Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 1:12PM | Gordon Adams The new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the fiscal year 2011 defense budget request have arrived. Unfortunately, they miss the mark: The QDR vastly expands the military's missions, and the budget responds in kind by expanding for the fourteenth consecutive year.
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 9:26AM | BFAD Since the December 25th airliner bombing attempt and the Fort Hood shooting, US officials have become increasingly worried about the al-Qaeda affiliates operating within Yemen’s borders.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 9:13AM | Matthew Leatherman Yesterday marked the congressional roll-out of the FY10 Report of the Task Force on a Unified National Security Budget. Originally released in November 2009, this is the sixth in a series of annual reports.
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 9:51AM | BFAD The Defense Department’s FY2011 budget request projects spending in 2012 and beyond for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number - $50 billion per year – is eye-catching because it falls so starkly below the FY2011 request of $159 billion.
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 9:35AM | Rebecca Williams By Gordon Adams, Cindy Williams, Rebecca Williams and Trice Kabundi
There is a large, growing, and increasingly troubling imbalance between the civilian and military capabilities that support US international engagement.[1] The military tool in the US toolkit has become, in many ways, the “leading edge” of American statecraft.[2] This has had the consequence of eroding the civilian foreign policy agencies, while it has added missions to the overburdened military. The size of the military, its budget, and its overseas footprint are all substantially larger than the US civilian foreign policy agencies, as the data below shows.
DOD has also significantly expanded its own portfolio of security assistance, foreign assistance, and public diplomacy activities. The US government provides security assistance to foreign countries, training and equipping foreign militaries and security personnel (including police). Historically, and according to statute, these programs have been established and funded by the State Department, as part of the broader US overseas engagement strategy. State and USAID are also the principal providers of foreign assistance. State is responsible for US public diplomacy programs.
[1]Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned in a Spring 2009 talk at Princeton, of the looming “militarization of US foreign policy” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has called for strengthening US capabilities at State and USAID. The growing DOD/military role is exemplified by more than 500,000 troops deployed overseas, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, a broad quasi-diplomatic responsibility in the hands of regional Combatant Commanders (COCOMS), and a growing DOD portfolio of security and foreign assistance authorities.
[2] Within the beltway, DOD and the military are seen as the 800 pound political and budgetary gorilla. It is the largest federal department in terms of personnel, has the largest budget, is the most trusted government institution, and is responsible for the “kinetic” (combat-related) defense of the US. Americans are less aware of the significant overseas presence and growing non-kinetic (outside of combat) capabilities DOD and the military have to engage overseas. This growing DOD international engagement has begun to swamp civilian diplomatic and foreign assistance capabilities.
[3] The Defense budget has grown 76 percent from FY 2002 to FY 2010. The International Affairs budget has grown by 102 percent over that same time period.
[4] The military/civilian number would be 356, if one subtracted active duty personnel currently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terror operations. All figures derived from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, with the exception of military personnel taken from DOD's Statistical Information Analysis Division, available at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/miltop.htm.
[5] The military travels on its fuel lines. Last summer, when oil prices soared above $100 per barrel, it cost $1.8 million to fill a destroyer’s tanks. In 2008, DOD spent roughly $16 billion on fuel alone; State Department Operations were $13.5 billion and entire International Affairs budget was $42.9 billion.
[6] These are security assistance programs funded through the Defense Department budget. Data collected by the Stimson Center.
[7] Section 1206, DOD’s Global Train and Equip program was established in 2005. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has recently proposed a significant expansion of this program; see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302553.html.
[8] Until the Iraq invasion, DOD played only a small role in development assistance, limited largely to humanitarian assistance. Today, the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), originally created for Iraq and Afghanistan, provides regional combatant commanders with a source of funds that allows them to fund reconstruction and development projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. CERP has become a large, uniquely DOD development program, with $1.3 billion in funding for FY 2010 alone.
[9] CERP is the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, created to provide foreign assistance in Iraq, expanded to Afghanistan, and then to the Philippines.
[10] The DOD total is an amalgamation of multiple programs in Army, Air Force, and Special Operations Command accounts, including both global and Iraq/Afghanistan information operations. It is nearly impossible to obtain funding data for all of DOD’s overseas public affairs activities as these sums are buried within overall Operations and Maintenance budgets.
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 10:36AM | Matthew Leatherman Reports of all types have demonstrated the unsustainable nature of healthcare costs for the country and the taxpayer. Less well documented, but equally challenging, is the Defense Department’s unique struggle with this issue.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 10:18AM | Rebecca Williams MIT's Cindy Williams, Stimson's Gordon Adams, and Retired LtGen Paul Van Riper testified today on the defense budget and war costs. Watch the testimony and Q&A session here:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 9:29AM | Rebecca Williams Today, Dr. Gordon Adams is urging the Congress to include the defense budget in the discretionary spending freeze the administration proposed in its FY 2011 budget request delivered February 1, 2010. Doing so would save the American taxpayer significant resources, since more than half of America’s discretionary spending is in the defense budget, which the administration exempted from its freeze proposal.
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 5:21PM | Alexander Brozdowski Carl Conetta at the Commonwealth Institute’s Project on Defense Alternatives has released an insightful summary of some recent reports and data on our growing defense budget. The report illustrates how the expansion of defense spending over the past decade and projected into the near future is not a simple product of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, PDA’s analysis suggests that war spending accounts for only 50% of the increase since 1998, when Defense spending began its current upswing.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 2:54PM | BFAD On February 1, 2010, President Obama released his request for the FY 2011 defense budget and the FY 2010 defense supplemental appropriation.
Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 1:29PM | Rebecca Williams Please join us for the joint AU/Stimson launch of: Buying National Security With Gordon Adams
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 10:52AM | BFAD The Obama Administration has requested $58.51 billion for International Affairs in its Fiscal Year 2011 (FY 2011) budget request. This request is a $6.08 billion increase, or 12 percent, over FY 2010 enacted appropriations.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 10:46AM | Rebecca Williams Budget Insight will be back up and running just as soon as the snow stops falling and the government reopens. In the mean time, here's a list of family-friendly DC terms for the recent snowfall shenanigans:
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 1:06PM | Alexander Brozdowski The CBO recently released a report on the long-term implications of the FY 2010 defense budget passed in December 2009. CBO estimates that real defense costs will, on average, exceed planned baseline projections by about $59 billion annually for the next 20 years.
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 5:13PM | Gordon Adams The State Department and USAID are in the midst of conducting an unprecedented Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), which is intended to bolster the civilian capabilities of U.S. statecraft.
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:18PM | Alexander Brozdowski The Executive branch’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request has been released. Fact sheets for the Department of Defenseand Department of State and other international programs can be found online from OMB, as well as budget breakdowns by topic and for other departments. The overall federal budget request for FY2011 totals $3.8 trillion.
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 9:25AM | Rebecca Williams The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has been released and is available online. The QDR is a legislatively-mandated review of DOD strategy and priorities and sets the long-term course for DOD.
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 7:07PM | Alexander Brozdowski Several articles by Inside Defense examine procurement and defense spending in the upcoming FY2011 budget request. Budget Insight provides a summary of these insightful critiques.
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 2:47PM | Gordon Adams A significant set of national security documents will appear next week. The Administration will deliver its FY 2011 budget request to the Congress on Monday, February 1. At the same time, the Defense Department will unveil its new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) setting out the guidelines for DOD’s planning and budgeting for the next four years.
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 5:10PM | Rebecca Williams From policy wonks to your average Joe, reactions to President Obama's State of the Union address are everywhere. Highlighted below are a handful of responses, including topics on international affairs, national security, and the military.
