A showdown is looming in Washington over the National Defense Authorization bill and the Appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. At stake is whether the Congress is able to make any progress this year on repairing the damage which defense cuts have done to the armed forces and the nation’s security.
The Budget Control Act of 2011, also known as sequestration, had the effect of cutting a trillion dollars from the ten-year budget plan which secretary of defense Bob Gates recommended before he left office in 2011. Coming on the heels of a decade of hard fighting and chronic underfunding of the military’s capital accounts, the sequester is a disaster in progress. It has resulted in severe shortfalls in day-to-day readiness across the services, and if continued, will make it nearly impossible in the future to restore readiness, maintain personnel end strength at an adequate level, or recapitalize the armed forces.
The sequester is particularly irresponsible given the growing threats around the world and the Chinese military buildup; for that reason, the sequester was unanimously condemned by the National Defense Panel in its report last year.
The Congressional Budget Resolution passed this spring should have eliminated the defense sequester and begun a decisive move back to at least the baseline which secretary Gates recommended four years ago. Nothing less will be enough to rebuild a margin of safety for the United States, and more will probably be necessary. It always costs more to restore rather than maintain military readiness, and the threat environment has gotten manifestly worse since secretary Gates offered his budget in 2011; that was before the rise of ISIS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and China’s most provocative actions in the East and South China Seas.
Unfortunately, Congress failed to increase the budget baseline. But the budget resolution did at least provide an extra 38 billion dollars in the Overseas Contingency Operations fund (OCO), an account which is used primarily to fund operations in Afghanistan. This “one time” money could be used to address the most urgent readiness issues and increase this year’s procurement of platforms currently in production. It’s a painfully far cry from what we need, but the money could fund critical training and modernization programs, and any increase at all would send a signal to potential adversaries that our leaders are beginning to confront the damage which the sequester has inflicted.
President Obama recognizes the need for more defense funding in principle, but is threatening to veto both the Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills on the grounds that Congress is not also increasing non-defense spending. In other words, the president is holding defense hostage to his domestic-spending priorities.
There is irony in that, because the president condemned congressional Republicans for the same tactic last year when they withheld funding for the Department of Homeland Security as leverage in their opposition to the president’s executive order on immigration.
Congressional Democrats are supporting the president’s position, but they are clearly, and understandably, doubtful. The House and Senate Defense Authorization bills were both voted out of committee with substantial bipartisan support, and the House bill has already been cleared in the full body with a large majority.
It’s time for everyone in Washington to recognize the urgent implications of America’s diminishing capacity to respond to global threats. The armed forces are by no means the only tool needed to protect America’s vital interests, but they are the foundation of the national-security architecture and the tool which gives strength to the other instruments of national influence. Without the power to deter and, if needed, decisively defeat aggression, the various instruments of “soft power” won’t work — a reality that Secretary Kerry experienced on his recent diplomatic shuttle to Beijing, where the Chinese flatly rebuffed his request that they stop their island building in the South China Sea.
Congress should approve the extra OCO funding and also, and as soon as possible, increase the defense baseline as well. Of course the money should be spent wisely; to that end, Senator McCain and Congressman Mac Thornberry — chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees – have each included provisions in their authorization bills which will begin to improve the Pentagon’s acquisition process and make other needed reforms.
President Obama asked for more money for defense, and Congress has given it to him. It wasn’t enough, and it comes in the wrong form, but it’s the first glimmer of hope in a long time. The president should accept yes for an answer. If he wants more money in the rest of the federal budget, he should veto the domestic spending bills which he thinks are inadequate and confront Congress on that ground. Or — and this would be foreign to his practice thus far — he could forego intransigence as a leadership tool, engage in meaningful negotiations with Congressional leaders, and actually hammer out a compromise that further strengthens defense while achieving some of his domestic goals.
What has happened to the armed forces is terrible, and terribly dangerous. It will take many years, much effort, and a great deal of money to repair the damage, and America will suffer forfeits to its security and interests in the meantime. The blame for this self-inflicted wound can be laid at many doors, but Barack Obama is the commander-in-chief, and it occurred on his watch. He has 20 months left in his term to begin the long road back to a margin of safety for his country. The time to start is now.
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