Healing the Wounded GIANT

Maintaining Military Preeminence while Cutting the Defense Budget

By Michael E. O’Hanlon

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS

Copyright © 2013 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8157-2485-8

Contents

Preface…………………………………………………………..ixAcknowledgments……………………………………………………xv1 American Military Strategy and Grand Strategy……………………….12 Army and Marine Corps Force Structure………………………………173 Air Force and Navy Force Structure…………………………………354 Modernization……………………………………………………475 Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense, and Intelligence…………………..556 Military Compensation and Pentagon Reforms………………………….607 Conclusion—and the Implications of Prolonged Sequestration or the
Equivalent………………………………………………………..71Appendix………………………………………………………….77Notes…………………………………………………………….83Index…………………………………………………………….95

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

American Military Strategyand Grand Strategy

American national security strategy is premised on internationalpresence, deterrence, and engagement. Jarred by theworld wars into recognizing that its geographic isolation frommost of the world’s industrial and resource centers did notallow it to stay out of other nations’ conflicts, the United Stateschose to stay active internationally after World War II. It developeda network of alliances throughout Western Europe, EastAsia, parts of the broader Middle East, and Latin America.

At times the United States was arguably not quick enoughto form alliances, as when deterrence failed and North Koreainvaded South Korea in 1950. At other times it forged partnershipswith regimes that did not share its values or lackedstaying power, as with the Shah’s Iran or the government ofSouth Vietnam. But for the most part, U.S. security partnershipsendured. Even after the cold war ended, the UnitedStates retained this system of alliances. The rise of new dangers,such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well asongoing threats posed by hostile regimes in North Korea,Iran, and Iraq, made American disengagement seem an imprudentoption—for the United States and for its security partners as well.Indeed, in playing its worldwide military role, the United States hasmore than sixty formal allies or other close security partners withwhom it teams in one way or another.

This set of partnerships and overseas commitments sounds enormouslyambitious and costly. In some ways, it surely is. Defending onlyAmerica’s own territory would be feasible at far less cost, with far fewerforces, than maintenance of this global network—at least for a while.But the costs of war can be far greater, in lives and treasure, than thecosts of preparedness and deterrence. As such, the United States has nowsustained a standing military at an average annual cost of some $475billion (expressed in constant or inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars) formore than half a century. At present it spends some $650 billion, thoughthose numbers are gradually declining under current law and policy, asthe war in Afghanistan winds down. By mid-decade, national defensebudget and spending levels will trend toward $550 billion a year(excluding Veterans Administration expenses, but including most intelligencefunctions and Department of Energy nuclear weapons activities).Sequestration, as required by the 2011 Budget Control Act unless superseded,or similar plans would reduce that latter annual figure to about$500 billion (again, as expressed in constant 2013 dollars).

This book searches for responsible ways to cut defense a bit more. Itconcludes that sequestration, or plans like the 2010 Simpson-Bowlesdeficit reduction proposal, would cut the military too deeply. That said,there is room for further economizing that would allow moderately significantadditional cuts in weapons, forces, and compensation levels, aswell as administrative reforms and efficiencies—totaling up to $200 billionover a decade in gross terms. Net savings in the overall nationalsecurity budget might be $100 billion to $150 billion—a modest, buthardly insignificant, contribution toward the $2.5 trillion or so in ten-yearfederal deficit reduction that many economists consider advisableprior to sequestration. Taken together, these planned and suggestedchanges would result in an annual national defense spending level ofperhaps $525 billion to $535 billion.

The Economic Challenge to American Security

The recent run of trillion-dollar federal deficits, coupled with the deeprecession of 2008–09 and a still-sluggish economy, has contributed tothe anxieties Americans have about the future; many lost their homesand jobs, have seen their investment portfolios shrink, and have lostfaith in the American dream. For foreign policy strategists, these worriesare compounded by a sense that throughout history, great powerswith weakening economic foundations cannot stay great powers forlong. In a democracy like America’s, the economic problem is compoundedby the political risk that as fewer citizens perceive personalbenefit from America’s strategy of internationalism, their support forcontinued engagement abroad can be expected to weaken. Such tendenciesare already seen in a number of demographic and socioeconomicgroups, including in the attitudes of younger generations today.And as great powers decline or fall, others generally seek to fill theresulting power vacuum—resulting not only in diminished influence forthe former power, but greater instability and risk for the internationalsystem on the whole, since war is often the result.

As such, while defense cuts must be made, they must be made carefully.It would be unwise to spend more on defense than is necessary,but it would be penny-wise and pound-foolish to jeopardize the generalstability of today’s international system in an overly assertive effort toreduce the U.S. federal deficit by some specific percentage. Perhaps interstatewar has become unthinkable today. But that theory was voicedin earlier eras, only to be proven wrong by subsequent events, as whenNorman Angell’s prediction that economic interlinkages made warunthinkable was invalidated shortly thereafter by the outbreak ofWorld War I. Maybe the twentieth century’s experiences—huge casualtiesfrom the world wars and huge projected casualties in any futurewar involving nuclear weapons—have taught mankind the risks ofarmed conflict. But it is hardly inconceivable that new sources of conflictcould emerge—over disputed seabed resources, over the uneveneffects of climate change on different countries and regions, over nuclearor biological weapons dangers or threats.

China’s rise is causing tectonic shifts in the international power distributionas well. One need not be a Sinophobe to understand thatchanges of the current magnitude can be destabilizing; at least, that hasbeen the historical tendency in other periods of hegemonic transformation.China is on balance acting reasonably responsibly in mostdomains of international affairs. But its very rise produces temptationsat home and insecurities abroad. Its recent behavior in the South ChinaSea as well as the East China Sea suggests certain ambitions, particularlyamong its often nationalistic and anti-American military leadership.One need not expect to fight China to believe that it is importantto retain strong American capabilities and American alliances to preservea stable existing order as China continues to reach toward likelysuperpower status.

Robust U.S. defense spending levels are surely preferable to a major-powerwar or other serious conflict. Nor do they seem inherently dangerous.The United States already has enough checks on its uses offorce, including general aversion to casualties, as well as a desire tolook inward and focus on domestic issues rather than expend resourcesabroad, that it is probably not necessary to cut defense in order somehowto prevent unwanted military operations. The United States ofmodern times is not exactly a peaceful nation, and it is certainly notpacifist. But neither is it an imperialistic country, as traditionallydefined.

Yes, the United States invaded Iraq without desirable levels of internationalsupport or legitimacy. And that war may be seen as unwise byhistory. But if that was the worst thing that modern America coulddo—invading a country to overthrow one of the world’s worst dictatorswho was in violation of the terms of the 1991 ceasefire ending OperationDesert Storm and more than a dozen UN Security Council resolutions—itis easy to see why more than sixty countries still ally with theUnited States even as they sometimes harshly disagree with it. Americanpower is apparently perceived by others as desirable and stabilizing, asalso reflected in the fact that no hostile or opposing bloc of nations hasformed against it.

If having a smaller military guaranteed that the country would avoidmistakes about the use of force, while having enough capability to prevailin smart wars, most people would presumably assent to that arrangement.However, history does not tend to back up such a theory.Moreover, during some of the times when the United Stats was at itsmaximum national power, as during the Reagan years, it went to warrelatively infrequently, or engaged only in low-level conflicts. So ithardly appears that having a strong military makes America moreprone to adventurism, or that having a smaller and less costly militarynecessarily improves the odds of peace

Some people favor asking U.S. allies to do more, thereby enablingthe United States to do less. That sentiment might seem to be sensible.But allies are sovereign and make their own decisions. As such, thealternative to current policy is not simply asking allies to do more,which Washington already does frequently, but to leave them to fendmore for themselves and hope that they pick up the slack of Americanretrenchment. That would be a major strategic gamble. In places likethe Persian Gulf, such an approach could easily produce conventionaland nuclear arms races if countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkeysought to counter Iran (and each other). Similar dynamics also couldensue among Japan, Korea, and China in East Asia. History suggeststhat such arms races do not tend to end well. For all the turbulence intoday’s world, American power would still seem stabilizing, as therehave been no large-scale great-power wars since 1945. Put differently,Iran does not have the capacity and China does not have the inclinationto challenge American power directly at present. However, those statesmight well seek to challenge and dominate their regional neighborsabsent compelling American security guarantees. War that ultimatelydragged in the United States could well be the result.

Matters more mundane than global power balances also affectdefense budget decisions. In considering possible reductions to the militarybudget, it is important to remember that most defense costs—forpersonnel, health care, environmental restoration, equipment maintenance,equipment modernization, and the like—go up faster than generalinflation. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimatesthat the average annual defense budget requirement for the nexttwo decades will be about 10 percent greater than planned levels, withcosts for operations, maintenance, and personnel collectively growing1.5 percent a year faster than inflation over the period. It is for thatreason that I warn that some of the additional cuts in weapons, forces,and other Department of Defense expenses proposed below may beneeded simply to comply with the initial budget caps of the 2011Budget Control Act that were already in the books as of February2013 (before sequestration). Just to “tread water,” in other words, thePentagon needs real budget growth of 1 to 2 percent, above the rate ofinflation.

Some might quarrel with this, wondering why very large reductionsare not possible for a military that has nearly doubled its real spendingsince 9/11, from around $400 billion in 2001 to around $700 billionannually a decade later and now some $650 billion (expressed in 2013dollars). The answer is that, of that $300 billion in real growth in theannual budget, more than half was for wars that are ending (withresulting budget cuts already well under way). Of the remaining $125billion or so, some was eaten up by higher per capita costs in areas suchas health care. And about half of that amount, or some $60 billion to$70 billion in annual spending, was needed to reverse the “procurementholiday” that the country had enjoyed in the 1990s. The Reaganbuildup had left us with large stocks of new equipment. By the GeorgeW. Bush years, that equipment was aging and in need of replacement,so procurement budgets had to go back up. Unfortunately, we have notyet bought enough new equipment to have the luxury of going back toClinton-era budget levels. There is waste, and room for reform, but theamounts of savings ripe for easy harvest are not as great as some allege.

Such are the arguments in favor of avoiding big new cuts in U.S.defense spending. But of course, that is not the only side of the story. Atthe same time, it is also true that major American deficit reduction isnecessary for the country’s long-term strength. Former chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, former secretary of defenseRobert Gates, and former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clintonhave all identified U.S. deficit and debt levels as major national securitythreats, and they are all surely right. Mullen has even called the debtthe nation’s “biggest security threat.” While that claim can be debated,the broader point remains.

Some argue that military spending should be selectively protected,and currently planned cuts even reversed, as part of national deficitreduction efforts. But even from a national security perspective, thatargument is problematic. The deficit reduction debate is a difficult onethat can only engender political consensus when there exists a sense ofshared sacrifice and comprehensive national belt-tightening. That is thelesson of the major deficit reduction efforts of the late 1980s and early1990s, when taxes and military budgets and domestic spending were allpart of the deficit-reduction effort. If some defense hawks were to succeedin excluding the Pentagon budget from the nation’s fiscal reformefforts, the most likely outcomes would be a less successful deficitreduction outcome, growing debt, inadequate investment in thenation’s economic fundamentals, and over time a weaker country withless national security. This is not to say that defense spending shouldtake it on the chin. The 2011 Budget Control Act mistakenly placedmost of the short-term burden of deficit reduction on the back of thePentagon (as well as domestic discretionary accounts also importantfor long-term national power, since they fund science, infrastructure,education, and the like). But defense spending cannot be excluded fromthe deficit reduction effort either.

At a political level, too, the American public is likely ready for aperiod of less assertive foreign policy. The relative desirability of “warsof choice” probably will be seen—and should be seen—as lower in thefuture than it may have been in the past. The trick is to reflect this sentimentwithout going too far.

Some toss around numbers to make their case that the United Stateseither overspends or underspends on defense. These arguments arecommon, usually among those with a predetermined agenda of eithermaking the defense budget seem high or low.

Those who wish to defend the magnitude of Pentagon spendingoften point out that in recent decades the military’s share of the nation’seconomy has been modest by historical standards. During the 1960s,national defense spending was typically 8 to 9 percent of gross domesticproduct or GDP, declining to just under 5 percent by the late 1970s.During the Reagan buildup of the 1980s it reached 6 percent of GDPbefore declining to around 3 percent by the late 1990s after the coldwar ended. During the first term of George W. Bush, the figure rose andultimately approached 5 percent of GDP, but is now again headed backdown and will soon be just over 3 percent. Seen in this light, currentlevels, even including wartime supplemental budgets, seem relativelymoderate.

On the other hand, those who criticize the Pentagon budget oftennote that it constitutes almost half of aggregate global military spending,and that American allies contribute another one-third or more ofthe total. Or they note that recent defense spending levels, attaining atone point $700 billion a year, exceeded the cold war inflation-adjustedspending average of $475 billion by about 50 percent (when all figuresare expressed in inflation-adjusted 2013 dollars). Or they note thatdefense spending dwarfs the size of America’s diplomatic, foreign assistance,and homeland security spending levels, which total around$100 billion a year between them.

The numbers games go on. Some defense hawks describe the cutsmade under President Obama as already totaling $1 trillion over tenyears (before sequestration). They make that claim by including cutsmade prior to the Budget Control Act of 2011—which were in fact notcuts at all but simply a scaling back of plans for growth that the Pentagonhad previously assumed. Some defense budget critics go to theother extreme and claim that there have been no cuts yet, even underthe initial effects of the Budget Cointrol Act. This too is misleading. Infact, in 2011, 2012, and 2013, defense budgets exclusive of war costswere effectively held constant relative to the year before, withoutadjustments for inflation. That amounts to a significant real cut inspending, and one that will not be reversed in future years accordingto current plans (since the budget will grow roughly with the rate ofinflation in those future years, but not much more). Again, it is easy toblow smoke—or at least to confuse—in this business.
(Continues…)Excerpted from Healing the Wounded GIANT by Michael E. O’Hanlon. Copyright © 2013 by THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION. Excerpted by permission of BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.