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Budget needs to balance personnel, weapons

The unveiling of President Barack Obama’s first defense budget was anticlimactic, coming weeks after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced major program cuts and after Congress had approved top-line funding levels.

Still, there is a worrisome trend of what seems to be a willingness to spend without the hard work necessary to get the most for the taxpayer buck.

Specifically, the administration’s budget supports recent increases in end strength but offers few ideas for making the force it has more efficient.

More worrisome still: Breaking with custom, the budget includes no future-years projections. The Pentagon comptroller admitted that the reason is that “we don’t have a plan beyond 2010.”

That’s really code for saying the administration isn’t going to commit to anything it might want to change after the coming Quadrennial Defense Review.

Critics say this QDR, like past reviews, will really be less about strategy than a justification of budgetary decisions already made. Indeed, the QDR was barely underway when Gates announced cuts to major weapons and programs.

Regardless, the administration cannot keep ignoring the military’s skyrocketing personnel costs. The cost of providing Tricare alone has gone up more than 260 percent since 2000.

Whether as part of the QDR or something else, the Obama administration will have to muster the political courage to take a holistic approach to defense budgeting that better balances spending on personnel programs and on weapons, research and other important initiatives.

Some weapons programs may be easy targets for termination. But are they truly the programs that will produce opportunities to reduce the need for personnel and, more importantly, the need to send them into harm’s way?

Reform of personnel spending as part of a comprehensive approach to long-term sustainment of the U.S. military as the world’s best trained and equipped is critical.

Failure to do so threatens end-strength gains, increases in pay and benefits necessary to sustain an all-volunteer force, quality-of-life improvements for troops and families, and the ability to ensure war fighters have the best tools for victory.

Analyst Loren Thompson rightly notes that costs are rising at a rate that within a few short years will make the all-volunteer military unaffordable.

To avoid catastrophe, start focusing on the problem now. Retool spending across the board and reorganize the force to ensure it is being tasked and deployed for maximum efficiency.

Consider this: Retired Adm. Harry Ulrich recently noted that when he was in charge of U.S. naval forces in Europe, he controlled a handful of ships with a staff of 1,300 people. His World War II predecessor controlled several thousand vessels, but with a staff of 300.

Meanwhile, the Navy is investing enormous resources to try to cut the number of people on its ships. The new Littoral Combat Ship has a standing crew of just 40, prompting some to ask whether that’s too few for extended operations around the globe. Might the Navy have saved more money and achieved more efficiency by trimming bloated staff?

In the end, it’s a question of balance.

If the QDR can’t address manpower and organization, it should at least set the stage for a subsequent review to follow a year later.

If it doesn’t, the U.S. will soon find itself ill-equipped for future threats.