Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Defense News
December 3, 2007
Pg. 1
Top U.S. Officer Also Seeks New Mideast Strategy
By John T. Bennett
The U.S. military will need more money to replace aging and war-worn weapons and carry out an ever-growing list of missions, or officials will have little choice but to cut next-generation programs, said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Pentagon’s annual budget — excluding the emergency war supplementals that have funded operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — currently accounts for about 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Modernization and the swelling personnel costs of a growing Army and Marine Corps will require that figure to grow to at least 4 percent, Mullen said during a Nov. 27 meeting with Defense News editors and reporters.
Mullen said he worries that another “peace dividend” — a postwar drawdown — would “put [the U.S.] in a weak position in the future.” Without more money, procurement will suffer because “that’s the only account where there’s significant flexibility,” he said.
The chairman was soon echoed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who warned in a Nov. 27 speech against the nation’s tendency to shrink its military after wartime.
Many in the Pentagon expect the 2009 budget cycle to be the toughest in recent memory, one defense source said. The Pentagon has taken its budget worries to the White House, which may boost its 2009 defense-spending request.
But the expectation that defense budgets will soon plummet is little shared by defense and federal budget experts, Washington think tanks and trade associations. For several months, most have predicted flat growth. That’s in line with a six-year spending outlook — minus war costs — that the Bush administration submitted to lawmakers in February.
Looking Ahead
Mullen’s views may carry extra weight because he is likely to remain the senior most defense official as the Bush administration hands the reins to its successor in January. It will be up to the next administration — and perhaps the one after that — to pay many of the bills, defense analysts said.
During the interview, Mullen said he is worried about the Air Force’s aging fleet, as illustrated by the Nov. 2 crash of an F-15C fighter jet.
“That airplane was built in the 1980s,” he said. “That’s a long time for any high-performance airplane.”
He said the Air Force needs tankers and airlifters as well. He noted that the service is prohibited by law from retiring certain aging airframes and said he has asked Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, to report to him about the issue.
The chairman also said the Army and Marines, worn down by war, need a healthy slice of the budget pie, while the Navy needs to keep “investing in the future” to replace warships built in the 1980s.
And yet, he said, uniformed and civilian brass must exercise “responsible leadership” by “striking a balance” between rising personnel costs and procurement recapitalization and modernization efforts, Mullen said. “The sky is not the limit.”
Mullen does not believe the defense budget should be “indexed” to the gross domestic product, according to his spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby. Mullen does feel there is a “growing need to recapitalize our armed forces” and uses the GDP as a reference to “stimulate discussion relative to the affordability of increased defense spending in a challenging security environment,” Kirby added.
And amid all the service recapitalization needs, Mullen made clear the U.S. military must place more emphasis on irregular warfare.
“I think the asymmetric battlefield is the contemporary battlefield, not just now but into the future,” he said. “We’ve got to have all of our forces, not just our ground forces, paying an awful lot of attention to that.”
Asymmetric capabilities may be helpful in the Asia-Pacific region, where China is a rising power.
“It’s quite frankly easy to say they are a future peer competitor — I would agree with that. But that doesn’t mean the capabilities that we have are necessarily symmetric,” he said. “In fact, there’s an asymmetric piece of what they’re developing that we have to pay a lot of attention to, as well. The [Chinese] satellite they shot down [in January] is one example.”
Mullen has also set up a panel to create a new Middle East strategy that looks beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. The panel will look at what the American military can do to promote stability in the region, and how those efforts mesh with the nation’s “elements of soft power,” he said.
“There’s no part of the world right now that’s more closely tied to our vital national interests than stability in that part of the world. That was the overall driver,” he said of the new plan.
“Again, you’ve got to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are, but it’s broader that that. It goes as far to the east as Iran and as far to the west with the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and with Syria. We’ve got good friends and allies in that part of the world and we’ve got to reassure them. This isn’t all about kinetics. This is as much about soft power as it is about kinetics,” he added, echoing Gates’ speech one day prior.
His feeling that the new plan was needed also was prompted by Iran’s rise in the region, particularly Tehran’s actions during the 2006 Israeli clash with Hizbollah in Lebanon, he said. Despite saber-rattling for many months on both sides, the four-star stressed war with Iran “is avoidable.”
Gates’ Alarm
Gates also sounded alarm bells last week about a possible drawdown of defense spending after the Afghan and Iraq conflicts conclude.
“Four times in the last century the United States has come to the end of a war, concluded that the nature of man and the world had changed for the better, and turned inward, unilaterally disarming and dismantling institutions important to our national security — in the process, giving ourselves a so-called “peace” dividend,” he said in a watershed Nov. 27 speech at Kansas State University, his alma mater. “Four times we chose to forget history.
“After Sept. 11, the United States rearmed and again strengthened our intelligence capabilities. It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future — it will be important not to make the same mistake a fifth time,” Gates said.
The defense secretary also called for funding new organizations devoted to beefing up the nation’s “soft power” — a marked change from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who drew much of the Iraq-rebuilding mission toward the Pentagon and away from the State Department.
A reduction is on the mind of DoD leaders. The high-profile Defense Science Board is conducting a study on the future of the defense industry and is looking into future corporate governance of the defense industry.
Tie DoD to GDP?
Several budget analysts questioned Pentagon officials’ rhetorical hitching of annual DoD spending to a percentage of GDP. It would, for one thing, cut defense spending if the nation’s output dipped.
“It doesn’t appear to be backed up by many analytics,” said Steve Kosiak, a budget watcher at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “It’s an unsophisticated argument.”
By Kosiak’s calculations, increasing the Pentagon’s share of GDP from 3.3 percent to 4 percent would make DoD’s 2012 baseline budget about $688 billion, some $130 billion higher (in 2007 dollars) than planned in the 2008 budget blueprint sent to Congress in February.
Pierre Chao, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said, “Mullen’s sentiment seems more subtle than simply: ‘Give us 4 percent of GDP.’ He’s saying, ‘If you want us to do this list of things, we’ll need more money [in the baseline budget] or we’ll have no choice but to take it out of procurement accounts.’”
Specifically, Chao said, military leaders believe the current budget is sufficient to prepare to take on a peer military competitor, but adding the role of “global cop” will require more money.
“I have a lot of empathy for the argument” that the military needs a greater share of GDP annually, Chao said. “There is a mountain of work that’s piling up that is going to have to be done. … They are facing lots of platforms that are worn down because of Iraq and mandates to grow the force.”
Other defense observers applaud the idea of moving to 4 percent, or any stable yearly figure.
December 3, 2007
Pg. 1
Top U.S. Officer Also Seeks New Mideast Strategy
By John T. Bennett
The U.S. military will need more money to replace aging and war-worn weapons and carry out an ever-growing list of missions, or officials will have little choice but to cut next-generation programs, said Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Pentagon’s annual budget — excluding the emergency war supplementals that have funded operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — currently accounts for about 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Modernization and the swelling personnel costs of a growing Army and Marine Corps will require that figure to grow to at least 4 percent, Mullen said during a Nov. 27 meeting with Defense News editors and reporters.
Mullen said he worries that another “peace dividend” — a postwar drawdown — would “put [the U.S.] in a weak position in the future.” Without more money, procurement will suffer because “that’s the only account where there’s significant flexibility,” he said.
The chairman was soon echoed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who warned in a Nov. 27 speech against the nation’s tendency to shrink its military after wartime.
Many in the Pentagon expect the 2009 budget cycle to be the toughest in recent memory, one defense source said. The Pentagon has taken its budget worries to the White House, which may boost its 2009 defense-spending request.
But the expectation that defense budgets will soon plummet is little shared by defense and federal budget experts, Washington think tanks and trade associations. For several months, most have predicted flat growth. That’s in line with a six-year spending outlook — minus war costs — that the Bush administration submitted to lawmakers in February.
Looking Ahead
Mullen’s views may carry extra weight because he is likely to remain the senior most defense official as the Bush administration hands the reins to its successor in January. It will be up to the next administration — and perhaps the one after that — to pay many of the bills, defense analysts said.
During the interview, Mullen said he is worried about the Air Force’s aging fleet, as illustrated by the Nov. 2 crash of an F-15C fighter jet.
“That airplane was built in the 1980s,” he said. “That’s a long time for any high-performance airplane.”
He said the Air Force needs tankers and airlifters as well. He noted that the service is prohibited by law from retiring certain aging airframes and said he has asked Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, to report to him about the issue.
The chairman also said the Army and Marines, worn down by war, need a healthy slice of the budget pie, while the Navy needs to keep “investing in the future” to replace warships built in the 1980s.
And yet, he said, uniformed and civilian brass must exercise “responsible leadership” by “striking a balance” between rising personnel costs and procurement recapitalization and modernization efforts, Mullen said. “The sky is not the limit.”
Mullen does not believe the defense budget should be “indexed” to the gross domestic product, according to his spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby. Mullen does feel there is a “growing need to recapitalize our armed forces” and uses the GDP as a reference to “stimulate discussion relative to the affordability of increased defense spending in a challenging security environment,” Kirby added.
And amid all the service recapitalization needs, Mullen made clear the U.S. military must place more emphasis on irregular warfare.
“I think the asymmetric battlefield is the contemporary battlefield, not just now but into the future,” he said. “We’ve got to have all of our forces, not just our ground forces, paying an awful lot of attention to that.”
Asymmetric capabilities may be helpful in the Asia-Pacific region, where China is a rising power.
“It’s quite frankly easy to say they are a future peer competitor — I would agree with that. But that doesn’t mean the capabilities that we have are necessarily symmetric,” he said. “In fact, there’s an asymmetric piece of what they’re developing that we have to pay a lot of attention to, as well. The [Chinese] satellite they shot down [in January] is one example.”
Mullen has also set up a panel to create a new Middle East strategy that looks beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. The panel will look at what the American military can do to promote stability in the region, and how those efforts mesh with the nation’s “elements of soft power,” he said.
“There’s no part of the world right now that’s more closely tied to our vital national interests than stability in that part of the world. That was the overall driver,” he said of the new plan.
“Again, you’ve got to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are, but it’s broader that that. It goes as far to the east as Iran and as far to the west with the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and with Syria. We’ve got good friends and allies in that part of the world and we’ve got to reassure them. This isn’t all about kinetics. This is as much about soft power as it is about kinetics,” he added, echoing Gates’ speech one day prior.
His feeling that the new plan was needed also was prompted by Iran’s rise in the region, particularly Tehran’s actions during the 2006 Israeli clash with Hizbollah in Lebanon, he said. Despite saber-rattling for many months on both sides, the four-star stressed war with Iran “is avoidable.”
Gates’ Alarm
Gates also sounded alarm bells last week about a possible drawdown of defense spending after the Afghan and Iraq conflicts conclude.
“Four times in the last century the United States has come to the end of a war, concluded that the nature of man and the world had changed for the better, and turned inward, unilaterally disarming and dismantling institutions important to our national security — in the process, giving ourselves a so-called “peace” dividend,” he said in a watershed Nov. 27 speech at Kansas State University, his alma mater. “Four times we chose to forget history.
“After Sept. 11, the United States rearmed and again strengthened our intelligence capabilities. It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future — it will be important not to make the same mistake a fifth time,” Gates said.
The defense secretary also called for funding new organizations devoted to beefing up the nation’s “soft power” — a marked change from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who drew much of the Iraq-rebuilding mission toward the Pentagon and away from the State Department.
A reduction is on the mind of DoD leaders. The high-profile Defense Science Board is conducting a study on the future of the defense industry and is looking into future corporate governance of the defense industry.
Tie DoD to GDP?
Several budget analysts questioned Pentagon officials’ rhetorical hitching of annual DoD spending to a percentage of GDP. It would, for one thing, cut defense spending if the nation’s output dipped.
“It doesn’t appear to be backed up by many analytics,” said Steve Kosiak, a budget watcher at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “It’s an unsophisticated argument.”
By Kosiak’s calculations, increasing the Pentagon’s share of GDP from 3.3 percent to 4 percent would make DoD’s 2012 baseline budget about $688 billion, some $130 billion higher (in 2007 dollars) than planned in the 2008 budget blueprint sent to Congress in February.
Pierre Chao, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said, “Mullen’s sentiment seems more subtle than simply: ‘Give us 4 percent of GDP.’ He’s saying, ‘If you want us to do this list of things, we’ll need more money [in the baseline budget] or we’ll have no choice but to take it out of procurement accounts.’”
Specifically, Chao said, military leaders believe the current budget is sufficient to prepare to take on a peer military competitor, but adding the role of “global cop” will require more money.
“I have a lot of empathy for the argument” that the military needs a greater share of GDP annually, Chao said. “There is a mountain of work that’s piling up that is going to have to be done. … They are facing lots of platforms that are worn down because of Iraq and mandates to grow the force.”
Other defense observers applaud the idea of moving to 4 percent, or any stable yearly figure.