Planning decisions made in the next four years may shape US defense force structure, capability and foreign policy options for the next 100 years, according to a Joint Forces Command analysis circulating through the back channels (without release or classification restrictions):
Some highlights from the accompanying email:
Bottom line:
1. Supplementals will end, AND the defense budget has to go down in the next 4 years to pay for domestic programs.
2. Current Force structure and readiness plans are inadequately funded even at their current levels.
3. Force structure is severely imbalanced to accomplish the current ops tempo and there is no significant effort to realign the current force.
4. Even with resetting force structure across all the Services, fiscal realities will drive DOD into an undetermined end state based on fiscal realities and with no long-term plan.
5. “The Obama administration has the opportunity to set the stage for US military forces for the next 50-100 years”
Slide 2. Competing demands in the federal budget FY-09 and beyond are in the range of $7.5 Trillion per year. The price tag alone for re-coring the 283 nuclear plants (built in the 70s & 80′s that depend on federal assistance to re-core) is $2.5b per plant… comes to over $7T.
Slide 4. Budget options laid out represent a 20, 30 and 40% budget reduction. Sound familiar?
Slide 6. Issues not in the present budget but they are reality. Health care, acquisition overruns etc are not factored in the current budget projections. In 2007 GAO reported that DOD acquisition were typically 8 years behind schedule and had cost overruns of 100%. In March 2008, GAO adjusted the overruns to 150%!
Slide 8. Recommends reducing force structure by tactical blocks, rather that salami slicing. For instance, reduce brigades, squadrons, ships and MEBs in total. Reducing depot maintenance or unit size by 20% reduces the capability of all units, therefore reducing their effectiveness. Reducing by tactical blocks gives the same level of capability, with less capacity.
Slide 9. Recommends changing the service splits of the pie. Based the total force on what is needed to do the mission, not “equitable across the board”.
Slide 10. The starting point assumes the level of forces approved in the Bush administration. the 202K Marine Corps is assumed to be stood up.
Slide 11-14. Click through these quickly and you can see the reduction in “building blocks” by each option.
Slide 17. The Cold War ended in 1991 but it took 9/11 to get DOD to start working toward a new paradigm. In the period between 1991 and 2001 we continued with an old force structure and acquisition programs based on the cold war threat.
Slide 18. US offers three unique capabilities unmatched anywhere: (1) Night carrier capability, (2) forcible entry from the sea, and (3) ability to close on and sustain the force in combat. These should be sustained.
Slide 19. New Paradigm needed. “Soft Power”. The notion has been accepted but the force structure- manpower and equipment to support has not changed; Investments do not support this strategy.
Slide 20. What is the right balance? Marine Corps notion of the long war represents new thinking but we have not changed anything to reflect that strategy. Canadians have come to the conclusion that you can NOT train a force to do both kinetic war and win “Hearts and Minds” the psychological imbalance not only precludes a force from doing both, but when you try, you fail at both.
Slide 21. Talks to the imbalance of the force. In 2001 90% of the force was expeditionary (warfighters) We gave lip service to SASO (Security and Stability Operations) with 10% of our forces (actually about 8%). In 2007, 25% of the force was in expeditionary operations, 75% were in SASO operations. But we did not significantly change our acquisition investments or force structure. And even then a significant percentage of the force was improperly engaged.i.e. artillery units serving as MPs and civil affairs and logisticians action as convoy security. The plan into 2010 continues this percent of the mix, again without any force structure adjustments.
*** The conclusion at this point in the brief is that if the 1/3 (expeditionary) 2/3 (SASO) paradigm works for how we want to employ our forces, then make the adjustments in force structure and acquisition.
Slides 30 through 35 then talk to the ideas that our current direction of recapitalization cannot be sustained in the face of fiscal realities, and it is probably the wrong direction anyway. Give the delays in new programs and the “LULL” that will exist in delivering them, there is about a 5 year gap in the 2013-2018 time frame when our current readiness will drop below operational levels. Our current inventory was built on non-wartime metrics.
The 5 years of combat we have had has aged equipment 16-20 years and acquisition programs cannot keep pace and they are unfunded at even that level. For example HUMVEES were programmed for 8000 miles per year. The current inventory in the past 5 years has surpassed the 20 year life of the vehicle (i.e. the average is in excess of 150,000 miles. the vehicles replacement is due in 2014, but is expected to slip to 2018.
Conclusion: What the next administration does with regard to force structure and force missions will have a significant impact well beyond the 4 or 8 years that they will serve. DOD needs to be an active player in that discussion and each Service needs to make significant adjustment immediately.
Golly.
My conclusion:
We are so screwed.
Bin Laden was right about a few things. Hit us so we try to respond and we would spend ourselves to death. We would not try to eliminate Islam, so if they could weather our first response and wait, we would find ourselves in an unsustainable financial situation and they could move in like hyenas on a wounded gazelle. He watched it happen with the Soviet Union, and figured it would be applicable to the other superpower.
Very sobering. I scanned through the preso but don’t understand half of what is presented. But what I do understand is we have failed to evolve the DOD and the Services to a sustainable force and we must do so quickly. But I’ve never seen the services do it themselves and, from their own unique points of view, doubt it possible. Then coming up with the sustainable vision of what the right force structure should be given the fiscal realities will require leadership I’ve not seen in my lifetime.
I am very interested in what the professional warriers (and ex-warriers) have to say on this. If we don’t get it right the long-term consequences seem too grave to contemplate.
Of course we must somehow create an environment where the economy flourishes or there will be even less money to pay for any of this.
After the friviolity enjoyed in the previous post I feel our host just turned on the cold shower many of us were exhibiting a need for.
Makes me want to throw up…..literally.
(PS-I think the Canadians are right, we’re going to get the worst of both worlds.)
That line from slide 31 about our acquisition programs, 100% over budget, 8+ year delays across the board…
Ouch.
I think the Canadians are right, we’re going to get the worst of both worlds
Virgil, I would argue that this need not be mutually exclusive.
The danger now will be that the only kind of power that can be projected in decades to come is “soft” and that won’t work either.
Anyway, I would offer this longterm USN commitment as an example…
I think it’s time MacGyver starts working on his resume…just in case…
With Hillary being a big promiser to foreign countries, you can bet the most needed skill sets this new administration wants for the U.S. military is endless Operation: Useless Dirt deployments, Operation: Deny Christmas etc in a long list of turd world garden spots.
Maybe even a 1 or 2 star appointment (diversity bully alert) in the Pentagram for Global Warming Warfare response and all the expensive office furniture, sycophants, PowerPoint warriors and so on that goes with it.
Everything else of military capability will be robbed to fund this kind of nonsense.
Like the Clinton era… wearing of military uniforms around the White House will be frowned upon.
There’s your change.
ELP:
Re: Wearing of uniforms at White House.
Were I ever elected El Cid the VERY FIRST thing I would do is arm those silly-ass defenseless Marine “guards” with fully loaded parade M-1s w. fixed bayonets and give them some pride (as well as complement the security of the place) instead of having them acting as glorified footmen as they are now–what a sicking sight to have unarmed “guards” holding their empty hands at parade rest–a total disgrace.
But then I’m just a fossil….
Virgil,
Concur. At the very least, give them a .45 and a couple magazines on their belt, with the NCO’s to have the sword as well.
Hell, if it were me doing the design work, I’d have sailors in undress whites with puttees, web belts, and M-1′s ala “The Sand Pebbles”, and the detail commanded by a CPO in choker whites with a .45 and sword.
respects,
There’s nothing wrong with being a fossil if what you is true. The kids are often wrong because they want to change simply “because.”
We are screwed, royally. Economically the country is on the ropes, and Obama and his idiots are going to finish burying us. You can’t have military strength without economic strength.
Obama wants to spend our way out of the mess we are in. It didn’t work from 1930-1941, and it won’t work now. We will just be deeper in debt and in worse condition.
I think what’s needed is a focus on necessities. Which meant not trying to fight the last war…which is now the Iraq campaign.
Counterinsurgency requires a level of manpower we can’t afford, and a patience the United States has never possessed. Yes, we can win, but after the drubbing the Republicans took in the 2006 and 2008 elections, no American politician will risk a prolonged major counterinsurgency campaign. Efforts in this direction should be restricted to creating training cadres for foreign auxiliaries. And we should not hesitate to hire auxiliaries.
Our own forces should focus on exploiting our advantages in technology and resources. Hardware is cheap (relatively), manpower is expensive. Shrink the force structure, improve the hardware.
And this needs to be asymmetric. The 1988-vintage force structure was designed to fight a land war in Europe. It was long on heavy land forces and short-range land-based tactical aircraft, with a medium-sized navy. This balance persists to this day. We need a relatively large Navy, an Air Force focused more on long-range aircraft, a smaller Army, and a Marine Corps that is the only MOOTW force.
As a trade power, control of the seas is not a luxury item, but a necessity. We’ve taken it for granted…and this is most unwise.
At the very least, give them a .45 and a couple magazines on their belt
Have no clue if this is really true, but once heard its the Secret Service that keeps things the way they are…
Sid,
May well be. However, if you can’t trust a Marine, eh?
QM – I fear you be right, or the lessons of history, whatever the case may be. Alas, we will get to learn that lesson yet again.
But this time we won’t have WWII to correct the trajectory…
Sid,
I hadn’t heard that, but I surmised that as a possibility…The other possibility is that the PC crowd doesn’t want to scare children, their Mothers, and “sensitive” folk in general. Same reason the name of the War Dept was changed from what it actually does–conduct war–to the hoped for outcome–Defense. Not so “aggressively threatening”, you know….
Aw1Tim,
LOL. The ”if you can’t trust a Marine” ans was EXACTLY the response I have given people when the subject came up.
As in, what’s the point, otherwise….?
You know, the tragic part is that since the ‘Bear’ went into hibernation we have since experienced a general degradation of world affairs into chaos . I read once somewhere (reference forgotten) that in the first two years following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the U. S. sortied 85+ combat deployments worldwide; CVBG included. We thought we were busy during the Cold War, and, yet, the more things change the more they stay the same.
Not to pick on you, Mike, a focus on necessities has always been a non-starter with our elected buffoons. Reagan brought John Lehman in as SecNav to fix a very broken machine. Lehman recognized that we needed a 500 ship navy and 15 CVBG’s to support ongoing worldwide requirements, while, at the same time, allowing sailors to be gone for less than a whole school year. Think a bit about the reference to school year. We didn’t need so many ships and Battle Groups to do the deed, but needed them, instead, to minimize the personnel turnover.
I remember the old saw later in the ’80′s about doing more with less, and it would have made sense given that we had progressed technologically to the point where such a notion seemed practical. However, the problem for me is that we exponentially expanded how much more we were doing. Add to that the missed yard periods for ships, the missed overhaul periods for other capital war assets, the denied upgrades allowing for greater battle survivability, and we’re looking at quite the story of the monkey and the football. Good Lawd Amighty!
The CVBG passed into history in favor of the CVSG, as an example, because we could technologically do more with less, and it was decided in fiscally proficient circles (jerks) that 10 CVSG’s would do the trick. What I don’t get is what happens if someone has a Special Weapons Moment in the Persian Gulf and we lose a CVSG. Hmmm…memorials all around for 8,000+ dead patriots, and MSM becoming instant experts on why CVSG might be an antiquated and ineffective notion. Wouldn’t be the first time MSM tried that ploy…
Think about the fact that in World War Aye Aye we lost multiple CV’s and the folx wearing big kid’s pants then said “Well, G*d*mmit, build another one and let’s win this fight!” Somehow we’ve lost sight of the understanding that some days the bear gets you…and a great many have become terribly unforgiving of that.
We can talk stategies, we can talk exploitation of advantages, we can talk symmetry vs asymmetry, but what we need to talk is ‘let’s win this fight’. The Defense budget during the Eisenhower Adminstration was 50% of the total Federal budget, and, yet, we did what was needed to win the fight. Granted, we ended up in a truce and some existential prick will point that out. Nevertheless, we must reacquire focus on our targets, regardless of that they are, and stop making excuses about why deficit is all that we can expect in the future. B$!!Sh!t! Just get the Freaking job done. Nothing else matters.
During President Eisenhower’s Inaugural Address he made the statement We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” .
The old warhorse had some pretty staunch and resolute ideas about perseverance and responsibility. We would do well to embrace such notions. Or is that a racist comment?
Yeah, Virg, but their our damn Marines. Oooh Rah!
Mongo, nice reference to Eisenhower.
However scary this is (and it is), it’s a bunch of SESs and flags talking to each other through a pile of kiss-ass captains and colonels. Not a one of them with the balls to stand up and say, “If you sacrifice what little we already have of this on your fiscal altar, here’s the price the United States of America is going to pay, and the loss of liberty you will see around the world that goes with it.” How many stars will accompany how many resignation letters?
That this is a foolishly DoD-centric viewpoint is demonstrated by the complete absence of anything other than a “buy stuff” mentality. Slide 18 lists three unparalleled capabilities, but that’s crap–no one matches us in a pile of things that we take for granted, and just because the Kuznetsov is actually self-propelling itself somewhere (no small feat, to be certain), doesn’t mean that we now have rivals in the CVBG biz. We will have rivals, though, when the Indians and the Chinese figure it out. Then what is our national (not DoD) plan to deny our opponents the ability to build that capability? We can delay the Chinese for decades if we do it right, and run the costs up way beyond their capabilities. Where is that in these DoD calculations?
The other failing of this presentation (well, one other) is the ridiculous notion of the US military wielding “soft power.” There’s a bleeding chest wound if there ever was one. Soft power is a State Department problem. How about having the temerity to push it back over to that fat heap of absconders where it belongs? The military kills, destroys, spies, lies to our foes, and trains, supports, even helps to equip our allies. Our allies are really quite few anymore. If you want to waste money on inoculations and blankets, let the State Department be the vehicle.
Damn, the more I look at that quote from Eisenhower, the more I think you should have that as a running header on the masthead.
“Soft power is a State Department problem. How about having the temerity to push it back over to that fat heap of absconders where it belongs? The military kills, destroys, spies, lies to our foes, and trains, supports, even helps to equip our allies. Our allies are really quite few anymore. If you want to waste money on inoculations and blankets, let the State Department be the vehicle.”
This means cutting the DoD budget and increasing the SD budget. The burocrats in DoD will sooner chew-off their oun leg then let this happen.
I will remind everyone that we’re talking about massively downsizing (again) the guys who protect us from nation-destroying threats, and focusing more on guys who can incrementally affect less important situations.
Yes, that’s a little overblown… but when I see comments to the effect that we need to have a small force capable of blowing stuff up and a large force capable of holding hands, I just want to scream. Folks, the reason we’re even in a position to hold hands in the first place is because the capability to blow stuff up gets us there. To put it another way, 9/11 is nothing compared to what would happen if we were to become unable to win a major conflict.
Dominoes hurt when they fall on you.
The SECDEF has already said he thinks the State Department needs more love on the budget side.