Abu Muqawama: Post
Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS. Abu Muqawama retains the right to delete comments that include words that incite violence; are predatory, hateful, or intended to intimidate or harass; or degrade people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. In summary, don't be a jerk.
Budget Realities
June 10, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 8:57am | 11 Comments
I am not the pro's pro on the defense budget, but Michael O'Hanlon's worry in today's Post seems warranted.
For the Defense Department to merely tread water, a good rule of thumb is that its inflation-adjusted budget must grow about 2 percent a year (roughly $10 billion annually, each and every year). Simply put, the costs of holding on to good people, providing them with health care and other benefits, keeping equipment functional, maintaining training regimes, and buying increasingly complex equipment tend to grow faster than inflation. This is, of course, no more an absolute rule than is Moore's law about changes in computing capacity. But like Moore's law, it tends to hold up remarkably well with time, especially when downsizing the Defense Department's force structure is not really an option, and it is not today.
No, it's really not
No, it's really not warranted. O'Hanlon's justification that, merely because Gates has chopped programs that he must then replace them with equally expensive hardware is incredibly ignorant of any knowledge of DOTMLPF. If the QDR comes up with some ideas on how to face a "hybrid" threat in addition to conventional warfare, there could be significant cost savings in R&D that can then be used to better support O&M and manpower costs. He also neglects to account for the billions of dollars in wasted acquisition efforts and the immediate reaction from Congress to "help" DOD in ways that it never asked. In short, O'Hanlon (once again) takes shots at the Democratic Party's attempts to develop a responsible national security platform and hides under the cover of "impartiality" of his think tank.
Interesting op-ed. The 800
Interesting op-ed. The 800 pound gorilla here seems to be personnel. If there are not great savings in operations and maintenance *and* cutting weapons programs isn't as much of a fix as people sometimes think, since you still have to replace weapons eventually, where do you get savings?
For lots of very good reasons, both symbolic and substantive, committing financial resources to the troops has been something the Democratic Party has really gotten behind. This is reflected in the FY2010 budget proposal. If you look at page I-9 here (http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2010/fy2010_SSJ.pdf), DOD is increasing military pay & healthcare by 8.8%. Given plans to further expand the force, I have seen some projections that suggest personnel costs could become so large that they lock in strategy, i.e. you end up with a strategy designed around the personnel costs you have to pay, because they are just so enormous.
But you can't cut personnel spending, especially if you are a Democrat wary of looking "weak" on national security.
So what's the solution?
Jason -- seems like you are
Jason -- seems like you are not the biggest O'Hanlon fan in part because he is attacking Democrats yet again. . . . From what I know, he is certainly a Democrat. For example, he gave $1480 to Hillary in the primary: http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Ohanlon....
I don't understand why
I don't understand why O'Hanlon drops this line in there as a throwaway:
The administration is right to propose increasing resources for the State Department and aid programs. But it is unwise politics and unwise strategy to put these key elements of foreign policy in direct competition with each other, as appears to be the case in the new budget.
This is pretty much always the way it goes, isn't it? Everyone recommends an increase in the foreign assistance budget, an increase in the State budget to fund growth in the FSO pool, etc., but then when it's suggested that that money has to come from somewhere, all we hear is the reasons why it's impossible.
Making greater use of service-life extension programs, modifications to existing weapons, and inexpensive but high-performance modern technologies such as advanced munitions and robotics can keep a check on cost growth.
So too can leveraging sales to international partners to reduce unit costs and keep production lines open, an approach that dovetails nicely with the stated intent of DoD (and the USG writ large) to build partner capabilities and capacity.
Consider this post's
Consider this post's (admittedly mild) hand-wringing over the budget. Then consider a previous post:
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/06/too-true-be-funny.html
Result: "Hahaha, defense budgeting is a joke, wherein Congresspeople try to line their district's pockets without really focusing (much) on actual defense priorities, thus tenaciously defending programs that we may not need. Oh noez, the budget isn't growing fast enough, whatever shall we do, we're doomed."
As I watch Chrysler cut
As I watch Chrysler cut dealerships to cut O&M costs, I watch DoD leave the dealerships and cut the cars.
We'll have to cut force structure to pay for personnel and reconstitution...we'd get a lot more "real" savings out of the force structure cuts if we could eliminate the bases where these forces are assigned, too.
Scott - the reason why I
Scott - the reason why I really don't like O'Hanlon is because he's a hypocrite. During the past decade, he sets himself up to be a "neutral party" and then made these carefully slanted arguments for the Bush administration's national security concepts. I don't doubt that he contributed to Hillary Clinton, so that he could position himself to be on the "winning team" in the new administration (more bad forecasting for him). If you examine his record, it isn't that good at all. At any rate, his discussion on the defense budget is disengenuous and faulty. Pick up any CBAS analysis of the defense budget if you want a really impartial and yet excellent point of view on where we need to go.
Seconding Jason, O'Hanlon
Seconding Jason, O'Hanlon has deomstrated that he's not honest. The first steps to better policy making are (a) minimize the influence of liars and (b) listen more to the people who were correct.
Mike's a pretty fair analyst
Mike's a pretty fair analyst on budget matters and has been an equal opportunity critic and supporter of various Administrations. This past week he supported the Administration's cuts in missile defense, but then critiqued its overall topline. I think he calls them as he sees them, but I think he needs better glasses and wouldnt let him umpire my weekend softball game.
That said, I think his column was poorly framed since he assumed away the requirements underlyign the $500+B we are spending as valid and well spent. If you believe that everything the Pentagon is doing is absolutely vital and there is no wiggle room and no need to incentivize the Services to control personnel, energy or health care costs, then fine. If you believe that each dime is carefully spent and that the GAO reports on program overruns have not cost us $300B over the past decade, and you want to see more of the same, just sign up to Mike OHanlon's views from outside the building.
Those of us up close and personal think otherwise.
This forum nedeed shaking up
This forum nedeed shaking up and youve just done that. Great post!
That's 2 clveer by half and
That's 2 clveer by half and 2x2 clever 4 me. Thanks!
Add your comment