Matt Yglesias

Defense Reform for the Long Haul

Noah Schachtman writes about an intriguing element of yesterday’s Pentagon conference call that hinted at the logic of deeper future reforms:

Marine General [and] Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright says the Review will handle all kinds of tradeoffs. For instance: “If you have bombers in the Pacific, do you also have to have aircraft carriers?” he asks. “Do we always have to have every thing in every service? How much of this do we really need, especially given the situation we face which is a much broader spectrum of conflict over a much great geographic dispersal than we’ve had in the past?”

Essentially everyone agrees that this is a problem. At the margin, each service prefers to have more capacity inside its own bureaucratic boxes rather than be dependent on other services. Consequently, around the margins there’s a lot of overlap, even though “jointness” has allegedly been the main strategic concept of the military for a while now. Spencer Ackerman observes that the implications of taking this idea more seriously could be large “if the services and Congress don’t like the fiscal 2010 budget, they’ll absolutely hate the QDR and the fiscal 2011 budget that the QDR informs. Reform is starting to seem like the new normal at the Pentagon under Gates.”

I think that’s right. Early in his remarks, Gates specifically linked the reform-oriented 2010 budget request to a larger process. He said that what he’s doing in this budget flows from the 2008 National Defense Strategy and that the drive to change will continue in both the next Quadrennial Defense Review, the next Nuclear Posture Review, and then the 2011 budget request.

This is important because it’s in the nature of military procurement programs that there are necessarily large lag times. Consequently, over the short run the only way to realize really major savings would be to just abandon existing expensive equipment in a way that’s not very efficient. But the move to curtail the F-22 in favor of increased orders of the F-35, which is both cheaper and “jointer” (i.e., used by more than one service) points in the direction of the possibility of substantial long-term potential savings. That’s not only because you can have direct efficiency gains through more joint procurement, it’s because by moving the services to a more homogeneous set of tools you do much more to lay bare redundancy and overcapacity. In Gates’ example, we’re thinking about the general presence of strategic air power in the Pacific rather than so many carrier-based craft and so many bombers. The presumption that you need “some of everything” in any important region winds up setting an unreasonably high floor for capabilities.

Gates on the Defense Budget

I’ve just gotten off a conference call with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in which he talked about the budget.

Probably the most notable thing he said was the stern words he offered for members of the military who may not be happy with some of the decisions he’s made. At first it was all sweetness and light with Gates remarking that “we had a process that was very inclusive” and observing that there were “a lot of meetings and a lot of dialogue on all this, and I think everybody knows that they had a chance to put their oar in and make their case” so everyone should be happy. But then he started to get real and said:

One of the concerns that I have had in the past has been the discipline in this building after the decisions get made; I understand that the chiefs in particular can give their professional military advice to the congress and to the president, but the fact is that for everyone else and, frankly, for them in terms of executing their positions once I have made my decision and the president has made his decision, that is the policy of this department . . . I don’t want to see any guerilla warfare on this . . . we have a chain of command.

In addition to tough talk, the specific bureaucratic plan of action is to portray the shift in spending priorities as, implicitly, a shift away from what folks inside the Beltway may like to what combatant commanders out in the field are asking for. Gates said that these aren’t cuts. Rather, it’s “reshaping” specifically the kind of reshaping “that the combatant commanders are asking for.” The process, he said, “is a lot about the warfighters, the combatant commanders and the fight they’re in.” Though he was quick to say that he believes his choices reflect not only the priorities of combatant commanders actively engaged in military action, but also those primarily tasked with “preventing war.”

On specifics, Gates said that the problem with the Army’s Future Combat Systems program isn’t just the cost. It’s that there wasn’t enough flexibility. Based on the operational lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s useful to have a broad range of different kinds of vehicles, and it wasn’t proving feasible through the FCS process to design a system that could replace the full spectrum of currently available vehicles.

Spectrum is an important concept. The weighting from regular to irregular warfare in the budget is undeniable, but Gates said he didn’t want to see it as a binary choice. Instead “there is a spectrum of conflict” and the goal of the force needs to be to be able to shift up and down the spectrum.

Conversely, Gates is holding on to the Littoral Combat System project for the Navy even though the program has had a lot of cost overruns and so forth. Gates said that despite the problems “I think it has a capability we just have to have.” Specifically, the promise of a ship that’s not only agile, but relative cheap on a per-ship basis is large. “You don’t need a $5 billion ship to go after pirates,” Gates said.

The Gates/Obama Reform Budget

Let me quote Matt Duss’ Wonk Room post on today’s defense budget announcement:

I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that Defense Secretary Gates’ announcement of his 2010 defense budget recommendations represents an appreciable shift in the way that the United States approaches the issue of military acquisitions. Applying lessons learned in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as signifying a recognition that the continuing economic crisis places real constraints on defense spending, Gates’ recommendations are an important — but by no means comprehensive — move toward a responsible re-balancing of America’s defense priorities. [...]

Gates laid a shot across the bow of those in Congress who are likely to try and reinstate beloved boondoggles like the Airborne Laser and the F-22 Raptor, (which Gates recommended canceling after 187 are built) saying “I know that in the coming weeks we will hear a great deal about threats, and risk and danger -– to our country and to our men and women in uniform –- associated with different budget choices. Some will say I am too focused on the wars we are in and not enough on future threats.”

These are important shifts and this is audacious policy. Frankly, you’ve got to worry that it may be too audacious. The defense budget looks the way it looks because that’s how the key players in congress want it to look, and I don’t really know what Robert Gates or Barack Obama can do about that.

Skelton on Gates

Rep Ike Skelton doesn’t seem to be leaping to embrace Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ efforts to change the Pentagon budget. His office released this statement:

Secretary Gates has set out major changes to the defense budget based on changed assumptions about the wars our military must be prepared to fight. This is a good faith effort, and I appreciate the hard work and thoughtful consideration Secretary Gates and his staff put into these proposals.

However, the buck stops with Congress, which has the critical Constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals. In the weeks ahead, my colleagues and I will carefully consider these proposals and look forward to working with Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen as we prepare the Fiscal Year 2010 defense authorization act.

And, indeed, stop with congress the buck does.

Gates Pushing Back on Iran War Fever

Recently, we’ve seen a bit of a renewed outburst of Iran war fever. First, several powerful House Democrats signed a letter telling the Obama administration that any diplomatic approach to Iran had to produce results very quickly or else it should be abandoned in favor of punitive measures. Then Bibi Netanyahu told Obama that unless diplomacy produced results in a few months that Israel would strike away. And CFR Senior Fellow, Bush NSC veteran, and Iran-Contra crook Elliot Abrams tried to assure us that the Iranian people would welcome airstrikes.

Steve Clemons observes that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is offering some pushback:

Mr Gates said he does not expect Israel – which believes the US estimate for when Iran could develop a nuclear weapon is too sanguine – to take military action this year.

“I guess I would say I would be surprised…if they did act this year,” said Mr Gates.

As he was sworn in as the new Israeli prime minister this week, Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the greatest danger to Israel was Iran’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons. But asked whether Iran would cross a nuclear “red line” this year, Mr Gates said: “I don’t know, I would guess probably not”.

“I think we have more time than that. How much more time I don’t know,” said Mr Gates. “It is a year, two years, three years. It is somewhere in that window.”

Of course the question still arises of what happens if Gates’ assessment of Israeli intentions is wrong. Will the United States lean strongly against Israel launching an attack that could have a dire impact on American interests and will likely not do much beyond ensure that Iran develops a nuclear weapon in the near future? We have, in principle, a lot of leverage over Israeli policy. But at the same time, Israeli preferences speak very loudly on Capitol Hill.

A Full Plate is No Excuse for Discrimination

Robert Gates’ statement that we shouldn’t expect the Obama administration to fulfill its pledge to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell anytime soon is highly disappointing:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says both he and President Barack Obama have “a lot on our plates right now.” As Gates puts it, “let’s push that one down the road a little bit.”

It’s simply the nature of the military that this “a lot on our plates right now” excuse will almost always be available. In retrospect, the 1990s were a period of relative peace and quiet for the military, but at the time it was seen as a stressful period of multiple deployments (to Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia) around the world mixed with efforts at containment in the Gulf and the Korean peninsula. The Joint Chiefs are never going to say “eh . . . we don’t really have much going on these days.”

Meanwhile, racial desegregation of the military actually required a large number of active steps and was successfully carried out near the peak of Cold War tensions. The biggest step toward ending discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military would be the passive step of just not discriminating against them. Gay and lesbian soldiers are already serving. Gates could just decide that with as much on his plate as he has at the moment, he’ll make sure we stop persecuting them.

Gates, Obama to Take on Military-Industrial Complex

There have been a lot of smoke signals indicating that Robert Gates and Barack Obama are gearing up to take on the bloated defense weapons system sector, but there have also been a fair number of contrary signals. Now the signals are looking both clear and good:

Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said. More cuts are planned for later this year after a review that could lead to reductions in programs such as aircraft carriers and nuclear arms, the officials said.

This is excellent news. Matt Duss observes:

This is welcome news. As I wrote yesterday, one of the key strategic misconceptions of the Bush administration was to focus on threats from strong state actors rather than non-state actors operating within weak and failed states. (Last fall, CAP’s Brian Katulis argued — as did I — that Gates’ demonstrated approach to 21st century national security challenges was a good reason to keep him in place in an Obama administration.)

Andrew Exum observes that this means the Gates Pentagon will now be fighting a three front war, adding “the bi-partisan coalition of lobbyists, congressmen, and industry leaders” to their existing problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Gordon Adams in a guest post at Democracy Arsenal takes on the specious economic argument for continuing with strategically blinkered weapons programs.

Military-Industrial Complex Planning to Use Taxpayer Dollars to Lobby for Waste

Spencer Ackerman reports on defense contractors gearing up for battle with the Obama administration:

One Pentagon official expects much more of that as the services and the defense industry push back against reform. Their “ground game,” the official said, will be run from the services’ legislative outreach and public-affairs offices, feeding talking points and strategy information to sympathetic members of Congress — something that “got the services in trouble in 2002″ with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when the Army resisted his ultimately-successful plan to scrap an archaic artillery system called Crusader. An “air game” will feature “a lot of ominous whispers on background to the press and conservative think tanks and commentators about endangering the American people and costing lives in some future fight.”

Gates, whom Obama tasked with working closely with OMB, has told confidantes that he views a sustainable long-term rebalancing of defense priorities as one of his most important tasks now that Obama has given him the chance to continue on as Pentagon chief. His service under the Bush administration was more about supporting the immediate needs of the Iraq war after Bush fired Rumsfeld in November 2006. “The services are accustomed to reviews that start out with a lot of talk about setting priorities and making tough choices but in reality usually end with leaving everything more or less intact,” the Pentagon official said. “This time they have a secretary who really means it.”

Note that “the services’ legislative outreach and public-affairs offices” are technically part of the United States government. Indeed, they’re technically not supposed to be doing any lobbying at all. In fact, they regularly lobby congress against positions taken by the civilian leadership of the United States and on behalf of the defense contractors they’re hoping will employ them post-retirement.

Gates: Obama Makes Sure He Hears From Everybody in the Room

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was clearly reluctant to answer David Gregory’s question about the contrasting leadership styles between President Bush and President Obama. But when pressed he explained that Obama is “more analytical” and goes further out of his way to hear from diverse viewpoints:

GATES: I think that probably President Obama is somewhat more analytical, and he makes sure he hears from everybody in the room on an issue. And if they don’t speak up, he calls on them.

Q: A marked difference from his predecessor?

GATES: President Bush was interested in hearing different points of view but didn’t go out of his way to make sure everybody spoke if they hadn’t spoken up before.

This is a reminder of a point that I think’s been difficult to fully articulate in the Chas Freeman debate. I think there’s truth to the criticisms of Freeman’s hard-bitten strain of realpolitik. But no administration is monolithic, and given the disastrous consequences of our 2002-2006 flirtation with total irrealism I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all to have some Freeman-style ballast on the ship. If Obama seemed to be assembling an entire administration that was unconcerned with human rights abroad, that would be another thing, but that’s not what’s happening here.

The Case for Gates

My colleague Brian Katulis made the case for keeping Robert Gates on as SecDef a while back along with his coauthor Nancy Soderberg. An excerpt:

In several speeches that haven’t received the attention they deserve, Gates has argued that, as he put it on Sept. 29 at the National Defense University, “direct military force will continue to have a role” in the “prolonged, world-wide irregular campaign” against al-Qaeda and other violent extremists. But here’s the important part: Gates understands “that over the long term, we cannot kill or capture our way to victory.”

Instead, he calls for beefed up U.S. diplomatic and development capabilities. Unlike Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were obsessed with potential great-power competitors such as China, Gates bluntly admits that the “most likely catastrophic threats to our homeland — for example, an American city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack — are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states.” His solution to failing states? Help patch them up. Shortly after he took office, Gates argued that the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan is that “economic development, . . . good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more — these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success.”

Personally, I have somewhat equivocal feelings about this course of action, but I’m hoping Gates will prove Brian right.