With the White House hinting at the possibility of going beyond the $400 billion deficit reduction goal set for the Defense Department by President Barack Obama, one senior Marine Corps officer says the service cannot take on additional force reductions to support that expanded goal.
The current ramp down to a 186,000-man total force set to take effect by 2015 represents a 15,000-troop cut from current Marine Corps manning levels. The drawdown is part of an overall restructuring strategy being put in place by service leaders to build a post-Afghanistan force.
On the budget side, service expenditures currently take up roughly eight percent of the DoD’s total annual budget on average, which given the capability provided is a good “bang for the buck” Lt. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, commander of Marine Corps Forces Command, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, said during a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday.
However, the Marine Corps–as well as the other services–may be asked to give a little more, with Obama hinting the administration may push beyond the $400 billion savings goal set by the White House (Defense Daily, June 30).
“I, as commander in chief, have to have difficult conversations with the Pentagon saying, ‘You know what, there’s fat here. We’re going to have to trim it out,’” Obama said during a White House press conference on Wednesday. “But we’re going to do more…and I promise you, the preference of the Pentagon would be not to cut any more, because they feel like they’ve already given.”
The initial $400 billion goal, to be parsed out over the next decade, was a key part of the administration’s $4 trillion deficit reduction plan unveiled earlier this year.
But when asked if the Marine Corps could sustain another manpower or budgetary hit, Hejlik replied that the reductions already prescribed by the recently completed Marine Corps Force Structure Review Group is “where we need to be”
Further, senior service leaders, including Assistant Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, continue to tweak and adjust specific details of the review group’s recommendations, with an eye toward wringing out more savings from within the service. Deferment of specific modernization work on a number of service platforms “into the out years” is one example of those efforts, according to Hejlik.
However, key requirements in training and equipment reset as a result of ongoing operations in Afghanistan will dominate the near-term needs of the service, he said.
With that looming requirement, plus big-ticket programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter, V-22 Osprey and the Advanced Combat Vehicle–the replacement to the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle–-the Marine Corps will need every billet and dollar available to meet those needs.
Hejlik’s comments mirror those made by Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos in May, when he said that the service would largely be exempt from the ongoing DoD budget drills tied to meeting that $400 billion mark.
“We [already] did that,” Amos said during a Brookings Institute-sponsored event in Washington that month, referencing the work of the service-led force structure review group. “It’s a better Marine Corps than we have today.”
What is it that America wants from its Department of Defense,” Amos said. “I do not think that we are going to be able to do everything that everybody wants.”
At the time, Amos said he was “very comfortable” with the future force levels outlined in the service’s review, adding it would be “pretty premature” to readjust that strategy to comply with the administration’s plans, if any adjustment would be needed at all. “We put a lot of rigor” into the current strategy, Amos said. “We are our nation’s insurance policy…I am not prepared to fall off from that.”