Rocky C
07-13-10, 10:34 AM
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 13, 2010 10:08:30 EDT
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An independent team has made a series of recommendations to Congress to reduce future Defense Department budgets, in light of the country’s growing deficit — including big cuts to the Corps.
The team, dubbed, The Sustainable Defense Task Force, was tapped for the project by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Their suggestions could reduce defense spending by $960 billion from 2011 to 2020.
Ideas include:
• Roll back the size of the Army and Marine Corps as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. The U.S. could save $147 billion over the next decade by reducing the Army’s end strength from 547,400 to 482,400 and the Corps’ from 202,000 to 175,000, the task force says.
• Reduce the number of maneuver units in the Army and Marine Corps. The task force suggests reducing the number of Army brigades from 45 to 42 and the number of Marine infantry battalions from 27 to 24. Doing so would contribute to the $147 billion in savings as the services reduce their end strengths.
• Delay or cancel development of Navy variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The U.S. could save $9.85 billion from 2011 to 2020 by canceling the purchase of JSF jets for the Navy and Marine Corps and buying more affordable F/A-18 jets instead. Doing so would leave the Corps without jump jets once the AV-8 Harrier leaves the service, but the task force argues that capability “has not proved critical to operations in recent wars.”
• End the fielding of new MV-22 Ospreys. The Corps could save $10 billion to $12 billion over the next 10 years by buying new MH-60S and CH-53K helicopters, analysts say. The K variant of the CH-53 is not expected to hit the fleet until at least 2015, but the Navy began replacing outdated CH-46 helicopters early this century with the MH-60 on amphibious assault ships.
• Kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program and field cheaper alternatives. The Corps could save at least $8 billion in the next decade by refurbishing cheaper, existing amphibious assault vehicles instead of continuing development of the yet-to-be-fielded EFV, the task force says.
• Reduce military recruiting budgets. The task force does not provide a service-specific breakdown, but says that with a military drawdown underway, the U.S. will not need to spend as much money finding new recruits. Recruiting budgets could be reduced by $5 billion over the next decade.
A Smaller Corps
Some of the proposals — killing the EFV to save money, for example — are hardly new. But the report also includes a second set of proposals authored by Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble, analysts at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington.
In a five-page section at the back of the task force’s 56-page report, the two analysts propose a “strategy of restraint — one that reacts to danger rather than going out in search of it.” If adopted — a big “if” — it would result in deep cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, with the Army reduced from about 560,000 soldiers to 360,000, a 36 percent reduction, and the Corps reduced from 202,000 Marines to 145,000, a 28 percent decrease.
The cuts would make the Corps smaller than it has been at any time since 1950, when there were about 74,300 Marines on active duty before the U.S. took an active role in the Korean War.
“We would most deeply cut the ground forces,” the analysts say. “With few conventional enemies and a disinclination for large-scale occupations, the Marines and Army would have far less to do. The Marines get cut less than the Army because we envision a military that typically comes from the sea and stays a short period.”
In an interview, Preble said the reductions would be “responsible,” with a 3.5-percent reduction in size per year. A drawdown of that magnitude could occur if the U.S. pulls out of Okinawa, Japan, and other countries where the Corps has had a presence for decades. With no superpower facing the U.S. — Nazi Germany or Cold War-era Russia, for example — Pentagon officials need to spend money on defense more carefully, he said.
“We are spending more on our military than we have at any point since World War II,” Preble said. “It’s absurd to think that the type of threats that we‘re dealing with today in 2010 are greater than what we dealt with in 1950 or 1960 or 1970. It’s absolutely absurd.”
A cut that large in Marine manpower is considered unlikely, and other members involved in the defense task force were quick to point out that the “strategy of restraint” portion of the report was authored solely by Preble and Friedman. In fact, task force members didn’t agree on the main recommendations they made as a group, said Lawrence Korb, a task force member and former U.S. assistant secretary of defense.
“We’re not all saying that all of this needs to be done,” he said. “For example, I think we need to build the F-35. I think we need to go more slowly, but I think we need to build a new plane.”
Marine officials are taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to potential cuts to the Corps’ size. Manpower & Reserve Affairs continues to operate to maintain the service at 202,000 Marines, said Maj. Shawn Haney, a Manpower spokeswoman. However, Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, deputy commandant of plans, policies and operations, told Marine Corps Times in May that a drawdown is likely after operations in Afghanistan wind down, adding that the size and scope of it have not yet been determined.
Rep. Walter Jones, R.-N.C., one of the congressmen who called for the task force report, said he is in favor of considering closing some U.S. foreign bases, but he is “not necessarily in favor of reducing the size of the military.”
“I do think we need a strong military, but you can’t keep spending and spending,” he said. “I want to make sure we have the manpower we need because we’re in a fragile state as a world right now. My idea was just to take a look across the board (at defense spending) and then make a determination.”
Posted : Tuesday Jul 13, 2010 10:08:30 EDT
<FORM id=hidden></FORM>
An independent team has made a series of recommendations to Congress to reduce future Defense Department budgets, in light of the country’s growing deficit — including big cuts to the Corps.
The team, dubbed, The Sustainable Defense Task Force, was tapped for the project by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Their suggestions could reduce defense spending by $960 billion from 2011 to 2020.
Ideas include:
• Roll back the size of the Army and Marine Corps as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. The U.S. could save $147 billion over the next decade by reducing the Army’s end strength from 547,400 to 482,400 and the Corps’ from 202,000 to 175,000, the task force says.
• Reduce the number of maneuver units in the Army and Marine Corps. The task force suggests reducing the number of Army brigades from 45 to 42 and the number of Marine infantry battalions from 27 to 24. Doing so would contribute to the $147 billion in savings as the services reduce their end strengths.
• Delay or cancel development of Navy variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The U.S. could save $9.85 billion from 2011 to 2020 by canceling the purchase of JSF jets for the Navy and Marine Corps and buying more affordable F/A-18 jets instead. Doing so would leave the Corps without jump jets once the AV-8 Harrier leaves the service, but the task force argues that capability “has not proved critical to operations in recent wars.”
• End the fielding of new MV-22 Ospreys. The Corps could save $10 billion to $12 billion over the next 10 years by buying new MH-60S and CH-53K helicopters, analysts say. The K variant of the CH-53 is not expected to hit the fleet until at least 2015, but the Navy began replacing outdated CH-46 helicopters early this century with the MH-60 on amphibious assault ships.
• Kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program and field cheaper alternatives. The Corps could save at least $8 billion in the next decade by refurbishing cheaper, existing amphibious assault vehicles instead of continuing development of the yet-to-be-fielded EFV, the task force says.
• Reduce military recruiting budgets. The task force does not provide a service-specific breakdown, but says that with a military drawdown underway, the U.S. will not need to spend as much money finding new recruits. Recruiting budgets could be reduced by $5 billion over the next decade.
A Smaller Corps
Some of the proposals — killing the EFV to save money, for example — are hardly new. But the report also includes a second set of proposals authored by Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble, analysts at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington.
In a five-page section at the back of the task force’s 56-page report, the two analysts propose a “strategy of restraint — one that reacts to danger rather than going out in search of it.” If adopted — a big “if” — it would result in deep cuts to the Army and Marine Corps, with the Army reduced from about 560,000 soldiers to 360,000, a 36 percent reduction, and the Corps reduced from 202,000 Marines to 145,000, a 28 percent decrease.
The cuts would make the Corps smaller than it has been at any time since 1950, when there were about 74,300 Marines on active duty before the U.S. took an active role in the Korean War.
“We would most deeply cut the ground forces,” the analysts say. “With few conventional enemies and a disinclination for large-scale occupations, the Marines and Army would have far less to do. The Marines get cut less than the Army because we envision a military that typically comes from the sea and stays a short period.”
In an interview, Preble said the reductions would be “responsible,” with a 3.5-percent reduction in size per year. A drawdown of that magnitude could occur if the U.S. pulls out of Okinawa, Japan, and other countries where the Corps has had a presence for decades. With no superpower facing the U.S. — Nazi Germany or Cold War-era Russia, for example — Pentagon officials need to spend money on defense more carefully, he said.
“We are spending more on our military than we have at any point since World War II,” Preble said. “It’s absurd to think that the type of threats that we‘re dealing with today in 2010 are greater than what we dealt with in 1950 or 1960 or 1970. It’s absolutely absurd.”
A cut that large in Marine manpower is considered unlikely, and other members involved in the defense task force were quick to point out that the “strategy of restraint” portion of the report was authored solely by Preble and Friedman. In fact, task force members didn’t agree on the main recommendations they made as a group, said Lawrence Korb, a task force member and former U.S. assistant secretary of defense.
“We’re not all saying that all of this needs to be done,” he said. “For example, I think we need to build the F-35. I think we need to go more slowly, but I think we need to build a new plane.”
Marine officials are taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to potential cuts to the Corps’ size. Manpower & Reserve Affairs continues to operate to maintain the service at 202,000 Marines, said Maj. Shawn Haney, a Manpower spokeswoman. However, Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, deputy commandant of plans, policies and operations, told Marine Corps Times in May that a drawdown is likely after operations in Afghanistan wind down, adding that the size and scope of it have not yet been determined.
Rep. Walter Jones, R.-N.C., one of the congressmen who called for the task force report, said he is in favor of considering closing some U.S. foreign bases, but he is “not necessarily in favor of reducing the size of the military.”
“I do think we need a strong military, but you can’t keep spending and spending,” he said. “I want to make sure we have the manpower we need because we’re in a fragile state as a world right now. My idea was just to take a look across the board (at defense spending) and then make a determination.”