President's Commentary: Rebuilding Our Defense Must Be Done Thoughtfully

A significant level of effort and commitment is needed to restore the U.S. military to where it can appropriately address the country’s many national and international security responsibilities. The new administration has pledged to rebuild the nation’s defense capabilities, proposing billions more in defense spending for badly needed improvements. This initial hike in funding, while a much-needed and welcome first step, will require reinforcement in the Future Years Defense Program to truly position the military to meet our global commitments. 

As highlighted by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, at least three areas of need stand out: readiness, increased military capacity to meet our extensive national security interests, and modernization.

At the forefront is readiness. We are perhaps in the most challenging security environment since the end of World War II. The continued engagement in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, the re-emergence of an increasingly aggressive Russia, the growing assertiveness of China and Iran, a dangerous and unpredictable North Korea and expanding global terrorism will continue to place greater demands on the U.S. military. Despite what may appear on the surface to be a reduced operations tempo, the stress on the force has not eased. As defense funding trade-offs continue, operational risk stemming from readiness and military capacity shortfalls is rapidly moving toward an unacceptable level. 

Twenty five years ago, the United States had a 454-ship Navy. Today it has 275 ships. The Air Force had 134 fighter squadrons. Today it has 55 squadrons. The Army is at its lowest number of soldiers since the beginning of World War II. Marine Corps aircraft readiness hovers around 45 percent against a goal of 75 percent. Maintenance and repair cycles have increased across all the services. In some instances, repair parts are backlogged or unavailable. 

These facts, coupled with the global security environment, highlight the capacity and readiness challenge for the U.S. military. Additionally, uncertainty in funding fueled by sequestration has created restrictive and undue pressure on the force and all the elements that support it. Industry, with a tenuous and often delicately balanced supply chain, requires consistent and predictable funding to remain competitive. Absent this input, some companies have been forced to reduce or shut down assembly lines or services or to close up shop. Some have had to remake themselves, doing business outside of government to stay viable amid uncertainty. This has created a void in goods and services, led to increased government costs and contributed to delays in maintenance along with shortfalls in operational readiness. 

These conditions no doubt will have a prolonged negative effect and will take time and resources to remedy—neither of which is in strong supply. The solution is for Congress to acknowledge the crippling and untenable burden that sequestration has placed on the services and the defense industry and eliminate sequestration now. Failure to act is not an acceptable alternative. 

Modernization also is a key focus area. One of the challenges of modernization efforts is that they must constantly identify and adapt to evolving threats and technologies. In modernizing, jointness and interoperability should be maximized. Properly developed and employed, joint solutions tend to promote, among other things, increased operational effectiveness, common logistics support and training, and economies of scale in acquisition and logistics. 

The Defense Department’s increased adoption of commercially driven technologies and industry partnerships in areas such as robotics, autonomous systems and data analytics present the opportunity to leverage commercial research and development efforts while using its own resources to fill technology gaps.

A review of legacy programs, with an eye on their true value for the most likely next fight, would be useful. Spending on obsolete or marginally effective legacy capabilities and programs should be stopped and resources from those programs reinvested.

The onerous burden of acquisition regulations needs to be lightened and replaced with increased accountability by the acquisition community, industry and capability sponsors. The system does not need more regulations. It needs strong partnerships and greater accountability for results.

Fortunately, the recommitment to rebuild our defense capabilities is coming just in time. It is clear that the department has rough edges in readiness, shortfalls in capacity and a need for modernization. One only has to look at the ominous signs in the depth and breadth of our forces for evidence of these deficits. We owe our fighting men and women our total commitment to ensuring readiness to meet today’s challenges and the challenges of the future.