An ongoing re-examination the U.S. military strategy is looking at prioritizing weapons programs that have multiple roles, a senior military officer said Tuesday.
“One of the principles going forward in the Strategic Choices (and) Management Review, is we’ve got to find platforms that are multi-role, that have the capability to operate both in a hostile and a passive environment,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told House lawmakers Tuesday.
The Strategic Choices and Management Review–which Dempsey and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter are working to complete by May 31–is a re-examination of the Defense Strategic Guidance President Barack Obama unveiled in January 2012. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the new strategic-choices review after the $500 billion in decade-long “sequestration” budget cuts started March 1 (Defense Daily, March 19). The review takes into account that Congress could modify those cuts.
“The secretary has given us the ability to look at several different alternative futures in terms of financial support,” Dempsey said Tuesday during a House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) hearing on the Pentagon budget.
He said told the committee he thinks it’ll “see some pretty dramatic changes,” coming out of the strategic-choices review. “Based on the early indicators,” he said, “things that are not multi-role will be very difficult to invest in.”
Dempsey shared this insight into the ongoing review after Rep. Joe Bonner (R-Ala.) lamented proposed cuts to the Army’s UH-72 Lakota helicopter program. Dempsey complimented the aircraft but said it is designed to be used in a passive environment, and is not multi-role.
Dempsey further said that as he works on the strategic-choices review, he looks at the defense-industrial base as being “an issue about future readiness.”
“It will compete with the other factors of readiness, but I can assure you that we’re focused on our ability, not just to generate today’s force, but tomorrow’s force,” he said.
Hagel, for his part, said the military-industrial base “is an absolutely key plank, foundational piece, of our ability to sustain our technological edge, our edge in every way for the future.”
“That cannot erode, we are working our way through that–what do we need, what we think may be excess capacity,” Hagel told the HAC-D. “We’ve got a study underway on this. It’s a high priority. We have to do it. We need it. And we will do everything that we can to address the issue and adjust to where we think the challenges are coming for the first part of the 21st century.”