A 2012 DoD Definition of Redundancy

Happy New Year! I am not up on current events, so expect my posting over the next very many days to be of stuff that is not always fresh (as in current events), but fresh as in something I finally read. With a hat tip to Pete Speer for emailing me this article, lets start the 2012 conversation already!

So I'm reading this article by Bill Sweetman and Paul McLeary from Aviation Week dated Jan 6, 2012, and it starts off informative enough, but I have highlighted for the audience in bold where the discussion becomes something that is really enlightening, I think...

“We have run out of money, so now we must think,” remarked U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Philip Breedlove during a presentation on the emerging Air/Sea Battle concept in July. It’s becoming a common saying. The military is not in its current predicament by accident. Poor performance—programs years or decades behind schedule, costing too much to acquire and costing far too much to operate—has helped drive almost every military in the world to make pious sounds about “doing more with less” while doing exactly the opposite.

For the first time in a decade, the Pentagon is going to have to budget, rather than just spend. This not only means some programs will have to be removed from the procurement ledger, but new weapons programs will have to cap development—and perhaps more importantly, sustainment costs—significantly.

At the Credit Suisse/Aviation Week 2011 Aerospace and Defense Conference in New York in December, Shay Assad, the Pentagon’s director of defense pricing and acquisition policy, tried to assuage some fears defense contractors have vocalized about their potential profits now that the Pentagon is going on a diet. Assad said the Pentagon is making an effort to use the promise of profitability “to motivate contractors to reduce their cost structures.” To track this effort the Defense Contract Management Agency is adding more than 350 experts in cost estimating: If costs can be more accurately predicted up front, everyone will enter an agreement with the same realistic expectations.

Wow! Where the hell is the pride in ones work? WHAT THE *^%*! That folks, is an issue of military integrity, and it highlights that the Pentagon is unable to do this work effectively themselves. Why? I think civilian and uniform leadership needs to answer that question, and I for one would love to hear the answer.

So the Pentagon apparently can't do this part of their job, but no worries, they will now go hire 350 private sector experts. The DoD might as well have hung a huge banner outside their building that reads...

"We suck at our jobs, so we're hiring others to do it for us!"

And yes, this is a military integrity issue. Why can't you do your job effectively? What prevents you from doing your job accurately? Did you or did you not get trained to do you job... at taxpayers expense? 350 private sector experts, all of which will be 100K+ jobs if they are actually "experts", means we need to spend at least $35 million to hire private sector experts to do the jobs of public sector employees that apparently can't do the jobs they were hired and trained to do. It's 2012, and money is tight. The nation can no longer afford ineffective civilian and military leadership doing contracting for the Defense Department.

This is, unquestionably, a leadership issue and one that raises serious questions about the integrity of the military. Accountability? Prove it. Based on everything in testimony and media reporting lately, the entire concept of 'accounting' in any context fled the DoD long ago.

....

By the way.... hey Bill, Paul, why the picture of the DDG-1000 with the article? Looks like an editorial mistake to me, because you highlighted a picture of one of the few good programs while discussing the problems other programs are having. Not cool boys, you guys are much smarter than that, unless the cheap shot at the Navy was intentional.

Piracy, Iran, and CS-21

Thoughts on the recent USN rescue of Iranian fishermen:

To be sure, this version of the rescue represents public relations spin, but soft power often amounts to framing narrative for the purposes of public relations. The Iranians’ claim that Iran frees pirate hostages all the time without the same degree of fanfarerepresents an implicit acknowledgement of the success of the hostage rescue in this regard. The Iranians surely also understand that the logic of positive-sum seapower -- that the entire world benefits from freedom of the seas -- contrasts sharply with their own threats to close the Straits of Hormuz in the event of an expanded oil embargo and their warning to the United States not to deploy another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. It can also be applied antagonistically to any Iranian attempt to follow through on those threats. Pirates are the original hostis humani generis, but states that threaten maritime freedom, especially when maritime freedom has been construed in terms of common rights and common good, can also become “enemies of humankind.” 

In short, the rescue illustrates the way in which CS-21 provides an internationalist vocabulary for the pursuit of national ends. The U.S. desire to contain and confront Iran may or may not be wise, but one of the purposes of a strategic document is to provide civilian leaders with sufficiently flexible policy tools to pursue national ends. In this case, the internationalist focus of CS-21 does not constrain U.S. action, but rather reframes it in terms much more palatable to regional allies and competitors. CS-21 plays a similar role in the South China Sea, placing U.S. national ends squarely on the same side as an internationalist vision of free navigation and exploration. From the point of view of the U.S. desire to tighten the screws on Iran, the rescue could not have come at a better time.

Where Does the Money Go?

In my summary of the new Defense Strategy below, I raise the issue of using the Defense Budget like "...an ATM" to fund political priorities and reward friends.  What do I mean by that?  Take a look at this story, detailing the Navy's decision to use a "Project Labor Agreement" (PLA) in the construction of an explosives handling pier at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Some interesting sections from the story: 

"The Navy has agreed to use workers from Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council and Northwest Regional Council of the National Construction Alliance II on the $715 million, four-year project."

 "The trades council contacted the area's federal delegation — Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee — who wrote to the Navy supporting a PLA, Whetham said. Four trade council officials and seven from the Navy met in November to explore the benefits and arrived at cost savings and skilled labor."

" PLAs typically require that employees hired for the project be referred through union halls, that nonunion workers pay union dues while on the project and that the contractor follow union rules on pensions, work conditions and resolving disputes."

It is difficult to conceive of these requirements not driving up total cost.  And it appears that public sector unions are not the only beneficiaries of Administration largess. 


Bryan McGrath

On The New Direction In Defense

“It’s so big [the defense budget] that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.”    -President Obama, July 6, 2024

Yesterday's announcement at the Pentagon of the President's new Defense Strategy is everything he said it was.  It is a new direction.  It does represent an "inflection point".  The "tide of war" is receding.  It is proper to focus on Asia, and it is advisable to return ground force levels to pre-9-11 levels.  The President's approach is logical, coherent, and straightforward---all the way from B to Z.  It's the A to B leap that I don't accept.

What do I mean by the "A to B" leap?  Well, in order for the President's approach to be thoroughly logical, one must accept that our nation's defense should undergo budget cuts in an era of fiscal austerity, that a function of the federal government mandated in the Constitution must somehow be diminished in order to fund myriad federal programs of dubious worth.  Put another way, under the President's approach--when as the budget axe falls, defense is FIRST in line (tied with all other discretionary outlays) rather than last in line--where I believe it should be.  I have seen some in the blogosphere--including some people I agree with on most issues--claim that Congress--and especially Congressional Republicans--are complicit in these cuts, as they were party to the Budget Control Act.  There is logic and merit in this argument, but the simple truth of the atmosphere on the Hill last year was that divided government drove compromises--and in this case, gutting the defense budget to pay for domestic priorities was job #1 for many Democrats in Congress--the wind behind the President's sails. 

People much smarter than I have already opined on the jot and tittle of the strategy, so I will make only a few points.  I will admit to my biases up front, as I am not a political supporter of the President, and I am a center-right blogger at The Conservative Wahoo.  Here are a few summary thoughts.

 

• Not driven by strategy.  While I greatly respect the work of the Joint Chiefs and senior civil servants at the Pentagon in responding to the President’s mandate, the plain truth is they started their deliberations $487B in the hole, which represented the budget hit the President insisted upon in last year’s Budget Control Act.  That was a political decision on the part of a President who uses the Defense Budget like an ATM to fund misguided political priorities like Solyndra and paybacks to his cronies in public sector unions. 
• Questionable Geo-strategy.  While the President believes we can “assume more risk” in Europe by cutting back our commitments there, he ignores potential tinder boxes all along Europe’s southern and eastern flanks.  Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria—much of the Mediterranean littoral is governed (or under-governed) by questionable and hostile regimes.  Additionally, our steadfast ally in the region—Israel—is increasingly surrounded by regimes newly dedicated to its instability, even as we cut back both our military and our naval presence in the region.
• Proof in the Pudding.  What we heard yesterday were pleasant words about shifts in priorities and a new security environment.  What remains to be seen is what this means in budgetary terms, what real choices were made.  When the FY13 budget is released after the State of the Union address, will we  find a strategy of “Prioritization by Reduction”?—that is, while the whole gets smaller, parts of it get smaller slower than others—which can then be claimed as “shifts in priorities” and “hard strategic choices”?  I predict that this budget will leave us with a smaller force, capable of doing fewer things, in fewer places, and less well.
• Asian Focus.  The President quite rightly speaks of a shift in emphasis to the Pacific, what does he mean by that?  Does it mean he will increase our shipbuilding budget?  Does it mean we will grow the Navy?  Does it mean we will fully fund maintenance and modernization accounts?  Or does it mean that we will play a strategic shell-game, pushing smaller, less capable ships forward to supplement a fleet already on the ragged edge of readiness, while "protecting the industrial base" by relying on the construction of those same smaller and less capable ships?  Or will it be some combination of the above?  Again, we won't know these answers until the budget pops after the State of the Union.  

Again--if you believe that Defense should be a domestic bill-payer, than this approach makes a lot of sense.  If you believe otherwise, than it is hard to be supportive of this approach.

Bryan McGrath

Triangle Trade

This week's Over the Horizon column suggests that the Russian arms industry is in for some long term trouble:

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex sustained the massive Soviet military institution, which regularly gobbled up 15-25 percent of the nation’s GDP. In an odd and unexpected twist to the end of the Cold War, the Russian arms industry has turned to sustaining itself by arming a pair of Asian giants: Arms exports to China and India have proven lucrative for Russia -- and have even had a synergistic and competitive quality. The unease each country has felt due to the other increasing its military capability has led to higher revenues for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms exporter. For the post-Cold War Russian arms industry, this trade has represented a boon, helping to replace lost customers in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Russian military itself. However, this situation is almost certainly unsustainable in the long run, as both China and India appear to be outgrowing their dependence on the Russian military-industrial complex. This will spell trouble for Russia, which has had great difficulty developing exports based on anything other than arms or energy.