da 50.000, che lascerebbe comunque 100.000 personale schierato in Europa e Asia, è la struttura più forza realistico. Annullamento solo alcuni sistemi che non sono né conveniente, né essenziale sarebbe risparmiare di più. La MV-22 Osprey e Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle sono lunghe sui problemi, sulle capacità e breve. Inoltre, il Congressional Budget Office e il Government Accountability Office entrambi hanno proposto modifiche a sostenere gli sforzi, come la manutenzione, fornitura, e le infrastrutture, che potrebbero risparmiare 100 miliardi di dollari nel prossimo decennio.

Tutto questo potrebbe essere realizzato senza compromettere la sicurezza nazionale. Panetta ha bisogno di spingere indietro le forze politiche che sostengono eventuali tagli rendere la nazione vulnerabile a vari nemici. Il deficit è un rischio molto maggiore.

Purtroppo, il Pentagono resta la più grande agenzia federale che semplicemente non può passare un test indipendente revisore, quando sottoposti alle normali procedure di contabilità, non può, con precisione, la spesa pista, la frode, i rifiuti, o ridondanza. Essa si è dato una scadenza di settembre 2017 per la revisione contabile "prontezza.'' Non è abbastanza presto. Panetta, che, come l'ex capo dell'Office of Management and Budget, ha una reputazione come un combattente per la rigorosa disciplina di bilancio. Avrà bisogno di ottenere la casa del Pentagono per il primo giorno.

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.

Estratto:

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

La Casa Bianca
29 Giugno 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 maggio 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;

Applicando gli strumenti in modo appropriato, riconoscendo che le minacce diversi in regioni diverse richiedono diversi strumenti;

Costruire una cultura della preparazione e capacità di recupero a casa per prevenire gli attacchi terroristici e garantire siamo in grado di recuperare rapidamente un attacco dovrebbe verificarsi.

Colpi devastanti contro Al-Qaeda, guidati da questa strategia, abbiamo raggiunto notevoli progressi contro al-Qa'ida nel corso degli ultimi due anni e mezzo.

Abbiamo messo al-Qaeda sotto una pressione maggiore che in qualsiasi momento a partire dal 9/11, pregiudicando la sua capacità di attrarre nuove reclute e rendendo più difficile per al-Qaeda alla stazione ferroviaria e gli attacchi della trama.

Al-Qaeda ranghi dirigenziali sono state decimate, con più importanti leader eliminati in rapida successione che in qualsiasi momento a partire dal 9/11.

Praticamente tutti i più importanti al-Qaeda affiliato ha perso il suo leader chiave o comandante operativo.

Più della metà dei capi di al-Qaeda è stato eliminato, tra cui Osama bin Laden.

"Su un percorso per sconfiggere", come il presidente Obama ha dichiarato nei suoi 22 giugno osservazioni sul nostro modo di procedere in Afghanistan, "abbiamo messo al Qaeda su un percorso per sconfiggere, e non vogliamo cedere fino a quando il lavoro è fatto."

Informazioni prese dal suo compound rivela bin Laden preoccupazioni al-Qaeda redditività a lungo termine.

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.

Commento della redazione:

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 giugno 2011.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-hartung/afghanistan-for-real-savi_b_886241.html

Estratto:

Non ci sarà un risparmio su larga scala verso il basso dalla liquidazione della guerra in Afghanistan fino a quando praticamente tutte le forze statunitensi sono ritirati. 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.

Estratto:

…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.

Commento della redazione:

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. Difesa Nazionale, 10 giugno 2011.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/lists/posts/post.aspx?ID=441

Estratto:

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

Estratto:

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.]

Winslow Wheeler. 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. Perhaps the House representative from the Fort Irwin area can explain how all this works and how he or she got to fund some spending in the district from these ubiquitous funds.

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

Estratto:

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.

Commento della redazione:

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

Estratto:

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.

Charles Knight. 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.

Aggiornare

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.”

Commento della redazione:

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

Estratto:

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. Essi sono i seguenti:

• 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? Forse.

“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, Memo Briefing # 49, 25 aprile 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1104bm49.pdf

Ci sono buone ragioni per accogliere una revisione strategica, come promesso dal Presidente Obama il 13 aprile. Per quasi 14 anni, gli Stati Uniti la politica di difesa è stata guidata dal "consenso QDR" - un insieme di assiomi e gli imperativi che hanno vinto l'aderenza tra i pianificatori della difesa nel corso di quattro recensioni Quadriennale della Difesa, a partire dal 1997. In retrospettiva, questo consenso ha prodotto una sindrome di dissoluta e disordinato attivismo militare. Ha alimentato le disfunzioni del nostro sistema di approvvigionamento militare e ha contribuito a guidare base di budget del Pentagono fino a livelli insostenibili. Certo, è giunto il momento per un nuovo inizio. Ma sarà la revisione promessa consegna?

Sarà il riesame essere più aperto e critico rispetto alle QDRs che mira a porre rimedio? Quanto è profondo lo scavare? Sarà anche lo scopo di "porre rimedio?" O servire uno scopo più stretto: un affare riveduta tra il comandante in capo, il suo segretario alla difesa, ed i capi delle forze armate per lo scambio di modesti nuovi vincoli sulla crescita del bilancio per un motivazione forte, un baluardo, contro ogni ulteriori tagli.

Quello che il presidente vuole è di soli $ 400 miliardi di risparmio di oltre 12 anni - circa il 6,5% delle spese programmate di bilancio di base. L'anno scorso, la Commissione fiscale del Presidente e di altri task force indipendenti identificato più di due volte tanto in difesa i potenziali di risparmio per un periodo di soli dieci anni. Ed è chiaro se il Presidente intende per estrarre i $ 400 miliardi di budget del Pentagono da solo o dal più grande è il "cesto di sicurezza", che comprende gli Affari Internazionali, Homeland Security, e Veterans Affairs.

Inoltre, non è incoraggiante che il Presidente applaudito Defense Security Gates per aver "già salvato" 400 miliardi di dollari degli anni precedenti, quando mai la maggior parte di quei "risparmi", ha lasciato il Pentagono casse, né intaccato il deficit del governo. Quali i bisogni della nazione ora sono "risparmi", nel senso colloquiale di un effettivo calo della spesa per la difesa.

Una seria revisione strategica dovrebbe permettere molto più di una ritrattazione del 6,5% previste spese future. Si deve fare di più che limitano la crescita futura. And maybe it will. Ma dobbiamo riconoscere all'inizio che quello che il Presidente ha proposto non è di per sé sufficientemente importante da richiedere in realtà una revisione strategica. Sì, abbiamo bisogno di uno - ma non perché il presidente spera di frenare la crescita modesta del Pentagono.

Per essere significativo, ad un riesame deve guardare ben oltre 400 miliardi di dollari di risparmio, e anche oltre ciò che la Commissione Fiscale e task force altri hanno proposto. Naturalmente, il segretario Gates e l'ammiraglio Mullen in disaccordo. Hanno già pubblicamente deriso vincoli nuovi e rilevanti sulla loro spesa come mettere la nazione e le sue forze armate a rischio. La revisione strategica dovrebbe essere più che una concessione conciliante alle loro preoccupazioni, che sono tendenziose.

Siamo in grado di avere una prospettiva necessaria per il confronto di bilancio recenti osservazioni e le proposte in un contesto storico. Questa tabella preparata da PDA converte i recenti piani e le proposte in base media annuale budget del Pentagono, espressi in dollari 2010. Esso mostra che le richieste del Presidente e le proposte, compreso il suo recente, che produrrebbe media bilanci annuali che occupano una banda stretta della spesa. Sono tutti parenti stretti.

Anche la proposta più ambiziosa dal Sustainable Task Force difesa non si va lontano.

Tutte le richieste del Presidente e le proposte di produrre bilanci annuali medi che, in termini reali, superano la spesa precedente, superiore a Reagan-era livelli di spesa, e sostanzialmente superare la spesa media per tutto il periodo della Guerra Fredda. (E, in particolare, la media di bilancio per gli anni della Guerra Fredda include spese di guerra, mentre le medie più recenti non lo fanno.)

We should gladly accept the opportunity for a review of defense planning and work to make it worthwhile. Ma non dobbiamo e non deve accettare l'idea che le revisioni modesti nella programmazione di bilancio forniscono buone ragioni per colpire il "panico strategia" pulsante.

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. Piccole guerre Journal, 12 aprile 2011.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/732-thiel1.pdf

Estratto:

Guerra di manovra nel suo nucleo è uno sforzo meccanicistica e si adatta con una necessità corrispondente di tipo top-down gerarchie. Al contrario, controinsurrezione è un ambiente più ambigua che varia nella sua complessità e il contesto, è la partita a scacchi della guerra. E 'diverso da paese a paese e può coprire l'intero spettro della guerra simultaneamente. Di conseguenza, contro-è difficile da mettere su un adesivo, a marchio come uno slogan, o vendere ad una popolazione e dei loro rappresentanti. 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.”

Commento di 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, per essere sicuro che ci sono state alcune modifiche fatte qua e là, alcuni avamposti in più qua e là, ma in generale è rimasto lo stesso.

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. Questa è una chimera.

Eppure la gente, soprattutto a noi nell'esercito che hanno versato il sangue in questi luoghi, vogliono credere che ciò che accade o non accade è perché noi e quello che facciamo oppure non fare, o perché di generali salvatore guida sulla scena.

Ma l'élite politica estera (e molti capi militari) in questo paese ama questo racconto e vuole attaccare, perché pone l'accento e la critica sui meccanismi di fare queste guerre di intervento e di costruzione dello Stato e lontano dalla strategia e della politica che li metterà in posizione. 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.

Come anziano generali dell'esercito in Afghanistan sostengono "gli input giusti sono finalmente a posto", così anche noi siamo già vedere le chiamate in certi ambienti per le paludi in Libia.

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.

Estratto:

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

Estratto:

* 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

Estratto:

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

Estratto:

“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.

Cordiali saluti,

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

Estratto:

... Sconsiderate chiamate di tagliare il budget del Pentagono seguire come prevedibile, come le maree. Senza un'analisi credibile della strategia o richieste, i critici sono ancora una volta spese per la difesa dichiarando di essere fuori controllo.

Commento della redazione:

Nel suo editoriale di sicurezza non è economico Adam J. Herbert cita il lavoro della Forza Sustainable Task Difesa come un caso emblematico di critici del Pentagono tagli alla spesa che raccomandano "senza un'analisi credibile della strategia o richieste." Come membro della task force I differiscono sulla credibilità della nostra analisi. 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. Negli ultimi dodici anni di budget del Pentagono la pianificazione è proceduto come se non vi è alcun vincolo delle risorse. Unfortunately, that is true of the last QDR as well. Quei giorni sono chiaramente over - il Segretario Gates ha detto tanto.

• "A ben addestrato, ben equipaggiato, militare professionale non è a buon mercato. If the nation wants it to cost less, the nation will probably have to ask it to do less.” Exactly. Dalla fine della Guerra Fredda, l'esercito statunitense ha costantemente avanzato la sua portata globale e impegno. Le missioni si sono moltiplicate, tra cui molti che dovrebbe essere fatta da civili del Dipartimento di Stato e di altre agenzie. 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. Speriamo di essere tutti d'accordo ci dovrebbe mai più essere una "guerra di scelta".

• “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 un ambiente fiscale di oggi sia l'Air Force finirà con meno molti uno di questi aerei del previsto, o si sceglie di andare avanti del crunch bilancio e modernizzarsi con versioni di blocchi nuovi ancora migliore della classe F-16 e limitare la acquisto di F-35 di questo decennio ad un squadroni pochi per alta intensità di aria di superiorità missioni. 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

Estratto:

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.

Commento della redazione:

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

Estratto:

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.

Commento della redazione:

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

Estratto:

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/

Estratto:

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.

Commento della redazione:

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

Estratto:

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.