When the Defense Department rolled out its 2016 budget request, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work introduced it noting, “We believe very strongly that this is a strategy-driven, resource-informed budget.”
But probably not driven by President Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy.
The Pentagon’s traditional planning cycle starts with the president providing that document. It is supposed to inform the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is the document the defense secretary produces on the national defense strategy, and the National Military Strategy, which is developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to outline how it will carry out the defense strategy. The plans help shape the Pentagon’s yearly budget request.
But the erratic timing of the National Security Strategy — by not only the Obama administration but the Bush and Clinton administrations before him — has limited its impact.
“The [National Security Strategy] … comes a year after the Pentagon released its latest defense strategy [the Quadrennial Defense Review] when they are supposed to be written in reverse order,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “This ‘cart before the horse’ problem is not new to this administration, but it continues to undermine the National Security Strategy as an ineffective and ill-timed document.”
Before Friday’s release of the 2015 document, the president’s last official National Security Strategy was issued in 2010. The Pentagon treated his 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance as his current National Security Strategy when it was released and used it to shape the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review.
That should have provided the strategy for the Pentagon’s request last year. But in the environment of sharp budget cuts, even though the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance directed a heavy emphasis on naval power and a pivot to Asia, the budget requested the retirement of an aircraft carrier and the mothballing of seven cruisers.
Despite its influence on the 2014 Defense Quadrennial Review, the president’s defense strategic guidance was not used to shape procurement decisions, said Rep. Randy Forbes, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower.
“We have [begun] to think of national strategy as the defense strategic guidance — that’s insane. It’s a 11- or 12-page document,” Forbes said. “Every single witness we have had testify before us — my question is always, ‘Can you make procurement and acquisition decisions based off an 11-page strategic guidance?’ Every single one of them say, absolutely not.’”
In a reflection that the 2015 National Security Strategy did not shape this year’s budget request, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said the Navy “got a view of the draft [of the strategy], to say, take a look at it so that we weren’t immediately out of line. So our budget is a reflection of that.”
On Friday,when asked whether the new White House strategy informed the defense fiscal 2016 request, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said “the budget supports the strategy — I think that’s the most important thing.”
