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Improving National Defense in an Age of Austerity by Richard H. Kohn

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Improving National Defense in an Age of Austerity by Richard H. Kohn Secretary Hagel speaks at National Defense University on strategic and fiscal challenges facing DOD DOD (Glenn Fawcett) BEYOND SEQUESTER Improving National Defense in an Age of Austerity By RICHARD H. KOHN n his first day in the job, Sec- than that, we’re all there with you and we’ll retary of Defense Chuck Hagel figure it out.”2 Behind these blunt words lay told the Pentagon that “We live a challenge to the Armed Forces unlike any O in a very defining time . a seen for a generation or more: a cutback in difficult time . a time of tremendous chal- funding large enough to call into question lenge . with the budget and sequestration the policy, strategy, and force structure—in . We need to figure this out. You are doing effect the purpose—underlying the entire that. You have been doing that. We need to military establishment. deal with this reality.”1 Chairman of the Joint Even with congressional permission Richard H. Kohn is Professor Emeritus of History Chiefs General Martin Dempsey put it more for flexibility to manage the reductions, and Peace, War, and Defense at the University of dramatically to Congress a week earlier: the puzzle will remain, in Secretary Hagel’s North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was Chief of Air “What do you want your military to do?” he words, how to “figure this out.”3 The choices Force History from 1981 to 1991. This article is asked. “If you want it to be doing what it’s will be painful. At one extreme, the Services adapted from a speech to the Office of the U.S. doing today, then we can’t give you another could surrender to less capacity to defend the Army General Counsel in May 2012. dollar. If you want us to do something less United States; at the other, they can revisit ndupress.ndu.edu issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 / JFQ 47 COMMENTARY | Beyond Sequester roles and missions, turning jointness upside families, Congress, and the contractors who sesses the benefit of a long period of strategic down by igniting bitter inter-Service com- will supply and profit from the purchases warning. No Service organizes for, or even petition or making reductions that fracture insist on the most capability with less regard thinks much about, mobilizing the citizenry longstanding relationships with military for affordability. for large-scale war, the assumption being that contractors, retired officers, veterans groups, for lack of time, the Nation will have to fight and even foreign allies. Past as Prologue with the forces, Active and Reserve, present In the short run (fiscal 2013), nothing Austere (or worse) budgets are nothing at the beginning.4 Inducting people would will avoid real hurt—for people personally new for the Services. Inadequate funding be relatively simple; training, equipping, and and for programs, including delays and defer- has been the norm in nearly every peacetime leading a greatly expanded force when all or ments that will reverberate into 2014 and period, which always began (until 1991) most of the Active-duty and Reserve forces beyond, and may add to costs in the long run. with huge reductions. Today’s is the second have been committed to the fight would be something else. Could American industry provide the high-tech weapons, and could the Services quickly train the men and women to use them? Little or no serious planning goes on for such a contingency, and no scenario on the horizon suggests that it is likely to. But the United States has been surprised in U.S. Air Force (Samuel King) U.S. Air Force war almost every time, to a greater or lesser degree. If the Pentagon is truly preparing for the full spectrum of conflict, planning for a full-scale mobilization beyond the call-up of the Reserves is by definition necessary, and even some preparations would be wise and worth some modest expenditures. Perhaps the most stressful period of General George C. Marshall’s 6 years as Chief of Staff of the Army were the first 2, from September 1939 to the eve of Pearl Harbor, when he struggled to create a modern mass army. Even as the war began in Europe, it was not altogether clear what kind of conflict was coming. The Army could hardly predict that F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter delivered to 33rd Fighter Wing at official rollout ceremony, “37 percent of the total value of all materiel Eglin Air Force Base, Florida bought by the War Department” from 1940 through 1945 would be for airplanes or that keeping Britain and the Soviet Union in the But in the intermediate and long term, each contraction since the end of the Cold War. war would be the cornerstone of success.5 The Service and the military establishment as a Even during that conflict, in the 1950s Navy, focused determinedly on fleet action, whole can preserve American military power and late 1970s, one or more Service lost did not predict, even in 1941 after 2 years of for the future if they choose wisely in the the budget competition (usually the Army war in the Atlantic, that the first battle to be age-old tradeoff among readiness, modern- because of the need to maintain a strategic won would be against German submarines ization, and personnel. balance with the Soviet Union). Yet even the and that the Navy would lose that battle Outside pressures appear strongest in Army survived to succeed after the reduc- for well over a year.6 Nor did either Service readiness and modernization, the first from tion, largely for three reasons: the country anticipate the indispensable role that landing political leaders at home and abroad and enjoyed strategic warning and thus time to craft would play in both the European and the second from contractors and domestic prepare; the Army understood that it was to Pacific theaters, or the numbers and types constituencies. The country is on record be the core for a mass citizen ground force that would be required.7 as demanding that combat forces be ready, to be mobilized from the population; and although ready for what is unclear to most outstanding military leadership at the top Readiness, Modernization, and everyone, and the record of prediction of during the buildup and ensuing war. Personnel what will be the next war, contingency, or Today differs from the more distant As the United States enters a period deployment has been astonishingly poor for past because the United States both attempts of relative peace, the chief challenge is how over a generation. After more than 10 years to guarantee stability in several regions of the to choose among the three priorities of of continuous war, military equipment needs world and faces terrorist threats, and each of readiness, modernization, and personnel. refurbishing or replacing. Few advocate fore- these challenges could require forces ready Given the uncertainty and unpredictability going the best technologies; Soldiers, their to intervene. The country no longer pos- of future war, the top priority must be to 48 JFQ / issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 ndupress.ndu.edu KOHN develop leadership that recognizes the kind unlike their uniformed counterparts, are ing him again and again into combat. The of war that occurs or threatens, is flexible subject to cuts in pay and diminished con- textbook Combat and Operational Behavioral enough to adapt the people and forces to tracts under sequestration. While all the Health, published in 2011 by the Office of the tasks, devises the menu of strategies that Services will shrink, each retains the extraor- the Army Surgeon General, concluded that will support the Nation’s objectives in the dinarily experienced combat forces, as has Department of Defense “behavioral health- conflict, and then executes the decisions of been the case after every war. care delivery has improved dramatically,” the political leadership with speed, secrecy, The future, however, may prove much but “one point that remains constant is that and least cost in blood and treasure. All of the more challenging. First, combat experience the human ability to adapt to the horrors of Services know that wars are won by people, inevitably declines over time even when combat is finite.”15 As the medical services and particularly—crucially—by leadership. retention is relatively high, as people retire or learn more, it may be that such wounds make The quality of the people—how they are leave the Service and operations and training sending these soldiers repeatedly into battle trained, how they are educated, and how they funds level off or drop. is neither militarily helpful nor ethically or are led—will in the end, as much or more Second, as the economy improves, politically acceptable.16 We seem already to be than how they are equipped or whether they recruiting will come under pressure both in breaking new ground in allowing wounded are ready for the first fight, determine the numbers and quality even with cutbacks in soldiers to continue on Active, though outcome. To give one recent example, leader- the size the Army and Marine Corps. Some perhaps limited, duty, and it is unclear how ship largely explains why the Army came so 75 percent of American youth are ineligible far that can go. In any event, it has become close to failing in Iraq, and how in the end it to serve due to deficiencies of health, mental clear that the military health system is not prevailed in that troubled country.8 or other physical incapacities, or criminal adequately covering all the veterans suffer- Douglas MacArthur, an officer of great records.11 Some 85 percent of today’s youth ing from wounds, particularly in the area of accomplishment who was Chief of Staff from plan to attend college within a year of gradu- mental health.17 1930 to 1935 during the depth of the Great ating from high school, few of whom con- The all-volunteer force was never Depression, provided a grim warning.
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