The defense department's $527 billion spending request for fiscal 2014 unveiled today sticks closely to the military priorities that President Obama enunciated last year despite nonstop partisan bickering over how to deal with the government's chronic budget deficits. The proposed military budget exceeds spending caps established in the 2011 Budget Control Act by $50 billion, setting up a showdown between Democrats and Republicans over whether to change the law or accept another year of disruptive setbacks to military readiness.
The evidence so far this year suggests there is no sizable constituency in the political system for big defense cuts, despite the fact that current federal budget plans would require about $2 billion in new borrowing per day in fiscal 2014. The Pentagon's spending proposal is very similar to last year's, while alternatives offered by House Republicans and Senate Democrats in advance of today's release would set the amount even higher. Everybody seems to be betting on averting sequestration mandates contained in the budget law.
That gamble did not pan out in the current fiscal year, forcing the military to make last-minute adjustments in its spending plans that are eroding readiness. The Air Force announced earlier this week that it is grounding a third of its active-duty fleet through September 30 due to a shortfall in funding driven by the need to bring spending into compliance with the deficit law. Even if a new defense appropriation act is signed into law by October 1 -- the first day of the new federal fiscal year -- the stand-down will have ripple effects on readiness extending well into 2014.
Chances are, none of this would be happening if the nation were facing urgent military threats. However, memories of 9-11 have now faded to a point where politicians feel free to wrangle over how the government should be funded despite the damage their disagreements might cause to the nation's defenses. With U.S. troops long gone from Iraq and drawing down in Afghanistan, it appears that the danger posed by rogue regimes in Iran and North Korea is not enough to focus Congress on the military consequences of partisan paralysis.
This impasse doesn't signal that lawmakers on either side of the aisle want to slash defense spending; it simply reflects the fact that they feel a greater sense of urgency about other matters -- which is exactly what you would expect at a time when threats have receded and support for the two parties is evenly divided in the electorate. But because Congress can't agree on anything, the president's steady-as-she-goes defense budget makes him look like a rock of stability in an otherwise stormy political landscape -- even though it fails to comply with current law.
The defense posture funded by the White House budget request would continue the gradual extrication of U.S. forces from so-called stability operations -- counterinsurgency campaigns -- while shifting emphasis to the Western Pacific. However, in the absence of an overwhelming threat to drive priorities, the proposed budget is essentially a status-quo document that preserves the traditional one-third / one-third / one-third distribution of budgetary resources between the military departments, with the Navy getting a bit more to cover Marine Corps needs.
So the Army's base budget is about $130 billion, the Air Force is at $140 billion and the Navy is around $150 billion, with an additional $100 billion set aside for defense-wide functions such a healthcare and logistics. The administration has not changed its plans to maintain the current force of aircraft carriers and other warships, and -- in marked contrast to its early years -- has strengthened its commitment to next-generation weapons programs such as the tri-service F-35 fighter. Air power and sea power are central to its plans for preserving U.S. presence in the Pacific.
Spending on ground forces is coming down as stability operations wane, with a growing emphasis on "small footprint" operations such as the current U.S. drone campaign in North Africa. President Obama won the White House in 2008 mainly because of voter frustration with seemingly endless wars in Southwest Asia, so he has no intention of sustaining the oversized ground forces needed to carry out similar operations in the future. But he clearly appreciates the quick-reaction, tailored-response capabilities of the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command.
Although policymakers have recently focused on the need to limit increases in the cost of military pay and benefits, there is scant support in either party for slashing the compensation that individual warfighters receive. Therefore, whatever savings are realized in personnel costs will likely come from reductions in the headcount of uniform personnel. These will result partly from cutting force structure such as Army brigades, but also from decisions by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to reduce the number of military personnel performing so-called commercial functions.
Hagel has said that he will carry out a review of Pentagon operations aimed at restraining the big drivers of budget increases, which he identifies as "acquisitions, personnel costs and overhead." But the administration has already right-sized acquisitions during its first term, and Vietnam vet Hagel is not the most obvious candidate to be reining in the high cost of the All Volunteer Force, so progress on those fronts is likely to be slow. Overhead cuts through the elimination of excessive layering of personnel look more promising.
The bottom line on the new defense budget is that it closely resembles what the White House promised a year ago, with the main uncertainty focused on whether deficit discussions will permit full funding of the president's military agenda. Republicans are too divided to offer a credible alternative, and wary of squandering what little is left of their reputation for sustaining strong defenses. Some pundits will dismiss the budget request because it fails to comply with the deficit law, but that law may not survive the current fiscal year in its present form. The priorities set forth in President Obama's fifth defense request are likely to survive a good deal longer.