The election of a businessman with a focus on cutting waste to the White House. Growing concern in Congress that military readiness has reached critically low levels. And the military pleading once again to be able to get rid of some of its excess infrastructure.

Combined, these three factors point to 2017 being the first year in many in which base realignment and closures could actually happen, after several years of BRAC being one of those automatic, dead-on-arrival propositions. That’s because they equate to lost jobs back home for savings that take years to realize.