RESPONSIBLE DEFENSE SERIES Sustainable Pre-eminence MAY 2012 Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change By Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Nora Bensahel, Matthew Irvine and Travis Sharp About the Report “Sustainable Pre-eminence” is part of an ongoing project called Responsible Defense at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The project examines how the United States should maximize its national security in an era of defense spending reductions. The project published its first report, “Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity,” in October 2011. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the many talented people who contributed to this report. First and foremost, we thank Bill French and Peter Bacon for their countless research contributions. We thank Kristin Lord, John Nagl, Melissa Dalton and Richard Fontaine for commenting on early drafts. We thank Liz Fontaine for imparting her creativity to the report’s design, and we thank Kay King and Sara Conneighton for helping to spread our message. In addition, we thank Tom Donnelly, Frank Hoffman, Russell Rumbaugh, Norm Augustine and Michèle Flournoy for serving as external reviewers. Their assistance does not imply any responsibility for the final product, which rests solely with the authors. A Note about Funding This report was made possible, in part, through the generous financial support of the Smith Richardson Foundation. The opinions expressed in the report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Smith Richardson Foundation. Some organizations that have business interests related to the defense industry support CNAS financially, but they provided no direct support for the report. CNAS retains sole editorial control over its research and maintains a broad and diverse group of more than 100 funders including foundations, government agencies, corporations and private indi- viduals. A complete list of CNAS’ financial supporters can be found at www.cnas.org/support/our-supporters. Cover Image A U.S. Air Force crew chief assigned to the 67th Aircraft Maintenance Unit checks over an F-15 Eagle aircraft on Kadena Air Base in Japan, September 8, 2010. (STaff SGT. CHRISTOPHER HummeL, U.S. AIR FORce/Department of Defense) TABLE OF CONTENts I. Executive Summary 5 VII. Reforming the Services 28 and Special Operations Forces II. Introduction 9 Army 28 III. Defense Strategic Guidance 13 Navy 33 and Regional Priorities Marine Corps 39 Air Force 43 IV. Four Principles for Reform 16 Special Operations Forces 48 V. Strengthening Joint Integration 22 VIII. Conclusion 53 VI. Defense-Wide Reform: 24 Appendix: Summary of Policy Recommendations 65 Downsizing Military Headquarters and Reducing Civilians and Contractors MAY 2012 Sustainable Pre-eminence Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change By Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Nora Bensahel, Matthew Irvine and Travis Sharp Sustainable Pre-eminence MAY 2012 Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change About the Authors Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) is a Senior Advisor and Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Dr. Nora Bensahel is the Deputy Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Matthew Irvine is a Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security. Travis Sharp is the Bacevich Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. 2 | Sustainable PRE-eminence: Reforming the U.S. MilitarY at A Time of Strategic Change By Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Nora Bensahel, Matthew Irvine and Travis Sharp Sustainable Pre-eminence MAY 2012 Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Maintaining the U.S. military’s global pre- eminence is vital to protect American interests and promote American values. Yet, in order to sustain U.S. military pre-eminence in an emerging strategic environment characterized by new threats and constrained resources, the Department of Defense (DOD) will need to orga- nize and operate America’s armed forces in new ways. The reality of constrained defense budgets presents DOD with an opportunity to adopt reforms that will make the U.S. military more effective as well as less expensive. Such reforms will ensure that the U.S. military remains the world’s pre-eminent fighting force at a sustain- able cost to American taxpayers. In early 2012, DOD released new strategic guid- ance and a corresponding budget reflecting $487 billion in cuts over 10 years as imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act. The guidance directs the U.S. military to prioritize the Asia-Pacific and greater Middle East. These are the correct regional pri- By Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA orities for the U.S. military, as we argued in our (Ret.), Nora Bensahel, Matthew Irvine October 2011 report, “Hard Choices: Responsible and Travis Sharp Defense in an Age of Austerity.”1 However, the Pentagon still has not enacted the types of reforms that we believe are necessary to sustain U.S. military pre-eminence into the future. Too many DOD structures, processes, programs and operational concepts are legacies of the past, which create unnecessary redundancies, waste valuable resources and encourage unproductive competition among the services rather than com- petition. These practices are no longer acceptable in the current fiscal environment. In this report, we argue that DOD should make numerous policy changes to achieve sustainable pre-eminence. While most studies focus primar- ily on either strategic ends or budgetary means, this report concentrates more on operational ways, the connective tissue that links goals to resources. Our recommendations rely on | 5 Sustainable Pre-eminence MAY 2012 Reforming the U.S. Military at a Time of Strategic Change judgments about both security threats and avail- able resources, the inseparable elements of any DOD must maintain practical strategy. America’s military pre- We disagree with those who argue that preserv- ing American military pre-eminence requires eminence but spend less on maintaining or increasing current levels of defense defense by operating more spending. DOD must maintain America’s military pre-eminence but spend less on defense by operat- efficiently and effectively. ing more efficiently and effectively. We continue to believe strongly in the judgment we reached in “Hard Choices”:2 that the defense budget can be Based on these principles, the U.S. military should reduced responsibly, but that total defense cuts adopt the following reforms: beyond $500 billion to $550 billion over 10 years,* • Joint Integration. Shrinking resources demand measured relative to the Pentagon’s current level of a more unified and integrated employment of spending, would place at high risk the U.S. mili- capabilities. To make the joint force more capable, tary’s ability to execute America’s long-standing the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs and generally successful military strategy of global of Staff, in concert with the Office of the Secretary engagement. of Defense (OSD), should assert greater authority Four principles guide this report’s recom- in challenging combatant command (COCOM) mendations. DOD has made limited progress and service requirements. DOD also should form implementing elements of these principles, but it standing red teams for competitive analysis, create should go much further. First, DOD should pri- standing joint operational headquarters and reform oritize naval and air forces to project power and joint professional military education (PME). deter aggression in the vast Asia-Pacific and volatile • Military Headquarters. To make U.S. military greater Middle East. Second, DOD should increase headquarters more efficient and effective, the interdependence across and within the military Pentagon should shrink the number of geo- services to strengthen joint effectiveness and reduce graphic combatant commands from six to four unnecessary redundancy. Third, DOD should match by merging U.S. Africa Command with U.S. requirements to likely threats based on holistic European Command and merging U.S. Northern analysis of the aggregate capability of the joint force, Command with U.S. Southern Command. The not on narrow analysis of a single platform, service military services should abolish most admin- or domain. Fourth, DOD should accelerate invest- istrative service component commands and ments in technologies that leap ahead of the planned replace them with components that also have next generation of existing systems, especially war-fighting capabilities. Following the model technologies related to unmanned, autonomous and already used by the Marine Corps, the services artificial intelligence systems. * Because we start from a different baseline, DOD would have to cut an additional $150 billion beyond the cuts reflected in the FY 2013 request to reach what we refer to as $500 billion to $550 billion in total cuts over the next 10 years. DOD has announced plans to cut its budget by approximately $487 billion during this time, but that figure is calculated relative to the requested FY 2012 base defense budget ($553 billion). Our figures are calculated relative to the actual FY 2012 budget ($531 billion). See David W. Barno, Nora Bensahel and Travis Sharp, “Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in an Age of Austerity” (Center for a New American Security, October 2011), 5-6. 6 | should dual-hat remaining service component • The Navy. To meet the demands of a budget- DOD must maintain headquarters and commanders so they have both constrained U.S. strategy weighted toward the operational and administrative roles. Asia-Pacific and global dominance at sea, the America’s military pre- • Civilians and Contractors. The Pentagon and Navy should adopt a broader set of crew rota- eminence but spend less on defense intelligence community should reduce tion policies that enable ships to remain forward their civilian and contractor workforces to reflect for greater stretches of time.