Decisions Deferred: Balancing Risks for Today and Tomorrow - Center for a New American Security Commentary by LTG David W. Barno (USA Ret.) and Dr. Nora Bensahel.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s rollout last week of the Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR) left many questions unanswered about the future of U.S. defense. Although it was not designed to make critical defense decisions, the SCMR was widely expected to help set the terms of the Congressionally-mandated 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Instead, it simply generated a menu of options linked to various levels of budget cuts, while reaching few conclusions. The SCMR offered little guidance beyond further detailing the pain of sequestration-level budget cuts. But hidden within the SCMR’s complex layers of options lies the key question that the QDR will need to answer: Should DOD keep investing heavily in today’s force, or take greater risk now while shifting investment toward tomorrow? ...
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The situation we face today and in the near future…..massive budget cuts, reduction of forces, reprioritization of effort…. indicates a need to reprioritize our DIME efforts - Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic. Less reliance on the “military” part and more on the other areas and adopting a strategy of “masterly inactivity” to borrow from our British cousins. Instead of lumbering about rattling, and occasionally drawing, our saber, we can rattle our checkbook, industries, commodities, and other assets in order to influence situations while keeping our saber sheathed.
As for the potential cuts to capacity, why not? There’s been some discussion about reducing our carrier strike groups from 11 to 8 or 9. How about replacing a couple of big carriers with smaller amphibious assault ships designed to carry armed UAVs? An amphibious assault ship costs significantly less than a carrier (amphib = roughly $750 million vs CV = roughly $5 to $8 billion depends on cost over-runs). Smaller ships, smaller crews, same strike capability.
You can’t completely turn off the nuclear engines of the big carriers, so why not park one at Umm Qasr, Iraq and use it to power Basra (yes I know there are security issues associated with that but Iraqis, like most people, like having power and are likely to protect it from any saboteurs)? After all, if we are going to park a couple of these big ships and not turn off the engines, we might as well put them to good use. We could probably do this at other locations as well.
490,000-man Army…….is this necessary? This was the number we had pre-9/11 and was justified based on a two-war strategy. Not our strategy any longer. Why not a 400,000-man Army? 375,000? This would force the Army to focus not only on conventional combat skills and tactics but individual professional education as well. Make better use of the smaller numbers, especially as the Army emphasizes regionally aligned forces and training & assisting others to do the heavy lifting in their particular areas.
180,000 Marines……can they be reduced as well? Perhaps to 120,000 or 100,000? Our national 911 Force must be able to respond quickly and with enough force to influence events wherever they land. That usually takes one or two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU)…..and that is dependent on whether or not other parts of our DIME efforts have been exhausted. A Marine Corps of 100,000 can still field enough such forces, especially since we would be more likely to deploy them after extremely careful consideration AND in conjunction with allied elements, like those the Army is supposed to advise and assist.
Air Force….go completely UAV. This will piss off the pilots. But armed UAVs cost less, can remain on-station longer, and can be just as effective in conducting punitive strikes. The cost of one F-22 is roughly $137 million vs. the cost of one Predator UAV at approximately $4.5 million, and the Pred can kill as effectively as the Raptor. Sounds like a good deal.
Bottom line: right now, it’s about cost. Smaller carriers, smaller land force (though a smarter one), and high-tech drone air capability. Focus on diplomatic and economic influencing efforts….masterly inactivity…..in order to shape events to our favor and minimize the need for injecting ground forces. Ensure we continue to train our reserve forces and maintain their hard-earned capabilities if we do need to send lots of troops somewhere. Minimize cost, save now in order to do more later.