WASHINGTON – Military supporters warn of national security risks as the Department of Defense may be forced to adjust its strategy with a reduced budget amid the approaching Congressional supercommittee deadline to agree on a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan.
“Defense will be crucified because it is part of the discretionary budget,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., at an Oct. 27 speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
The Pentagon’s budget accounts for about half of discretionary spending – the type of federal spending that optional and must be authorized each year by Congress – making it a ripe target for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction as members negotiate a deal to trim the nation’s debt.
It will be difficult to convince the supercommittee to avoid making further cuts to defense spending, said Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.
If the bipartisan committee of six senators and six representatives cannot agree on a plan by Nov. 23, sequestration – or automatic budget cuts across the board – will occur.
Defense spending would then be slashed by as much as $882 billion over ten years, according to Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf at an Oct. 26 supercommittee hearing.
This includes $450 billion in cuts already mandated by the Aug. 2 debt ceiling plan the White House and Congress agreed on to avoid a government default shutdown.
“The biggest thing is trying to make the case about what our national security needs are,” said Smith, who has sent formal letters to the supercommittee to present this case.
“I don’t think we have an idea of what we would do (if defense spending cuts go beyond the mandated $450 billion),” Smith continued. “The hope is that it won’t come to that.”
This puts the DoD is in a tough situation when it comes to strategic planning. Defense experts say the military’s global operations will likely change regardless of how much spending is cut, although the exact details remain uncertain.
The Pentagon will wind up in a situation where it has to make gambles in choosing where to keep troops posted across the world if automatic spending cuts occur, said Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution and former national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.
“When you make that gamble (to pull troops out of a country), it’s hard to predict the future and you often have to go back,” O’Hanlon said.
“We’re often proven wrong and we need to avoid that,” he continued, pointing to the Korean War in 1950 and the Gulf War in 1990 as two examples from history.
The bottom line for the DoD is that its leaders must make difficult choices at a time when cuts are being imposed on every sector of the government. Even though troops are leaving Iraq by the end of the year, there are still thousands of servicemen in Afghanistan and all around the globe.
“We’re at the level at which, like all the people at the Pentagon have said, anything more will really cripple our ability to sustain our commitments around the world,” said Thomas Donnelly, a national security analyst and director of the Center for Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“We’ve crept closer to the edge of the cliff,” Donnelly said.
