US Defense Budget, A Hard Sell
By Peter A Buxbaum for ISN
The Obama administration made headlines recently by canceling several costly Pentagon programs such as the US Army's Future Combat Systems and the Air Force's F-22 fighter aircraft. But anyone hoping for a leaner US military budget will be disappointed in Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget request. In it, he continues his predecessor's legacy of requesting substantial increases in defense spending.
This may come as a surprise in view of the president's push for a trillion-dollar health insurance program on the domestic front. But the Obama administration is on track to spend more on defense - in real terms - in any four-year period in US history since the end of World War II.
These spending increases (3.4 percent over last year to $668 billion) are driven by two key and related factors, both of which were born under George W Bush, but which have also been ratified and accelerated by Obama.
The first is the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. The 2010 budget calls for spending $65 billion in that theater, for the first time exceeding spending in Iraq (at $61 billion) since the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Obama has clearly made the Afghanistan war his own and is on track to double the contingent of US forces in that country by the end of this year.
The second is the increase in the size of US ground forces. The Army and the Marine Corps is in the process of expanding by 92,000 personnel, at a cost of $14 billion per year. This expansion was initiated in 2007 under Bush, when the US military shifted its operational emphasis to counterinsurgency and other irregular operations.
Those kinds of operations require boots on the ground to slog through densely populated urban areas and special forces to root out pockets of resistors in remote locations. Gone is Donald Rumsfeld's vision of a lean, swift, technology-driven US military.
The personnel increases have ripple effects across the US defense budget, noted Todd Harrison, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, a Washington think tank, who wrote a report analyzing the 2010 defense budget request.
The new troops must all be furnished equipment, housing and facilities, as well as pay, health care, retirement and other benefits. "Adding troops yields long-term budget implications," Harrison told ISN Security Watch.
Development cost, procurement loss
Military health care is the major potential budget buster. Those costs comprise $47 billion of Obama's 2010 defense budget request and are projected to double every 10 years, according to Harrison. The military health system cares for over nine million active-duty personnel, dependents and retirees.
"If allowed to continue, personnel-related costs will begin to crowd out other parts of the budget, such as procurement and research and development," said Harrison.
Accelerating personnel costs have already strained other parts of the US defense budget. Research and development is down 2.1 percent in the 2010 Obama budget request, but is still near the historic high set last year. Procurement is up 6.7 percent, but is still well below its historic peak set in 1985. The ratio of procurement to R&D stood at 3 to 1 in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Harrison, but is down to 1.4 percent today.
"This means the US is spending more on the development of advanced systems but there is no money to actually procure them," he said.
Harrison expects US defense research to shift in coming years from early and applied research to later development and operational research. Fewer new programs will be started, Harrison predicted, as research dollars are shifted to existing programs.
This will also have an impact on the kinds of weapons systems the US will be able to acquire in coming years.
"In recent years, requirements have often been based on capabilities that are far beyond the current technological reach," said Harrison. "The Pentagon will be shifting from exquisite solutions towards programs that are less ambitious and less costly in the long run."
At the strategic level, it is likely the US will not prepare to fight two simultaneous theater wars, as has been its posture in recent decades.
"The US may be aiming now to prepare for one major war and one regional contingency," said Harrison. He noted that a four-year defense review is currently under way which will detail this expected shift in the US strategic posture.
Sustainable?
The bigger question the budget request raises is whether it is sustainable at all. The request lays out a projection for the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming years. These projections reveal a significant decrease in funding for the wars, from $130 billion in fiscal year 2010 to just $50 billion each year thereafter. The budget request also committed to keeping overall military spending level beginning in 2011.
The pullout of combat forces from Iraq will save some money in the war budget. But with a 2010 Afghanistan budget of $65 billion and the ongoing escalation of that conflict, $50 billion for both Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011 and beyond does not seem like a reliable figure.
"The 50-billion dollar figure does not seem plausible," said Harrison. "US troops in Afghanistan will be doubling this year. Experts calculate Afghanistan will cost $580 billion over 10 years. The administration will no doubt have to come back and ask for more money."
At the higher US government budget level, the Congressional Budget Office projects $4.7 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. Military personnel costs will be doubling during that same period. The Obama administration will have to pull off some magic if it is to sustain military spending, especially while also pushing an aggressive domestic agenda.
"There is a long-term cost over the next 10, 20, and 30 years if the military force is kept at current levels," said Harrison. "If the Pentagon decides to keep the additional troops, the big issue is going to be where the money is going to come from."