Make no mistake. The department is in free fall despite allocating nearly one trillion dollars for the Pentagon next year and the presence of a motivated military and civilian workforce. How can this be? After all, the US is supposed to have the most powerful military in the world armed with the best weapons.
Suspend disbelief and consider the reasons for this assessment. First, for twenty years, the Pentagon was engaged in endless wars that could not be won by military force alone. Nation-building in Afghanistan and imposing a democracy in Iraq after invading to destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction squandered trillions of dollars and countless amounts of blood, not only American. Worse, these diversions allowed adversaries and enemies to evolve. Today, the combination of China, Russia, Iraq and North Korea, plus non-government actors, poses challenges and dangers which the United States and its allies have not been able to confront or contain effectively.
Nation-building in Afghanistan and imposing a democracy in Iraq after invading to destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction squandered trillions of dollars and countless amounts of blood, not only American.
Second, for a decade or more, the Department has operated under a continuing resolution because Congress has been incapable of passing a budget on time. In business terms, that cuts buying power by 10-15% a year. And it makes long-range planning impossible, further deteriorating the effectiveness and efficiency of operating the Pentagon.
Third, the Pentagon is infected with a cancerous cost cancer. Uncontrolled annual real cost growth, above inflation, is 5-7% a year for every item from people to pencils to precision weapons. About costs, about half goes to covering people in general. Even though recruitment is strong, services are offering early retirement and early buy-outs to reduce personnel costs for senior people. The reality is that on the current course, at the end of the Trump administration in 2029, the forces will be quantitatively smaller in number.
The first Columbia-class ballistic missile nuclear submarine will cost close to $20 billion even though follow-ons are hoped to be less expensive. Tariffs will raise the price of F-35s to about $130 million while upgrades are being delayed due to costs. And the Marines’ follow-on landing ships that steam at a stately 14 kts carrying about fifty Leathernecks will run at several hundreds of millions of dollars.
Added to this is the cost of nuclear modernisation and Golden Done which is a missile and air defence system protecting the nation. The B-21 Raider bomber and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile are experiencing huge cost overruns and time delays. All this is a precursor of a looming fiscal crisis.
Then there is turmoil in the Pentagon with the firing or dismissal of senior serving officers without just cause. The black former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; two female service chiefs and several dozen other flag officers have become casualties. Since outside, non-military “influencers” have apparently been responsible for these outings, many officers fear that even the tiniest political or ideological misstep can end a thirty or thirty-five-year career.
The administration is set to release the latest National Defence Strategy. The current NDS, which perhaps should be renamed the National War Strategy given the renaming of the Pentagon, is on the aims of containing/competing; deterring; and if war comes defeating a range of enemies topped by China and Russia. No one has defined what competing means or how it is to be measured.
And who has been deterred? Russia has invaded Ukraine twice. China has not been restrained in expanding its influence, economy and military power. The military parade last week in Beijing was quite a show of the Chinese military that the great Chinese war philosopher Sun Tzu, would appreciate.
About winning a war, any conflict among these powers could escalate to the use of thermonuclear weapons. A thermonuclear weapon is 1000 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan. As serious leaders agree, thermonuclear war must not be fought and cannot be won.
If war is contained to non-nuclear forces, it could be a long conflict. But the US defence industrial base is incapable of supporting a long war. Spending trillions of dollars will take years or decades to upgrade that base. What to do? The answer is simple. The US needs a serious, non-partisan and no-holds-barred evaluation of the state of the Department of Defence now and over the next decade. With that as a starting point, an effective, affordable and executable strategy and force structure can follow. But not taking action is a clear and present danger to the nation.
The writer is a senior advisor at Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and a published author. He can be reached on Twitter @harlankullman.