Inside Defense - Christopher J. Castelli
President Obama's call today for a new review to find more savings in the defense budget will require careful attention to "managing risk" and determining which missions "the country is willing to have the military forgo," Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.
Morrell, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments following Obama's speech on fiscal policy at George Washington University.
Obama stressed the need to "find additional savings" in the defense budget.
"Now, as commander-in-chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America's interests around the world," Obama said. "But as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. [Michael] Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America's national security is America's debt. So just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. And we can do that while still keeping ourselves safe."
Over the last two years, Gates has "courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending," Obama said, adding, "I believe we can do that again." DOD must not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but also must conduct "a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities and our role in a changing world," he said.
"I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it's complete," Obama added.
The president's framework "sets a goal of holding the growth in base security spending below inflation, while ensuring our capacity to meet our national security responsibilities, which would save $400 billion by 2023," the White House said in a statement.
Gates believes the Defense Department "cannot be exempt from efforts to bring federal deficit spending under control," Morrell said. "However, it is important that any reduction in funding be shaped by strategy and policy choices and not be a budget math exercise. The president's direction gets the sequence right by conducting a comprehensive review first and only then making decisions on specific funding options."
The president acknowledged that DOD has been at the forefront in paring back unneeded, duplicative and obsolete programs and administrative overhead, Morrell noted.
"He wants us to continue this effort with the goal of significant additional savings over the coming decade. By the same token, the secretary has been clear that further significant defense cuts cannot be accomplished without reducing force structure and military capability," he added. "The comprehensive review of missions, capabilities and America's role in the world will identify alternatives for the president's consideration. The secretary believes that this process must be about managing risk associated with future threats and national security challenges and identifying missions that the country is willing to have the military forgo."
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) took a dim view of the president's speech.
"When we consider the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 next month in the committee, my subcommittee chairmen and I will propose billions of dollars in savings that we will then reinvest in higher national security priorities," he said in a statement.
"I have grave concerns about the White House announcing a $400 billion cut to national security spending while our troops are fighting in three different theaters," McKeon said. "Additionally, assigning a specific number to national security cuts prior to the completion of a comprehensive review of our military's roles and missions seems to be putting the cart before the horse. As Secretary of Defense Gates reminded us last year, announcing specific cuts prior to actually assessing the required missions and necessary force structure is `math not strategy.'"
Eagerly anticipated DOD fiscal guidance that will pave the way for the FY-13 budget process remains in the works as Congress moves closer to belatedly passing an FY-11 defense appropriations bill, a senior defense official told Inside the Pentagon Tuesday in a brief interview.
"We have not issued fiscal guidance yet," the official said. Asked whether the department would wait until the FY-11 budget is settled, the official was noncommittal. "I actually don't know what we're going to wait for. It's a little bit chaotic right now. But we haven't issued fiscal guidance yet," the official said.
A Pentagon source said it is unclear when DOD will issue its FY-13 fiscal guidance, which typically comes out in April, but noted the armed services need it to prepare their investment plans.
After Congress narrowly avoided a shutdown of the federal government last week, lawmakers are moving closer to passing an FY-11 defense appropriations bill. The department is "still going through the details" of House appropriators' 459-page continuing resolution for FY-11, DOD spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said late Tuesday.
The legislation would appropriate about $513 billion for defense, approximately $17.4 billion for military construction and roughly $157.8 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations account, he said.
Retired Lt. Gen. Emerson "Emo" Gardner, who concluded his military career last year as principal deputy director of the Pentagon's cost assessment and program evaluation (CAPE) office, told ITP last month the military has faced the tough task of preparing FY-13 plans in the absence of an FY-11 defense appropriations bill and amid talk on Capitol Hill of deep cuts in FY-12 to reduce the federal deficit.
"My impression is that the services are in big trouble in figuring out the FY-13 budget. How can they not be?" Gardner said at the time. "There are two numbers the services need now and that should be issued to them by CAPE sometime soon in a document known as Fiscal Guidance, a document that normally comes out in early April and that almost never leaks out: what number should we assume we're getting in FY-11/12 and what number should we assume for FY-13 and beyond."