How to Cut the Defense Budget?

Arthur MacFadden, Lookout MT, GA

That’s a question that many members of Congress have asked us over the past several months. Our first answer is always: Are you sure you want to cut it? After all, base defense spending is 3.5% of GDP, almost at a post-WWII low. In fact it is a little more than half of the Health and Human Services budget. And … never before in US history have we cut defense spending in wartime.

When the answer comes back “Yes,” we then tell the Member of Congress that we presently spend $1M per troop per year in Afghanistan. That amounts to $100B per year. We need to find a graceful way to bring home our troops … while we keep pressure on Al Qaida, its affiliates and the Taliban. This requires a different strategy than what we are presently doing – more along the lines of a counter terrorism strategy instead of a nation-building strategy. If we could reduce Afghanistan spending by say … $50B per year, the President’s goal of $400B over twelve years would be easily met.

Some members stop there; other press for deeper cuts. The explanation we give them usually involves an explanation of the various categories of spending. First there is Research & Development (R&D) spending. Usually it amounts to 2-3% of the budget. But … that is the future. R&D results in the US keeping its technological edge over any future adversary. It is generally a bad place to look for savings.

Second is acquisition funding. This category is usually hooked to contracts that have high termination costs. Recently CSBA did a study which pointed out the acquisition dollars as compared to R&D dollars has fallen about 30% in the past decade. What this means is that the Services have old, tired, and worn out equipment that they are not replacing fast enough. They need to reconstitute their forces.

Third is military construction funding. The Services, in the FY12 budget request, asked for about $7B … or $3B each for the Army and Navy and $1B for the Air Force. It is this money that is going to eliminate high energy bills, permit adequate housing for families (thereby reducing funding for recruitment and training for the people who leave), repair existing facilities to include runways, roads, bridges, buildings and infrastructure. At only 1.3% of the DOD budget, it is money well spent.

Fourth is Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funding. This funds everything from flying hours, tank driving miles, and ship sailing days to munitions and training. Much of it is to fund our wartime expenses and to keep our forces trained and ready. We learned from the hollow-force years of the late 1970s, that we make significant cuts in this area at our peril. However, as mentioned in the second paragraph above, we can make significant cuts in this area if we reduce our operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

The fifth area is military personnel. Presently, the US Navy and the US Air Force personnel levels are near all-time post WWII lows. The Army and US Marines have been increased to handle the increased opstempo of the present conflicts. To save money in military personnel (which amounts to almost 35% of the DOD budget), you have to take out troops. This can be done, but increases pressure on the remaining force and drives longer deployments to (mostly) Afghanistan.

Thus, if one wants to make serious cuts to Defense, one would decrease our presence on the ground in Afghanistan, continue our decrease in Iraq, and wind down our air activities over Libya. As the troops come out, the ground forces will need to be reduced. This requires a shift of strategy in primarily Afghanistan and a re-look in what type of defenses we need in the future.

We argue that we should leverage our technology to reconstitute our forces; rely on an Air, Space, Cyber, and Naval strategy; and, as Sec Gates has said, stop deploying ground forces into Asia, the Middle East, and Africa – where we end up with attrition warfare, high casualties and burdensome costs. We hope Sec Panetta can lead the effort to adjust our present strategy.