The Pentagon is asking Congress for permission to do another round of base closures in 2019, but said the need to close excess infrastructure is so dire, it’ll do what it can without Congress if it has to.
The request for base-closure round was released Tuesday in official documents laying out the administration’s fiscal 2017 budget request. The $582.7 billion budget includes $58.8 billion in a war fund to pay for overseas operations. It also would invest in developing new technology and funding for research and development.
The budget request boosts funding to fight the Islamic State, increases purchases of F-35 joint strike fighters for the Navy and Marine Corps, and keeps the A-10 attack plane in the fleet a few years more.
The base budget request is $2.2 billion more than what was enacted last year for fiscal 2016, but $23 billion less than the forecast for spending in 2017 in last year’s plan. The overseas request is $200,000 higher.
An analysis to determine what excess infrastructure the military could get rid of is underway. The military is asking for $4 million in fiscal 2017 to beginning planning and oversight for a future round of base closures, according to official documents.
The last round of base realignment and closure, also known as BRAC, occurred in 2005. Critics said it cost more money to close facilities than it ended up saving. A total of 22 facilities were closed and another 33 realigned.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, has been skeptical of approving another round of base closures. He said this year he would consider another round only if the services could detail exactly how much extra infrastructure they needed to purge using up-to-date data. Past requests, he said, have relied on numbers that are more than 10 years old.
“My point is, we don’t have any extra money laying around,” the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said last month at the National Press Club. “We better be darn careful we know that we have something that we don’t need because once we give it away, especially if it’s a training range or flying range or something, we’ll never get it back.”
“If so, we’ll look at it,” he continued.
The Pentagon said that prior rounds of base closures are now saving about $12.5 billion a year. Official documents say that the department will explore other options available to it if Congress does not approve its request for base closures.
War fund
The $58.8 billion overseas fund includes money to pay for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as increases funding to assure European allies in the face of Russian aggression.
- Afghanistan: The president has requested $41.7 billion in fiscal 2017 to fund the fight in Afghanistan, including the 9,800 U.S. troops expected to remain there through calendar year 2016.
- Iraq/Syria: The administration has asked for $7.5 billion to fund the fight against the Islamic State, which includes $300 million to train and equip forces in Syria and $600 million to train and equip Iraqi troops.
- Europe: The request for Europe quadrupled from the past year to $3.4 billion in fiscal 2017. More than $1 billion will go to support an increased U.S. presence and almost $2 billion to preposition equipment and troops in Europe, including one armored brigade combat team.
Air Force
The Air Force has asked to focus in fiscal 2017 on its three biggest procurement priorities: the F-35 joint strike fighter from Lockheed Martin, the KC-46A Pegasus refueling tanker from Boeing and the long range strike-bomber being developed by Northrop Grumman. Air Force active-duty troop levels will remain around 317,000 airmen, but will increase by one combat squadron since the A-10 is not being retired.
- Bomber: The Air Force is requesting $2.2 billion to invest its long range strike-bomber in fiscal 2017.
- F-35: The service plans to buy 43 of its variant of the F-35 in fiscal 2017, down from a planned buy of 48 in last year’s budget request, at a cost of almost $5 billion.
- Tanker: The service is asking to buy 15 tankers in fiscal 2017, at a cost of $2.9 billion.
- Maintenance: In its decision to delay retirement of the A-10 by two years, the Air Force has even further complicated its shortfalls of maintainers of its aircraft. As a result, it’s requested funding to fill more than 1,000 positions to train skilled maintainers.
Navy/Marine Corps
The Navy will see a slight dip in troop levels to 322,900, but will grow by seven net ships by the end of the fiscal year.
- F-35: The Navy and Marine Corps plan to buy 20 joint strike fighters in fiscal 2017, four that can land on a carrier for the Navy and 16 with vertical takeoff capability for the Marines, at a cost of $3.3 billion.
- Carriers: The Navy is planning to invest about $2.8 billion for the fifth year of construction on the Gerald R. Ford-class carrier John F. Kennedy, as well as early investments in the carrier Enterprise being built by Huntington Ingalls Industries.
- Destroyers: The Navy plans to buy two Arleigh Burke class destroyers in fiscal 2017 at a cost of $3.3 billion.
- LCS: The Navy plans to buy two littoral combat ships in fiscal 2017, one from Lockheed Martin and one from Austal USA, at a cost of about $1.5 billion. Future years of the budget reduce the planned buy from 52 ships to 40.
- Subs: The Navy plans to buy two Virginia-class submarines next fiscal year at a cost of more than $5 billion.
Army
The active-duty Army is planned to shrink in fiscal 2017 by 15,000 soldiers to 460,000. That’s on the way to a planned cut to 450,000 by the end of fiscal 2018.
- JLTV: The military plans to spend more than $700 million in fiscal 2017 to buy more than 2,000 joint light tactical vehicles from Oskhosh Corporation. More than 1,800 of the replacement to the Humvee will go to the Army. The Marine Corps will receive about 200 of the vehicles.
