Five Military Cuts That Would Fix Sequestration

[Richard]

Better prepare for a week of Monday Morning Quarterbacking from people who know less about sequestration than your crazy aunt.

And so it goes...

Richard

Five Military Cuts That Would Fix Sequestration
BloombergBusinessWeek, 25 Feb 2013

As sequestration hysteria grips Washington, top uniformed officials at the Pentagon have joined Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in warning that across-the-board spending cuts due to take effect on March 1 will cripple the American military and endanger the effectiveness of soldiers, sailors, and pilots.

General Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, has declared that the cuts—a $46 billion reduction in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2013 budget, barring a last-minute political compromise—could curtail training for 80 percent of ground forces. The Navy has delayed the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, leaving just one of the gigantic vessels in that volatile region, even as tensions continue simmering with Iran. The Air Force is talking about slashing flying hours, leaving two-thirds of its pilots below an acceptable level of readiness. And so on.

Flapdoodle. The military is manufacturing a crisis to protect its wasteful, bloated, poorly designed budget. Sequestration, which mandates no-thought, across-the-board spending cuts, is a dumb way to force fiscal discipline. But there’s an alternative, at least at the Pentagon. Panetta and the generals could say to Congress: We accept that you politicians have backed yourselves into a corner and budgets have to come down. But let us point out several big-ticket items we can erase, rather than putting this process on autopilot.

A devastating series by our colleagues at Bloomberg News shows that “the defense budget contains hundreds of billions of dollars for new generations of aircraft carriers and stealth fighters, tanks that even the Army says it doesn’t need and combat vehicles too heavy to maneuver in desert sands or cross most bridges in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.” Read this comprehensive expose and weep. Or read it as an implicit road map for how to shrink the military in a rational way.

For the benefit of harried members of Congress and their staff, not to mention the president and his aides, here are five ideas for major Pentagon budget cuts that would actually improve the national defense by instilling a new spirit of budget discipline:

1. Ground the glitch-ridden F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The F-35 was supposed to produce state-of-the-art stealth jets. It is seven years behind schedule and 70 percent over cost estimates. At almost $400 billion, the F-35 has become the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history and one that offers only marginal improvements over existing aircraft, according to Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonprofit policy institute in Washington. (On Friday, the Pentagon grounded its nascent 51-plane fleet of F-35s after discovering a cracked engine blade in one jet.) The F-35 is “worth killing, particularly given its technical problems,” Blechman said. “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first flight test was acquisition malpractice,” Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acquisition undersecretary, said in February 2012. So, um, let’s do something about it, Frank.

2. While we’re at it, how about parking the Ground Combat Vehicle? With wind-downs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s strength is due to decline by some 72,000 by 2017. Still, we’re poised to spend as much as $32 billion to buy 1,904 new Ground Combat Vehicles, tank-like replacements for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. What the Army actually needs is improved, smaller vehicles to get modest-sized forces into trouble spots with greater alacrity. The 70-ton Ground Combat Vehicle won’t be easily transportable by air or sea, raising questions about “how quickly it could be deployed in the event of a conflict,” according to a report (PDF) issued in January by the Congressional Research Service.

3. On the topic of Army gas-guzzlers: Even the generals admit that they don’t want or need an updated version of the familiar M1 combat tank. The M1 was originally built to face off against Soviet tanks in a land war in Europe, which thankfully never happened. Congress, however, intends to keep doling out billions to gut and renovate old M1s. That makes no sense.

4. Dock the Littoral Combat Ship. The Navy is building two versions of the troubled vessel that was once billed as a low-cost, versatile coastal patrol ship. The LCS has doubled in price, to more than $440 million a ship. Evaluators have determined that its guns aren’t effective, meaning it might not survive in combat.

5. Excess bureaucracy must go. “One need only spend 10 minutes walking around the Pentagon or any major military headquarters to see excess and redundancy,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in September at an event organized by the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He should know. As defense chief in 2009, he culled 20 weapons systems he thought unnecessary or too expensive, including the F-22 fighter. One place to start thinning the bureaucracy: the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That office has more than tripled in manpower, to 4,244 in 2012 from 1,313 in 2010, according to the Pentagon’s annual manpower report. (Fewer bureaucrats means fewer memos and fewer meetings. Win-win-win.)

Why is sensible military budgeting so difficult? Because lawmakers, including small-government Republicans, protect defense business in their home states with the ferocity of Spartans. Even if the Pentagon offered up the cuts we’ve outlined here, Congress would almost certainly reject them. The senators and representatives don’t have the political courage to face voters and tell them that the republic simply does not need the weapon under construction in their hometown.

Consider the F-35. Primarily made by Lockheed Martin (LMT), the plane has 1,300 suppliers in 45 states supporting 133,000 jobs, according to Lockheed. “It’s got a lot of political protection,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information in Washington. “Very, very few members of Congress are willing to say this is an unaffordable dog and we need to get rid of it.”

So rather than making strategic spending reductions that might produce a leaner, more effective military, sequestration will result in fewer pilot training hours and under-prepared soldiers. The generals light their hair on fire, and lawmakers protect the pork. Ah, democracy.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...-sequestration

[Chaplain Scott]

Those of us rather "long in the tooth" or those with a good grasp of US military history, we've seen this type of crap before---between every major conflict, our country has shafted the military--to the detriment of our preparedness.

Thanks to Dozer for catching my typo......

[Cobwebs]

Another interesting article Richard. Question, how can we expect them to make meaningful cuts when everyone that can make the cuts know they will be cutting off there own D--k ?

[MR2]

My suggestion for cuts involve the use of a guillotine!

[sinjefe]

I actually think those 5 ideas are good ideas.

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by Cobwebs

Another interesting article Richard. Question, how can we expect them to make meaningful cuts when everyone that can make the cuts know they will be cutting off there own D--k ?

I'm not so sure. Recent events have shown that those who would be making the cuts are already "D--k"less!

[JimP]

Anything supported by GEN Odierno and GEN Dempsey is to be suspect....

I say the cuts don't go far enough. It's just more of the "fund us or we'll kill the Baby!!!" hysteria from the nutters running this asylum.

Whatever happened to the professionals simply saying: "Hey, we'll do the best with what you give us"??

I recall watching the SASC some years back when The Commandant of the Marine Corps (Krulak) was the only one of the Joint Chief's who had the courage to tell them that he could NOT do what they were asking him to do with the funds they were giving him.

Every other Chief slobbered over the SASC and told whoppers about how they could do EVERYTHING asked with the cuts foisted upon them by the clinton adminsitration. Then......we shortly found ourselves involved in a two-front war. How's that working out for us?

[UWOA (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Richard

Better prepare for a week of Monday Morning Quarterbacking from people who know less about sequestration than your crazy aunt.

And so it goes...

Richard

The problem is that the conventional arms brass are "empire builders." They don't want to give up their toys ... and since they can't properly assess what the next conflict will be like, they want a finger in every pot. Ergo, the next ultimate weapon will be a Swiss Army knife with 250 different attachments including a SAW, mortar, SADM, and Stealth Ninja turtle cloak.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by MR2

My suggestion for cuts involve the use of a guillotine!

Fine motor skills not required.

[Trapper John]

I agree with Brother Sinjefe. Bring on sequestration, it's a step in the right direction IMO.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by UWOA

The problem is that the conventional arms brass are "empire builders." They don't want to give up their toys ... and since they can't properly assess what the next conflict will be like, they want a finger in every pot. Ergo, the next ultimate weapon will be a Swiss Army knife with 250 different attachments including a SAW, mortar, SADM, and Stealth Ninja turtle cloak.

I still like the P-38 Light Anti-tank Weapon Now that's doin' it ol'school

[(1VB)compforce]

Two things.

1) The cuts aren't actually cuts. A spending cut is when you take your baseline budget and reduce it. These are reductions in future planned spending INCREASES. It's all smoke and mirrors. The fact is that the DoD part of the reductions in planned increases comes out to ~$55B per year. Even if you use the fuzzy math found in http://defensesystems.com/blogs/insi...on-impact.aspx you aren't seeing a significant decrease, you are seeing a reduction in spending to levels to equal the 2007 budget. Killing the F-35 (or any other major program) would yield an actual increase in real dollars ($400B/7 years = ~$57B).

2) I have a real problem with the use of contractors inside DoD. I'm not talking so much about Tier 1, kick down the doors types or intel types. I'm talking about the support types. I've been in theatre with three of the SF groups, MARSOC, NAVSOC (NSW) and worked with a lot of conventional units from all four services other than the Coast Guard. I'll stick to my own lane and just talk IT support. In each case, there was, at most, ONE person providing mid-level IT support at the battalion level or higher that could hold their own within the unit. The rest were only able to do desktop support. Those of you that have seen it for yourself can probably name the person, they'll be the one you always went to when you needed a hand. It's not the fault of the soldier or sailor. They just aren't allowed to actually do the job and have never been exposed to what it actually requires so they could learn on their own. CONUS, all of the big IT systems are run by contractors. Even basic functions like creating user accounts are outsourced to contractors. The soldier never has a chance to actually get good at their job through practice before they are called on to go overseas and do it for real. Then they get overseas and after a few times missing something, a contractor is hired to do it, perpetuating the cycle.

Here's a novel idea, let's actually train the soldier to perform their job and cut the reliance on contractors that cost two to three (or more) times the cost of a soldier. Teach the soldier and insource the jobs, it would cut a significant part of the...what was it DOD announced recently... 400,000 CONUS DOD contractors. If the training system doesn't start to get fixed and the reliance on contractors cut, in just a few more years we will find that we don't have the funding for contractors and the soldier will be, through no fault of their own, woefully unprepared, with the attendant reduction in Mission Readiness. The other option is that we actually start to fix this problem now and in a few years, we won't NEED the funding for contractors any longer. You'd be able to double the number of soldiers performing the functions and still "find" money in the baseline budget.

You say that it's tough to find enough soldiers to do the job? Maybe if DoD would stop giving the good ones incentive to get out (by providing higher paying contract jobs) maybe the soldier would stay in and be successful within the military while increasing the ability of the force to be self-sustaining.

Again, no knock on Joe and certainly no blame to the contractors. It's a systemic fault, not something any but the top brass and civilian leadership could fix. It would take YEARS for it to happen, but if you wait to start the change, it just gets harder to take corrective action.

[Razor]

1VB, how much does the govt pay for a contractor's retirement? For his health care and the care of his dependents? How much does the govt pay to house a contractor through his career, or to move him from duty station to duty station every 2-4 years? How much does the govt subsidize a contractor's grocery shopping, or department store shopping, or utility bills and housing costs? How much time and paperwork does it take the govt to eliminate a contractor position? How quickly can the govt hire contractors to respond to surge requirements?

Contractors (sometimes) get paid more than their .gov counterparts because of the constant risk to job security, but even this increased salary pales in comparison to the real "lifecycle" costs of a .gov employee, soldier or civilian.

[(1VB)compforce]

Razor,

All very good points. If the contractor was being hired directly by DOD, I'd agree with you. They are usually not though, it's the big boys that get the big bucks. Many of the contractors that I saw were individually making roughly industry standard wages. The companies on the other hand were really racking it up.

For the benefit of those that haven't been exposed to corporate budgeting, in commercial employment, we use a number between 10-15% of salary for benefits and incidentals. A "fully loaded" employee with a 50K salary is budgeted at 55,000 -57,500. Even if you say that the military needs 100% for benefits to cover housing, meals, etc., it is still a far cry less than what they pay the contracting company (Lockheed-Martin, Carlysle, Northrup Grumman, et. al.).


edit...

How much does the govt subsidize a contractor's grocery shopping, or department store shopping

I have to disagree in principle on this one. The exchange system is a racket. They purchase things at much lower prices than other commercial companies due to economies of scale, but then they actually set the selling price higher on most items other than loss leaders. Then they lean on their tax exempt status to make larger gross profits than their competitors can, all while getting subsidies from the government as well. The good thing is that Amazon is now in a position to bleed them dry financially if only we would stop guaranteeing their profits.

[pcfixer]

Razor and (1VB)compforce;

I think the contractors are big spenders. This...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42494839/10_C..._US_Government

I did work for 2 contractors in the late 90's. I do know their overhead is quite large. Much more than your paycheck.

Kenny