Congress gave the military a two-year period of partial relief from sequestration cuts, and the National Guard Bureau is using that as a chance to continue negotiating with the Army and Air Force over the best balance of active, reserve and Guard forces.
“What we don’t want to do is rush into failure–we’re got some relief with the $22 billion added [in fiscal year 2014]and the $9 billion added [in FY ‘15] that then gives us a few years to look at this,” National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Frank Grass said Thursday at a National Press Club luncheon.
He said the Guard is “in a good place” with the Air Force but is still in talks with the Army regarding how to operate under lower budgets while still maintaining a proper balance in the force. He said that “we’re tightening belts left and right,” but at a certain point the Guard cannot cut anymore without either losing out on equipment it needs to stay interoperable with its active duty counterparts or start cutting units that would leave geographical areas without National Guard presence in the case of a natural disaster or other homeland-type mission.
“There’s one defense budget, so we all have to work off that one defense budget,” he said when asked about the components fighting over limited dollars. “And I tell the adjutants general that we’re not immune, our appropriations are not immune from the Budget Control Act, so as long as we have a Budget Control Act we’re going to take reductions. What we’ve worked on is a proposal with the adjutants general that would show how we could pay those bills and try to maintain a quality opportunity for anyone who wants to join the Guard today.”
Grass said the military needs to take a close look at what it wants its forces to look like 20 years from now and how to get there, and he said the sequester relief helps give leaders two more years to figure that out instead of having to make such steep cuts right away.
“There’s opportunities to look at how we’re headed forward–what types of capabilities do we need in the homeland and Guard, and do we need for our support to the Air Force and Army? And then as we look to the future, how does that money shake out? When we get beyond the next two years, do we stay on path with the Budget Control Act? What’s Congress going to do? Can we get to the point where we find enough efficiencies and savings to do the missions, to do the strategies, to do the Asia-Pacific shift and still do that within the budget? And I’m very mindful, our appropriations are being hit just as the other services are, so as we look out at least to the next [Program Objective Memorandum] cycle, we’re going to be looking very closely to get the best force we can for the money.”