Arbitrary, destructive, and dangerous reductions to the defense budget, as would be necessary under a cap in discretionary defense spending at fiscal year 2022 levels, are not savings or reform. They are counterproductive to and distract from reform. 

A defense budget that supports the national security and defense strategies, deters aggression, enables planning and exercising with allies and partners, modernizes and maintains weapons systems and platforms, and cares for the force is separate from desires for reform and improvements in the way business is done.

The Defense Futures Simulator informs us of the magnitude of negative impacts to force structure, accompanying personnel, and the nation’s ability to modernize, project power, or carry out the missions of the National Defense Strategy.

For example, assuming priority in the budget to prepare for a potential China confrontation in 2027, capping funding at fiscal year 2022 levels would result in a force that is measurably smaller and less capable than the one we have today. We would not be buying ships, planes, and Brigade Combat Team equipment necessary for both the capacity and capability we need to carry out strategic intent or to maintain a defense industrial base that is already struggling with unpredictable demand signals and delays in funding. 

Specifically, while we might be able to increase the 2027 projected 280-ship navy to 300 ships, most of that would be through temporary service life extensions for ships that should be retiring, not new ship procurements. We would procure fewer aircraft than planned, wasting money on production lines that are not fully used. The same would apply for ground and soldier equipment.

On the one hand, we would strain the supply chain to provide expensive old parts for legacy systems; and on the other hand, we would not support production of the parts for new equipment we had planned to buy. We would not be generating the demand signal for production of what we really need. And we would not be stimulating innovation for better capabilities.

These impacts would reverberate throughout the communities where the Department of Defense (DOD) resides and operates and into the heart of defense innovation necessary to counter China and maintain the US status as a global power. Negative consequences would echo through the defense industrial base, shipyards, depots, and munitions plants and into the supply chain.

These are things about which Congress says it already has concerns.

For example, two years ago, through the Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force, the House focused on “defense supply chains, the defense industrial base, and the ways that our defense supply chains were prepared to respond to supply shocks so adversaries like China cannot weaponize supply chain vulnerabilities.” In concluding this work they recommended that DOD treat supply chain security as a defense strategic priority.

Recognizing the threat environment and the dangers of taking our eye off the ball, the House has just established a Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party with the “sole authority” to investigate and “submit policy recommendations on the status of the Chinese Communist Party’s economic, technological, and security progress and its competition with the United States.”

Finally, Congress recently, and wisely, doubled down on many of these concerns by approving an increase of $73 billion in defense spending over FY 2022 levels while directing assessments of munitions production and capacity expansion, authorizing $1 billion for the National Defense Stockpile, and appropriating increases of more than $18 billion for procurement and close to $21 billion for research and development, policy provisions and funding that was approved by bipartisan majorities.

These important actions directly conflict with the notion of handing the initiative and momentum back to the adversary, which is exactly what happens if we halt or reverse defense spending increases.  

Should we pursue budget reform, weed out elements of the defense budget that do not produce military capability, and perpetually look for ways to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars?

Yes, without a doubt.

Should we conflate or confuse the importance of doing these things with a defense budget sufficient to sustain and modernize defense capabilities to carry out the National Defense Strategy?

No, we should not.

Doing so would not only be counterproductive to reform efforts, it would set us back nationally and internationally immediately and for decades to come.

As former Secretary of Defense Mattis used to say: “Let’s take our own side in this fight.”

Rather than sending destructive, conflicting, and confusing messages to the taxpayer on one of very few issues with bipartisan support—defense spending—Congress should look at the calendar and focus on a two-year budget agreement with real increases for the nation’s security and enactment of regular appropriations bills on time.

The post The Enemy is Us, Again? appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.