The Pentagon wants to pour more money into training and maintenance for combat readiness and to continue three major Air Force acquisition programs, paying for these multibillion-dollar spending boosts by cutting an Army vehicle program and significantly scaling down several space and communications programs, according to the Defense Department’s $495.6 billion fiscal year 2015 budget request, which was released March 4.
The budget request would buy “a smaller but more ready and capable force” for the country, keeping research and development funding intact but canceling, deferring and altering several acquisition programs. But the people and platforms that remain in the budget would be well taken care of–the Army’s operations and maintenance budget would jump $1.2 billion compared to the FY ’14 budget, the Air Force’s by $2.1 billion, and the Navy’s by $3.2 billion. 
DoD’s budget overview notes that sequestration in FY ’13 and ‘14 decimated military readiness, and restoring units and platforms to a healthier readiness level is a priority in this budget. “It also continues initiatives started in the FY ’14 budget to transition from a force focused largely on current operations to one capable of meeting a broader mission portfolio,” the overview notes.
Transitioning to that new mission set involves not only training but also investments. The research and development portfolios will be preserved, with each service receiving about $2 billion for basic and applied research to maintain the military’s technical edge now and into the future.
About $2 billion of the total S&T funding will support capabilities to project power in an anti-access/area-denial environment, $1 billion for technologies to counter weapons of mass destruction, $900 million for advanced space and cyberspace operations, $500 million for electronic warfare and $300 million for high-speed kinetic strike capabilities.
Keeping in line with these priorities, Army procurement funding dropped $991 million compared to the FY ’14 budget, and Navy procurement dropped $3.2 billion. But Air Force procurement–to support F-35, a tanker replacement program, and the Long-Range Strike Bomber, which service officials have said are critical to operating in the Asia/Pacific region against more advance adversaries–jumped $2 billion compared to FY ’14.
To make room for these investment and O&M priorities, several acquisition programs took a hit. The Army will save $3.4 billion over the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)–FY ’15 -19–by terminating the Ground Combat Vehicle and instead adding some capability enhancements to its current ground fleet and pursuing technology maturation and preliminary design efforts for a future infantry fighting vehicle. The Army will save another $3.4 billion by changing its plans for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T). It will continue with increments 1 and 2, but increment 3, which was “envisioned to add more robust connectivity with increased network access via an Air Tier, has been significantly descoped to a software-only program,” according to the budget request overview.
The Air Force will save $2.7 billion over the FYDP in its space programs, in part by deferring two GPS III satellites outside the FYDP because the equipment has lasted longer than predicted so far. The service will also cut its funding for procurement of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Space Vehicles 7 and 8 for $2.1 billion in savings, and some of that money will be reinvested in the Space Based Infrared Systems and satellite communications systems. Additionally, the Air Force will delay its Combat Rescue Helicopter program by two years to seek lower-cost options; there is no funding for the program this year, but the development program will have funding beginning in FY ’16.
Despite the strategic shifts in funding to reflect a rebalanced, smaller force, the Pentagon still argues the congressionally mandated funding levels are insufficient. The Obama administration is asking Congress to pass a separate Opportunity, Growth and Security (OGS) Initiative that includes more than $50 billion government-wide and $26.4 billion for defense programs, which would be paid for mandatory spending cuts and closing tax loopholes. Congress has so far appeared uninterested in considering the OGS Initiative, but if the package did pass, the Pentagon would gain quite a bit.
“Although the base budget provides the resources needed to gradually restore readiness and balance, it does not provide funds to accelerate readiness improvements in FY 2015,” according to the budget request overview. “The OSG Initiative provides the resources needed in FY 2015 to make faster progress by supporting increased activity at depot maintenance facilities around the country; greater training support; and increased in funding for fuel, spare parts, and transportation costs.”
More specifically, the Air Force would gain training range support, as well as two additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, 10 C-130 airlift planes and 12 MQ-9 Reapers. The Army would receive training and base support, 26 AH-64 Apache helicopters, 28 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and two CH-47 Chinook helicopters. The Navy would get aviation depot maintenance support, eight P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance planes, one E-2D Hawkeye early warning system, and three C-40 planes. Special Operations forces would also receive additional training and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations funding.
DoD Comptroller Robert Hale said during a briefing at the Pentagon that the one-time funding package would not incur much in the way of additional costs in out-years despite so much of the funding going toward procurement of new aircraft. The Pentagon’s budget request projects a 3 percent growth each year through FY ’19, totaling about $115 billion more than is allowed under sequester over the FYDP, and that additional funding supports all the same priorities as the OGS Initiative funds do.
The Pentagon projects spending $535 billion in FY ’16 under this plan, compared to $500 billion allowed that year under sequester, for example. In FY ’19, the Pentagon would spend $559 billion instead of the $537 billion allowed with sequester.
For the budget plan to work, the Pentagon is counting on Congress to do several things: pass the OGS Initiative, raise the sequester caps to match the funding requested over the FYDP, and agree to several savings written into the budget request–not just the canceled programs, which are likely to generate opposition, but also a request for a round of Base Realignment and Closure in 2017, changes to TRICARE, a slow-down in pay growth and more. For the pay and compensation changes alone, Congress rejecting those attempts at cutting costs would create a $2.1 billion delta in FY ’15 and a $30 billion delta over the FYDP that would have to be closed by cutting other programs or operations, Hale said.