Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declared yesterday that the Pentagon cannot avoid making significant changes to its weapons purchasing as it revises its military strategy because of budget cuts.
During his first major policy speech as the head of the Defense Department, Hagel said at the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington that Pentagon leaders “need to challenge all past assumptions, and we need to put everything on the table” during the ongoing Strategic Choices and Management Review.
Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran sworn in as defense secretary on Feb. 27, said it is “already clear” to him “that any serious effort to reform and reshape our defense enterprise must confront the principal drivers of growth in the (Defense) Department’s base budget–namely acquisitions, personnel costs, and overhead.” He said he is concerned the military’s modernization strategy depends on weapons systems “that are vastly more expensive and technologically risky” than intended.
The Strategic Choices and Management Review–which Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey are working to complete by May 31–is a re-examination of the Defense Strategic Guidance President Barack Obama announced with much fanfare in January 2012. Hagel ordered the new strategic-choices review after the $500 billion in decade-long “sequestration” budget cuts started last month (Defense Daily, March 19).
“In many respects, the biggest long-term fiscal challenge facing the department is not the flat or declining top-line budget, it is the growing imbalance in where that money is being spent internally,” Hagel told the NDU audience of U.S. and international military officials.
“Left unchecked, spiraling costs to sustain existing structures and institutions, provide benefits to personnel, and develop replacements for aging weapons platforms will eventually crowd out spending on procurement, operations, and readiness–the budget categories that enable the military to be and stay prepared,” he said.
Hagel, a former senator and businessman, said much more hard work must be done to to address “internal crowding out” in the budget. He acknowledged “deep political and institutional obstacles” are ahead, alluding to lawmakers’ protection of favored weapons programs.
“I am concerned that despite pruning many major procurement programs over the past four years, the military’s modernization strategy still depends on systems that are vastly more expensive and technologically risky than what was promised or budgeted for,” he said. “We need to continually move forward with designing an acquisition system that responds more efficiently, effectively and quickly to the needs of troops and commanders in the field, one that rewards cost-effectiveness and efficiency, so that our programs do not continue to take longer, cost more, and deliver less than initially planned and promised.”
Hagel cited former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead’s warning that, if such trends continue, the Pentagon could transform from “an agency protecting the nation to an agency administering benefit programs, capable of buying only limited quantities of irrelevant and overpriced equipment.”
Hagel’s speech came a week before the Pentagon plans to release its fiscal year 2014 budget request. After that, Congress will begin its multi-month grilling of Hagel and Pentagon officials over the spending proposal.
Republicans still smarting about Hagel’s selection to lead the Pentagon could be especially tough on him during the upcoming budget hearings, following their harsh criticism of him during his Senate confirmation process. His GOP critics slammed him for his past statements on an array of foreign-policy matters, and charged he would not vigorously fight the “sequestration” budget cuts (Defense Daily, Feb. 1).
Still, House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.)–who previously joined Senate Republicans in their critique of Hagel–responded positively to his NDU address Wednesday. McKeon characterized Hagel’s speech as a rejection of deep budget cuts, during which he “laid out a bold agenda for reform.”
“Many of the measures he recommends, like transforming out-dated bureaucracies and cumbersome acquisition processes, are long overdue and should be executed absent the military’s current resource crisis,” McKeon said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Secretary Hagel to reform these institutions and have already initiated an examination of similar reforms for consideration as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.”
McKeon said the HASC will continue to resist defense spending reductions, saying it will “do what it can to prevent the Pentagon from making ill-considered short term cuts at the expense of long-term strategic need.”
The HASC chairman said he looks forward to joining the defense secretary “in his efforts to restore the resources” needed to “maintain America’s unique strategic purpose.”
While Obama and many lawmakers oppose the sequestration cuts, they appear to be in place for the time being, as Republicans and Democrats have been unable to agree on an alternative deficit-cutting plan. The reductions are expected to reduce planned defense spending by $41 billion from March 1 to Sept. 30, Hagel said last week.
During his NDU speech, the defense secretary talked of the Pentagon “grappling with the serious and immediate challenges of sequester,” which he said is “already having a disruptive and potentially damaging impact on the readiness of the force.” The “immediate, deep, and steep cuts,” he said, are forcing the Pentagon to “look at large cuts to operations and modernization to find savings that can be quickly realized.”
He said he did not direct the Strategic Choices and Management Review to “assume or tacitly accept” that deep budget cuts such as sequestration will persist, or that they “can be accommodated without a significant reduction in military capabilities.”
Still, he said the Pentagon “cannot simply wish or hope our way to carrying out a responsible national security strategy or its implementation,” and thus must “understand the challenges and uncertainties, plan for the risks, and, yes, recognize the opportunities inherent in budget constraints and more efficient and effective restructuring.”
He said the exercise could lead to “fundamental change” that “involves not just tweaking or chipping away at existing structures and practices, but where necessary fashioning entirely new ones that are better suited to 21st century realities and challenges.”