Defense Secretary Declares War On Budget Control Act As Hollow Force Looms
Defense Secretary Declares War On Budget Control Act As Hollow Force Looms by Loren Thompson, Forbes
One day after Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel disclosed details of the Obama Administration’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2015, I joined a group of analysts and journalists at the Pentagon to discuss the budget request with him. Hagel largely reiterated what he had said the previous day, but two things quickly became apparent in our meeting. First, he is determined to move the nation’s military posture into a new era as the bulk of U.S. forces departs Afghanistan. Second, he thinks the 2011 Budget Control Act capping annual defense expenditures is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible exertions of congressional authority in modern times.
Apparently much of Congress agrees with him on the budget law, because three years after it began taking effect, legislators still have not permitted the full impact of the cuts contained in the law to be felt at the Pentagon or domestic agencies. The most recent palliative, known as the Bipartisan Budget Act, scaled back mandated reductions in fiscal 2014 and 2015 (the budget year beginning October 1). But the relief provided in 2015 is modest, and thereafter the strictures of the 2011 law remain in effect into the next decade. Hagel says that if the reductions are not scaled back or removed, the joint force will be smaller, less ready, and less well equipped than national security requires…
Always consider the source. Why does Forbes magazine care about a “Hollow Force”? Perhaps because a reduced DoD budget cuts into corporate profits. On their mission statement their editor states:
“Forbes.com offers up-to-the-minute reporting, interactive tools and tough-minded analysis on the people, companies and technologies driving business and creating wealth. – Paul Maidment, Editor, Forbes.com” http://images.forbes.com/fdc/mediakit/MISSION.PDF
So are the issues regarding the “Hollow Force” a question of defending America or defending business and wealth creation?
Congress has clear duties:
To “raise and support Armies,” to “provide and maintain a Navy,” but more importantly “To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”
To overly invest in “common defense” or in “general welfare” so as to make it so that we cannot “collect taxes” adequate to “pay the debts” of our nation is to fail in their mission. Clearly, they are failing.
Similarly I believe it is the duty of military to ensure that whatever force is funded by the Congress is designed and managed so as not to be “hollow.”
Any Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or Service Chief who predicts a “hollow force” as a mechanism to coerce the Congress to fund what the military deems it wants over what the Congress has deemed that it needs should be called to task to explain him or herself publicly. The military must offer realistic offsets that allow a smaller, but fully functional force to remain. Then the duty is back on the Congress to kill multi-billion dollar programs that are preventing a functional force. But the Military cannot both keep all of its Service Programs intact and cry “hollow force.”
We must do realistic threat and risk assessments and make the hard decisions all of these military and civilian leaders were selected, appointed, or elected to make.
Personally, I think in eras of peace (and conflicts of choice), we garner savings by assuming risk in the size of our ground force and the size and modernity of our tactical air and sea platforms. Prioritize strategic platforms and programs that allow us to deter major threats, maintain commerce, and conduct blistering punitive expeditions rapidly, globally, and of short duration. Also make it harder for Presidents to launch us into military adventures that sap our national strength, wealth and influence without first having time for reasonable national debate.
After all, it is not so much how we waged or ended conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that have damaged our nation – it is how we began them.
Regarding readiness, should we not ask the critical question: Ready to do what?
After the Cold War, we decided to use our military forces in the classic tasks of “invade, conquer and occupy.” Via these methods, we hoped to overthrow the oppressive regimes, liberate the oppressed populations and help these populations transform — more quickly — along modern western political, economic and social lines.
We soon learned, however, that the populations, thus liberated, were as likely — or more likely — to (1) descend into chaos or to (2) adopt ways of life and ways of governance that were even less compatible with US interests.
This realization, now understood, tending to eliminate the rationale for our earlier actions.
So today, not only is “stability operations” off of the military’s table but also, for all intents and purposes, “invade, conquer and occupy,” and regime change.
Thus, begging the question: For what few remaining tasks must our military forces be “ready” to accomplish?
“Building partner capacity?” (To force the populations to transform as we desire?)
Just how large, capable and ready a force do we need to accomplish this lesser task (when compared, for example, with “invade, conquer and occupy”)?