Defense budget preview: Schoenbaum and Mearsheimer, 1982

This morning, I happened across quite a prescient exchange of letters (pdf, $) from an old issue of International Security. In it, David Schoenbaum and John Mearsheimer discuss and debate various conclusions of the latter man's 1981 review of Brian Bond's British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars, a book that was thought to have been particularly relevant to the force structure and defense budgeting debate of the early 1980s. I hope to spend a great deal more time on this subject in the future (oh boy!), but for now I just want to reproduce a few excerpts that I think might interest you on the day the Secretary of Defense previews the new defense budget.

First, Schoenbaum prompts a wry smile:

If America now [in 1982], like Britain then, has a stake in Middle Eastern stability, it also enoys some non-military options unknown to British governments in the 1930s—a political solution of the Palestinian problem, for instance, or a genuinely conservative national energy policy. (225)

Plus ça change, etc. Divestment from Arab oil through national conservation or alternative fuels suggested 30 years ago!

Next, on the pitfalls of prognostication—good strategists aren't necessarily good grand strategists:

The problem of the British Army in the 1930s was not so much that British governments failed to build forces appropriate to their view of the world, but that their view was wildly askew. (226)

Influenced by Basil Liddell Hart and other proponents of the maritime strategy, British governments spent most of the interwar period building forces appropriate to naval supremacy and homeland defense, wishfully thinking that France could stand up to Germany and prevent continental hegemony.

Schoenbaum faulted his contemporaries for quite a different failing: they debated the best means to produce military power without considering the uses of that power.

Attrition vs. maneuver, the draft vs. the volunteer force or tanks vs. precision-guided missiles can also be debated on their abstract merits. In fact, they generally are. But these are not really abstract issues. On the contrary, they presuppose and only make sense with respect to real adversaries in real places and circumstances. What is regrettably missing in far too much of the current debate is the fundamental question of force, and forces, as means, rather than as ends in themselves. (226)

Quite.

Mearsheimer's historical analysis doesn't differ dramatically from Schoenbaum's.

The first lesson is than an insular power with worldwide defense commitments must involve itself in European politics to insure [sic] that no state becomes master of that continent. (227)

Of course, there are different ways to involve oneself in European politics: alliances and forward posturing of forces are not the only solution. And Mearsheimer would no doubt admit as much – he has argued that NATO is obsolete in the modern day – while confidently asserting that those were the appropriate answers in the 1980s.

Britain had failed to draw the proper conclusions about its necessary involvement on the continent until quite late in the 1930s, but the government did eventually revise its view and change course. Even then, military preparations were limited by other factors; as Mearsheimer notes, "military strength is largely dependent on economic strength."

Now that the British archives for that period have been opened, a clear-cut consensus is emerging that the ultimate failure of British policy in the 1930s had much less to do with political will and more to do with the large gap between her resources and her commitments. (228)

That sounds familiar, eh?

The implication [by those bemoaning insufficient political will] is that the solution to America's problems is largely of a political nature. In other words, there is a desperate need for vigorous and forceful leaders who will not be afraid to deal with threats to U.S. interests. Although it is hard to disagree with the need for determined leadership, this line of argument misses the more important point, which is that America's future as a great power will be determined largely by economic and not political factors. The ability of the United States to meet its worldwide commitments in the 1980s will be more a function of the economy's capability to generate the necessary military power than of any infusion of political will at the upper levels of government. (228, emphasis mine)

Let me go even a step further and say that the misguided "infusion of political will" in the form of expensive, strategically nonsensical military actions and ill-advised, cripplingly high defense spending is in fact a brake on our capacity to meet real our very real commitments.

Despite this military rationale for a powerful economy, large-scale increases in military spending are often detrimental to a healthy economy. (229)

And to close with yet another moment of déjà vu:

Recently [remember, this is 1982], Wassiliy Leontief, the Nobel Laureate in economics, warned that using scarce capital to support massive increases in defense spending "will starve the rest of the economy of the investment it desperately requires to remain competitive in the tightening worldwide market." (229)

Kill 'em all, and let the Keynsians sort 'em out.

Defense politics: a lot of the time, what ought to matter most doesn't matter at all

First read this from a Politico story (mentioned by Charles Hoskinson today in Morning Defense) about Mitt Romney making calls to voters on Monday in advance of the New Hampshire primary:

[Romney] also secured the support of the second voter he reached, who was apparently a defense industry worker.

"I was a little disappointed to see the president pull back on the F-35 program," Romney said, talking on a cellphone and with a list of printed out list of [sic] names and numbers in front of him.

Now read the entirety of this article by Chuck Spinney, Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, and Winslow Wheeler. Here's the most important bit on the subject of the F-35:

Moreover, if the F-35 lived up to 100% of its depressingly modest design specifications, it would still be a complete failure in combat utility: a bomber of shorter range, lower payload and far higher vulnerability than the Vietnam War’s appallingly flammable, underperforming F-105 Lead Sled; an air-to-air fighter so unmaneuverable and sluggish in acceleration that any ancient MiG-21 will tear it to shreds; and a close support fighter that is a menace to our troops on any battlefield, unable to hit camouflaged tactical targets and incapable of distinguishing friendly soldiers from enemies. Individually and collectively, we often fretted with Boyd on the irresponsibility of equipping our people with such foolishly complex weapons designs, so bereft of practical combat effectiveness—and on the deep corruption of acquisition programs, such as the F-35’s, that deliberately plan to buy a thousand or more units long before user testing has fully probed combat utility.

The authors of this piece are experts in defense acquisition, weapon system design and testing, and the politics of national security. Mitt Romney seems to have a fair grasp of the latter, though he is not an expert in the other areas (and presumably neither is the voter that he spoke to).

The F-35 is a failed program. Mitt Romney doesn't care. Neither do any of the other candidates, which is primarily a reflection of the fact that most Americans – most voters – don't care, and the ones that do care are much less interested in the program's combat effectiveness than its function as a source of jobs and economic stimulus.

American taxpayers are pouring outrageous amounts of money into weapon systems that don't work as advertised, aren't delivered on schedule, and cost more than expected—but the costs are diffuse, spread over many years and several budget lines, and are unlikely to have a negative impact on the welfare of individual voters that is even remotely comparable to the effects of program termination. In short, to the people who matter to the political process – candidates and voters – all weapon spending is essentially good spending.

But what about our business? What about the so-called "defense intellectuals," the military analysts and journalists and budget wonks and policy writers and bloggers? Don't we have a bigger responsibility? That's where Spinney, Christie, Sprey, and Wheeler come in again—and they're at their excoriating best:

Here [citing uncritical advocacy for F-22 and F-35 by one think-tanker] is a paradigm of the moral decay so visible among contemporary Washington defense “intellectuals.” These dabblers in defense pretend to serve seriously the real needs of our national defense and our people in uniform—when, in fact, they are serving the needs of foundations, universities, non-profits or politicians funded by defense mega-corporations seeking to expand their sources of government largesse. And, even in a shrinking economy, these dabblers easily find comfortable home bases and plenty of venues to publish or broadcast their paeans to big ticket programs and budgets.

Here are the facts:

1) The F-35 has already cost a fortune and seems unlikely to perform adequately in the range of missions for which it is meant to be suited (though this is still uncertain, as the aircraft was rushed into large-scale production before sufficient operational testing could be completed).

2) Notwithstanding the above, Mitt Romney and Jim Carafano still are "a little disappointed to see the president pull back on the F-35 program." (I get the feeling Carafano's phrasing would be less delicate; again, those are the candidate's words.)

Somebody ought to say something, huh?

But really: how does this ever change? How can the incentive structures of American politics be altered to ensure that parochial concerns entirely peripheral to military effectiveness aren't permitted to dominate entirely the weapon system development and acquisition process?

I wish I knew the answer to this. But after several years of raging against the machine, I'm disappointed to tell you that I don't. Spinney et al. have some ideas, but one can't help but think that their collective decades of experience in the game and relative failure to enact meaningful change suggests that a sense of hopelessness is not only justified, but entirely appropriate.

UPDATE: In case you're not feeling melancholy enough, I should also have mentioned this excellent and topical piece by David Axe on the failures of another acquisition program, the Joint Tactical Radio System—headlined "Army seeks 'perfect' radio, creates boondoggle."

Finding the hidden strategy in yet another non-strategic "strategy"

The Defense Department today issued an eight-page document (pdf) called "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense." If you haven't read it yet, you're not missing much. I'm just going to very briefly run down a couple of things that jumped out at me; to analyze it in any greater depth is a waste of time, as the document is basically a restatement of things we've seen before in the NSS, NMS, and QDR.

[DISCLAIMER: This is long. I thought it was going to be short, but it's long. Don't say I didn't warn you.]

Here's the bottom line up front, as people like to say in the Building: the ground forces are shrinking, and the Department has determined that rapid reconstitution of massed land forces if and when necessary is the spot where we're willing to accept the most risk. This is a perfectly reasonable decision—as Ex pointed out earlier, it's easier to reconstitute trained and ready land forces than it is to produce high-tech weapon systems (like submarines and fighter aircraft) out of thin air. He didn't mention this, but it's also true that the U.S. – a geographically isolated great power under little to no threat of invasion – will also have more lead time than it might otherwise when preparing for the sort of extended and manpower-intensive operations that require significant numbers of ground combat arms formations. All of which is to say: if we're going to fight a long war, we can accept the risk of taking a few months or even years to ramp up to the required personnel numbers.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying that it's easy, quick, or inexpensive to produce exceptionally-trained land forces of the sort we've deployed abroad over the last decade. What I'm saying is that it can be done when necessary, and that it's more difficult, more expensive, and in fact often more wasteful to keep more than 800,000 active component land forces humming with readiness and competency 24/7, 365 in a strategic environment where the requirement to deploy even a quarter of that number with minimal warning time in defense of a truly vital national interest is almost inconceivable. (The defense of Korea is a troubling exception.)

Yes, the credibility of U.S. deterrence could diminish if the rapidly-deployable force is downsized, and that has the potential to be destabilizing. But how rapidly can the U.S. military deploy huge numbers of ground forces to a contested theater in case of emergency even with current troop levels? And how many aggressive regimes out there are primarily deterred by the threat of an American invasion force rather than by the overwhelming destructive power of U.S. strike assets? The real deterrent power of U.S. joint forces comes from the absolute guarantee that American air and naval forces will wreak intolerable destruction on enemy maneuver elements as they operate in the field (supplemented by the quick arrival of U.S. rapid reaction forces and forward-deployed Marines), with later-arriving heavy U.S. land forces prepared to retake the intiative, finish the enemy, and hold ground. It may be stating the obvious, but this operational concept is far more threatened by constrained access than by insufficient Army force structure.

One particular line from the document is getting a lot of attention: U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations. COIN is dead, or something like that. (Spencer writes "kiss big counterinsurgencies goodbye.") Bollocks.

Read the sentence again: U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations. Now add ...in the steady-state/under normal circumstances. Because that's what we're talking about here: force structure in the steady-state. If and when the U.S. gets involved in a major, protracted conflict – of whatever type – you can throw all the sizing constructs and operational concepts you see here out the window. If, God forbid, American troops should be sent to "liberate" Iran and American policymakers determine that extended post-invasion stability operations are necessary, then we'll see stop-loss and deployment extensions and temporary end-strength increases and all the other contortions you've seen in Iraq (and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan). What this document is saying is not that such operations will no longer be considered, but rather that the steady-state, "peacetime" U.S. military will not be manned as if we expect to engage in them next month. Manned. Sized. Structured. You know, like the U.S. military in 1938 wasn't sized to simultaneously conduct major combat operations against the world's two most capable military powers in geographically distant theaters. That doesn't mean we couldn't do it; it just means we weren't allocating our national resources as if that was a preferred or expected course of action in the near term.

It's important, too, to make note of the other half of this: the elements of COIN/stability ops capability that aren't easily and rapidly reconstituted – specialized doctrine, equipment, concepts, and so on – are not being abandoned. Stability operations will still be a part of what U.S. forces train on, part of the "range of military operations" or the "full spectrum" or whichever fashionable phrase you want to use. The lessons of recent combat will still be institutionalized in doctrine and TTPs, not to mention in the thinking of those personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and the policymakers who prepared them and sent them there. The U.S. military isn't throwing out COIN—it's just normalizing capabilities and operational concepts associated with COIN as just several of the many things the force may be called upon to do.

Force structure is just force structure. Political leaders decide when, why, and how to employ military power—the Department and/or the services can discard unfashionable operational concepts if they so choose, and they can even constrain the president's near-term options by training and organizing in a particular fashion (especially with the aid of Congress, which makes the resourcing decisions), but the military doesn't get to foreclose certain policy choices. Nor does the president foreclose those options when he gives strategic guidance that impacts force structure decisions; he merely accepts risk, makes tradeoffs, and prioritizes based on expectations and preferences.

For me, the most important and informative statement in the document isn't under the COIN/stability operations heading, but rather in the elaboration of the deter and defeat aggression mission. Many readers will have noticed the obvious allusion to the allegedly discarded two-war planning construct, but there's a lot more to this. (The italics are in the original; I have added emphasis by underlining.)

As a nation with important interests in multiple regions, our forces must be capable of deterring and defeating aggression by an opportunistic adversary in one region even when our forces are committed to a large-scale operation elsewhere. Our planning envisages forces that are able to fully deny a capable state's aggressive objectives in one region by conducting a combined arms campaign across all domains – land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace. This includes being able to secure territory and populations and facilitate a transition to stable government on a small scale for a limited period using standing forces and, if necessary, for an extended period with mobilized forces. Even when U.S. forces are committed to a large-scale operation in one region, they will be capable of denying the objectives of – or of imposing unacceptable costs on – an opportunistic aggressor in a second region.

(Just as a quick aside from your frustrated and fusty Clausewitzian correspondent: isn't the imposition of unacceptable costs just another way of denying the enemy his overall objectives? Isn't that the very point of imposing unacceptable costs?)

Viewed alongside the pronouncement about stability operations and force sizing, this passage tells the reader a great deal about where the Department is headed. There's a later paragraph that hints at the same theme, identifying the need to examine the appropriate balance between active and reserve components in the development of future forces and programs. But the bit I've excerpted above really does tell us something new, something that's been hinted at but that we didn't already know: the administration has determined that active component forces should be structured and maintained to serve peacetime engagement, assistance, and deterrence functions and to conduct decisive, high-intensity, short-duration combat operations. Force structure necessary to conduct protracted operations of nearly any type – offensive, defensive, or stability operations – will not be immediately available—it will need to be mobilized from the reserve component or created wholesale through temporary end-strength increases. That's what the underlined bits are telling us, what with the slightly obfuscatory and non-standard "standing forces" and "mobilized forces" terminology: we can still do this extended, large-scale stabilization stuff if we need to, we just have to dip into the reserves.

And if we're honest with ourselves, we've been doing this for the last eight to ten years anyway! The difference is that the 2003 military (or the 2007 military, or the 2009 military, or the 2011 military) told the country yep, we've got this. The DoD Instruction (pdf) for stability operations (and before that, the Joint Operating Concept for Military Support to Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations) announced to the world that the joint force understood what was required of it and could do the job. Those documents didn't say they'd need an end-strength increase or three, stop-loss, longer deployments, compression of the standard rotational cycle, and ready access to an operational reserve to pull the whole thing off, but that's just picking nits, I suppose. What this 2012 guidance does is finally admit that the country does not – cannot – maintain sufficient wartime force structure indefinitely—that a peacetime military and a wartime military are not and cannot be the same size! We've lied to ourselves about that in the spirit of the endless, un-scoped Global War on Terror or Long War or Protracted Conflict, but we're finally coming to terms with that objective fact—one that the defense industry, the congressional armed services committees, and the recently cash-swollen Pentagon haven't wanted to concede.

And so we've come full-circle back to what I was talking about above: this isn't a renunciation of manpower-intensive types of missions, but merely a recognition of the fact that we don't need all that manpower on hair-trigger in the steady-state. Which is to say that if we decide we're going to occupy a country and install military governance, or that we're going to pacify a population in support of a partner government, or that we're going to pour a lot of resources into a post-conflict stabilization mission... we're going to have a little time to work up to it.

*****

One final addendum to a post that has (perhaps unsurprisingly) ended up 500% longer than I intended: why are people saying that this document sets priorities? Spencer writes that counterinsurgency is "ninth on a list of defense priorities," while Nora Bensahel says in a CNAS press release that the strategy review "prioritizes among the missions that U.S. forces will be expected to conduct." I don't see this. What I do see is a listing of the ten "primary missions of the U.S. armed forces," pretty much stripped straight out of last year's National Military Strategy. (Counter terrorism and irregular warfare; deter and defeat aggression; project power despite anti-access/area denial challenges; counter WMD; operate effectively in cyberspace and space; maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent; defend the homeland and provide support to civil authorities; provide a stabilizing presence; conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations; and conduct humanitarian, disaster relief, and other operations.) It's true that COIN is listed ninth, but I can't find any indication that they're in priority order. And then there's this mystifying caveat tacked on to the end of the list:

The aforementioned missions will largely determine the shape of the future Joint Force. The overall capacity of U.S. forces, however, will be based on the requirements that the following subset of missions demand: [CT/IW; deter and defeat; nuclear deterrence; homeland defense].

Uh, what? The shape of the force is going to be tailored to the whole mission set, but the "overall capacity of U.S. forces" is going to be based on these four missions (presumably the most vital)? Don't they have this exactly backwards? It would make sense to me to say that the overall capacity of the U.S. military must be sufficient to conduct activities across the entire range of missions, but that the force would be tailored (in "shape," by which I mean prioritization of various capabilities, types of forces, and so on) primarily to conduct the specified subset of that range.

In any event, I don't see any prioritization here. I see "this is the stuff we should expect to be able to do all the time, including in peacetime, and here's the stuff that we're going to want to do at other times, and that we may need to surge or grow or 'reverse' or modify or whatever to be able to accomplish if things don't go as we expect." And I suppose that's a sort of prioritization, but only so much as we can say that "win the wars we're in and try to avoid other wars" is a priority over "do things that are painful but sometimes necessary in contingencies."

Where you sit is where you stand, Example No. 671,000,000,000

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, speaking at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, CT, November 17, 2011:

I'm not going to hollow out the force. Coming out of World War II, coming out of Korea, coming out of the Vietnam War, coming out of the fall of the Soviet Union, the problem was that cuts were made across the board, and the result was we weakened defense across the board. We hollowed out the force.

Congressman Leon Panetta, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, quoted in the New York Times on January 31, 1990:

Pressure is also building to divert some of the money for costly Pentagon weapons systems and create a ''peace dividend'' that could be used to avoid big cuts in social programs. But Mr. Cheney has largely shunned suggestions to kill any new weapons programs, arguing that the United States military needs a modern force.

Representative Leon E. Panetta, the California Democrat who serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee, said that Mr. Cheney's 1991 military budget was ''very disappointing.''

Mr. Panetta said that when some members of Congress recently complained to Mr. Cheney about the absence of a peace dividend, ''he made the comment that the peace dividend is peace.''

Don't worry, though: Uncle Leon explained this apparent discrepancy when he was over on the Hill back in June, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in support of his nomination. When asked by John Cornyn about his role in the post-Cold War defense drawdown, when he served as President Clinton's budget director, here's how today's SECDEF responded:

As Director of OMB, obviously, I was given the responsibility by the President to try to achieve significant savings as part of the economic plan that was adopted by the Congress that, by the way, reduced the deficit by almost $500 billion. And I think that, plus other agreements that were made in the Bush administration and, ultimately, with the Republican Congress all contributed to our ability to achieve a balanced budget.

Specifically, with regards to the defense area, my responsibility as OMB Director was to provide a number to the Defense Secretary and those at the Defense Department to determine how best to try to achieve those savings. And I do understand that that was part of what they proposed.

But looking at it in hindsight, it might not have been the best way to achieve those savings, but it was a decision that was made at the Defense Department.

A lot to unpack there, but it basically comes down to I was for it before I was against it.

Panetta contends that he's not responsible for whatever negative effects were suffered by the '90s drawdown because he just did his job, just presented a topline number, while Defense officials made the program decisions necessary to get there. "[I]t might not have been the best way to achieve those savings," he says, presumably referring to the major cuts to procurement accounts that Cornyn brought up in his question, "but it was a decision that was made at the Defense Department."

Well, Mr. Secretary, now you are the Defense Department. And you're telling us that it's appropriate for the Congress and the White House to serve you up a topline number that jibes with political reality, just like you did for the Aspin Pentagon. And you're telling us that past procurement holidays might have been a mistake. And you're telling us that you're not going to hollow out the force. And you're telling us that you're not going to break faith with military personnel.

So now what are you going to do?

Are you going to "suck it up, do what's right for the country"? Are you going to "do the work that [you're] supposed to do"? Are you going to prioritize and make decisions and accept risk and put your own ass on the line -- are you going to show some leadership?

Or are you going to stand up in front of a bunch of guys in hard hats and say "damn" and "son of a bitch" a lot, get everybody chuckling at good ol' Uncle Leon, and feed them pathetic applause lines about what Congress needs to do for you?

A "hollow force": what it is and isn't

It is almost literally impossible to read an article or essay on the subject of imminent defense budget cuts without coming across expressions of concern about the potential "hollowing of the force." Bob Gates warned about it before he left the Pentagon, and Secretary Panetta's been on the same talking points. Journalists and bloggers sprinkle the term liberally throughout their prose. But it seems that somewhere along the way, nearly everyone stopped paying attention to just what the heck the term "hollow force" actually means. I've been ranting and raving about this (to myself, mostly) for months, so it's time to get this straight once and for all.

This post was prompted by Walter Pincus's column today, in which he at least concedes some uncertainty about the precise meaning of the phrase:

A repeated fear is that defense cuts will result in a “hollowing-out of the military.” As best as can be pinned down, that means reductions, whether in numbers or pay, that would leave the services without the experienced noncommissioned and mid-level commissioned officers who actually run things.

So that's one version: reductions in staff NCOs and field grade officers proportional to the size of the force. Let's look at some other representative examples. (The italicized bits indicate my emphasis.)

Here's Benjamin Friedman writing at The National Interest's blog:

The more substantive claim wielded by Pentagon boosters is that cuts would produce a hollow force, a military overburdened with missions that it is too small to perform and thus unable to protect Americans. These claims exaggerate both the damage cuts would do to our military’s ability to perform current missions and the damage not performing those missions does to our security.

(UPDATE: See Ben's comment below. I understand that Friedman was making an effort to characterize the views of people with whom he disagreed, and I probably should've noted this in the first place. I actually very much agree with the substance of his essay; this was just a clear example of the sort of misimpression that I'm trying to correct with this post, so I had to draw it out -- whether it was his or someone else's.)

Now the "Defending Defense" people at Heritage, AEI, and FPI:

This backgrounder describes the likely results of the significant defense spending reductions now being considered: a “hollow force” characterized by fewer personnel and weapon systems, slowed military modernization, reduced readiness for operations, and continued stress on the all-volunteer force.

Here's how an un-bylined Fox News piece described it (hilariously, this warning came in 2003):

Overdeployment may threaten recruitment and retention for the entire military, particularly the National Guard and Reserve, presenting the risk of a "hollow force" — a military that suffers dramatic drops in volunteers willing to join or stay in the armed services.

Now here's Air Force Chief of Staff GEN Norman Schwartz (via Phil Ewing at DoD Buzz) coming closer to the point:

My pledge for the coming year is to strengthen unit readiness and avoid a creeping hollow force that proves only the illusion of global vigilance, reach and power.

But what about the SECDEF -- what does he mean when he says it?

"Very simply, it results in hollowing out the force," Panetta said during an Aug. 16 event at National Defense University in Washington. "It would terribly weaken our ability to respond to the threats in the world, but more importantly, it would break faith with the troops and with their families."

So we've seen a litany of references to the "hollow force," some of which are vague and ill-defined (like Panetta's), others of which are more specific (like the Fox News/Pincus version). Many suggest that the expression fundamentally has to do with the size of the force and related issues like recruitment and retention.

Now let's check out this excerpt from a 1996 Center for Naval Analyses paper called "Avoiding a Hollow Force" (pdf), which really nails -- with a bit of maritime flavor -- what the expression is actually all about:

[Budget cuts since the end of the Cold War] have raised fears that the Navy may once again be on the verge of a hollow force. Our review of the readiness literature suggests that hollowness is a condition that keeps ships from living up to their design potential. It is the general state that persists whenever maintenance problems dominate a force; when poor quality sailors seem the rule rather than the exception; and when meaningful training is both scarce and questionable.

This explanation is consistent with the way I'd always understood the term and heard it used before the recent glut of references. If you think for a second about what hollowness evokes, this use of the term makes perfect sense: you're talking about an apparently intact form that gives the illusion of completeness and authenticity, but lacks robustness -- lacks real substance.

What "hollowing the force" means is that you keep force structure, you keep major platforms and weapon systems, you keep personnel numbers up, but you start to skimp on the things that make all of that useful -- the money that you spend to translate equipment and units and personnel into effective warfighting capability. A hollow force is one that keeps up the appearance of capability but shorts those things that make the difference between a shiny, impressive garrison army and a world-class fighting force.

What are those things? Realistic, tough, meaningful training. Flight hours. Regular preventive and corrective maintenance. Spare parts and similar contributors to sustainment. Ammunition. Exercises.

Hollowing isn't just about spending less money, but about allocating money improperly. If Congress cut the defense budget by half tomorrow and said to DoD "make it work," there are two basic ways the Pentagon could execute that tasking: 1) by slashing force structure, aircraft, vehicles, and personnel numbers and then training and maintaining that smaller force to accomplish a smaller range of missions; or 2) by keeping all those airplanes, never taking them out of the hangers, and saving money on jet fuel; keeping all those brigade combat teams, never turning a wrench on Strykers or Humvees, and spreading your non-broken down vehicles thinner across the formations; keeping all those personnel but cutting down on their expensive professional military education and realistic live-fire training. (Incidentally, the defense industry doesn't much care whether the force is hollow or not -- they'll happily sell you vehicles and planes for your last dollar, whether or not you've got the cash left over to put gas in them and take them out of the garage.)

A smaller military that does less accordingly is not a "hollow force," even if it's a less capable one. A large, apparently "world-class" military that fights poorly because of insufficient training, low morale, broken vehicles, and a lack of ammunition -- that's a hollow force. So if we know now that a hollow force is a specific type of bad military, one that's bad for a specific reason, can we all agree to stop using the term as a general synonym for "bad military"?

DO NOT DARE COUNTENANCE VIOLENT, COERCIVE ACTION AGAINST US!

I'm not going to pretend like I know much of the details behind the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. I'm not going to add to the din of people commenting and analyzing and speculating and advocating. All I'm going to say is that this passage from Steve Clemons pretty much sums up a whole lot of what's behind the recent debate about the defense budget, force structure, national security strategy, etc.:

This is a serious situation -- and this kind of assassination is the sort that could lead to an unexpected cascade of events that could draw the US and other powers into a consequential conflagration in the Middle East.

If Iran was indeed willing to attack a Saudi Ambassador and close confidante of the Saudi King on US soil and countenance the death of 100-150 Americans, then the US has reached a point where it must take action. 

The President's National Security Council and intelligence teams led by Thomas Donilon must construct a response that is "more than reactive."  This is time for a significant strategic response to the Iran challenge in the Middle East and globally -- and if the US does not take action, then the Saudis will most likely retaliate in ways that will escalate the stakes and tensions with Iran throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

If Iran was willing to countenance... Let's put this in plain words: Steve Clemons is saying that the United States ought to muster "a significant strategic response" -- presumably involving direct action by intelligence agencies or military force -- to the apparent revelation that a regional power on the other side of the globe might even consider aggressive action against U.S. and allied interests.

No wonder we need a $700 billion defense budget: some of us are planning strike operations at the hint of an anti-American plan.

Defense-defenders are lying again: ground forces are not "stretched beyond their limits"

Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt have yet another whine-piece in The Weekly Standard today, telling us how they're just mad as hell about defense budget cuts and they're not going to take it anymore!

It’s time to say “enough” and to refuse not only sequestration but also a deal that avoids automatic reductions by substituting “just” a couple of hundred billion more in defense cuts. These are “savings” the nation cannot afford.

It's not clear to me just exactly how that would happen, considering, you know, the law and all. But more interesting is the loony explanation for why such cuts are unacceptable.

The fact is that the United States has been in an extended “defense drawdown” since the end of the Cold War, reaping substantial “peace dividends” throughout the Clinton years, during the Obama years, and now under the Budget Control Act.

Wonder what that ol' drawdown looks like in graphic form?

One hell of an "extended drawdown," huh? Maybe they were reading right-to-left

UPDATE: If you want to see it adjusted for inflation (as if we don't already know how that one looks, too), check out the first graphic in this pdf from CFR's Center for Geoeconomic Studies.

UPDATE 2: And here's another one adjusted for inflation (a little bit tougher to see because it's not appropriately time-limited and defense spending isn't the only thing on here, but pay attention to the green bit, specifically on the right half of the graph), direct from the one and only Wikipedia:

Maybe one more, prompted by Mike Few's comment, in case you wanted to see what defense spending looks like as a percentage of total government outlays (data from this pdf of FY11 historical budget tables):

Still not good enough? Ok, just for the unconvinced, I've created a new chart showing defense spending as a percentage of total outlays only from 1990 (just before the end of the Cold War) to the present, with a trend line in green:

Notice that the line isn't going downwards. Which is how it would look if we were in fact in an "extended defense drawdown since the end of the Cold War."

And how about this canard?

Consider the personnel strength of the Army and Marine Corps. Even with 771,400 soldiers and Marines on active duty, both services remain stretched well beyond their limits.

This is simply false. There is just no other way to put it. The Army and Marine Corps are not "stretched well beyond their limits." They're not even stretched to their limits, or really even very close to their limits. We've talked about this before; while the idea of going to a greater than 1:2 or even 1:1 BOG-to-dwell ratio may not be very attractive to anyone involved, that's what we're talking about when we use terms like "stretched to the limit."

When will the defense-defenders stop trying to BS the credulous?

Clearing up some misconceptions about the QDR and national strategy formulation (UPDATED)

There are a lot of problems with the way the U.S. government crafts and communicates national strategy. If I were to run them down (which I'm not going to do here, but have done before), I might begin with the most glaring: almost none of them meet even the most very basic test to be accurately identified as strategy: they do not comprehensively consider ends, ways, and means. This goes for the National Security Strategy (published by the White House), the National Defense Strategy (published by the Office of the Secretary of Defense), and the National Military Strategy (published by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs); it also applies to the QDR Report, which makes no titular claim to be a strategy but which is required by law to contain "a comprehensive discussion of the national defense strategy of the United States, the strategic planning guidance, and the force structure best suited to implement that strategy at a low-to-moderate level of risk."

Ex and Spencer had a little back-and-forth this morning based on Ackerman's brief blog post entitled "The Designed-In Failures of Pentagon Strategy," in which he criticizes the statutory language that mandates the QDR:

This year, something unexpected happened. In April, after the Pentagon crafted its budget, President Obama announced that the Defense Department needed to chop $400 billion out of its budget over the next decade. (Since the Pentagon will spend, unimpeded, $5 trillion over the next decade, that might not look like such a big number.) Outgoing Secretary Gates reluctantly said that the Pentagon would conduct a review of "roles and missions" to proritize -- and potentially jettison -- to guide the cuts.

Wait a minute, you might think. Why not just use the QDR for that? 

CNAS' footnote finally provides me with an answer. "[C]ongressional legislation," the CNAS report announces, "prohibits the QDR from addressing [financial] constraints." See Footnote 28:

Pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 118b, each Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) shall be conducted so as "to make recommendations that are not constrained to comply with the budget submitted to Congress by the President." This stipulation was added in the [Fiscal Year] 2007 National Defense Authorization Act.

Aaaaaand that's my jaw hitting the floor. Congress specifically instructed the Pentagon to plan for the future without regard to the money necessary for making its plans reality. At the time, I thought the 2009 QDR was a pretty good document. Others looked at it and saw a wish list. Still others looked at it and saw an incomplete wish list. Now I see that those who considered it a wish list were quite literally accurate.

Ex shot back with "Why the QDR Should Not Mention Cost." And the Beard Battle was joined.

Spencer Ackerman is one of the brightest and most provocative defense policy journalists working today, but he is wrong to be so upset that the Department of Defense executes its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) without consideration of potential budget constraints. [...] It is the responsibility of elected officials in the executive and legislative branches -- not military officers of Department of Defense civilians -- to determine where and how to assume risk in our national defense posture and activities. Here is the way the conversation should go:

Department of Defense: "I need to do X, Y, and Z, and here is what I need to do X, Y, Z."

Elected Officials: "Great. We will fully fund X and Y but not Z. Given spending priorities elsewhere, we will assume risk there."

Department of Defense: "So I understand that if I am called upon to do Z and am unable to do so, the burden of responsibility falls on those elected by the American people and not those commissioned to defend the American people."

Elected Officials: "Correct."

Unfortunately, I think both guys may slightly misunderstand exactly what the QDR does and doesn't require, though they're closer to the mark in their impressions of how strategy formulation and budgeting ought to go.

Let's first go back to the footnote sentence Spencer cited in the CNAS report (which hasn't yet been made public, so we'll have to take his word for it [see update below]): "[C]ongressional legislation prohibits the QDR from addressing [financial] constraints." I'm curious to see the broader context of this statement; at best, it's misleading, and at worst, it's factually incorrect.

Here's the relevant section of the law (which is not, as the CNAS footnote indicates, 10 USC 118b, but rather 10 USC 118 (b)):

(b) Conduct of Review — Each quadrennial defense review shall be conducted so as—

(1) to delineate a national defense strategy consistent with the most recent National Security Strategy prescribed by the President pursuant to section 108 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 404a);

(2) to define sufficient force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan, and other elements of the defense program of the United States associated with that national defense strategy that would be required to execute successfully the full range of missions called for in that national defense strategy;

(3) to identify

• (A) the budget plan that would be required to provide sufficient resources to execute successfully the full range of missions called for in that national defense strategy at a low-to-moderate level of risk, and

• (B) any additional resources (beyond those programmed in the current future-years defense program) required to achieve such a level of risk; and

(4) to make recommendations that are not constrained to comply with the budget submitted to Congress by the President pursuant to section 1105 of title 31.

It's important to note that the law treats the QDR and the QDR report separately: §118 (a) requires a review; §188 (b) specifies how it must be conducted and what questions must be answered; and §118 (d) specifies what must be contained in the QDR report along with when and to whom it must be submitted.

The bit Spencer and the CNAS authors are talking about is in sub-subsection 4. Read it in context. It doesn't say that the QDR must ignore financial constraints -- only that the requirements identified by the review must not be adjusted or suppressed to fit with the administration's budget request. (The statute further ensures this by requiring in 10 USC 118 (d) that the QDR report be submitted to the relevant Congressional committees "not later than the date on which the President submits the budget for the next fiscal year.") The law isn't saying "don't even think about how much this costs!" -- it expressly requires consideration of budget plans "that would be required to execute successfully the full range of missions called for" in the specified national defense strategy.

If we consider this language on its face, it makes perfect sense: the Congress requires the DOD to make a full accounting of what missions, capabilities, and systems are required to execute national strategy with a low level of risk in order to understand how much must be appropriated to that end. Of course, it's hard not to be cynical (aka realistic) about the whole thing and conclude that this mandate exists to facilitate the sort of military-legislative-industrial collusion that ensures near unimpeded increases in defense spending; if legislators require the military to lay out its "requirements" irrespective of administration funding priorities, they can hammer the president for imperiling national security by failing to adequately fund their favored defense programs. This is Congress saying to the Pentagon "do not take the president's guidance about future funding levels as an appetite supressant. Tell us what you need to defend the country and we'll worry about getting the cash."

There's a simple way to solve this problem if you're the White House, to keep the military from making an end-run around you to Congress: write a good National Security Strategy (this is not a good one), complete with prioritization of interests and an appreciation of relevant conditions in the operating environment (like for example the nation's fiscal health).

You're not going to hear me say this very often, but the law is actually pretty good here: the Department is directed to conduct a review that's based on the requirements of executing the NSS with low-to-moderate risk, not on some out-of-left-field assertion of national defense requirements that the Pentagon has cooked up from scratch. If the president does a good job of setting out his view of America's vital interests and national security priorities, and he happens to define those things more narrowly than the hawks on the Hill do, that's fine; he can be held accountable by those who argue that his view of what's necessary to defend the country isn't expansive enough, but so long as his budget plans are in line with that strategy, he can't be criticized for a failure to appropriately resource the things he's asking the military to do.

Where I think Ex gets this wrong is by suggesting that there's a way for the military to punt on missions it's directed to perform, whether or not they're resourced or included in national strategy. The burden of responsibility always falls on the elected government: the Defense Department is merely the president's proxy on matters of defense. And if the military can't execute a mission that the president assigns, there may be plenty of explanations ("we're not budgeted for this," "we didn't plan for this," "you didn't tell us you were going to want to do this in the NSS," etc.) but there are no excuses. The Army and Marine Corps weren't prepared to perform counterinsurgency and stability operations in 2003 and hadn't been given to expect that they'd need to by previous guidance from higher, but they still had to adapt to accomplish the mission. The reality is that if the military is called upon to perform mission Z and found unable to do so, few people will be comfortable with the explanation "but the burden of responsibility falls on those elected by the American people and not those commissioned to defend the American people!", and Ex knows this.

But the current NSS justifies and perhaps even requires a defense program that prepares the military for nearly all contingencies in all circumstances and all climes and places, while the budget will not resource that program. Considering the fiscal and political environment, it seems clear we need a new strategy. 

Just as a point of reference, let's look at the state of national strategy formulation and publication in the Obama administration. When the president was inaugurated in January 2009, the government was operating under an NSS that was published by the Bush Administration in 2006, an NDS from 2008, and an NMS that was last published in 2004 (and then recertified as current on a two-year basis thereafter, as required by law). The QDR had last been conducted in 2005, with the report published in 2006.

Here's what's happened since:

1. The Pentagon conducted a QDR in the latter portion of 2009 and delivered the report (pdf) to Congress on February 1, 2010.
2. The National Security Strategy (pdf), which the law requires be submitted to Congress within 150 days of the inauguration of a new president, and which is meant to serve as the foundational document for the delineation of a national defense strategy by the Secretary of Defense as part of the QDR process, was published on May 1, 2010 -- 466 days after the president took office, and a full three months after the issuance of a report for which it was meant to serve as a guide. (10 USC 118 (b)(1): "Each quadrennial defense review shall be conducted so as to delineate a national defense strategy consistent with the most recent National Security Strategy prescribed by the President pursuant to section 108 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 USC 404a).")
3. The National Military Strategy (pdf) was updated on February 8, 2011; according to the introductory letter by the CJCS, "the purpose of this document is to provide the ways and means by which our military will advance our enduring national interests as articulated in the 2010 National Security Strategy and to accomplish the defense objectives in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review."

And we still don't have an updated NDS, for whatever that's worth.

So long as you've read this far, I figure you're probably interested in a solution to this mess, right? Here's how the process should work, optimally:

1. When a new administration takes office, the White House should publish a meaningful, realistic, and constrained NSS. This strategy should take account of context as well as America's enduring and contemporary national interests to set concrete, achievable policy objectives (ends); describe the general approaches through which these goals can be accomplished (ways); and elaborate the elements of national power that will be created, strengthened, or maintained for application to this general plan (means). This document should be published at the outset of the president's term, as required by both law and reason.
2. Upon publication of this strategy and in accordance with the relevant statute, the Pentagon should begin a review of extant force structure, modernization plans, infrastructure, and budgets to account for the present state of the Department and the nation's military forces in parallel with the development of a national defense strategy -- to be published both as an independent NDS and as a required portion of the QDR report. This strategy should specify the defense-related objectives laid out in the NSS that DoD will seek to accomplish (ends); the types of missions that U.S. military forces will be required to conduct to do so (ways); and the military capabilities necessary to perform those missions (means). The QDR report should specify the changes to the overall defense program the Secretary deems necessary to execute an appropriate NDS in support of the NSS. 
3. In accordance with his or her legal obligation to submit "a report containing the results of a comprehensive examination of the national military strategy" not later than February 15 of each even-numbered year, the CJCS should elaborate through the publication of the NMS the Joint Chiefs' assessment of the military capabilities, doctrine, concepts, organization, personnel, and weapon systems required to execute and support the Secretary of Defense's NDS. The NMS should constitute not so much a strategy as a plan: explaining how the military services will execute the operational tasks set out for them in the NDS and the transformational objectives of the QDR report.

How's that for a start?

UPDATE @1630 ET: The CNAS report (pdf) is out. The footnoted paragraph that Spencer cited reads like this:

In light of the significant budget cuts now being considered, civilian leaders should not ask the military to execute the expansive defense plans codified in the Obama administration's National Security Strategy, Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and National Military Strategy. These documents did not adequately address the possible effects of budgetary constraints. In fact, congressional legislation prohibits the QDR from addressing such constraints.

Word. As should be obvious from what I've written above, I agree: it's the administration's job to make sure the NSS is realistic and attuned to environmental realities, including fiscal pressures. But it's a bit disingenuous to say that "congressional legislation [one wonders what other kind of legislation there is!] prohibits the QDR from addressing such constraints" when in fact that legislation simply requires that the QDR be conducted in line with national strategy. The law puts pressure on the administration to get the strategy right rather than putting pressure on DOD to try to make that strategy work with the limited resources on offer. As Ex wrote, it's the elected leadership's responsibility to say what ought to be done and why, and the Department's responsibility to say "here's how we will accomplish what you're asking." When the means change, you've either got to change your ways, change your ends, or accept a higher level of risk. The law doesn't allow DoD to unilaterally accept more risk, so there are two options: the Pentagon can say "here's a plausible way that we're going to do more with less," or the White House can say "we're going to ask you to do less." If doing more with less were that easy, we'd already be doing it. So national strategic objectives is what we've got left.

How low can you go? HASC Republicans set a new standard

As I mentioned over at Hull Defilade last week, it seems that the looming DoD budget cuts are generating some really odd commentary from those that oppose said cuts. First there was the former Vice Chairman of the JCS, General Cartwright. Then Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Buck McKeon. I was told last week that the HASC staff was preparing a report to substantiate these claims. Well here it is. Here also is the executive summary.

Before we get into some of the nuts and bolts of the thing, let's start with some background and basics. Firstly, the numbers presented are the worse-case scenario wherein DoD faces $1T in cuts over the next 10 years or there is a 10% reduction in DoD funding from FY11 projections. This is opposed to the $600B reductions currently planned over the same period (the two scenarios above are possible, but it's worth mentioning that they are worst case). Secondly, the report assumes that cuts will be even across all services. Thirdly, it assumes that the cuts would be effectively increased because of exemption to military personnel appropriations. I think these are very broad assumptions (especially the last two) and are devoid of any strategic thought on what actual cuts may be - such as cutting entire large procurement programs. Granted, that's not really the staffers' job to do, but I think it's important to acknowledge they are painting with a very broad brush in a topic area that probably requires some more nuance.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into the meat of the report and it's executive summary. I have a lot of issues with a lot of it. I also don't know a lot about some of these topics in enough detail to comment. I'm also going to skip a lot of the purely money stuff (percentage of discretionary spending, etc) because I do not believe that if you tie appropriations to strategy that data like that much matters. I know my friends on the right disagree with that though. So I'm going to stick to high-level issues and leave the granular stuff to those that know.

1. Are vital missions at risk? Not by a long a shot, but that depends on how you define vital missions. The report also compares projected troop levels to current commitments - hardly a useful tool when we plan to draw down our two biggest commitments in the next few years. Vital interests also include being able to invade Iran and North Korea, defend Taiwan and Israel, and check China. Those might be vital interests, but that's a huge (and frankly Republican) assumption. Not a fact. A Democratic White House may not necessarily agree (they don't now) that large land forces need to be reserved for these contingencies when we're still fighting "terror" around the globe. Partisan opinions do not vital interests make, whether or not there are merits to the opinion is irrelevant until DoD is seriously concerned with it and they'll be concerned when the President and SecDef says they should be. They're not saying that now.

I'm also a little flabbergasted at the metric of Army battalions over time. The use of 1990 as a starting point in the graph is plain stupid - the Army had 20 divisions then in a very different world. Republicans and Democrats agreed at the time (for the most part) that we could reduce those numbers to 10 divisions. So let's just ignore that. I also disagree with their number of maneuver battalions today - it's more than 100. I'm guessing they just counted Combined Arms Battalions in the 46 combat arms brigades (4 brigades per division) we currently have. Part of the modularity regime of the mid-2000s added a reconnaissance squadron to every combat brigade (if you don't think a CAV squadron is a maneuver battalion, I can't help you understand the Army). There are effectively roughly 146 maneuver battalions in the Army. And this doesn't even address the fact that battalions today are much larger than battalions in 2000 (roughly 33% larger). So in spite of what is presented in the chart (without comment or source), a 30-40% reduction in the number of "maneuver battalions" would actually put the number of battalions closer to what they were in 2000, not drastically less. They would likely be very equal combat effectiveness if you take into account the number of companies in each battalion increased in the past 10 years.

That all said, I'll draw your attention back to the executive summary where the preponderance of the scare mongering occurs. Apparently these cuts will "hollow the force" to the point that we'll magically return to the post-Vietnam army of the Carter administration (don't even get me started on the statement that "American freedom depends on protecting vital interests.."). If the Army had about 178 battalions in 1978 and we're reducing down to "60-70" (which, again, isn't accurate), then how are we hollowing the force to the Carter administration levels if the prime metric is the number of battalions? This is such a dishonestly partisan shot that they authors should be embarrassed. It ignores the entire history of the tumult the Army went through during Vietnam from a cultural perspective. In fact, the Carter years (as well as the Nixon years before and some Reagan years after) are a good example of how a large and expensive military may not buy you a competent force that will actually protect your interests. You picked the worst analogy possible. Congrats.

2. Breaking the faith with the troops - which will could make the all-volunteer force unsustainable? Oh come on. I'm not going to talk about this too much, because they don't present anything other than some programs that will lose funding. The Army survived a 50% decrease in manpower in the 1990s. Was it tough for some people? Absolutely. But the force was still extremely effective at the end of it (Exhibit A: early days in Afghanistan. Exhibit B: the invasion of Iraq.). If it's effectively managed, this won't be a problem.

To be honest, it's this draft scare that really gets me. In no way do the authors present any case to suggest that the rate of decreased retention and recruitment because of the "broken faith" will ever match or outpace the decreased manning needs of the Army. You would have to show that somehow for me to believe this and it's fairly simple math:

(people leaving disgruntled)+(lower enlistment rates)+(people getting chucked out)

>(?)

(number of people your smaller Army needs)

Someone like RAND is probably more appropriate for that type of analysis. These guys don't even try. Their calculus looks more like:

(people leaving disgruntled)+(lower enlistment rates)+(people getting chucked out)

>(!!!!)

(number of people your smaller Army needs) [QED]

Show me the numbers. Then I'll think about buying this line of (frankly) crap, because now it is an unsupported (and absurd) conjecture.

3. There is no discussion about the Reserves or National Guard. Save for a comment on page 3 that decreased active forces will require significant, increased mobilization of the Reserves. As if that's a bad thing. So what? What the hell do we have the Reserves (and National Guard) for if not to use them when they're needed? That's why they exist! In fact, I bet we'd have a lot less stupid wars of choice if we used the Reserves and Guard like they were supposed to be used - because then more people would feel the pain of wars. Which is exactly why the HASC Republicans insinuate their use as a bad thing: it would impede the Government's ability to wage war without the consent of the people. In spite of the fact that transitioning a lot of the Active Duty cuts to the Reserves and Guard would be a very cost-effective way of maintaining readiness. After all, what do we pay these people drill pay for if not to prepare for when the Nation needs them?

I'm sure others will weigh in on this report and it's obnoxious executive summary and I look forward to reading other reviews. This is not any sort of serious analysis - it is political grandstanding. It swings from dishonest to ignorant and a few places in between. I will admit that I don't like the idea of the larger cuts to DoD and I hope they don't happen. But this is not, in any way, how you should make your argument. This is pure fear mongering. And should be quickly dismissed as such.

Lesson number one on how to operate in the executive branch of a constitutional republic

If you're the Defense Department, don't tell your congressional paymasters that certain funding levels would be "completely unacceptable." (Or "clearly unacceptable," for that matter.)

We're all familiar with the Constitution, right? Article I, Section 8, in particular?

There's actually a Constitutionally-provided means for the executive branch to register its opinion that certain legislative initiatives are "completely unacceptable": it's called the presidential veto. Here's a not-exhaustive list of people who are not statutorily guaranteed veto power: the Secretary of Defense; "senior defense officials"; you (except you, Mr. President).

Is it any wonder that a world such as this, where appointed officials of the executive branch dictate to the elected representatives of the people what is and is not "acceptable," produces generals who believe Congress requires re-education in the national interest?

Is it any wonder that appropriate civil-military relations in this country, not to mention the clear distinction between the legitimate roles and missions of the various departments and agencies of the government, are so constantly and consistently eroded as to scarcely merit comment in some circles?

Is it any wonder that the unitary executive sees fit to wage war (under the guise of "kinetic military action") in Libya without legislative sanction, and in the face of popular opposition?

Is it any wonder that we're increasingly comfortable with the Jominian subversion of our domestic politics to the imperatives of forever war?

No, I think what's unacceptable is the Defense Department telling the Congress that there's a certain funding level at which it refuses to prioritize and make choices... that is, it refuses to do its job.

"The Pentagon cannot presume to exempt itself from the scrutiny and pressure faced by the rest of our government" on the matter of budgets. That's your predecessor talking, Mr. Panetta. That's a man who knew a little bit about what was and wasn't acceptable.

More money = more readiness, just as simple as that?

The infamous Rep. Forbes, chairman of the HASC Readiness subcommittee, brought the number two guys from each of the services over to the Hill on Tuesday to talk about how the imagined "sustained lack of resources" for defense has imperiled American military preparedness. (Read Spencer's and Philip Ewing's excellent pieces on the hearing.) Each officer made the standard, prosaic opening statement -- underpinned as always by a pledge about his service being prepared to carry out the country's missions and support the warfighter and blah blah blah -- before being poked and prodded into elaborating on the horrifying future we should expect if a deficit-reduction deal includes significant defense cuts. This line of reasoning, of course, is built on the premise that readiness is all about resources. But resources are always constrained in some way; what we ought to be talking about is whether or not we're making the best possible decisions about how to use them.

To wit, take a look at this snip from Air Force vice chief Gen. Philip Breedlove's written testimony. After running down a list of the many operational missions the service has executed in recent years, he drops this on us:

This level of activity reflects our commitment to provide Global Vigilance, Reach, and Power in today’s Joint fight. However, this high operations tempo (OPTEMPO) has had some detrimental effects on our overall readiness. Since 2003, we have seen a slow but steady decline in reported unit readiness indicators. Maintaining our ability to be ready for the full spectrum of operations at an acceptable level of risk is challenging, especially for the Combat Air Forces (CAF) and some limited-supply/high-demand units.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it bears repeating: operations erode readiness. War definitely erodes readiness, but so too do training and exercises and the whole range of peacetime missions that aren't accompanied by the extra burden and risk of combat losses. Simply put, we're spending more and ending up with less because we're using what we've bought, and using it harder and more than we usually count on doing. But resources are constrained, you know? So if we had a few extra bucks, we'd probably spend them in ways that helped to mitigate those readiness concerns, right... not just to do more of the same? Hold that thought.

Let's pause for just a second and kick it over to CSBA's Todd Harrison to explain what the Pentagon calls "unfunded priorities."

Each year, the Services rank and prioritize items for inclusion in the budget request. Unfunded priorities are those items not included in the budget request because they are a lower priority and do not fit within the funding ceiling set for the Department. The Services’ lists of unfunded priorities, sometimes referred to as “wish lists,” are routinely requested by Congress for consideration during their markup of the budget. The total amount of unfunded priorities grew dramatically over the past decade, rising from $9.5 billion in FY 2001 to a peak of $38 billion in FY 2008 (both figures in FY 2012 dollars). In the FY 2010 budget process, Secretary Gates required the Services to present their unfunded priorities to him for review before submitting them to Congress. Unfunded priorities for that year fell by an order of magnitude to just $3.5 billion. In FY 2011 unfunded priorities fell to $1.8 billion, and in FY 2012 they total only $1.2 billion. Nearly all of the unfunded priorities submitted to Congress are in procurement and O&M. This indicates that if the Services had additional funding available they would prioritize the maintenance of existing equipment and would procure additional equipment or spares to augment their inventory. (pdf, p. 4)

We're going to leave aside the interesting subplots here -- that Congress actually requires the Services to list the things they've decided not to ask for in the budget request, that "unfunded priorities" skyrocketed over the same period that the budget topline dramatically increased, etc. -- and get back to what the Air Force would do if it had a bit more cash.

The Air Force requests $124 million in unfunded priorities. At the top of the list is $42.5 million for 75 maintenance testers and spares to support the A-10 aircraft. According to the Air Force, the currently fielded testing equipment is “obsolete and no longer procurable,” and the lack of new testing equipment will result in some aircraft being grounded in FY 2013. An additional $33.7 million is requested for an EC-130H avionics upgrade to replace the air data computer, which if not replaced would result in Compass Call aircraft groundings, also beginning in FY 2013. The remaining $47.5 million funds the replacement of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), Anti-Missile Countermeasures Decoy Systems, Air-to-Ground Missiles, and Laser-Guided Weapons expended due to operations in Libya. (pdf, p. 5)

Look back at what Gen. Breedlove said: "a slow but steady decline in reported unit readiness indicators." So why is the extended budget ask entirely composed of new stuff? The VCSAF tells us elsewhere that the service is pumping efficiency savings back in to modernization accounts to pay for the next-gen bomber, more UAVs, F-15 radar modernization, and many other things... all of which are surely important to the development of future capabilities, but which have little to do with maximizing current operational readiness.

Obviously it's true that extra airframes and spares help to boost readiness by addressing maintenance shortfalls and recapitalizing aging fleets, and spare cash can be used to pay for more fuel, more flight hours, more time in simulators, and so on. But instead of asking leading questions like "wouldn't it be tough to do your job if the defense budget was cut by a trillion dollars?", why aren't legislators making a more committed effort to find out exactly how the resources they're meant to provide actually translate into readiness and combat power? To learn how the Air Force, for example, plans to reverse that "decline in reported unit readiness indicators" both by spending extra money and by adapting how they do business, making related changes to training, doctrine, organizations, and all things you've got to figure out how to do when the time comes that the dollar figure just ain't getting any bigger?

Forbes and his pals don't make a better effort because what they're doing is political theater, not strategic leadership. The chairman and his colleagues surely know that such an exploration would almost certainly reveal that sometimes the answer isn't simply to buy more, better, newer stuff. The recent focus on strategy development as the essential first step in a rational and comprehensive resourcing process is both refreshing and fundamentally beside the point. Here's how Forbes put it in Tuesday's hearing:

As we consider our deficit, federal spending, and the impact on our defense budget, I believe we should be asking four questions: 

First, "What are the threats we face?" Second, "What resources do our combatant commanders need to protect us against those threats?" Third, "What do these resources cost and how can we obtain them as efficiently as possible," and fourth, "What can we afford and what are the risks to our nation if we do not supply those resources?" 

I believe many in Congress and the White House have been asking only the portion of question four that asks how much they want to expend, and they have been ignoring the other questions almost entirely.

Fair enough, and the congressman is right to draw attention to the Department's (and the country's) strategy deficit. But it's disingenuous to pretend as if these questions aren't asked in some way, shape or form, because they are. It's also true that the answers are speculative, lack rigor or compelling rationale, and do little to help us set real priorities. And a big part of the reason it happens that way is that the folks tasked with asking the questions and generating the answers have absolutely zero incentive to make hard choices. They're rewarded for dreaming up an expansive list of threats, challenges, risks, and attendant "requirements."

To believe that we can ever draft a prioritized list of desired capabilities to meet projected threats, then arbitrarily draw a chop line below one program and above another based on somebody's assessment of "what we can afford" is simple fantasy. And beyond that, it's an economic nonsense: a laundry list in which all "priorities" can be or ought to be funded scandalizes the transactional philosophy that underpins efficient resource allocation. We all know there's no such thing as getting something for nothing, and to ignore the trade-offs that come with just spending more in the belief that security can be commoditized is dishonest and irresponsible.

I hate to keep repeating myself on this, but to parrot the former SECDEF's now-famous phrase, we have to do math and strategy. Yes, we need to take a look at fundamental roles and missions. Yes, we need to write real, meaningful, actionable strategy documents that can inform resource decisions instead of the unsatisfying pap we currently churn out. Yes, we need to try to get a handle on the role we want to play in the world, the tasks the military needs to be able to accomplish to enable that role, and the capabilities we think are best suited to accomplishing those tasks. That's strategy.

But strategy is also about thoughtful adaptation. It's about figuring out multiple ways to accomplish the same ends, particularly when the means get changed up on you. The credit-based economy has thieved this skill from most people and many governments; instead of thinking how to meet our needs with the resources we've got, we spend time thinking up ways to eventually pay off the tab we've run up collecting the things we want. If I say "write me some plans for defending America with a single infantry battalion," you might reasonably say that's nonsensical and a-strategic. But if I say "here's $300 billion, now buy me the best defense you can," you damn well ought not come back with a blank page and plead poverty.

If only defense spending had a domestic constituency! (UPDATED)

The tragic indifference of American political leaders, commentators, business executives, and senior military officers to the plight of the shrinking U.S. defense budget continues unabated today. Well, unless you read the op-ed pages of major American newspapers, watch cable news, use the internet, or have a conversation with any human being within 50 miles of the Pentagon.

Today in Politico, four Members of Congress go "On the offense over Defense cuts" -- Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Ft. Lee, JFCOM), Rep. Michael Turner (R-Wright-Patterson AFB), Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Hill AFB), and Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Goodfellow AFB):

The U.S. military confronts readiness shortfalls and a growing array of risks and security challenges. That is why I am deeply concerned about the avalanche of military spending cuts being discussed — from President Barack Obama’s $400 billion proposal to the Senate’s Gang of Six proposal that could cut up to $886 billion.

The time to draw a line in the sand, and go on the offense to support national security must be now.

Let’s be clear: Defense spending is not what put us in this position, and gutting the defense budget to pay the bills is unlikely to get us out of it. As a percentage of our gross domestic product, the defense budget remains just 3.6 percent. This figure is low by all historical standards.

Even if we start slashing major portions of the budget — say $50 billion each year over the next decade — that figure would still only add up to a fraction of the nation’s debt. Yet the additional risk to the nation could be substantial.

Surely the legislative interests of these honorable legislators have little to do with the location of major military facilities inside and alongside their Congressional districts. Such coincidences are inevitable when we consider such a large political body, right? The devoted advocacy of these men is no doubt motivated solely by a desire for "an open and objective review of the threats we face and the resources required to meet them."

Should we cut them a break for lying to us?

The defense budget does not represent "just 3.6 percent" of GDP. You get this artificially low number when you exclude from consideration funds being spent on current operations. Why would anyone choose to calculate defense spending without considering the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? This seems to me a lot like willfull disingenuity.

$749.75 billion. That's the total OMB gives for national defense outlays in FY 2011. (See page 132 of this pdf.) This includes money appropriated to the Energy Department for nuclear weapons, as well as a few other non-DoD incidentals, but the military-only figure still works out to more than $700 billion.

Four point nine percent. That's OMB's "national defense" outlays as a percentage of GDP for FY 11. Not 3.7%. 4.9%. That's a pretty big difference. Not only that, but 4.9% does not represent a "figure [that] is low by all historical standards"; in fact, it's only roughly a percentage point lower than the height of the Reagan defense buildup.

Nineteen point six percent. Here's the most important figure of the whole lot, and it's one that the good Congressmen left out altogether (they didn't even give us an artifically low alternative number, perhaps because even that one is distressingly high): the percentage of total U.S. government outlays that are devoted to national defense. Let's be clear about this, because the percent of GDP figures are bandied around all the time to mislead people (and apparently it works): about one in every five dollars the U.S. government spends goes to defense. (When President Reagan was patriotically defending America from peacenik budget-slashers, defense spending accounted for about one in four dollars spent.)

Ready for the most damning bit in the whole op-ed? Ok, here it is:

Even more concerning are the assessments from our Combatant Commanders in the unclassified portion of the Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress. This paints a distressing picture of a military stretched thin by nearly 10 years of war and a sustained lack of resources.

BREAKING NEWS: war erodes readiness. But you know what does NOT constitute "a sustained lack of resources"? A 150% increase in defense outlays over a ten-year period. (2001: $304.73 billion. 2011: $749.75 billion.) Defense accounts were bumped by approximately ten percent per year for a decade. This is what Forbes, Turner, Bishop, and Conaway call "a sustained lack of resources"? This is their definition of taking the strength of our armed forces for granted? This is their "growing readiness problems"?

If the wanton spending of the last ten years can't guarantee military readiness or national security, MAYBE YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

The Congressmen want us to base our national defense planning on "an open and objective review of the threats we face and the resources required to meet them," and complain about how "we now have that process in reverse." They're right, we do -- and it's because of nonsense rationalizations like the ones given in this article, where they try to pretend like the Army's failure to incorporate iPad-like technology has anything at all to do with the cancellation of Comanche, FCS, EFV, and DDG-1000.

They even give us a cute little analogy to highlight what they suggest is the irresponsible way the White House and the Defense Department go about determining the budget.

In many ways, it’s like a family who is about to purchase a new home. The correct course would be to have an inspector look at the house and tell the family what the problems are and what they will cost to fix. What if, instead, that family told the inspector that they only had $1,000, and they wanted the inspector to go through and identify only $1,000 worth of problems to fix?

What if, instead, that family had an inspector look at the house to find problems and estimate required costs, but also told him they'd already signed papers with a contractor committing to $2,000 worth of demolition and paint work? And then when the inspector found that the house had termite damage, the contractor and his buddies started writing letters to the family and the bank saying that the special kind of paint they were going to use helps to solidify building foundations and kill termites. Because that's a much more apt analogy.

Stop lying to people. Stop rationalizing wasteful spending. Stop pretending like the thing that accounts for 20% of USG spending has nothing at all to do with our deficit problems. Stop imagining the spending that benefits your constituents is sacrosanct, while everything else is politically-motivated profligacy.

The government spends much more than it takes in. One-fifth of this spending goes toward defense. Considering the fungibility of money and the statutory mandate for certain types of non-discretionary spending, it is a simple absurdity to say "defense spending is not what put us in this position." If your teenager ran up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and said "I spent most of that money on food and rent and books! Only 20% of it was on hookers and blow! That's not what put me in this position!", you'd punch him in the face.

Punch yourself in the face, America.

UPDATE: More criticism of the Forbes-Turner-Bishop-Conaway piece from budget guru Gordon Adams, who also addresses the accounting gimmicks that go into making the end of the current wars look like a massive cut. He does so in considerably less shrill and aggressive fashion than I, it's worth noting.