Completing the Transformation of U.S. Military Forces

Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 2004 by Deitchman, S J

The bottom line

All of the needs and tasks sketched above for local post-conflict peacekeeping and reconstruction will add to the resources that the military needs. How much will it cost? An accurate estimate would require a careful review of capabilities already in the services to ascertain what must be added. For example, some of the needed capability is already embedded in the active military forces in the form of Special Operations Forces trained to work with local forces and populations and of combat engineers in all the services. Some augmentation of the engineers to deal with specialized tasks such as restoring damaged power grids might be needed, and active-duty civil affairs units including military government, police, and related functions would have to be added. If the equivalent of about one battalion per Army and Marine Division were to be required to cover all contingencies, the cost might come to between $2 billion and $3 billion per year. If only deployed forces were considered, the cost could be less.

The U.S. defense budget of nearly $400 billion increased by about 8 percent in real terms between fiscal year (FY) 2002 and FY 2004 and is projected by DOD to grow between 2 and 3 percent, or around $10 billion, per year for the next several years (not including as-yet-unspecified costs of the war in Iraq). In a defense budget of $400 billion, the amount required for the additional forces and their training might seem relatively small. But in the current tight budget climate, competition for federal funds will be intense, and there will be pressure to reduce the defense budget by canceling one or more of the major systems that are viewed as Cold War carryovers.

However, as we have seen, such a move could prove to be penny wise and pound foolish in the long run, because it would risk making U.S. forces relatively weaker in the face of potential military opposition. Moreover, the cancellation of a major system acquisition might not save the total projected system cost in the overall service or defense budget. The Army, for example, cancelled its Cheyenne combat helicopter after nearly 20 years of development and expense, saying that it doesn't need the aircraft now that the conditions occasioned by the Soviet threat have disappeared. But one of the additional reasons given for the cancellation was that the Army wants to use the money for needed modernization of its existing helicopter fleet as well as to advance its Future Combat System.

Roughly half of the defense budget pays for personnel. Therefore, some savings might be inherent in the substitution of capital for labor as the future forces evolve, depending on how the personnel/equipment mix develops. Then, the overhead must be thoroughly scrubbed for unneeded bases and other Cold War legacies, which will be even more difficult politically than canceling major system acquisitions. Beyond that, the only practical way to make major changes in the defense resources required is to change the size of the forces. If the U.S. public wants to save additional money on defense, the United States would have to reduce forces proportionately, and as that is done, elements of risk in national security and national military strategy will increase accordingly.