President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The U.S. defense budget is larger than the defense spending of the following eleven countries combined, partly due to the maintenance of aging platforms. At the same time, other countries are winning the race to new capabilities. An expert joint program review and modernization board can help America realign its priorities and regain its technological advantage.
As the ground force provider with constant missions, the United States Army has, post-WWII, attempted to maintain readiness while it modernized simultaneously and in-stride. However, the force the U.S. Army wants to field in the future is transformational and therefore requires a more deliberate approach. The U.S. Army must determine not only how and when to modernize, but also how to mitigate the cost of modernization.
To meet the challenge of rising Chinese power, the Department of Defense should implement three central allocations. The first is a service reallocation. The Department of Defense must reduce the size of the active-duty Army to fund the Navy’s shipbuilding program, which is critical to meeting the challenge of the growing People’s Liberation Army Navy. The second is a regional reallocation, the Department of Defense must shift military and naval resources from the Middle East to the Indopacific. The third reallocation is from the technical to the cognitive.
In 1977, Congress effectively took responsibility for the base closure process. Today, it shirks that responsibility — threatening national security and the Pentagon’s fiscal position — by ignoring pleas for a new BRAC round. Not only should Congress approve a new BRAC round, it should authorize the BRAC process to occur at regular intervals in accordance with recommendations from the 2005 Commission. Threats to the United States will continue to change and the country’s defense posture should be free to change as well.
The drawdown is upon us. Both the base budget and the overseas contingency operation funding lines are getting smaller. This is forcing Department of Defense (DoD) components to make hard decisions on which programs they want to fund. These hard decisions are informed and influenced by the efforts of strategists, cost assessors, budgeters, congressional affairs personnel, program evaluators, and others who do similar work. If DoD components want to survive, and possibly thrive during a drawdown, they need to invest in and reward the work of strategists, cost assessors, budgeters, congressional affairs personnel, and program evaluators as they are DoD’s Program Defenders.
The current debates emanating among policy circles within the Department of Defense and Congress have predominately focused on the scale of budget cuts imposed by sequestration and how it will be implemented to achieve the President’s defense policy guidance. As resources decrease, each service is maneuvering themselves within the budgetary-policy debates to ensure they receive both an adequate role in shaping the future security environment and the resources commensurate with such a role.
