As President Obama addressed Congress last week, saying the “the shadow of crisis has passed,” the Pentagon was in the middle of crisis control.
In the Middle East, U.S. and coalition forces conducted airstrikes on Islamic State bunkers and tactical units in Iraq and Syria. The USS Iwo Jima and USS Fort McHenry stood off the coast of Yemen as Houthi rebels overtook Yemen’s government. And the Pentagon prepared to send more special forces to Syria. In Africa, the Pentagon fielded questions about why it hadn’t done more to respond to Boko Haram’s massacre of thousands in Nigeria.
And that just scratches the surface of what’s keeping the Pentagon busy these days. There’s the constant undersea challenges in the Pacific. Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. The shifting role of thousands of troops who remain in Afghanistan. A vulnerable Department of Defense computer network. Continued concern over Taliban attacks in Pakistan, ramifications of the Paris attacks and the potential for additional Russian, Chinese or North Korean aggression.
“The number and breadth of these challenges seems unprecedented,” said Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I.
While it seems overwhelming, U.S. involvement in all of these fronts aligns with President Obama’s 2012 defense strategy, in which he directed the military to shift from a plan that could wage two major ground campaigns to a more “widely distributed” response that would be able to apply “constant pressure” to terrorist networks and other threats, project power through the deployment of its carriers and amphibious groups, and, critically, be able to defeat one regional aggressor while deterring another.
But the strategy is struggling under sequestration.
“Twenty-one percent in real terms in the base budget, that’s how much has been cut since 2010,” said Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, in his first major policy speech as House Armed Services Committee chairman. “That has to have an impact.”
It has. For the last two years, Thornberry and other members of Congress’ defense committees have become all too familiar with the warnings from each military service: that the deferred maintenance and delayed training are coming home to roost. For example, late last year, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford said 50 percent of his units at home are in degraded states of readiness, because to survive the cuts, the Marines pushed equipment and training to the troops on the front.
On Thursday, outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel put it more bluntly: “We will not be able, in this institution, to fulfill the commitments of the president’s defense strategies with the kind of continued, abrupt, steep, large cuts that sequestration will demand.”
Each time they are warned, the lawmakers closest to the Pentagon’s ear lament the severe impact of the cuts. But even those closest to the fight don’t know if there’s a fix.
“That fix has to got to pass the House of Representatives, it’s got to pass the Senate, and it’s got to be signed into law by the president,” Thornberry said. “The Armed Services Committee alone cannot fix it. You’ve got to have 218, and 60, and one, to get it done. So, I don’t know that anybody has a magic formula to do that, or else it would be done by now.”
Lawmakers on the defense committees know that even as the Pentagon is in a crisis, their colleagues on other critical committees are facing sequestration funding problems of their own.
“We have already seen some of the damage that sequestration can do,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. If allowed to return, sequestration will not only continue to harm our national defense, it will continue to do serious damage to other important federal programs such as education, infrastructure and other areas of national importance.”
Some on the defense committees are stepping ahead of the fiscal 2016 budget to shape the debate of what roles the military should be ready to meet, with an eye on the limited bottom line that has to be shared among many demands.
“We had a Cold War strategy,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. “It’s much more difficult to have a strategy in this more complex world. We need to be more respectful and thoughtful in how we exercise American power.”
President Obama on Feb. 2 will release his fiscal 2016 budget, which is expected to include $535 billion for defense programs. But the sequester cap for 2016 is $499 billion – meaning the president’s proposal will already be $35 billion over the limit. And while that figure is equal to the amount spent on all other discretionary programs combined, it still won’t be enough. Tens of billions more are expected in a contingency fund request for the military’s growing mission in Syria and will likely contain the “gas money” for any additional surprises the Pentagon faces.
Defense committees in the House and Senate know that to push the budget over the sequester cap, they will need to convince their fiscally minded members of the risks of not spending the money.
“Members look to the members of the Armed Services Committee, you know, for the details of readiness levels and personnel and so forth — but we’ve got to do a better job in not just, you know, spouting statistics, but in helping other members of Congress understand not only what’s happening, but why it’s important. How it matters,” Thornberry said.
But part of the approach also will need to assure skeptical lawmakers that the Defense Department’s funds will come with tight scrutiny and the promise of reforms.
Since last year, Thornberry has solicited input from defense contractors, from the Defense Department and from defense experts on the best way to overhaul the agency’s acquisition process.
The current process is frustrating for both sides.
The defense industry says Pentagon officials frequently change their minds on what a system should be able to do, which means design changes and delays.
The government, on the other hand, blames the industry for production delays and cost overruns.
In the end, the government often ends up buying far less equipment than it had originally intended, and receives it much later than private industry would ever tolerate.
“In 1981, the Air Force established a requirement for 750 advanced tactical fighters. It wasn’t until 2005, 24 years later, that the F-22 was first introduced, and instead of 750 of ’em, we bought 195. If Boeing can field a new commercial airliner in five years, if Ford can take a car from design to production in 24 months, then there’s absolutely no reason that the Pentagon should take two decades to put a new fighter into service. Things have to change,” Thornberry said.
The House Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on proposals to streamline the Defense Department and potentially reduce the costs of the Pentagon’s acquisitions process and structure.
New Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., supports an overhaul and would not consider rolling back sequestration without the reforms, a committee aide said.
“This effort [rolling back sequestration] must be coupled with reforms across the Department of Defense, especially in the acquisition process,” the McCain aide said.
Which is why some defense watchers think Thornberry’s commitment to reform is as much about trimming the department as it is about protecting its bottom line.
“Thornberry’s emphasis on reform … it’s not just good government,” said American Enterprise Institute defense fellow Tom Donnelly. “Conservatives believe that big organizations are inefficient, that government organizations are even more inefficient, and that since the Pentagon is a huge government organization, it is the worst. So budget hawks want to feel they’re getting more bang for their buck before they give more bucks to the Pentagon.”
