For the past 10 years, the United States has engaged in constant warfare. Does that mean the next 10 years will be the same, even after U.S. combat troops are out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Put it a different way: We have spent trillions of dollars to create the most professional and powerful military force in the world to fight those wars. It continues to cost hundreds of billions more each year to help sustain this all-volunteer force.
But let’s be honest about this. Fewer than 1 percent of the American people have been involved in this constant warfare. As for that spent money, much of it was borrowed, since, for the first time in history, Americans were not asked to pay a tax to support their men and women fighting abroad.
Now the time has come to begin paying that bill, along with other debts caused by ill-constructed national health care, prescription drug and retirement systems that were also put on the government’s credit card.
These issues emerged from a week of reading and listening to news conferences and congressional hearings in which real and potential cuts in defense spending and their future impacts were central issues.
Let’s focus on the impact of the all-volunteer force, not only on the country’s economic problems but also on its foreign policies.
It is already decided that there will be defense spending reductions of some $450 billion over the next 10 years. Part of that will come from reductions in the Army (27,000), with an additional 15,000 coming from the Marines.
The figures to ponder are military personnel costs, including those in active service, the reserves and the National Guard. For fiscal 2001, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they were $76 billion. The administration-proposed figure for fiscal 2012 is $143 billion. When Congress finishes, it will be less, but not by much.
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments’ study of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2012 budget concluded: “The base budget now supports a force with essentially the same size, force structure, and capabilities as in FY 2001, but at a 35 percent higher cost. The department is spending more but not getting more.”
As part of its cost studies, the Pentagon is examining personnel expenditures, including military pay, benefits, promotions, recruiting and retention programs, as well as retirement. Officials, from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on down, have said repeatedly that no future changes will affect those currently serving.
“Sustaining the all-volunteer force . . . will be at the heart of whatever we do,” Virginia Penrod, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy, told a House Armed Services subcommittee last Tuesday.
A repeated fear is that defense cuts will result in a “hollowing-out of the military.” As best as can be pinned down, that means reductions, whether in numbers or pay, that would leave the services without the experienced noncommissioned and mid-level commissioned officers who actually run things.
As Jo Ann Rooney, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, put it last Tuesday before the House subcommittee: “Unlike the private sector, the military services must grow their military workforce internally. It generally takes 15 to 20 years to develop the next generation of infantry battalion commanders and submarine captains.”
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