The Obama Administration is planning a 10-percent cut to defense spending beginning with the 2010 budget. Personnel cuts are not in the cards.
“We are going to cut weapons systems,” Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chair of the Armed Services Committee, said during a news conference on Friday. “That’s not just me speaking. The secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff] have spoken about [how] we have got to face the reality that there’s going to be a reduction somewhere in the defense budget.”
Good. At more than $500 billion and 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, U.S. defense spending is too high. Excess encourages waste, including cost overruns totalling $300 billion in the top tier of acquisitions programs. It’s time to cut, not just to save money, but to return clarity, economy and humility to military budgeteers.
Time for an exercise. If you were in charge, what would you cut? And having cut a given program, how would you replace the capability it provided — or would you drop the capability entirely?
This ain’t a simple game, for us or for the government. Development and procurement costs for most programs get strung out over many, many years — and it can be hard to predict the long-term implications of short-term cuts. And many programs, such as the Army’s Future Combat Systems, include several discrete weapons lumped together under one rubric. If you want to kill just one weapon without touching its brothers, you’ll have to figure out how to parse the overall program’s component costs.
To do this right, you’ll need to study two documents: the 2009 procurement budget and the most recent Selected Acquisitions Report. As an example, here are my proposed cuts:
1) Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: All 600 vehicles
Total cost: $15 billion/30 years = $.5 billion annually
Spent so far: $2 billion
Replacement: 600 new-build Amphibious Assault Vehicles x ~$3 million = $2 billion/10 years = $.2 billion annual cost
Immediate savings: $.5 billion – .$.2 billion replacement = $.3 billion
Rationale: The EFV is a technological failure attempting to combine the qualities of a fast boat and a heavily armored vehicle. Older amphibious vehicles are adequate for beach assaults; MRAP-style armored vehicles can fill in for the EFV for deep-inland operations.2) Future Combat Systems: All manned vehicles
Total cost: $160 billion/25 years = ~$6 billion annually
Spent so far: $30 billion
Replacement: 15 brigade sets (~5,000 vehicles total) of new M-1 and M-2 vehicles x $4 million average unit cost = $20 billion/10 years = $2 billion annual cost
Immediate savings: $4 billion
Rationale: FCS’ manned vehicles are too light to survive on the modern battlefield. The FCS network, by contrast, is a useful piece of communications gear, and is mostly paid for. Upgrade the existing M-1 and M-2 designs with the FCS’ communications gear to halve FCS’ total cost.3) Missile defense: Land- and air-based systems
Total cost: $100 billion/10 years = $10 billion annually
Spent so far: ~$50 billion
Replacement: Continue the Navy’s SM-3 ship-based interceptor, and and the Army’s shorter-range Patriot and THAAD missiles, at an annual cost of $2 billion.
Immediate savings: $8 billion
Rationale: Land-based theater and national Ballistic Missile Defenses consistently have failed tests and have undermined treaty relationships with Russia. Airborne Laser doesn’t work.4) Joint Strike Fighter: All naval variants, 700 aircraft
Total cost: $340 billion/30 years = $11 billion annually, of which around a third goes to naval variants
Spent so far: ~$50 billion
Replacement: 600 x F/A-18E/Fs for both the Marines and Navy over 20 years x $50 million apiece = $1.5 billion
Immediate savings: ~$2 billion annually
Rationale: The Marines’ F-35B jump jet is too heavy, and vertical-takeoff, fixed-wing aircraft operations are not clearly justified by modern combat doctrine. The Navy’s F-35C clearly is unnecessary. For the Navy, F/A-18E/Fs are more than adequate until the X-47 attack drone enters production. For the Marines, F/A-18E/Fs plus helicopters will provide adequate air capabilities. All foreign forces hoping for the jump-jet F-35B will have to find alternatives. Sorry.5) CVN-21: One ship
Total cost: $15 billion/5 years = $3 billion annually
Replacement: None
Rationale: The Navy can make do with just 10 carriers, vice the current 11. Cut one CVN-21 carrier from the future fleet.
Immediate savings: $3 billion6) DDG-1000: One ship
Total cost: $5 billion
Replacement: Instead of the third and final DDG-1000, invest $1 billion in new littoral craft, including High Speed Vessels, a variant of the Sea Fighter and new PC-class coastal patrol boats.
Rationale: The Navy has more than enough battleships.
Immediate savings: $4 billion
My total annual savings beginning in 2010: $21.3 billion
Final thoughts: a $21.3-billion cut falls short of the Administration’s $50-billion goal, but it’s a start. Importantly, my cuts result in no serious lost capabilities for the U.S. military. Indeed, my extra investment in cheap, but highly useful littoral ships and newer versions of today’s armored vehicles mean a net boost in useful military capability. Furthermore, deep cuts to flawed missile defenses actually will make us safer, by easing tensions with Russia.
Interestingly, my cuts spare the Air Force. That’s because the air service no longer has any viable options but to continue today’s programs and hope to keep costs under control. We need to keep building F-22s to maintain some semblance of an air-superiority force. We need way more C-130s and C-17s than we already are buying. And the Air Force version of the F-35, while a compromise aircraft, is now the linchpin of a vast international system of technology-sharing, logistics and joint planning. While new-build F-15s and F-16s would help maintain the force structure fairly cheaply, those would have to come at the cost of F-22s, C-17s, C-130s or F-35s, and we can’t afford to cancel any of the four. Small cuts to the Air Force F-35 buy are an option in future years, but won’t create any savings today.
(Photo: Bryan William Jones)
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LCS, junk it.
What do you mean the ABL doesn’t work? It’s well along in development. Wouldn’t you like to have one of those on station if North Korea does something stupid?
The DDG-1000 has already been authorized and they’re only finishing the two ships already under construction.
Would getting rid of most of the nukes left over from the Cold War save money? Washington would want to get Moscow to do the same, but neither country needs anything like 5,000 nuclear bombs. And reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world is definitely a good thing.
it is ridiculous to claim that cutting missile defense will result in an immediate $8 billion savings. The bulk of the $9 billion missile defense budget goes not only for SM-3 and THAAD, it also goes for all radars, sensors, command and control, communication, targets and countermeasures research, advanced technology research, combatant command operations, all testing (ground and flight), program management and infrastructure, test range costs, multiple kill vehicle and kinetic energy interceptor development and testing etc etc. I don’t understand what you mean by saying “theater and national missile defense” have consistantly failed
tests–since 2001, 37 of 47 tests have resulted in successful hit to kill intercepts. Also, how can you state that the Airborne Laser doesn’t work when it hasn’t even had its first shoot down test of a ballistic missile target? The laser has worked great in ground tests and the first shootdown is scheduled for this fall. Please do your homework if you want to offer an informed argument.
Thanks Mr Axe now I can cross your blog off the list of sites I visit. $500 billion and 4% of GDP is spending too much on defense, really.
These are near the bottom of spending over the entire history of the last fifty years as a percentage of GDP!! Pres. Carter spent more. How do you justify your statement of it being too expensive. That is propaganda not reporting.
If you think it is too expensive state that it is your opinion. Why not include a spending comparison from other years so the reader can compare and contrast what we are spending today.
David, you favor the AF at your own risk. Exactly how are we losing “air superiority” by stopping F22 buys, reducing F35s to affordable 75% solutions instead of 99%, and cutting a long-range bomber? You’re far too easy on the service who still doesn’t know what it wants.
Strongly recommend you review and consider CAP’s report: Building a Military for the 21st Century for some grounded rationale.
BTW, it’s not a defense cut, it’s an 8 percent increase over the submitted President’s Budget for FY10-15. It’s a reduction from the Pentagon’s wish-list for budget years FY10-11. Don’t help Faux News spread its stupidity.
There is no 10 percent cut. CQ debunked this yesterday:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003022493
I would cut the DDG-1000, trim back on
FCS that are not needed right now or in
the immediate future, delay the new carrier
for 3-5 years, keep the F-35 (we need it),
and fix the EFV program (the ability for USMC
to conduct amphibious landings is still a vita
deterant for some aggresor nations).
@Bobbymike:
The relevant measure is not how much we’re spending now vs. what we spent in the past – it’s what we’re spending vs. the likely threat… and current budget levels mean that we’re spending as much as ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD PUT TOGETHER. There’s absolutely no freaking way that is justified. We cannot continue to treat defense expenditures as sacrosanct – we simply can’t afford to continue along this path.