PROJECT ON DEFENSE ALTERNATIVES UPDATES archives

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2014-01-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

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The Project on Defense Alternvatives

PDA Update - January 2014

2014-01-15T15:22:00.000-05:00

Project on Defense Alternatives

Update

The Project on Defense Alternatives has long been an advocate of restraint when it comes to employing military means to foreign affairs and an advocate for investing more in non-violent means of global engagement. Five years ago we recognized that the country's fiscal situation would force a degree of restraint on the Pentagon and the White House. We turned much of our attention to work around the military budget and contributed substantially to ending the growth of military spending (at least in the near term.)

Now with the economy slowly improving and Congressional budget deadlock easing the budgetary restraints on the Pentagon are beginning to ease as well. We will continue work on the budget, but are turning more of our attention to strategic issues and the overall military force posture which is supposed to flow from strategy, but which, of course, is always resistant to change. In the end it is national strategy and the means accumulated to support the strategy that gets the U.S, into wars.

Strategy and force posture will be the central focus of PDA's Reset Defense Bulletin, now published bi-weekly. Recent editions of the Bulletin can be viewed here.

The most recent Bulletin is titled Will the U.S. make needed changes to national strategy?

Should you wish to subscribe please visit this webpage: http://www.comw.org/pda/subpageRDBulletin.html It is always easy to unsubscribe ... should you feel the Bulletin is cluttering your inbox.

This past year we also changed our institutional affiliation. For more than twenty years we were affiliated with the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, MA. A year ago we moved PDA to a larger Washington, DC-based organization, The Center for International Policy. We are very pleased with the new affiliation.

Carl Conetta who lives in the DC area is now serving as the director of PDA's program while Charles Knight works as a non-resident Senior Fellow from his Cambridge office.

Should you wish to contact us you can email pda (at) comw.org or call the Center at (202) 232-3317.

Project on Defense Alternatives: Defense Sense – Fiscal Year 2014 Update: Options for National Security Savings (06/28/13)

Center for International Policy: Time to Reset Defense: Guidance for a More Effective and Affordable US Defense Posture – conference presentations (video) (03/26/13)

Government Executive: Striking a New Deal on Defense – Carl Conetta and Charles Knight (02/13/13)

Project on Defense Alternatives: Reasonable Defense: A Sustainable Approach to Securing the Nation - Carl Conetta (11/14/12)

Project on Defense Alternatives: How does defense spending rate for job creation? – Ethan Rosenkranz (06/25/12)

National Interest: How to Pay for Wars – Benjamin H. Friedman and Charles Knight (03/06/12)

New PDA report outlines a “Reasonable Defense” – Seeks to slim armed forces by 18% and Save $68 billion yearly

2012-11-14T16:22:00.003-05:00

Washington, D.C., November 14, 2012 – The Project on Defense Alternatives released a study today outlining a new global strategy for addressing security threats that also promises to free hundreds of billions over ten years for debt reduction and economic revitalization. Entitled Reasonable Defense: A Sustainable Approach to Securing the Nation, the report sees the principal challenge to the United States as being economic in nature rather than military.

Click here to download a copy of Reasonable Defense

Reasonable Defense proposes focusing the US military on those missions and responsibilities for which it is best suited – traditional defense, deterrence, and crisis response – while jettisoning large national-building efforts and counter-insurgency campaigns. It advocates more and better-balanced security cooperation with other nations, but sees “preventive security” initiatives to be largely the job of the State Department. “Our military is a fabulously expensive tool,” said the report’s principal author, Carl Conetta, “and we can no longer afford to misuse it.”

With a Reasonable Defense posture in place, the United States could adopt a national security budget similar in size to that which would result under the sequester provisions of the Budget Control Act, according to PDA co-director Charles Knight. However, unlike that budgeting device, the proposed reductions will be introduced gradually over a period of five years. The PDA plan sees the defense budget stabilizing at about $462 billion in today’s dollars. Compared with President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget, this would save $550 billion over ten years.

Under the Reasonable Defense plan:

The active component military would comprise 1.15 million personnel – a 19 percent reduction from the 2012 active-component military of about 1.42 million.

The Navy will have a battle fleet of 230 vessels: 9 aircraft carriers, at least 23 amphibious warfare ships, and 160 other surface and subsurface combatants. This would allow annual shipbuilding to fall from the current level of 9 ships per year down to 5-6 ships.

The United States would field 2,780 combat fighter aircraft – down from the previously planned level of 3,150. The Navy and Marine Corps variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would be cancelled in favor of additional procurement of F-16 and F/A-18s.

Congressman Barney Frank joined Mr. Conetta for a press briefing today. Congressman Frank reviewed the prospects for future reductions in US defense spending and commented, “This latest report makes the case very persuasively that we will save even more and with less stress in some ways, if we rethink our strategic posture and essentially scale back what has been a multi-decade assertion that America needs to be everywhere. And this says, you know, the Cold War is over, and things have gotten a lot better in terms of not having a major enemy. Let’s revise our strategic objectives to a realistic point. And then we can save a great deal of money.”

Click here to listen to a recording of the press briefing

As Congress returns to Washington this week, it faces a myriad of issues none more alarming than the “fiscal cliff.” A Reasonable Defense offers a clear and credible alternative to the sequestration of defense funds and provides important guidance to those who must manage the forthcoming defense builddown. The report also shows how to best balance the competing requirements of national security with those of national strength.

A 250 Ship Obama Navy?

2012-10-25T21:23:00.000-04:00

A number of Republican leaders and naval experts have recently been suggesting that the Obama administration is leading the nation toward a battle fleet of just 250 ships. Immediately following the last presidential debate, Rep. Randy Forbes (R –VA) and Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) held a press briefing in Virginia and stated that the Obama Navy is on a path to reduce the number of ships in the battle fleet from the current 284 to below 250. This was reported by The Hill and the Daily Press of Hampton Roads, VA.

We were unfamiliar with the 250 number associated with any current Navy planning, so we wondered where did this 250 number come from?

First, we can report that it is not an official number. The Navy’s official fleet plan is found on pg. 4 Table ES-2 “FY2013-2042 Naval Battle Force Inventory” of Naval Operations’ “Annual Report to Congress on Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2013.” The table shows a low of 276 ships in FY15 and a ten year high of 300 ships in FY19.

So, if the notion of a 250 ship Navy is not official, where did it come from?

Its origin appears to be verbal testimony provided by Eric Labs, CBO Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces on 9 March 2011. Mr. Forbes serves on the Subcommittee.

During this hearing Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) asked Mr. Labs, “…if the Navy remains at its currently planned levels of funding, how many ships do you believe the Navy will be short of its 313-ship planned procurement?” Mr. Labs response was, “…if the Navy is stuck with the historical average of $15 billion, in other words they must cut substantial numbers of ships out of their program, would depend very much on the composition of those cuts. If they choose to cut very expensive ships, you could end up having a force not of 313 or 322, but maybe somewhere around the force we have today of 280. If you cut more of a mix of less expensive ships, it could range anywhere from 200 to 250 ships in the fleet. It would depend very much on what whoever would be the deciding authority, whether it would be the Congress or the Navy, what they decide to remove from the shipbuilding plan in order to bring that overall budgetary level over the next 30 years into sort of an historical average line.”

The idea of the Navy shrinking to 250 ships next surfaced in an op-ed by Robert Kaplan appearing in the Financial Times on 29 November 2011. In it, he wrote: “The US navy’s current strength is 284 warships. In the short term that number may rise to 313 because of the introduction of littoral combat ships. Over time, however, it may fall to about 250, owing to cost overruns, the need to address domestic debt and the decommissioning of aging warships in the 2020s.”

Patrick Cronin of the Center for a New American Security joined Robert Kaplan in a January 2012 report called “Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea” (Chapter 1, p.6) writing: “The United States should strengthen its naval presence over the long term by building toward a 346-ship fleet rather than retreating to the 250-ship mark that the United States faces due to budget cuts and the decommissioning of aging warships in the next decade.” They go on to say (p.8) that: “Whereas the Reagan-era U.S. Navy boasted almost 600 warships, the number presently stands at 284. Although the Navy’s goal is to expand to 313 warships, current defense budgets, coupled with production delays and cost overruns, do not support that goal. Furthermore, with budget cuts in the offing, as well as the mass decommissioning of warships in the next decade because of age, the United States faces the prospect of a Navy with 250 ships or fewer.” Cronin and Kaplan don’t source their “250 ships or fewer”, but it seems quite likely they picked this up from Labs’ testimony.

John Lehman, Gov. Romney’s naval adviser and champion of a 350 ship Navy, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in April 2012 that “…It is anything but certain that the administration’s budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 ships at best.”

Eric Labs makes some cogent points about the choices the Navy and Congress have for living within a constrained shipbuilding budget. These insights have been ignored by advocates for a 346-350 ship Navy in their eager use of his “250 ships” phrase.

If the Navy retires and does not replace some high-end ships during the next twenty years it can manage its shipbuilding money so as to buy more ships that cost less. Obvious candidates for cuts are aircraft carriers and strategic missile subs. Cutting a couple carriers and reducing the strategic missile submarine fleet to seven will save tens of billions which can help pay for less expensive destroyers and attack subs. In the middle range of cost the LCS is steadily edging its way toward being a failed system (especially in terms of cost-effectiveness) and is more than twice as expensive as the retiring frigates it replaces. There are modern frigate designs that can built for a fraction of the cost of an LCS. These are just a few of the economical choices that the Navy and Congress can and will need to make to sustain the battle fleet.

Eric Labs also said that the size of the future fleet depended on choices of the “deciding authority… the Congress or the Navy.” In this regard it is notable that the Congress has denied the Navy’s request this year to retire three (expensive to operate) cruisers that the Navy wanted to decommission in order to, in part, free up resources for new shipbuilding.

[The Project on Defense Alternatives is an independent defense analysis ‘think tank’. In this campaign season it seems important to state that we prize our nonpartisan stance. We are skeptical of statements made by ‘experts’ aligned with both Democratic and Republican parties. We are proud to contribute quality information providing citizens with the wherewithal to make independent judgments.]

PDA Update - August 15, 2012

2012-09-21T10:47:00.004-04:00

A Reasonable Alternative to Sequester of DoD Funding

How should the U.S. defense posture and budget change as the war in Afghanistan winds down? This is a critical question for the nation, especially considering the growing fiscal pressures on the Federal government.

Unfortunately, the current panic about the pending "sequester" prevents clear thinking about the options before us. The January 2013 sequester of $55 billion in security spending will result in a precipitous reduction for the Pentagon. The Budget Control Act will trim the Pentagon in one stroke to a level close to its budget of 2007. This cut has been called "draconian" and "devastating" for the armed forces. A consensus has been growing in Washington that the Budget Control Act (BCA) must be amended or suspended in order to prevent sequestration.

This is not a choice between sequestration and no further cuts for DoD, however. There are ways to apply additional cuts to the Pentagon base budget that avoid both institutional disruption and most of the economic pain associated with deep cuts to government spending – a matter of some concern while the economy remains weak and struggling to recover. An illustrative option is the “Reasonable Defense” plan formulated by the Project on Defense Alternatives. It would ratchet back the base budget to the level of 2006 (corrected for inflation), but do so gradually in stages that the Pentagon and armed services could readily accommodate.

The table and chart that follow illustrate the first five years of the Reasonable Defense plan, comparing it with the Budget Control Act "sequester" budget, Administration's 2013 plan, and the actual 2012 spending level carried forward with increases for inflation. The first three years of Reasonable Defense cuts would be considerably smaller than what the BCA sequester entails. Then in 2017, when the post-recession economic recovery should be complete, the cuts would exceed those dictated by the BCA, eventually plateauing at a level about equal to the 2006 budget, which is somewhat lower than the sequestration level.

Alternative DoD Discretionary Spending Paths (billions nominal dollars)

Total for five years 2013-2017

2012 level + inflation 2,792

2013 DoD request 2,728

Sequestration Level 2,452

Reasonable Defense plan 2,528

The proposed reduction from today’s level would be quite modest by historical standards – about 14% in real terms compared to the 35% reduction that followed the end of the Cold War. And, because the reduction would occur gradually over four years, the annual steps down would be comparable to those successfully absorbed by the Defense Department during previous periods of adjustment.

What does this proposed level of funding mean? In inflation-adjusted terms, the 2012 Pentagon base budget is 38% higher than the 2001 budget, which was enacted before today’s wars had begun. While the Reasonable Defense plan would roll the base budget back to its 2006 level (adjusted for inflation), a fair portion of the spending increase would remain. The 2006 budget was 20% above the level of 2001, in real terms.

The Ten Year Perspective

The Reasonable Defense budget for ten years would cost $560 billion less than the 2013 plan submitted by the White House.

Over the course of ten years the White House plan is to provide the Pentagon with $5.76 trillion.The Reasonable Defense budget would provide the Pentagon with $5.2 trillion over ten years. The Budget Control Act would cap defense at about $5.18 trillion.

The full details of the Reasonable Defense national security posture are forthcoming from the Project on Defense Alternatives in September of 2012. The addendum that follows gives some details of the plan.

Addendum: Prospectus for a Reasonable Defense

The PDA “Reasonable Defense” plan would reset America’s defense posture in light of new strategic challenges and circumstances. Based on a more realistic and cost-effective defense strategy, the new posture would enable a sustainable balance between military power and other elements of national strength. The new strategy would:

Refocus America’s armed forces on those missions and tasks for which they are best suited: crisis response, defense, and deterrence.
Prioritize those threats that pose the greatest danger of harm to ourselves and our allies: terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons.
Assume a more cooperative approach to achieving security goals – one in which responsibilities, burdens, and authorities are proportionately shared among allies and the broader community of nations.
Tailor conventional war capabilities and modernization efforts to a realistic assessment of current and emerging conventional military challenges.
Hedge against an uncertain future by renewing economic strength, maintaining a strong foundation for force reconstitution as well as a proportionately larger Reserve component, and continuing support for research, development, and the prototyping of new military technologies.
Reduce by 40% our routine peacetime military presence overseas and put greater emphasis on surging military power forward when and as needed.
Refrain from protracted counter-insurgency operations and armed “nation building” efforts.
Take a significant step toward a “minimal deterrent” nuclear posture, redouble efforts at strategic arms control, and adopt a no-first-use nuclear policy.

Following from these strategic precepts, the Reasonable Defense plan would reduce the size of the active-component military from more than 1.4 million troops today to 1.15 million by the end of 2016 – 19% reduction in military personnel over four years. Combat troops and units would be reduced by only 17%, however – more for the ground forces, less for the air forces. The reduction in National Guard and Reserve personnel would also be less: only 11%.

Once the drawdown to a Reasonable Defense level is complete, the annual Defense Department base budget would stabilize at approximately $455 billion (2012 dollars), which is 14% below the Fiscal Year 2012 budget.

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/140812bm56-Defense-Sequester.pdf

PDA Update - August 1, 2012

2012-09-21T10:35:00.004-04:00

50+ Congressional Staff Briefed on
Defense Savings Options

Yesterday, July 31, 2012, Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives, Ben Friedman of the Cato Institute, and Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress, presented options and arguments for defense savings to a standing-room-only meeting of more than fifty Congressional staff in the Rayburn House Office Building. The meeting was moderated by Laura Peterson of Taxpayer for Common Sense and sponsored by the offices of Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN), Jack Kingston (R-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and John Campbell (R-CA).

A central concern of participants was options for Fiscal Year 2013 defense appropriations and the likely amendment of the Budget Control Act.

Laura Peterson reviewed the debt and deficit challenge as well as the efforts to date to achieve significant defense savings. She noted that the defense industry has mounted a strong defense of current levels of spending, but that recent bi-partisan cooperation on defense budget restraint showed hope for greater savings.

Carl Conetta proposed a goal of reducing National Defense spending for FY 2013 by $15 billion to $18 billion, which would imply a top line of about $535 billion. Drawing on recommendations outlined in the Defense Sense report, he suggested significant savings could be realized by accelerating personnel reductions, reducing strategic weapon modernization, and selectively cutting conventional weapon programs. He pointed out that, despite the nation’s fiscal woes, the national defense budget had declined by less than 5 percent in real terms since 2010.

Ben Friedman challenged the notion that defense budget reductions, even at the level implied by sequestration, would imperil the economy or hobble the armed services. The impact of reduced budget authority in any one year would be spread over several years of outlays, he said. Greater budgetary restraint would encourage the armed services to compete and find new efficiencies. And the overall economic effect of debt and deficit reduction would be positive over the long-term. Funds removed from the Pentagon account would not simply disappear, he said, but could re-enter the economy in ways more conducive to growth.

Reinforcing the point about the delayed impact of cuts, Lawrence Korb pointed out that the Defense Department now holds $80 billion in unspent authorized cash from previous years. Korb also criticized making defense policy decisions based on industrial interests, noting that the Navy does not really want the F-35, on which it will spend more than $1.8 billion in FY 2013. Korb also challenged the assertion that significant budget reductions would bring disaster to the Pentagon, recalling that much deeper cuts had been enacted between 1985 and 1994.

Looking to the future, meeting participants saw the recent victory of the Mulvaney-Frank amendment as heralding more bipartisan cooperation in achieving defense savings. And they saw the post-election period – when the sequester threat would loom – as presenting a renewed opportunity for real progress toward a more sensible level of defense expenditure.

PDA Update - July, 2012

2012-09-21T10:33:00.002-04:00

It now appears quite likely that following this year’s election the Budget Control Act will be either suspended (“kicked down the road”) or amended in order to avoid the $110 billion sequester of discretionary budget funds, half of which will come out of national security accounts, mostly from the Department of Defense. The intensive political negotiations on Budget Control Act amendment will begin in November with $50+ billion in DoD budget cuts on the table under current law. Of course, the composition of future budgets and any fiscal compromise will depend on who is President in 2013 and the balance of power in Congress.

Although Pentagon boosters are fond of calling the 9-10% budget cut in the current law “draconian” and “dangerous” it does not amount to much when put in context of what our enemies and potential opponents spend. A new PDA summary of global military spending called USA and Allies Outspend Potential Rivals on Military by Four-to-One : America Carries Much of the Defense Burden for its Allies tells the story.

A $50 billion reduction in U.S. defense spending results in a ratio of 3.8 to 1 (between the U.S. and allies to the un-allied set of current and potential opponents.) A 4 to 1 spending superiority is extraordinary overmatch, and a 3.8 to 1 overmatch is also extraordinary. We might want to return attention to this matter when and if the overmatch is merely 2 to 1. Meanwhile we can continue to make judicious cuts to the DoD spending for quite some time.

When an amended Budget Control program is negotiated later this year and early next PDA believes there should be no less than $12 billion (2.3%) in additional DoD cuts in FY13. With concern about the still weak economy we favor phasing-in deeper cuts over the next four years. We think the Pentagon should be trimming back to circa 2006 levels as quickly as the services can reasonably be expected to adapt and the economy can absorb the decline in Federally supported jobs.

The specifics of a readily available set of program cuts worth $17-20 billion in 2013 are listed in PDA's Defense Sense.

Rep. Barbara Lee (CA) has introduced an amendment to the FY13 House Appropriations bill cutting DoD’s budget by $19.2 billion. This is an appropriate and reasonable cut for the coming year.

PDA Update - May, 2012

2012-09-21T10:32:00.002-04:00

Defense Sense and the Budget Control Act

After the U.S. economy slid into the Great Recession in 2008, the Federal Government’s deficit spending and the national debt grew rapidly. President Obama responded to this perceived fiscal crisis by establishing the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform which worked through most of 2010 to craft a bipartisan deficit reduction package. However, the Fiscal Commission failed to find a solution supported by the super-majority of commission members which its mandate required. What followed in 2011 was a dysfunctional seven months of partisan conflict in Congress over the budget process. Finally, in August of 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act (BCA), which requires at least $2.2 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years.

The two-pronged approach outlined in the Budget Control Act requires two steps: first, the Budget Control Act requires $1 trillion in discretionary spending reductions over ten years. Congress is currently considering how to achieve the first portion of mandated spending reductions. It is notable that the National Defense Authorization Act recently passed by the House exceeds BCA caps by $8 billion. The Senate is expected to mark its Defense Authorization to the Presidents budget which is $4 billion over the caps.

The second portion of the Budget Control Act (sometimes referred to as the “sequester” provision) goes into effect on January 2, 2013, and mandates an additional $110 billion in automatic cuts to federal spending in fiscal year 2013 and similar cuts for each of the following nine years.

Remarkably, both parties in Congress and the Administration have essentially ignored the requirements of sequestration up to this point. Because Congress refuses to address the spending reductions mandated by the Budget Control Act that will happen on January 2nd, this year’s lame duck Congress returning from recess after the November election faces an unprecedented challenge.

Many in Washington assume that the Budget Control Act will be amended to avoid sequestration. However, the major political parties are likely to remain at an impasse. Republicans have pledged not to allow tax increases while Democrats resist reforms to earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare and are reluctant to agree to additional cuts to domestic programs in the discretionary budget. While each party’s leadership remains loyal to their respective ideological position, neither currently acknowledge the possibility of compromise that involves further Pentagon spending reductions.

Today, the Pentagon’s “non-war” base budget comprises over 50 percent of discretionary spending. Since 2000 it has risen by 90 percent in nominal “inflated dollar” terms and 42 percent in real terms. The Pentagon base budget is currently around $550 billion annually. There is no realistic compromise on deficit reduction which does not include a substantial contribution from the Pentagon.

Reaching across ideological differences to produce a new report called Defense Sense, analysts from the Project on Defense Alternatives and the Cato Institute have identified 18 specific options that will yield up to $20 billion in additional defense savings in 2013.

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/120515DefSense.pdf

These are not “draconian” cuts that threaten national security. They total about 4% of the Pentagon’s current base budget. Many involve deciding now to end troubled programs and instead use systems that are field-tested, reliable, and much less costly. Others savings involve making modest shifts in the posture of forces such as making additional reductions to troops stationed in Europe sixty-seven years after World War II and twenty-two years after the Cold War.

Examples of troubled programs to cancel are the Littoral Combat Ship and the Marine Corps variant of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, both of which are prime examples of the current problems in U.S. defense acquisition. Deciding to cancel these and to replace them with proven systems at much lower costs will save an estimated $3.8 billion in Fiscal Year 2013 alone.

There are also sensible changes to the United States’ strategic nuclear posture that involve eliminating and reducing capabilities which are excessive and redundant or designed to counter threats which no longer exist.

The options outlined in Defense Sense are modest in scope. If we are to ensure a stable fiscal future for generations to come, it is imperative that the United States responsibly balance the requirements of military power and national strength.

It is national strength in its many facets that will ultimately determine our security and our position internationally. Military power is but one part of national strength. The Pentagon’s budget, and our overall federal budget priorities, must reflect this reality.

~~~~~

Defense Sense:

Options for National Defense Savings in Fiscal Year 2013

Full report
Summary of recommendations

Recommendations focus on seriously troubled weapon programs and on capabilities that significantly mismatch or exceed defense requirements. This is a practical first step. More might be saved by rethinking our national security commitments, strategy, and missions -- as we and our colleagues at Cato have suggested elsewhere.

In developing our recommendations, we drew on and adapted previous efforts to identify safe and sensible defense savings, including the President's own National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and the Sustainable Defense Task Force (of which we were members).

Defense Sense has already played a significant role in Congressional efforts to amend the National Defense Authorization Act.

PDA Update - February, 2012

2012-02-20T15:08:00.000-05:00

It has been a busy winter for PDA with the long anticipated release of the Pentagon's strategic guidance in January followed by the FY2013 budget release in February. PDA prepared briefing materials for circulation to journalists, analysts, advocates and grass roots activists before each of these official events and was sought after for analysis and comment by journalists as demonstrated by the press citations listed below.

Here are the briefing materials PDA produced:

Defense Strategy Review: Does Obama Run Hot or Cold on Defense?  When analyzing the budget request in 2013 dollars, Carl Conetta finds that the administration’s spending request is still far above the Cold War average of $443 billion per year.  (2/13/12)

The Project on Defense Alternatives: Panetta Releases DoD "Austerity" Budget; Pentagon Retains Most of Post-1998 Increase. Carl Conetta examines the administration’s FY13 budget request in historical terms and finds that DoD spending, both under current law as well as under sequestration, would still be higher than the inflation-adjusted average for the Cold War years.  (1/26/12)

Recent Press Citations

San Francisco Chronicle: Defense Cuts Are a Drop in the Bucket. The Chronicle’s Carolyn Lochhead surveys BPWG members Winslow Wheeler, Christopher Preble, and Carl Conetta for their thoughts on the recently released defense budget.  (2/13/12)

Wall Street Journal: White House Proposes Cap on Wartime Spending.  The White House has proposed a $450 billion cap on war fundingover the next ten years, and will use a portion of the savings to fund infrastructure investments domestically. However, should OCO funding spike in future years, it is unlikely that the lost savings would come out of the DoD base budget.  (2/13/12)

National Defense: 2013 Defense Budget Rollout: Just the Opening Salvo.  Sandra Erwin finds that the Pentagon’s budget request keeps military spending at historically high levels despite persistently high budget deficits, with Charles Knight commenting that the budget “does not signal a new era of ‘restrained military posture for the United States.’” (2/13/12)

Wall Street Journal: Military Faces Historic Shift. The Wall Street Journal covers reaction to the strategic review, with Charles Knight pointing out that the “first strategic priority of the United States is getting its economic house in order. Doing this means spending less on the military in coming years.” (1/6/12)

Congressional Quarterly: Defense Lobbyists, Contractors Begin to Speculate Where Cuts Will Hit. Frank Oliveri surveys defense analysts’ predictions on how the defense budget will be trimmed, with Charles Knight forecasting “I don’t think we’re at the end of this.”  (1/6/12)

BBC: Pentagon Cuts: What Will the New US Military Look Like?  Heather Hurlburt discusses potential policy changes that may emanate from the Pentagon’s strategy review, including decreased Army troop levels, while Charles Knight points out that a smaller Army would increase pressure on the National Guard and Reserves should a large scale counter-insurgency or ground war occur. (1/5/12)

Boston Globe: Pentagon Should Do More Cutting, Less Complaining About Budget. Citing PDA’s figure that the Pentagon has spent $32 billion on cancelled weapons systems, the Boston Globe editorial board urges DoD to be smarter about procurement decisions.   (1/2/12)

Key Activities

PDA prepared a draft "bottom up" Reasonable Defense posture plan which Carl Conetta presented at Congresswoman Barbara Lee's request to the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Policy Summit meeting in Baltimore on January 19th. PDA is currently completing a full version of this post-Iraq/Afghanistan wars posture plan which will help progressives to have a strong and articulate position on national security looking forward. It also provides guidance to the nation on how to make deeper cuts in the military budget without the disruption built into the 'sequester' provisions of the Budget Control Act.

PDA worked with Progressive Congress and the CPC to organize a strategy and budget briefing for more than a dozen congressional offices.

PDA consulted with the office of Rep. Edward Markey on details of savings estimates for reducing the future number of strategic missile submarines as part of a comprehensive strategic nuclear force reduction legislation the congressman is introducing. Since 2010 when the Sustainable Defense Task Force proposed reducing the deployed strategic warhead force from 1550 in the New START treaty to 1000, we are gratified to have witnessed this issue open up with new attention to significant cuts.

New Resource Pages from PDA

·         The Pentagon Budget and Jobs: How Does Defense Spending Rate for Job Creation?
·         A Short Tour of Pentagon Financial Mismanagement, Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

PDA Reset Defense Bulletin

The Project on Defense Alternatives publishes a semi-weekly newsletter, which provides readers with the latest developments and news items pertaining to the reformulation of U.S. defense policy and budgeting. To subscribe to the PDA Reset Defense Bulletin, please click here.

PDA Responds to Pentagon Strategic Review

2012-01-06T18:09:00.001-05:00

On Thursday, January 5th President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and General Martin Dempsey briefed the press on the results of an eight-month strategy review that will guide future budget decisions. The strategic review comes at the behest of President Obama, who, in April 2011, directed senior Pentagon officials to conduct a fundamental review of America’s defense posture in order to identify options for saving roughly $487 billion over ten years relative to the President’s previous budget request.   Last fall, Secretary Panetta cited $260 billion as the savings target for Fiscal Years 2013 to 2017. (Additional PDA analysis of the administration’s upcoming budget request can be found here).

Reflecting new strategic realities, the review calls for an increased focus on power projection and deterrence in the Asia Pacific region while using “innovative methods” to sustain the U.S. presence in Africa and Latin America.   The review also calls for an evolving military posture in Europe that will enhance the capabilities of America’s allies. The President acknowledged that shifting priorities will require the United States to eliminate outdated Cold War-era systems as well as altering the size and composition of U.S. ground forces. Finally, the President made clear that the era of long-term nation building operations has come to a close.

Although the President and his advisors declined to cite specific policy changes during today’s press conference, unnamed Pentagon officials have hinted that reductions in planned procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; delay in development of the new Ford-class aircraft carrier; a reduction in Army and Marine Corps end strength; and a decrease in U.S. military’s presence in Europe may be forthcoming. Additional details will be revealed in the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, which is expected to be released later this month.

Commentary on the Strategic Guidance:

Charles Knight, co-director, Project on Defense Alternatives

National strategy must always adjust to new challenges and changing resource conditions.   The first strategic priority of the United States today is to get its economic house in order.   Doing this means spending less on the military in coming years. The changes announced by the President and Defense Secretary are only baby steps forward. The nation needs more and bigger steps to follow.

It is misleading to fuss about the two war construct as if it were strategic doctrine. The U.S. did not simultaneously undertake the intense fighting phases of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Its military problems in those conflicts are associated with subsequent commitments to counterinsurgency and nation building. As with World War II, the long-standing American practice is for sequential focused action in different theaters. What has been called a strategy of “win, hold, win” is simply being sensible. It means not falling for the hubris that our military can do everything, everywhere at once.

Carl Conetta, co-director, Project on Defense Alternatives

Despite all the hyperbole surrounding it, the administration’s proposal to roll back the Department of Defense budget for Fiscal Years 2013-2017 by $260 billion doesn’t amount to much of a reduction from recent spending levels – about 4 percent in real terms. The roll back does appear more significant when measured against previous spending plans, however. But that’s only because, to varying degrees, those plans aimed to continue the real growth in the Pentagon’s base budget that’s been underway since 1998.

Viewed in this light, the new strategic review has less to do with rethinking America’s actual role in the world than with revising some of the ambitions expressed in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and 2011 National Military Strategy.

Relevant Reports

·         Keep Pentagon Cuts in Perspective: What the Administration Proposes is Hardly Dramatic, January 2012, by Carl Conetta
·         Strategic Adjustments to Sustain the Force: A Survey of Current Proposals, October 2011, by Charles Knight
·         The Pentagon’s News Mission Set: A Sustainable Choice?, October 2011, by Carl Conetta
·         Going for Broke: The Budgetary Consequences of Current US Defense Strategy, October 2011, by Carl Conetta
·         Pentagon Cuts in Context: No Reason for “Doomsday” Hysteria, October 2011, by Carl Conetta

Relevant Resource Pages

·         The Pentagon Budget and Jobs: How Does Defense Spending Rate for Job Creation?
·         A Short Tour of Pentagon Financial Mismanagement, Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

PDA Reset Defense Bulletin

The Project on Defense Alternatives publishes a semi-weekly newsletter, which provides readers with the latest developments and news items pertaining to the reformulation of U.S. defense policy and budgeting. To subscribe to the PDA Reset Defense Bulletin, please click here.

PDA Update 12/21/11

2011-12-21T18:04:00.006-05:00

News from PDA

This fall we were very pleased to be able to bring Ethan Rosenkranz on staff as Program Associate. Ethan joins PDA after working more than four years on Capitol Hill with Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). While on the Hill, Ethan handled a diverse portfolio, including Appropriations, Budget, Economy, Energy, Taxes, and Veterans' Affairs. He was the principal architect of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) alternative budget resolutions for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012, incorporating much of the defense savings outlined by the Sustainable Defense Task Force.

The experience and knowledge that Ethan brings to PDA will be invaluable to our "sustainable defense" work and our new "Reset Defense" program which aims to define and promote a more realistic, effective, and sustainable US defense posture. Since September Ethan has been compiling and publishing PDA's semi-weekly Reset Defense Bulletin which offers news, views, and analysis on efforts to reform US defense policy, posture, and budgeting along more effective and sustainable lines.

You can subscribe to the Reset Defense Bulletin at http://defensealt.org/uzJ7yR. If the Bulletin is not to your taste, you can unsubscribe easily on the bottom of each issue. You can view a recent archived issue at http://defensealt.org/vZQzUl.

We are very pleased that our efforts (joined by many others) over the last two years have resulted in a defense budget that will be relatively flat in real terms for last year, this year and the next several years. Two years ago the Obama FY2010 budget had projected real continuing growth for the Pentagon budget, albeit at a slower rate than during the Bush years. Current planning which will appear publicly in February is for a 6% cut from the 2010 projection.

But keep in mind that the Pentagon's base (non-war) budget had grown 46% in real terms since 1998. We think double or triple (12-18% vs 6% in the present plan) real cuts are reasonable and safe for the country. So there is much more to be done.

What have we done recently?

Earlier in the fall we were consulting with congressional "super-committee" member Rep. Xavier Becerra of California. More recently we organized a briefing for twelve congressional aides on the prospects for change in national security strategy and budgets.

In October we published several reports relevant to the current strategic and budgetary moment:

Going for Broke: The Budgetary Consequences of Current US Defense Strategy by Carl Conetta shows how the Pentagaon's adoption of more ambitious goals, strategy, and missions after the Cold War led to today's unsustainable defense budgets.

Strategic Adjustment to Sustain the Force: A survey of current proposals by Charles Knight is a survey of five proposals by independent experts for adjusting US global strategy to new fiscal realities in ways that enhance security while avoiding 'hollowing' of the forces. The November 18 article called Power Down in the National Journal by James Kitfield quoted from this report and its author.

Funding

We have received pledges of $70,000 in one-to-one matching contributions to new money we raise for the project. So, if you like our work and want to make a contribution of whatever size, you can do so to our fiscal home The Commonwealth Foundation through Network for Good. Much appreciated.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Pentagon strategy drives up costs, but alternatives are available

2011-11-25T04:34:00.000-05:00

Going for Broke: The Budgetary Consequences of Current US Defense Strategy. Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #52, 25 October 2011. Shows how the Pentagon's adoption of more ambitious goals, strategy, and missions after the Cold War led to today's unsustainable defense budgets. Two tables.

Strategic Adjustment to Sustain the Force: A Survey of Current Proposals. Charles Knight. PDA Briefing Memo #51, 25 October 2011. Reviews five proposals by independent experts for adjusting US global strategy to new fiscal realities in ways that enhance security while avoiding 'hollowing' of the forces.

The Pentagon's New Mission Set: A Sustainable Choice? Carl Conetta. An updated and expanded excerpt from the Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget (USB) for the United States, August 2011.

Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States FY 2011. Lawrence Korb and Miriam Pemberton, principal authors. Foreign Policy in Focus and the Institute for Policy Studies, 30 June 2011. Proposals to re-balance defense, homeland security, and international affairs spending. PDA is a member of report's task force.

Also see:

Re-Envisioning Defense: An Agenda for US Policy Debate & Transition. PDA Briefing Memo #44, December 2008.

What Are the Goals of Recent US Defense Strategy

A Year in the Fight Over Defense Spending

2011-11-25T04:28:00.000-05:00

Pentagon Cuts in Context: No reason for "doomsday" hysteria. Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #50, 11 October 2011. Analyzes the potential impact of the Budget Control Act on the defense budget under different scenarios and compares likely future budget levels to past ones.

Resource compilation: The Pentagon Budget and Jobs: How Does Defense Spending Rate for Job Creation? Compiled & edited by Ethan Rosenkranz.

Resource compilation: A Short Tour of Pentagon Financial Mismanagement, Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Compiled & edited by Ethan Rosenkranz and Carl Conetta.

Pentagon Review Must Aim for More than Modest Cuts in Defense Spending. PDA Briefing Memo #49, 25 April 2011. The President's proposal to trim DoD's future budget plans by 6.5% or $400 billion over 12 years is a modest step. The forthcoming Pentagon review must aim higher in order to achieve sustainability. Two charts summarize past and planned Pentagon budgets.

Continuing Resolution: Congress Goes Easy on DoD. PDA Briefing Memo #48, 17 March 2011. Examines House and Senate allocation of budget cuts to defense and non-defense accounts for 2011 fiscal year.

The Pentagon and Deficit Reduction: FY-2012 Budget Retains Exceptional Level of Defense Spending. [HTML Version] Carl Conetta. PDA Briefing Memo #47, 1 March 2011. Reviews military spending plans for 2012-2016. 10 tables and charts.

Pentagon Resists Deficit Reduction. PDA Briefing Memo #46, 30 January 2011. Examines Defense Secretary Gates' offer to cut $78 billion from defense plans over five years. Two tables compare different spending scenarios.

Also see:

Are We Ready to Cut Defense Spending? What the Polls Say. Carl Conetta and Charles Knight, Huffington Post, 11 February 2011. Reviews recent polling data on the change in public attitudes toward defense spending.

Defense Budget Resources 2011 - Critical Perspectives on the Pentagon Budget and US Military Spending. Compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives.

Toward a Sustainable Defense Budget

Why is the Pentagon Budget So High?

Toward a Sustainable Defense Budget

2011-11-25T04:12:00.000-05:00

Debt, Deficits, and Defense: A Way Forward. Report of the Sustainable Defense Task Force, 11 June 2010. The seminal report that began the current debate over defense budget cuts. It presents options for reducing DoD's budget, in sum saving nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

Executive Summary (12 page)
Short Summary (4 page)

Rethinking our Defense Budget: Achieving National Security through Sustainable Spending. Carl Conetta written testimony for Congressional hearing on US defense spending, US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, 20 July 2010.

Experts Letter on Defense Spending to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, 18 November 2010. Joint declaration by 48 top scholars and practitioners of national security policy: "We can achieve safe savings in defense if we are willing to rethink how we produce military power and how, why, and where we put it to use."

For the Sake of National Security, the Pentagon Must Tighten Its Belt. Carl Conetta and Charles Knight. National Defense, May 2010

The Pentagon’s Runaway Budget. Carl Conetta. Foreign Policy in Focus, 3 March 2010. Offers an overview of the factors driving the sharp rise in US defense spending.

Why is the Pentagon Budget So High?

2011-11-25T04:05:00.000-05:00

The Dynamics of Defense Budget Growth, 1998-2011. Carl Conetta presentation at US Naval War College workshop, "Economics and Security: Resourcing National Priorities," 19–21 May 2010. Published in Richmond Lloyd, ed., Economics and Security: Resourcing National Priorities (Newport RI: Naval War College Press, 2010).

Time To Get Serious about DoD Reform. C. Conetta and C. Knight. Defense News, 21 February 2010.

An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending. PDA Briefing Report #20, 18 January 2010. Carl Conetta. Analyzes the steep rise in defense spending since 1998. 21 charts and tables.

The President's Dilemma: Debt, Deficits, and Defense Spending. PDA Briefing Memo #45, 18 January 2010. The nation faces Reagan-level deficit spending and greatly increased debt. Can the president's program of high defense spending and increased non-defense spending survive?

Graphs

DoD Budget Authority 1997-2019 from the FY-2011 Budget Submission
DOD Budget Authority 1948-2019 from the FY-2011 Budget Submission
Gross Federal Debt as % GDP 1940-2019
Percentage Shares Global Military Spending

What Are the Goals of Recent US Defense Strategy?

2011-11-25T04:00:00.001-05:00

Forceful Engagement: Rethinking the Role of Military Power in US Global Policy. Dec 2008. The US has been using its armed forces beyond the limit of their utility.

Executive Summary

A Prisoner to Primacy. [HTML Version] PDA Briefing Memo #43, 05 February 2008. The US security policy debate remains paralyzed by 9/11 and mesmerized by military primacy. Progress depends on rethinking the role of force.

Cul de Sac: 9/11 and the Paradox of American Power. [HTML Version] PDA Research Monograph #13, 05 February 2008. Post-Cold War US security policy evinces a disturbing paradox: it has been delivering less and less security at ever increasing cost.

Dissuading China and Fighting the 'Long War.' Carl Conetta. World Policy Journal, June 2006. The 2006 US Defense Review advanced two new strategic vectors for the US armed forces - one targets a putative "global Islamic insurgency"; the other puts America on a collision course with China.

ambitious Pentagon goals, failed reforms, and weak priorities

2010-01-18T21:23:00.003-05:00

Two PDA reports released today dissect an "Unprecedented" spike in defense spending, citing as causes ambitious Pentagon goals, failed reforms, and weak priorities.

Since 1998 the Pentagon has spent more than $6.5 trillion. More than $2 trillion of this sum was above the levels set in 1998. But only half of the added funds were for recent wars and military operations. Among other things, this surge in spending has allowed the Defense Department to re-inflate its workforce to Cold War levels. And almost all the expansion is contractor labor.

These are among the findings of two 18 January reports on the dynamics of recent defense spending from the Project on Defense Alternatives.

"An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending"

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABR20.pdf

executive summary --
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABR20exsum.pdf

"The President's Dilemma: Debt, Deficits, and Defense Spending"

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABM45.pdf

According to the reports, the boost in spending after 1998 is unmatched over a nearly 60-year period, edging out both the Reagan and the Kennedy-Johnson spending surges. The Obama administration, in a move likely to confound critics and supporters alike, plans to spend more on the Pentagon than any administration since 1948.

"The recent wars are only half the story," says author Carl Conetta, "And their high price tag raises as many questions as it answers." The report finds the recent wars to have cost $792,000 per deployed person per year, while the Vietnam war cost only $256,000, per person/year in today’s dollars.

Part of the reason for the relatively higher cost of current wars is that the United States today relies on an expensive professional military, rather than a conscript one. The cost-structure of today’s military is not well-suited to protracted, labor-intensive wars, concludes the report. Related to this, the proportion of private contractors used today is five times higher than during the Vietnam war.

Also adding to war costs, DoD equipment purchases in the decade before the wars focused too heavily on the legacy systems favored by the services and on long-range strike weapons. So an entirely new round of buying was needed to support counter-insurgency operations.

The reports find that DoD has been generally lax in setting priorities among contending acquisition programs. But the most serious problem cited in the studies was the adoption of ambitious new roles, missions, and strategies for a reduced military after the Cold War ended. A variety of reform and transformation efforts were supposed to make it possible for a smaller military to do more. But these efforts fell short of their promise. So costs rose with ambitions.

Since the mid-1990s, the Pentagon has turned increasingly to private contractors to help fill the gap between ambitious strategies and the available number of military personnel. The report finds that the Pentagon’s contractor workforce has probably grown by 40% since 1989 – while the numbers of military personnel and civilian DoD employees have declined by more than 30%.

To avoid today’s exceptionally high budgets the reports suggest that national authorities would have to be more realistic in setting military missions and goals, more judicious in decisions about going to war, more forceful in pushing for Pentagon reform, and stricter in setting and enforcing budget priorities.

There is a deeper political problem, warns Conetta: "At present, civilian leaders are politically disinclined to push the Pentagon hard or enact tighter budget constraints, and this stance undercuts reform." In reviewing the economic landscape, however, the reports do conclude that fiscal realities may soon prompt a change in attitudes.

"An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending"

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABR20.pdf

executive summary --
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABR20exsum.pdf

"The President's Dilemma: Debt, Deficits, and Defense Spending"

http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1001PDABM45.pdf

PDA Update -- November 2009

2009-11-25T18:22:00.008-05:00

New Publications:

Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces (Paperback and Kindle editions) (Mobipocket edition) by Lutz Unterseher with preface by Charles Knight and a chapter by Carl Conetta. Ryckschau, Berlin, June 2009. This book focuses on the most challenging set of tasks for today's military interventions: those required for the stabilization of countries seriously affected by civil war or insurgency. Primarily this is a mission for the ground forces and appropriate forces must be designed to be more robust than traditional peacekeepers and less aggressively violent than traditional war fighters.

* Helicopters in America’s post-9/11 wars by Carl Conetta, from Lutz Unterseher, et. al., Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces, Chapter 6 (Berlin: Ryckschau, June 2009)

PDA in the News:

Rethink Afghanistan a film by the Brave New Foundation, featuring several interview segments with Carl Conetta, 2009.

Follow PDA updates and the Defense Strategy Review page posts on Twitter

Is the QDR a fraud...

2009-08-01T17:09:00.007-04:00

In preparation for greater attention to defense policy and planning as the fourth Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) approaches completion and publication in early 2010, PDA has renovated its Defense Strategy Review Page, now in much more dynamic format. We expect it will be the go-to place on the Internet for information and debate about the QDR and US defense strategy and budgets. The new site is at:

http://www.comw.org/wordpress/dsr/

The inaugural post of the new site follows:

Is the QDR `a PR stunt' or a sincere effort to reconcile posture and budget with strategy?

by Charles Knight

Last fall I attended a seminar at MIT entitled "Analytical Tools for the Next Quadrennial Defense Review" given by senior analyst who had worked on several QDRs. The QDR is an every-four-years Pentagon study mandated by Congress and meant to review how closely the defense posture and its supporting budget fits with the national strategy. The seminar presenter spent an hour detailing the analytical methods of those who worked on the "force structuring" and policy studies that provide the basis for the QDR review process. That process is ongoing this year in preparation for the release of fourth QDR in early 2010.

After the presentation a former member of the National Security Council who happened to be seated to my right turned to me and said, "[The QDR] seems like a fraud."

More recently Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Chairman of the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee, referred to the QDR as a "PR stunt" and a "PR exercise" (as reported by Marjorie Censer, Inside the Pentagon, 18 June 2009.) Rep. Abercrombie then went on to offer a less than precise elaboration, saying, "It's all Thunderbird stuff, booms and all that."

I can not be all that sure what the former National Security Council member or Rep. Abercrombie meant by their characterizations of the QDR. But, having followed all four QDRs fairly closely, I can make an educated guess at what they are getting at.

Congress has intended that through the QDR the Pentagon will make a serious attempt to reconcile the national defense strategy to the defense posture of the services and from that presumed point of congruence reconcile it to the defense budget. Policy analysts frequently complain that strategy, posture and budget are dangerously out of whack. If the QDR process addresses this problem and then does the analytical and policy work required for making real advances toward reconciliation then we can judge that it is meeting its stated purpose. If it results in a public document that uses rhetorical flourish in order to mask disjuncture of ends and means and to perpetuate prior posture and budget directions, then it is something like a 'fraud' or 'PR exercise.'

The unfolding 2010 QDR process gives us a good opportunity to look for evidence of either real reconciliation or PR exercise. A few pieces of evidence:

* There are dozens of high level policy professionals and planners in the Pentagon who have more than a cursory responsibility for aspects of the QDR. They work with hundreds of others, some inside the military and many civilian consultants and contractors. Models are built and simulations are run. Task forces and issue teams work the results. No doubt
many of these people would be indignant if you told them their work was simply serving public relations and had little effect on the direction of policy.

* On the other hand, modeling output and even the output of task forces are quite sensitive to starting assumptions and specifications. Senior civilian and military leaders in the Pentagon carefully review input parameters and seek to influence how the particulars of output is summed up and presented to those responsible for the next steps in the process of getting to the final report. "Startling findings" and their policy implications are unlikely to find their way into the document drafts unless senior leadership wants them there.

* Consider also that Defense News has reported that the Pentagon is moving ahead with the FY'11 budget process before the budget work on the 2010 QDR is completed. Minimally, this is suggestive of prior budget and posture decisions running the QDR output, rather than the other way around.

[ The Defense Strategy Review Page will take note of what other evidence emerges pertaining to the question of whether the QDR is 'a fraud', 'a PR stunt', or a sincere effort to reconcile posture and budget with strategy? I invite your comments and viewpoints on this important question. ]

Report on Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq

2008-08-24T16:23:00.003-04:00

Quickly, Carefully, and Generously: The Necessary Steps for a Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq
Full text HTML
Printable Full Text PDF
Executive Summary PDF
From the Task Force for a Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq, a Commonwealth Institute publication, June 2008.
Preface by U.S. Representative James P. McGovern (MA - 03). Twenty-five initiatives the US can and should take to reduce violence and regional instability as the US leaves Iraq.

Where Do We Go From Here?
New York Times 7 July 2008 lead editorial cites the Responsible Withdrawal from Iraq report above.

Like a Mirage in the Desert: Full Withdrawal May Recede into the Time Horizon
By Charles Knight. Presentation at the United States Institute of Peace panel on The Future of the U.S. Military Presence in Iraq, 25 July 2008 (as prepared). Listen to the Podcast of the panel presentations and the Q&A.

Recent Publications

2008-07-31T23:28:00.005-04:00

Re-Envisioning Defense - An Agenda for US Policy Debate and Transition
Executive Summary PDF
Printable Full Text PDF
By Carl Conetta, 27 June 2008.
Summarizes problem areas in recent US defense policy as well as several broad topics of debate that touch on them all.

The Role of Force & the Armed Forces in post-Cold War US Foreign Policy: What have we learned? Cautionary lessons for the next administration
Security Policy Working Group symposium at Parsons: The New School for Design, NYC, 10 April 2008.
Presentations: Andrew Bacevich, "The Bush Doctrine: Origins and Demise" (Podcast); Carl Conetta, "Out from the House of War: A Litmus for New Leadership in Security Policy" (printable .pdf format)

Cul de Sac: 9/11 and the Paradox of American Power
Full Text HTML
Printable Full Text PDF
By Carl Conetta, PDA Research Monograph #13, 05 February 2008.
Post-Cold War US security policy evinces a disturbing paradox: it has been delivering less and less security at ever increasing cost. The reasons reside not in the differences between the Bush and Clinton administration, but in their points of similarity.

A Prisoner to Primacy
Full Text HTML
Printable Full Text PDF
By Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #43, 05 February 2008.
The United States is entering a period of policy transition, but there is a dearth of new thinking regarding security policy. The debate remains paralyzed by 9/11 and mesmerized by military primacy. Progress depends on rethinking the role of force.

Toward a Sustainable US Defense Posture: An Option to save $60+ Billion Over the Next Five Years

2007-08-06T12:43:00.000-04:00

Full Text HTML Version
Printable Full Text Version

By Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #42, 02 August 2007.

Fiscal realities and public opinion may compel a cut in US defense spending. The memo outlines an option to save $60+ billion over the next five years by reducing fighter aircraft and aircraft carrier fleets.

Also see
Unified Security Budget for the United States, 2008, Foreign Policy in Focus and the Center for Defense Information, April 2007. Proposal re-balances defense, homeland security, and international affairs expenditures. PDA is a member of report's task force.

Dissuading China and Fighting the 'Long War', World Policy Journal. The 2006 US Defense Review advanced two new strategic vectors for the US armed forces - one targets a putative "global Islamic insurgency"; the other puts America on a collison course with China.

Congressional Withdrawal Plans, Iraqi Permanent Bases, More Ground Troops

2007-05-01T15:42:00.000-04:00

Issue 4 of Defense Analysis Bulletin, by Bipasha Ray, 01 May 2007

Congressional "withdrawal" plans only call for partial withdrawal from Iraq. At least 40,000 to 60,000 troops would have remain behind to train Iraqi forces, battle terrorists and protect American "interests." This brings up the unresolved issue of permanent bases. Does an increase in ground forces mean that the United States plans to be in Iraq indefinitely, and is Iraq prelude to building a larger military?

Read all back issues of the Defense Analysis Bulletin here.

America Speaks Out: Is the United States spending too much on defense?

2007-03-27T14:06:00.000-04:00

Full Text HTML Version
Printable PDF Version

By Carl Conetta, PDA Briefing Memo #41, 26 March 2007.

Today, the United States is responsible for half of total world military spending. A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans are beginning to have second thoughts.

Somalia, Horn of Africa, Results and Motivations of Terrorism

2007-03-12T12:06:00.000-04:00

Issue 3 of Defense Analysis Bulletin, by Bipasha Ray, 07 March 2007

U.S. aid to Somali warlords could be "misguided." Are American counterterrorism and military policies in the Horn of Africa destabilizing the region? An examination of the results and motivations of terrorism.

Read all back issues of the Defense Analysis Bulletin here.