Andrew Taylor. AP, 20 January 2012.
http://defensealt.org/HbwoVl
Excerpt:
The White House plan, likely to reprise new taxes and fee proposals that are nonstarters with Capitol Hill Republicans, would turn off the entire nine-year, $1.2 trillion across-the-board spending cuts, referred to as a “sequester.”
“We have a sequester coming less than a year from now unless Congress acts,” said a senior administration official. “We’re going to ask Congress to do now what we think Congress should have done in December, which is enact more than $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, turn off the sequester and maintain the (spending caps).”
DefenseTracker.com, 18 January 2012.
http://defensetracker.com/web/?p=1681
Excerpt:
Part of the “Doomsday Mechanism” hysteria spread by Defense Secretary Panetta and his comrade in the budget wars, Cong. Buck McKeon, has been the automaticity of the across-the-boards cuts that sequester would impose on the defense budget next January–in the likely event that the lame duck Congress and its successor next year will both be as dysfunctional as the can of red and blue worms we have now. (The other part of the hysteria is the “horror” of returning to 2007 levels of base budget defense spending.)
It seems that the president has existing statutory authority to modify the sequester mechanism–but not the amount of cuts required.
Nathan Freier. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 17 January 2012.
http://defensealt.org/KAW4AS
Excerpt:
Like any change in strategy, however, the new approach has risk embedded in it. One of the more prominent risks involves the wholly predictable and complete triumph of classical realism in DoD’s future outlook. It appears that high-tech war between states is back in vogue as the single most important core planning scenario; this at a time when war within important states may be increasingly likely and, depending on location, equally impactful. How defense leaders account for and manage this risk will determine whether or not the guidance survives first contact with global uncertainty.
John Birkler, Paul Bracken, Gordon T. Lee, Mark A. Lorell, Soumen Saha and Shane Tierney. RAND, 16 January, 2012.
http://defensealt.org/J83lFJ
Excerpt:
For at least two decades, policymakers have expressed concerns that further consolidation could erode the competitive environment for military aircraft and degrade the industry’s abilities to develop, manufacture, and support innovative designs. The authors find that only by involving two prime contractors equally in performing RDT&E (research, development, test, and evaluation) on a new large program, such as a bomber, could DoD sustain two firms through 2020 with RDT&E funding and through 2025 with procurement funding.
Carl Conetta. Project on Defense Briefing Memo #53, 05 January 2012.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1201bm53.pdf
Excerpt:
The roll back in spending plans and the actual cuts to the budget are sufficient to engage every office and program in the Pentagon. That makes for a contentious debate as well as a load of fodder for partisan politics. It will help if we can keep things in perspective. The cuts we face today are far less dramatic than those following the Cold War. Aggregate budget authority during 1991-1996 was nearly 20% lower in real terms than during 1987-1990 – a decline five times greater than what the administration today proposes. Given our nation’s current economic straights, Pentagon advocates should actually breathe a sigh of relief.
Winslow Wheeler. TIME Battleland, 13 December, 2011.
http://defensealt.org/HsDI1j
Excerpt:
Without the inclusion of war spending, the DOD base budget under the “Doomsday Mechanism” is no longer at or near its post-World War II high, but it is also not near any of the historic lows. In fact, it is roughly $38 billion above annual spending during the Cold War…
Robert Haddick. Small Wars Journal, 29 November 2011.
http://defensealt.org/KAZEeg
Sara Sorcher. National Journal, 29 November 2011.
http://defensealt.org/HqhEoL
Excerpt:
President Obama recently announced steps to strengthen the architecture of an American foreign policy with new focus on the Pacific, including plans to deploy 2,500 troops to a base in Australia—all the while insisting that any reductions in U.S. defense spending will not come at the expense of priorities in the Asia-Pacific region. Even as many in Washington warily eye China’s rapidly modernizing military and expanding naval presence in the Pacific, 39 percent of Insiders said the next move is to improve American engagement with Beijing while avoiding any military-related steps.
Paula G. Thornhill. CNN, 23 November 2011.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/23/opinion/thornhill-defense-cuts/index.html
Excerpt:
The nation’s leadership needs a Plan B so that a heroic assumption — or hope — about the unlikelihood of future wars does not inadvertently lead to strategic disaster. This is harder than it seems. Plan B would allow more flexibility to meet what could go wrong in the strategic environment rather than just making budget cuts.
Editor’s Comment:
Plan B is to maintain a good ‘strategic reserve.’ As neo-conservatives like to point out the United States spends only 4.5% of its GDP on its military. If new threats pinch, the U.S. can easily ramp up spending and engage its still considerable industrial and knowledge base. The problem this country faces with a reconstitution strategy is lack of political will. Civilian leaders are loathe to ask the American people to sacrifice. A robust National Guard and Reserve force that is not abused by frequent deployments to unnecessary wars and a societal expectation to pay a tax surcharge in times of national emergency are the fundamentals of what this country needs to be strategically prepared while maintaining a small standing peacetime force. With such a strategic plan the U.S. can be well provisioned for any threat.
Matthew Leatherman. Bloomberg Government, 21 November 2011.
http://defensealt.org/veAUPs
Anthony H. Cordesman and Bradley Bosserman. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 17 November 2011.
http://defensealt.org/Hy8CVc
Michael E. O’Hanlon. New York Times, 14 November 2011.
http://defensealt.org/H4n3z7
Excerpt:
By keeping a ship abroad for a couple of years and having two crews share that vessel as well as a training ship at home, the Navy could improve its deployment efficiency by up to 40 percent per ship, accomplishing with about three and a half ships what, on average, might have required five. Focusing on the Navy’s large surface combatants, cruisers and destroyers, this approach could theoretically allow roughly 60 ships (with slightly less than half of them deployed abroad at a time) to maintain the global presence that the Navy says it needs, rather than the 94 ships it is currently pursuing.
Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #52, 25 October 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm52.pdf
Excerpt:
The sharp rise in the Pentagon’s base budget since 1998 (46% in real terms) is substantially due to strategic choice, not security requirements, per se. It reflects a refusal to set priorities as well as a move away from the traditional goals of military deterrence, containment, and defense to more ambitious ends: threat prevention, command of the commons, and the transformation of the global security environment. The geographic scope of routine US military activity also has expanded.
companion piece: The Pentagon’s New Mission Set: A Sustainable Choice?, by Carl Conetta. An updated and expanded excerpt from the Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget (USB) for the United States, August 2011. http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/111024Pentagon-missions.pdf
Charles Knight. Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo #51, 25 October 2011.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1110bm51.pdf
Excerpt:
…modest changes to U.S. military strategy and global posture implemented over the next ten years can reliably offer deficit-reducing savings from the Pentagon budget ranging from $73 billion a year to $118 billion a year.
To achieve the savings only requires the application of different means to attaining strategic goals. That is precisely what any good strategy does when conditions change.
Dan de Luc. Agence France-Presse, 19 October 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=SEA&s=TOP&i=8003142
Excerpt:
“Asia will be clearly a priority and we will adjust our operations accordingly,” Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, told reporters in a teleconference.
The Navy now constantly maintains an aircraft carrier – either the Kitty Hawk or the George Washington – in the Pacific, compared to 10 years ago when a carrier was available only 70 percent of the time, he said.
Abu Muqawama. Center for New American Security, 13 October 2011.
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/10/looking-trim-defense-budget-start-qdr.html
Excerpt:
Yesterday’s announcement that the Department of Defense will form a “Strategic Choices Group” to identify priorities and risks ahead of $450 billion in potential cuts to the budget is the latest example of the worthlessness of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). A strategic document would necessarily identify risks and priorities, but since the QDR does neither, the Department of Defense has to establish an entirely new working group to do just that.
See also: Is the QDR ‘a PR stunt’ or a sincere effort to reconcile posture and budget with strategy?
Andrew Tilghman. Defense News, 12 October 2011.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?c=LAN&s=TOP&i=7935114
Excerpt:
Panetta said the Army should expect reserve-component troops to be a vital part of the future force.
“As we draw down from these wars, we need to keep the Guard and the Reserve operational and gaining experience. This is the best investment we’ve made over the past 10 years,” he said. “We need to continue to be able to maintain that as a valuable asset because the reserve force has a special role to play as a force that gives the nation strategic depth in the event of crisis, access to unique civilian skill sets that can be useful in modern conflicts and as the Army’s bridge to a broader civilian population.”
Receive notice of new posts on this site through 
