DoD | Stop The Spirit of Zossen 2.0

What’s So Funny About War, Budget Bloat And Nomenklatura Self-Interest?

2012/06/15 By Dr Leo Strauss 6 Comments

DoD propaganda against the Budget Control Act’s sequester is remarkably shameless even for them. First, the ‘draconian’ cuts are anything but. They return DoD to Bush’s 2007 defense budget. DoD will get funded at the same level as at the height of a two-failed war bubble adjusted for inflation. Second, Obama (Romney?) ‘war’ outlays are specifically exempted. Sequester is not a ‘stab in the back’ to the ‘warfighter’(although it will be sold as such). Third, even if sequester is triggered this year, no budget cuts take effect until 2013 and can be postponed.

Sequester is an assault on DoD and its contractors’ privileged socio-economic position. Sure, debate will be framed in terms of ‘national security’. The truth? It’s about rice bowls, careers and status. And thus all the more fierce.

Sequester per Panetta = killing F-35, new bomber, LCS and Ground Combat Vehicle. This is ‘a disaster’? #Panetta #DoDBudgetBloat

— Leo Strauss (@DrLeoStrauss) June 15, 2012

The DoD 2010 budget marked the apotheosis of American mindless spending on ‘national security’. So in that sense, returning to 2007 means a little over 10% cut. This reveals how Obama merely tinkered with Bush’s war economy.

Sequester Cuts Are Not Historically ‘Unprecedented’

What do 2007 budgets (adjusted for inflation) mean? Bush DoD budgets marked a 31% increase over Clinton outlays plus the additional, off-the-books outlays for the two-failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Panetta and company claim sequester will cut this or that favorite weapons program. Not actually true. Sequester specifically permits DoD to move moneys among accounts (which it already does anyway). Thus, DoD can make priority allocations within the double-war 2007 budget (adjusted for inflation) for programs, agencies, etc. DoD naturally doesn’t want to choose.

Should sequester happen, how ‘unprecedented’ are the cuts? Not very. After 1991, a bi-partisan consensus reduced DoD demands on the American economy by almost 35% from the Reagan years. Post-Vietnam saw not dissimilar ratios. Sequester would not match those levels.

The problem for DoD is that people represent its largest long term cost. And the Force is not going to change in size much. No cost savings there. Thus, the cuts have to come from elsewhere.

It’s All About The Broken Process Buying Broken Toys

What did grow under Bush/Obama is procurement, R&D and contractor outsourcing. (Along with global mission creep). Under Bush/Obama, procurement outlays are up almost 100% since 2000. Some went to immediate war theater needs. Much of it squandered by a broken (deliberately by industry collusion with Rummy) oversight and procurement process.

We wrote years ago here about the Pentagon’s scissors crisis for procurement (one example of many). Reagan-era platforms predictably were burned out through increased OPTEMPO. DoD failed to field generational replacements. You, Dear Reader, know about cost overruns re the F-22, the Army’s Future Combat System, or the absurd $1.5 trillion F-35. The broken procurement system is endemic.

Sequester might force two important policy objectives. One: DoD and its parasites must acknowledge they’re not immune to American economic circumstances. And two: DoD will have no choice but to get serious about acquisition reform and accept oversight with consequences. DoD and industry both want neither beyond superficial gestures.

DoD prefers that we all talk about specific weapons programs and missions. That debate is on their turf, their threats of district job loss, their slight of hand. Sadly, they’re likely to succeed.

12 years of Bush/Obama have so thoroughly militarized us and enshrined the false image of ‘warfighter’/national security apparatchik as untouchable, sanctified nobility. A rational conversation about American geostrategic commitments and interests, and allocation of resources accordingly is laughable.

Normally, a mature great power and healthy liberal democracy should avoid a sequester process. It’s a blunt instrument cost shifting congressional institutional failure into national security frameworks. From 1949-2000, civilians and the military in conversation resolved strategic footprints and their associated political economies with varying success. It’s our preferred process and the reason we initially opposed sequester.

You decide – America 2012 – how mature or healthy?

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Filed Under: Defense Tagged With: Defense, Defense Budget, DoD, Sequester

What Exactly Does Civilian Control Over The Military Mean In A Demotic Age?

2012/03/31 By Dr Leo Strauss 4 Comments

Movement intolerance for any individual or institution that breaks their role as obedient prop can be famously vindictive. Even a prop as sanctified and invested with hollow tropes as the U.S. military.

Witness Paul Ryan’s recent outburst against the services. Ryan bemoans that the military isn’t revolting against budget rollbacks from current record levels. Ryan denounces Pentagon budget proposals, saying:

“We don’t think the generals are giving us their true advice,” Ryan said during a forum on the budget sponsored by the National Journal. “We don’t think the generals believe their budget is really the right budget.” [...] He went on to say that while there were certainly inefficiencies that could be reduced in the Pentagon’s budget, fighting wars in the Middle East and a “dangerous world” necessitated keeping defense spending level.

Ryan added that “What I believe is this budget does hollow out defense. I believe this budget goes beyond where we should go to keep people safe.”

In the inside baseball world of D.C. power, it’s easy to dismiss Ryan’s judgment. He doesn’t sit on a defense authorization/appropriations committee and has almost no granular expertise on defense postures, industrial base or commitments. But as Chairman of the Budget Committee, Ryan lurks at the aorta of Movement radicalism in the House and nationally. This distinguishes him from say, John Kasich, who tilted at windmills called the B-2 back in the day. Ryan’s stoking of Rightist rage against the domestic social contract while adding yet still more to the defense budget moves the political needle and thereby redefines the middle for the Goldilocks mindset. In the long run, control of political narrative wins, trumping objectively factual expertise almost every time. That’s the New Normal.

Ryan’s political frustration is palpable: after a decade of trebled budgets, car window dohickeys and treacly Super Bowl rituals, the military now is going rogue? Ignoring the script of Obama’s menace to national security?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dempsey doesn’t like being called a liar. And in a Twitterverse of 140 characters it would end here. Personality clash, with initial smack talk all shut down by Dempsey’s atomic knee drop. Booyah.

Except larger questions about civil-military relations remain. We speak not of Ryan’s clumsy attempt to suborn military insurrection. The U.S. military over the centuries has seen and rejected that gambit before.

Similarly, the military’s institutional memory remembers draw downs in the past – whether post 1945 (WWII), post 1953 (Korea), post 1975 (Nam) or post 1991 (Sovs). This is not their first rodeo. Bartering political trade offs and stunt posturing they leave to Leon Panetta, who is laboring mightily to earn his seat in the Building. The services know that across history, adopting a long term view in the face of budget rollbacks allowed them to emerge ultimately more capable later. It’s one reason the military internally is more realistic about the dangers of American fiscal (and social) implosion than professional politicians. Still, they’ll game the system in the here and now, too. They’re not idiots.

What makes 2012 qualitatively different is the pervasive abstraction of demotic America and her government. Never before has a military of this scale and capacity been subordinate to such an impulsive, consequence-free, meme-drenched polity. After all, ‘serious’ people actively pursued two new wars (Syria and Iran) and came damn close to getting at least one. Obama, just a year ago, unilaterally waged war against Libya on his own initiative, against military advice and without congressional penalty. That’s a precedent with unknown consequence.

Certainly earlier eras endured bitter partisan ideological differences, especially after 1975. Political institutions, however, retained their identity, sense of (constitutional) purpose and political coherence. Whether one agreed with Barry Goldwater on Taiwan or the Boland Amendment, separation of powers and checks and balances meant something. Today? Not so much.

People accept today that political institutions are almost notional and pro forma – mere backdrops for the ever malleable political narrative of The Moment. The U.S. military so far remains apart from the general meme-soaked dissolution. That’s not to say Tweets and burps aren’t present. But as the Marines demonstrated recently, discipline extends to Facebook, too. We think it a good decision. The services’ internal culture and discipline still makes them the most successful enrolling institutions beside the Catholic Church. They’re not immune to fads and internal meme stupors, of course – witness Colorado Springs, RDO, EBO, Warden, NetCentric Warfare, Wehrmacht-esque infatuation with operational success, etc. COIN, anyone?

It’s always a mistake to project linear change into the future. Still, one can’t help but dread the day civilian control over the military simply means ‘Likes’.

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Filed Under: Defense Tagged With: All Volunteer Force, civil military relations, DoD, U.S. military, U.S. officers

DoD On Jenny Craig With Fries On The Side

2012/02/29 By Dr Leo Strauss 4 Comments

For all the talk about whether U.S. ‘defense cuts’ are insufficient or cataclysmic, almost all can agree finally the U.S. military enters the post 9/11 world. Overdue, but a good thing.

The political car wreck known as the August 2011 Budget Control Act mandated $487 billion in cuts mostly by reducing out year proposed DoD budget increases. DoD complied with a proposed budget that cut increases to avoid sequestration. Panetta’s Hill testimony argues for keeping things pretty much status quo. There are some losers and winners – especially C4ISR capability.

Panetta and DoD’s notional cuts are made possible by ‘cost savings’ via the hoary procurement stretch-out gambit, improved ‘processes’ and less spent on people. He even called on Congress to cut Medicare and raise taxes before touching defense.

He didn’t have a choice adopting this aggressive stance. As new SecDef he has only a CIA tour behind him. His first job is to secure the loyalty of the building and services. And he’s carrying their water well. His grip is still formative; the defense sector is in a panic. He knows what happened to Les Aspin. Or Rummy before 9/11. He won’t make their mistakes.

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