Georgetown Security Law Brief

Pentagon furloughs are set

05/16/13:  The New York Times reports Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Tuesday that most civilian Pentagon employees would be ordered to take unpaid furloughs of up to 11 days between July 8 and the end of September. The measure, which is a response to across-the-board spending reductions called sequestration, is less punitive than plans that would have seen Pentagon civilians forced to take 14 to 22 days of unpaid leave. “The department has been doing everything possible to reduce this shortfall while ensuring we can defend the nation, sustain wartime operations and preserve DoD’s most critical asset — our world-class civilian and military personnel,” Mr. Hagel said. 

Commentary: The Art of Civil War

05/09/13:  Foreign Policy published an article by Fernande van Tets. In addition to the Syrian civil war's horrible human and economic costs, the conflict has also devastated Syria's cultural heritage. At a February UNESCO conference, the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) called the looting more damaging than the fighting that is ravaging mosques, old houses, and Crusader castles. Only 3 percent of Syria's heritage sites remain outside areas of conflict, according to a map released by the US State Department's Humanitarian Information Unit. A 2012 Global Heritage Fund report also makes for grim reading: All UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria have been affected by the war, from the old cities of Aleppo and Damascus to the Crusader castle Crac des Chevaliers to the Roman city of Bosra. Syria is an archaeological treasure trove, featuring antiquities from the Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, and Ottoman periods. The country hosted up to 100 foreign archeological expeditions annually before the war started. The destruction of the millennia-old minaret of the Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo on April 24 is just the latest casualty of the violence. Looting has become more commonplace as the conflict has dragged on. "There wasn't that much evidence of looting this time last year. Now there is," says Durham University doctoral student Emma Cunliffe, author of the Global Heritage report. Similar pillaging followed the invasion of Iraq, the war in Libya, and even the uprising in Egypt. According to Maamoun Abdel-Karim, director of the DGAM, the antiquities directorate received at least 4,000 confiscated objects over the course of 2012, most of which were recovered on their way out of the country.

Norway extends period for buying F-35 fighter jets

04/27/13:  Reuters reports oil-rich Norway is stretching out its purchase of 52 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from Lockheed Martin, the Defense Ministry said on Friday, a move that will nudge up the total cost but reduce the annual burden on the defense budget. The country is about to place firm orders for six of the fighter planes and will extend the timeframe for the purchase of all 52 from four years to eight years, the ministry said. The F-35 is designed to be the next-generation, radar-evading fighter for US forces and their allies, but costs have risen sharply and production has been delayed, leading some countries to scale down or rethink their orders. The ministry said it had asked parliament to approve the purchase of six planes to be delivered in 2017, one year earlier than previously planned, but it would also take longer to complete the remaining purchases. That means Norway, which formally ordered the first four aircraft last June, will complete the purchases during the period 2017-2024, instead of the original plan of 2018-2021. Extending the period for the biggest weapons procurement ever for the Nordic country will bring the program's total cost to 62.6 billion crowns ($10.65 billion) in 2013 crowns rather than 60 billion crowns in 2012 terms. But stretching out the period will lessen a burden on the annual defense budget. Norway will buy six planes each year for eight years, instead of 12 planes each year for four years.

Health Care and Military Spending bear the brunt of proposed cuts

04/11/13:  The New York Times reports President Obama’s effort to control federal spending would require the largest cuts from the government’s biggest programs — health care and the military — while preserving or increasing spending on favored initiatives like early education, manufacturing and research. The Defense Department’s proposed $526.6 billion base budget is a reduction of $3.9 billion, or 0.7 percent, from the enacted budget for 2012. It includes substantial reductions for the Army, which has carried the bulk of the combat operations over the past decade. The Army’s budget proposal is 4 percent lower in constant dollars, while the Air Force’s rose 3 percent and the Navy’s, which includes Marine Corps spending, was steady. The budget proposes spending $2.4 billion over five years to conduct another round of politically difficult base closings, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said would deliver “significant savings” over the long term. The inventory of remotely piloted vehicles, commonly called drones, would grow through 2017 and then level off, Pentagon officials said, and money would be preserved for the new way of war as fought by Special Operations forces and in cyberspace.

Air Force begins grounding combat aircraft

04/09/13:  The Miami Herald reports the Air Force began grounding about one-third of its active-duty combat aircraft on Tuesday because of automatic federal spending cuts, including squadrons of fighters, bombers and airborne warning and control craft. The stand down will affect units stationed in the US, Europe and the Pacific, though the Air Force didn't immediately provide a list of the units and bases that will be affected. Some units that include F-16s, F-22s, A-10s and B-1s will stand down after they return home from their deployments. Other units began the stand down Tuesday. The Air Force says the stand-down is the result of cuts to the command's operations and maintenance account. The Air Force says it must reduce its flying by about 45,000 fewer training hours by Oct. 1 than previously scheduled. The Air Force says it generally takes 60 to 90 days to conduct the training needed to return aircrews to mission-ready status. For affected units, the Air Force says it will shift its focus to ground training. That includes the use of flight simulators and academic training to maintain basic skills and aircraft knowledge, Air Combat Command spokesman Maj. Brandon Lingle said.

 

Budget constraints forcing an overhaul in military operations, Hagel says

04/04/13:  The New York TImes reports Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, facing inevitable steep cuts in military spending even as global threats remain high, said Wednesday that he is being forced to consider fundamental changes in how the Pentagon defends American interests and conducts its daily business.  In his first major address as defense secretary, Mr. Hagel said a sweeping review that he ordered will seek to rebalance missions assigned to the military with the reduced money available for the Pentagon. The review’s findings are to be reported by the end of May. “We need to challenge all past assumptions, and we need to put everything on the table,” Mr. Hagel declared, warning that previously sacrosanct accounts — weapons, salaries and benefits, personnel numbers and even how many general and admirals are in service — will be scrutinized. Addressing an audience at National Defense University, Mr. Hagel offered no specific cancellations, trims or shifts in Pentagon spending accounts, but he did describe broad categories that will be analyzed for savings.

Analysis: Hagel facing tough decisions at the Pentagon

04/01/13: The New York Times has a piece discussing the arduous task facing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in managing the US military budget.  As President Obama – who has placed some of the military’s long-favored weapons programs in his sights – continues to negotiate with Congress over a spending and revenue deal, the Pentagon is bracing for a protracted period in which they may have to manage even larger budget reductions than anticipated.  “There will be changes, some significant changes,” Secretary Hagel warned at a news conference last week, and he is expected to begin outlining those changes in a major speech this week.  Already, Hagel has directed General Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter to conduct a sweeping “Strategic Choices and Management Review” due by the end of May.  Their challenge is to trim the Pentagon while also assuring that the military continues to attract high-quality personnel and can maintain American and allied security around the world.

China’s annual defense spending will rise by 10.7 percent

03/05/13:  The Washington Times reports China's Communist Party leaders Tuesday announced their spending plans for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) this year, repeating last year’s double-digit growth in Beijing’s military budget, just as their only effective rival, the United States, is slashing defense spending across the board.  China's annual defense spending will rise by 10.7 percent to 720.2 billion yuan ($114.3 billion) in 2013, according to the official newspaper China Daily.  Last year, China’s military budget grew by 11.6 percent, the paper reported. China’s military spending will be about the same proportion of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year as last — about 1.3 percent, down from 1.4 percent in 2006, Bloomberg News reported.  The paper said China’s defense spending, second only to the United States, was about one-sixth of America’s and much lower on both a per capita basis and as a proportion of GDP.

Hagel scolds Pentagon sequestration cuts

03/03/13: The blog Space War reports new Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Friday that new budget cuts will endanger the US military’s ability to conduct its missions.  His comments came hours before President Obama authorized automatic “sequestered” cuts in domestic and defense spending, following the failure of efforts to clinch a deal with Republicans on cutting the deficit.  Hagel, whose budget at the Pentagon is set to be slashed by roughly $46 billion, said, “Let me make it clear that this uncertainty puts at risk our ability to effectively fulfill all of our missions.”  In contrast with his predecessor Leon Panetta, who branded the cuts a “doomsday mechanism” and “fiscal castration,” Hagel was more measured, but he made his thoughts on the military consequences of the sequestration clear nevertheless.

Spending cuts imposed; US starts to trim its budget

03/02/13:  The New York Times reports seventeen months after President Obama signed doomsday budget legislation that was never intended to become law, the sweeping spending reductions in the measure have been imposed. Late Friday night, Mr. Obama formally triggered spending cuts that will reach across the breadth of the federal government after he failed to persuade Congressional Republicans to replace them with a mix of cuts and tax increases.  In a 70-page report to Congress accompanying the order and detailing the reductions — agency by agency and program by program — Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Obama's budget director, called them “deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions.” But even as the cuts become official, some of the immediate impact is difficult to see. The process of trimming government budgets is slow and cumbersome, involving lengthy notifications to unions about temporary furloughs, reductions in overtime pay and cuts in grant financing to state and local programs. Less federal money will, over time, mean fewer government contracts with private companies. Reduced overtime for airport security checkpoint officers will make lines longer, eventually.

F-35 fighters are grounded by the Pentagon

02/23/13:  The New York Times reports the Pentagon said on Friday that it had grounded all of its stealthy new F-35 fighter jets after an inspection found a crack in a turbine blade in the engine of one of the planes. The suspension of flights comes at an awkward time for the military, which is facing automatic budget cuts that could slow its purchases of the planes. The Pentagon grounded all three versions of the jets — for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines — on Thursday while it investigated the problem. Lockheed Martin, which makes the high-tech plane, said 64 of the jets would be affected. The Pentagon estimates that it could spend as much as $396 billion to buy 2,456 of the jets by the late 2030s. But the program, the most expensive in military history, has been plagued by cost overruns and delays, and it could easily become a target for budget cutters. The Pentagon office that runs the program said the crack in the turbine blade was discovered on Tuesday in a routine inspection.

Air Force chief: 70 percent of combat aircraft unsuitable by July

02/22/13: The Washington Times reports the Air Force's chief of staff says that 70 percent of all combat aircraft will be unsuitable for combat by July if sequestration occurs. Gen. Mark Welsh made the comments during the Air Force Association;sannual winter conference on Thursday. His assessment is that a service-wide cutback in flying hours would begin May 1, though he pointed out that the service would protect all “named operations,” according to the website AOL Defense. AOL Defense previously reported Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, saying that sequestration would force flying hours for B-52s to be curtailed by 10 percent. While the Air Force has the ability to shuffle resources to meet immediate wartime needs, Gen. Welsh's comments echo those of other high-ranking military officials that sharp budget cuts will have drastic effects on national security sooner rather than later.

Pentagon warns of widespread civilian furloughs

02/21/13:  The New York Times reports most of the Pentagon’s civilian employees will face a furlough in the coming months if the planned across-the-board budget cuts come to pass on March 1, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Congress on Wednesday. About 750,000 civilians would experience pay cuts of about 20 percent between late April and September, Pentagon officials warned, if the department is required to cut $46 billion over the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year. The furloughs could come in the form of a four-day workweek. In addition to the potential effect of the automatic, across-the-board cuts, known as “sequestration,” Pentagon officials are also concerned about cuts that would be required if Congress fails to replace a stopgap spending measure, called the continuing resolution, with a bill that offers more long-term certainty. In describing the potential consequences of both outcomes, Pentagon officials appeared to be walking a line between scaring lawmakers into action and hurting military morale.

Commentary: Military brain drain

02/14/13:  Foreign Policy published an article by David Barno.  During any military drawdown, equipment, training, force structure, and end-strength will inevitably be sacrificed. But the "crown jewel" that must be preserved in order to be able to fight and win in the years ahead is human capital. Recruiting and retaining highly talented people remains the best guarantor of success in future conflicts.  Senior service leaders must take a harder look at themselves in the mirror when defending a 60-year old personnel system. It is 2013, not the Mad Men era of 1963. And sustaining the military preeminence of the United States starts with a uniquely American ideal -- cultivating the best and brightest, so they can lead the force into a dangerous future. It should be the first priority of today's senior military leaders, not their last.

Defense industry, domestic interest groups ally against sequester

02/11/13: The Hill reports the defense industry is joining forces with health, education, and other domestic sectors for a last-minute push to stop scheduled across-the-board sequestration cuts from taking effect. The new approach from the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and domestic spending advocates is an attempt to convince lawmakers who care about defense that they should align with lawmakers worried about cuts to domestic programs. AIA and three groups representing health, education, and other domestic programs are holding a joint press conference Monday to present a united front on the danger of sequestration, which would reduce the 2013 discretionary budget by $85 billion. “We’re stronger united than divided,” said Emily Holubowich, executive director of the Coalition for Health Funding and co-chair of NDD United, a group formed to fight the non-defense side of the sequester.

Navy delays aircraft carrier deployment to Middle East

02/07/13:  The Washington Times reports the Navy has delayed the Middle East deployment of aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman due to budget concerns, defense officials said Wednesday.  The aircraft carrier was scheduled to sail out Friday for an eight-month deployment to the Persian Gulf.  Since 2010, the Navy has maintained a two-carrier presence in the Middle East. Currently, the USS John C. Stennis is the only carrier in the region.  A defense official told The Washington Times that the carrier presence in the Middle East will now drop to one, but the Truman will remain capable of deploying on short notice if a second carrier is needed in the region or anywhere else.  In addition, the official said, the Stennis will still leave the region in late March and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower will head to the region in late February as scheduled. The USS Nimitz will relieve the Eisenhower, and the Truman will eventually relieve the Nimitz.

Panetta again warns of dire consequences to military from budget cuts

02/07/13:  The New York Times reports in the wake of President Obama’s appeal to Congress to stave off across-the-board military and domestic spending cuts, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Wednesday that reductions from the automatic cuts would curtail American naval operations in the western Pacific by as much as a third and force one-month furloughs for as many as 800,000 Defense Department civilian employees starting this spring. “This is not a game, this is reality,” Mr. Panetta said emphatically in a speech at Georgetown University, one of his last as defense secretary, in which he blasted Congress for what he said was its failure to live up to its responsibilities. “These steps would seriously damage the fragile American economy, and they would degrade our ability to respond to crisis precisely at a time of rising instability across the globe.”

Outgoing Pentagon chief Panetta says sequester is biggest concern

02/04/13: CNN reports outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday his “biggest concern” is the uncertainty over budget issues on Capitol Hill.  “If the sequester is allowed to go into effect, I think it could seriously impact … the readiness [of] the United States,” he said.  The US military could face the start of $500 billion in budget cuts in about a month if Congress fails to come up with a budget plan that avoids the so-called sequester, a series of automatic, spending cuts spread out over the next decade.  Panetta in January ordered the military to begin implementing cost-cutting measures aimed at mitigating the effects of significant budget cuts that would occur if Congress fails to reach a deal in coming months to avert or soften them.

What the $97 million drug war in Central America actually bought

02/02/13:  Wired's Danger Room reports the US isn’t just shoveling cash to stem the tide of narcotics in Mexico and Colombia. Quietly, it’s built up its drug war in Central America, too — spending nearly $100 million over four years on advanced gear for local forces. Not that Washington has any idea what it’s gotten for its money.  A new report from the Government Accountability Office provides a rare glimpse into the Central American war on drugs. Between 2008 and 2011, the report finds, the government spent $97 million for gear and training for its Central American partners. On the plus side, it’s laughably low compared to the more than $640 billion (and rising) the US has spent on the war in Afghanistan.  Most of the drug war money is spent on equipment such as vehicles — like aircraft and patrol boats — night-vision goggles, body armor, radios and weapons, and X-ray equipment for scanning cargo containers.

Pentagon acts to limit spending in case cutbacks begin in March

01/11/13:  The New York Times reports fearing that Congress and the president may not reach a deal on spending and the deficit, the Pentagon’s leadership is freezing civilian hiring, limiting maintenance work and delaying approval of some contracts.  The money-saving steps, announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Panetta, are designed to be reversible should a compromise be reached to avoid automatic reductions in federal spending set to begin in March. The Pentagon’s share could be up to $500 billion in cuts over 10 years.  Specific steps were outlined in a memo distributed across the military and civilian departments and signed by Ashton Carter, the deputy defense secretary, and included curtailing nonessential travel, training and conferences.  The effort is designed to not degrade the war effort in Afghanistan. Services for families of military personnel also were protected, even as the military and civilian departments were ordered to continue planning for even deeper cuts.

US reminds allies of Afghanistan funding pledges

12/05/12: The Miami Herald reports the Obama Administration is pressing its European allies to follow through on their pledges to Afghanistan’s security after most international troops withdraw in 2014.  Speaking at NATO headquarters, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told allies it is “crucial for every nation to follow through on their commitments, and for those who haven’t yet committed any funding to do so.”  Donors pledged $4.1 billion a year to support Afghan forces from 2015 to 2017; the money is a key plank of the US strategy to leave behind a secure Afghanistan after battling insurgents for more than a decade.  But Europe’s debt crisis has raised fears that some of the pledges won't be fulfilled, and in an era of defense cutbacks, Washington doesn’t want to get stuck with the check.

Putin shuffles top Russian military officers

11/09/12:  The New York Times reports President Vladimir Putin on Friday reshuffled the nation's top military brass following the defense minister's ouster, and instructed the new top military officer to be friendlier to Russia's defense industries. Putin's advice to Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov, appointed chief of the armed forces' General Staff, appeared to shed more light on the reasons for the ouster of Russia's powerful Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov earlier this week. While Putin linked the ouster to a probe into the alleged military corruption, most experts believe that Serdyukov was sacked because of an intensifying behind-the-scenes battle for the distribution of 20 trillion rubles ($635 billion) that the Kremlin plans to spend on buying new weapons through 2020.

Commentary: The US military needs to prepare for more operations along the world's coastlines

11/02/12:  Foreign Policy published an article by Richard Mills arguing that the US needs to focus more on naval capacity. Maritime nations make up 80 percent of the international community, increasing the likelihood that the next crisis or regional conflict will occur within the operational reach of US naval forces. With the initial response capability and decision room it provides, the naval force represents the leading edge, forward operating force called for in the nation's power projection strategy. As a critical element in that strategy, the Marine Corps conducts operations to deter and combat adversaries or deny them the ability to exert their will on US interests. However, further refinement of aggregated operations and littoral maneuver is required to exploit our at-sea advantage.

US intel budget topped $75 billion in 2012

11/01/12:  The Washington Times reports the US spent $75.4 billion on its military and civilian spy agencies in the last fiscal year, officials announced Tuesday.  The US intelligence budget is divided between the Military Intelligence Program, which the Pentagon said was $21.5 billion for fiscal 2012, and the National Intelligence Program, which was $53.9 billion, according to Director of National Intelligence. The National Intelligence Program (NIP) funds the CIA and other civilian agencies and provides some funding for the major military agencies such as the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Lawmaker warns sequester will weaken border protection

10/24/12: The Washington Times reports more than 8,500 US Customs and Border Protection officers and Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) personnel face termination in January under the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year in a bid to attack the spiraling fiscal deficit.  The job losses, in the wake of massive efforts by the Border Patrol to significantly beef up security along the US-Mexico border, would be the result of a “sequestration” in the federal budget, automatic spending cuts of 9.4 percent in 2013 for discretionary defense appropriations and 8.2 percent in 2013 for discretionary nondefense spending.  Representative Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash.) noted in a letter earlier this month that the scheduled cuts at the Department of Homeland Security would roll back “significant progress” in securing the nation’s borders.

Commentary: Not All That It Can Be: The myth of American military superiority

10/12/12:  Foreign Policy published an article by Winslow Wheeler argues many think that because the United States spends multiples of any conceivable opponent or even combinations of them, has the largest modern navy and air force, and can operate all over the world, there is no conceivable enemy or enemies that can take on America successfully. The history of warfare is full of this kind of arrogance before the fall. There are far more subtle and supremely powerful forces at play in deciding who wins in warfare than the stuff that occupies the hollow defense debates in the American political spectrum.

Russia to become Iraq's second-biggest arms supplier

10/09/12:  The BBC reports Iraq has signed contracts to buy Russian arms worth $4.2bn (£2.6bn; 3.2bn euros) this year, Russian news agencies report. Moscow, the main supplier of arms to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, thus becomes the country's second-biggest arms supplier after the US. The new contracts were announced after talks between the two countries' prime ministers near Moscow on Tuesday. Reports suggest attack helicopters and missiles are included in them. Iraq has been rebuilding its armed forces since the end of US-led combat operations against insurgents.

Worries over DoD money for 'hackerspaces'

10/06/12: The New York Times reports this fall, 16 high schools in California started experimental workshops, billed as a kind of “shop class for the 21st century,” that were financed by the federal government.  Financing for the schools program is one of several recent grants that the DARPA has made to build closer ties to hackers. Unlike the hackers who cripple Web sites and steal data, the people the government is working with are more often computer professionals who indulge their curiosity at their local hackerspace. But the financing has prompted criticism that the military’s money could co-opt these workshops just as they are starting to spread quickly.

US prepares to overhaul nuclear arsenal

09/17/12: The Washington Post reports the US nuclear arsenal, the most powerful but indiscriminate class of weapons ever created, is set to undergo the costliest overhaul in its history, even as the military faces spending cuts to its conventional arms programs at a time of fiscal crisis.  For two decades, US administrations have confronted the decrepit, neglected state of the aging nuclear weapons complex.  Yet officials have repeatedly put off sinking huge sums into projects that receive little public recognition, driving up the costs even further.  Now, Congress faces an end-of-year deadline to avoid $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to the federal budget over ten years, the Obama Administration is overseeing the gargantuan task of modernizing the nuclear arsenal to keep it safe and reliable.

The nuts and bolts of the sequester

08/09/12: The Miami Herald has this piece today giving a basic primer on the steep automatic “sequestered” budget cuts in many areas of government, including national defense, that are scheduled to take effect on January 1 if Congress fails to pass legislation reducing the deficit.  It gives succinct answers to significant and frequently asked questions, and is invaluable for those not steeped in congressional politics.  Some $110 billion in cuts will kick in, hitting defense and domestic programs equally hard unless Congress figures out over the next five months a way to avoid the reductions.  But increasingly bitter partisanship and election-year politics make a solution unlikely before the November elections, leaving the issue to a jam-packed lame-duck session of Congress.

Romney blasts Obama on security leaks, looming defense cuts

07/24/12: The Hill reports Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday accused President Obama of putting the nation at risk through politically motivated intelligence leaks and defense cuts.  Romney’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Reno aimed to paint the President as weak on national security and naïve on foreign policy, two areas where Obama has consistently polled higher than his opponent.  The remarks come one day after a top Senate Democrat said some of the leaks came from the White House.  “It is not enough to say the matter is being looked into, and leave it at that,” Romney will say.  “When the issue is the political use of highly sensitive national security information, it is unacceptable to say, ‘We’ll report our findings after Election Day.’”

Deal on sequester unlikely before election

07/22/12: The Hill reports the rhetoric on pending cuts to the Pentagon intensified this week, but the chances of a pre-election deal to avert those spending reductions and others appear unlikely.  Both parties are digging into their positions on the across-the-board cuts ahead of the November election, as the cuts are poised to play an increasingly visible role in congressional and the presidential campaigns.  But all the messaging and campaigning on sequestration is quickly evaporating what little chance may have existed for a deal to avert some of the cuts before the election, something defense-minded lawmakers in both parties have called on Congress to do.

Republican Senators consider closing tax loopholes to avoid mandatory Pentagon cuts

07/11/12: The Hill reports six Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee have signaled they would consider using revenue gained by closing tax loopholes to avert pending cuts to the military.  Senator John McCain (Ariz.), the senior Republican on the Armed Services panel, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are discussing a deal to raise between $40 billion and $50 billion in new revenues.  Four other Republican members of the Committee say they would consider supporting such a deal, even though it would likely violate the Taxpayer Protection Pledge championed by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.   McCain and Graham are eyeing tax loopholes and fees identified by Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) during the negotiations of the so-called supercommittee and other deficit-reduction talks last year.

Navy chief hints at jettisoning F-35 stealth fighter

07/11/12: The Washington Times reports the chief of naval operations has penned an opinion column that has military analysts buzzing over whether it signals the Navy may be the first military branch to jettison the costly F-35 stealth fighter jet.  Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert’s column in the current issue of Proceedings magazine questions the value of radar-evading technology, or stealth, in flying to a target and bombing it in a world of rapidly improving radars.  At the same time, the Navy’s top officer champions the future of unmanned planes and standoff weapons such as ship-fired cruise missiles.  Admiral Greenert also mentions the ongoing budget-cutting environment in Washington.  To military analysts, all of Greenert’s points indicate that the Navy is having second thoughts about pouring billions of dollars into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Pentagon to cut $1 billion from Afghanistan army funding

07/08/12: The Hill reports the Defense Department has decided to siphon off $1 billion from Pentagon accounts dedicated to building up Afghanistan’s national security forces and shift those dollars to other military priorities.   The move was included in a Pentagon request that was sent to Capitol Hill to shift roughly $8 billion across various service and departmental accounts.  Congressional lawmakers were sent copies of the so-called reprogramming request on June 30.  Significant changes to the training and equipment needs of Afghan forces over the past few years has allowed DOD number crunchers to free up the $1 billion from those accounts, according to the reprogramming notice.

House Armed Services Chairman says Obama budget chief reluctant to testify on sequestration

06/25/12: The Hill reports House Armed Service Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Cal.) said Friday that President Obama’s budget director has refused to commit to testify about the impact of sequestration.  McKeon said he was disappointed that Jeffrey Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), wouldn’t appear before Armed Services to discuss the automatic budget cuts that are set to begin in 2013.  McKeon called the OMB chief Friday in the midst of a push to have the Obama Administration and the Pentagon explain how the $500 billion in cuts to the Defense Department would be implemented.  OMB spokesman Kenneth Baer said the department doesn’t comment on private phone conversations.

Congress rejects Pentagon's request for base-closing commission

06/21/12: The Washington Times reports Congress is poised to deliver a defeat to one of the Obama Administration’s main defense policies in the new budget: base closings.  Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees have produced fiscal 2013 spending bills that deny Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s request to set up a base-closing commission next year.  Some in defense circles say it is the result of election-year politics and members of Congress will realize next year that they need to heed top Pentagon officials who have testified that they have too much infrastructure and not enough money.  Congress also doesn’t usually like base-closing commissions because they remove Congress from the process: it can lobby the commission, but the commission’s closure list must be either accepted or rejected in full.

White House tells Congress to "do its job" on looming war cuts

06/17/12: The Hill reports the White House is challenging Congress to “do its job” and prevent the automatic spending cuts that are looming for the Pentagon.  Republican lawmakers have criticized the Obama Administration’s decision to include funding for the war in Afghanistan in the so-called ‘sequestered’ budget cuts that are on tap for 2013.  A group of top GOP lawmakers sent President Obama a letter this week demanding an explanation for the policy.  The White House fired back at the criticism Friday, arguing the war funding was never off the table for the automatic budget cuts and the law doesn’t grant the President discretion to exempt it.  The letter from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chastised lawmakers, noting that only Congress can stop sequestration from beginning in 2013.

Senator urges bigger cuts to nuclear arsenal

06/15/12: The New York Times reports the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called on the Obama Administration on Thursday to seek cuts in nuclear warheads far beyond the requirements of current treaties.  Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the administration “should consider going far lower” than the warhead caps set by the New Start agreement with Russia to bring the nation’s arsenal in line with a diminished nuclear threat and tighter military budgets.  A grave concern today is that nuclear weapons or their fissile components may fall into the hands of terrorist organizations, Levin said.  “The more weapons that exist out there, the less secure we are, rather than the more secure we are,” he added.

Panetta: Pakistan border closure costs US $100 million per month

06/14/12: The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that Pakistan’s seven-month-long refusal to allow US and NATO supplies to cross its territory into Afghanistan is costing the United States an additional $100 million a month to fund alternative routes.  Panetta’s testimony to a Senate appropriations panel was the first time the Obama Administration has put a dollar figure on the extra amount.  Pakistan closed its border to NATO transit in November after a US air assault inadvertently killed twenty-four Pakistani soldiers.  Defense Department and Pakistani negotiators have agreed on a new payment structure for the transit, but Pakistan has demanded an apology for the troop deaths.  Washington has expressed “regret” and offered condolences, but has said an apology is unnecessary for an incident in which Pentagon investigators found fault on both sides.

06/14/12: The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that Pakistan’s seven-month-long refusal to allow US and NATO supplies to cross its territory into Afghanistan is costing the United States an additional $100 million a month to fund alternative routes.  Panetta’s testimony to a Senate appropriations panel was the first time the Obama Administration has put a dollar figure on the extra amount.  Pakistan closed its border to NATO transit in November after a US air assault inadvertently killed twenty-four Pakistani soldiers.  Defense Department and Pakistani negotiators have agreed on a new payment structure for the transit, but Pakistan has demanded an apology for the troop deaths.  Washington has expressed “regret” and offered condolences, but has said an apology is unnecessary for an incident in which Pentagon investigators found fault on both sides.

Levin: DOD could cut budget now to avoid severe reductions next year

06/13/12: The Washington Post reports the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday that the Defense Department could head off far deeper budget reductions by preemptively agreeing to cut $10 billion a year for the next decade.  Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said “Defense has to contribute” to a compromise to head off the across-the-board, $55-billion-a-year cuts required by the budget compromise that Congress reached last year.  The provision, known as sequestration, will be triggered on January 3 if Congress doesn’t come up with a 10-year, $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan or a compromise to change the law by the end of this year.  Levin suggested that some cuts could come from the costs of maintaining and modernizing the nuclear stockpile and funding for family housing for troops stationed in South Korea.