How Much Austerity in New Pentagon Budget?

Project on Defense Alternatives, 13 February 2012. Measured against recent spending levels, the new ten-year plan for Defense base budget spending shows only modest savings. One table. http://defensealt.org/GXMlQO

“Red Team” Report in 2009 Raised Concerns about Fiscal Constraints

Sebastian Sprenger writing in Inside Defense on 21 April 2011 reports that the QDR Red Team headed by Gen. James Mattis (USMC) and Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net Assessment, raised concerns in 2009 about the fiscal restraint effects of the deep recession on military plans to be represented in the QDR.

The Red Team report was not made public. When the QDR was published in early 2010 it did not include a presentation of the effects of fiscal constraints.

Last week, a little more than a year later, President Obama asked Secretary Gates to find $400 billion in additional security budget cuts over a twelve year period and called for a new review of military roles and missions.

The effect of this development will be an update of the 2010 QDR which will likely now heed the concerns of the 2009 Red Team concerning fiscal constraints.

Sharp: QDR Mulling U.S. Military Presence in South Korea

Fawzia Sheikh. Inside Defense, 29 September 2009.

Excerpt:

…the South Korean air force will maintain a combined headquarters with American forces; this headquarters will be led by U.S. 7th Air Force and report to the head of the ROK military, Sharp added. In this case, the United States is taking the lead because it offers strong air power, which must be fused with the necessary intelligence collection of North Korean activities, he said, adding that in the event of war on the peninsula the air component would “take out the long-range artillery” of the northern adversary and support ground troops as they move north “for the complete destruction of the North Korean military.”

QDR 2010 Phase II and Phase III Timelines

Inside Defense reports (Jason Sherman, 06 August 2009) keys dates for completion of the QDR 2010:

Phase II (July to November)

August 14 – Services submit 2011 FYDPs to OSD

September 01 – Comptroller and Capabilities Assessment and Program Evaluation Directorate ‘begin critique’ of the POM

October 15 – QDR issue teams finalize policy papers

November 06 – QDR issue teams finalize summary briefs

December 04 – completion of program and budget review and DoD FY-11 budget request

Phase III

November 15 – beginning of QDR document drafting and “intensive pre-release outreach”

January – Sec. Gates approves final draft before transmitting it to Congress in February

2011 budget process moves out ahead of 2010 QDR process

Defense News reports (John T. Bennett, “DoD to Launch 2011 Budget Planning,” 6 July 2009) that the services will receive their 2011 budget-building guidance later this month — well ahead of the programmatic priority setting which the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is supposed to provide. The QDR is scheduled to appear in public in February of 2010, but the Pentagon’s internal QDR process could reconcile program and budget sometime in the fall of 2009.

Expert observers, quoted in the article, believe that Secretary Gates has already set the budget-related parameters of this QDR and is confident enough of the outcome of the QDR process to jump the Pentagon and the services ahead of the formal QDR process to begin detailing the 2011 budget this summer. Others note that revised budget guidances are to be expected.

Preparing the Quadrennial Defense Review 2010 – the hierarchy of responsibility

The QDR’s governance structure is topped by the Defense Senior Leaders Conference (DSLC) made up of the nine combatant commanders, the service chiefs and the civilian Pentagon leaders.

Below the DSLC is the Deputy’s Advisory Working Group (DAWG), which is made up of the service secretaries, the vice chiefs and various under secretaries of defense; combatant commanders and others are also invited. Reporting to the DAWG are the QDR stakeholders, according to the documents. They include service, Office of the Secretary of Defense and combatant commander three-star representatives.

Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, has overall responsibility for bringing the Secretary of Defense a document he will sign and send on to Congress and the President.

Jennifer Zakriski, Director of Force Development within the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy serves as the “QDR chief of staff.”

The process of creating the QDR is coordinated by an “analysis and integration cell” headed by David Ochmanek, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development. He works within Flournoy’s policy office.

Working with Ochmanek on “integration” are Eric Coulter, Deputy Director of Strategic Assessments and Irregular Warfare of the Program Analysis and Evaluation directorate. Lisa Disbrow, Deputy Director for Force Management at the Joint Staff, and Rear Adm. Philip Davidson, Deputy Director for Strategy and Policy from the Joint Staff’s J-5 directorate, serve as liaison with the Joint Staff.

There are five “issue teams”:

· Irregular Warfare. Garry Reid, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, heads this team. He is joined by Timothy Bright, Director of PA&E’s irregular warfare division; and Maj. Gen. William Troy, Vice Director for Force Structure, Resources and Assessments at the Joint Staff’s J-8 directorate.

· High-end Threats. Amanda Dory, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy, heads this team. She is joined by Matthew Schaffer, Deputy Director of Conventional Forces at PA&E, and Brig. Gen. Lori Robinson, Deputy Director for Force Application at the Joint Staff’s J-8 directorate.

· Civil Support. Christine Wormuth, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, heads this team. She is joined by Dennis Evans, Director of the Strategic Defensive and Space Programs division at PA&E, and Scott Norwood, Deputy Director for Global Security Affairs at the Joint Staff’s J-5 directorate.

· Global Posture. Janine Davidson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans, heads this team. She is joined by Krysty Kolesar, Director of PA&E’s Force and Infrastructure Cost Analysis Division. Lisa Disbrow and Rear Adm. Davidson will represent the Joint Staff.

· Cost Drivers. Kevin Scheid, Deputy Comptroller, heads this team. He is joined by Jerry Pannullo, Director of the Economic and Manpower Analysis Division at PA&E, and Brig. Gen. Glenn Walters, Deputy Director for Resources and Acquisition at the Joint Staff’s J-8 directorate.

The services are to provide one subject matter expert for each issue area team and the analysis and integration team.

Timing. The policy review within the Pentagon was scheduled to be completed by the end of June. In the fall there will be a “budget and execution review”.

[above information from Kate Brannen reporting for Inside the Pentagon, 14 April 2009]

Defense Secretary Gates has also set up a “red team” to ensure “we’re not the prisoners of a bureaucratic group-think of people who have done this work forever.” This team will be headed by Andrew Marshall, Director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, and Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

[John T. Bennett, “Marshall, Mattis To Lead QDR ‘Red Team’”, Defense News, 15 May 2009.]