Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 9:45AM | Rebecca Williams The Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to the President last week voicing concern about the state of US development policy and leadership. Using baseball as the framework, here is the problem the Senators pointed to:
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 8:47AM | Guest Blogger Despite a recent uptick in violence in northern Bamiyan Province, Sayghan is considered the most secure in this particular area of operations. And for members of the PRT who operate out of a remote patrol base here, Sayghan has become a focal point for development funding.
Monday, September 21, 2009 at 4:46PM | BFAD The C-130 Aircraft Modernization Program (AMP) has been recommended for termination by Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz. This recommendation comes in light of Secretary Gates’ call earlier this year for the Pentagon to reexamine its spending and come up with $60 billion in savings over the next five years. The cut is based on expectations that the defense budget will not experience significant growth in the mid term.
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 9:58AM | Rebecca Williams 
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released the 2009 National Intelligence Strategy (NIS) earlier this week. DNI overseas the coordination and integration of all 16 intelligence agencies, and the NIC, released every four years, outlines the strategic goals, objectives and priorities for the Intelligence Community (IC). Like previous years, the 2009 NIS uses standard language to outline priorities. There is, of course, a large classified portion to the NIS, but the four strategic goals, six mission objectives, and seven enterprise objectives mentioned in the public version conveys, in very overarching terms, the Administration’s intelligence priorities over the mid-term.
From a budgetary perspective, the NIS guides current and future decisions on budgets, acquisitions, and operations for the IC. But, substantively, the NIS offers little on how this will play out. The NIS states that the IC will “demonstrate sound financial management” through “financial management transparency, accountability, and auditability, compliant with applicable laws and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines.” There is no explanation if this goes beyond current practices already in place during the regular budget cycle.
Under “improving acquisition”, the NIS calls for the “synchronization of planning, programming, and execution of major acquisition programs with other IC and Department of Defense processes.” Specifics are not given on how this will take place.
And, the NIS defines DNI’s role as determining the National Intelligence Program (NIP) budget request to the President and overseeing the execution of budgetary resources to properly fund national-level priorities. The NIS does not expand on this point, although these are both current roles for DNI. Fundamentally, the broad parameters set by the NIS give the general public an idea of the goals, objectives and priorities of the IC, but they are just that: broad.
Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 9:32AM | Rebecca Williams The people of Honduras celebrated their Independence Day this week amidst the ongoing constitutional crises that lead to the removal of President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. Since that time, Roberto Micheletti’s interim government has failed to garner any significant international support as the Organization of American States (OAS), the UN General Assembly, and the US have called for Mr. Zelaya’s immediate return.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 10:45AM | BFAD In a conference call this week with reporters, the Director for National Intelligence (DNI) Admiral Dennis Blair disclosed the FY 2009 top-line intelligence budget, at $75 billion. The traditionally opaque intelligence budget is not subject to the same type of public scrutiny as other federal budgets.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 8:55AM | Guest Blogger People who observe the Pentagon say at this blog and elsewhere that they see reform in the actions of Secretary of Defense Gates and in bills coming out of Congress.
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 4:00PM | Rebecca Williams The House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs bill on June 26 and the Senate Appropriations Committee concluded its markup on July 9. The Senate bill is currently awaiting floor action.
The President requested $52.0 billion in new discretionary funding for State and Foreign Operations. While the Senate version provided $48.7 billion, the House bill provided $48.8 billion, $143.0 million more than the Senate. The FY 2009 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, passed in June, provided “forward funding” for some of the programs requested for the FY 2010 State/ Foreign Operations bill. Congress has therefore provided less than the President’s request, which was anticipated.
|
FY 2010 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bills ($ in millions) |
|||
|
Programs |
Obama Request |
Senate Bill Markup |
House Bill |
|
New Discretionary Budget Authority |
$52,044 |
$48,700 |
$48,843 |
This report assesses the critical differences between the House bill and the Senate markup, as well as the FY 2010 request. Click here for the full report.
Friday, September 11, 2009 at 1:13PM | Rebecca Williams Eight years ago, Al-Qaeda carried out a series of coordinated attacks on the US which killed 2,993 people, including the 19 hijackers. Many remember spending the day in front of the television, in shock and disbelief as the day’s events unfolded. Today, a different kind of disbelief is reflected in US sentiment. Americans are taking stock of the last eight years with a sense of sadness and uncertainty; its hard to believe it has been eight years since 9/11 and even harder to believe that the US is still involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The national mood reflects several issues. Americans understand that the threat of terrorist attacks changed the US security environment. National security conversations today revolve around terrorist organizations, non-state actors and WMDs, and ungoverned spaces. Weak, fragile or failing states are cause of concern, and supporting the reconstruction or rebuilding of essential governance processes and institutions is viewed as imperative towards protecting US security interests abroad. Yet, even though Americans understand the new security dynamic, national fatigue is setting in with America’s engagement in seemingly unending “military initiatives” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Viewing both wars through a budgetary lens reveals some facts behind the nation’s disposition. As shown in the chart below, the war in Iraq has received significantly more funding and resources than Afghanistan, nearly three to one. Although the outcome in Iraq is still unclear, the insurgency has largely been contained, Iraq is experiencing some level of security, and the drawdown of US troops is moving forward. The war in Afghanistan, on the other hand, has been comparably underfunded, and has only recently begun to reemerge in the national conversation. Given the enormous cost in both blood and treasure for the moderate successes in Iraq, it’s hard to “gear up” for the forgotten war in Afghanistan.
Source: Data provided by CSIS, Resourcing for Defeat by Erin Fitzgerald and Anthony Cordesman
Moreover, in the case of both wars, the DOD requested emergency supplemental funding or “bridge funding” outside the regular defense budget. Supplemental appropriations bills, by definition, are used to fund unexpected/ unanticipated events which neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were after the first year of engagement. After FY 2002, the planning and process used to fund both wars should have shifted to the regular budget and appropriations process; it did not. The complexities of supplemental funding can confound even the most informed budget watcher, and the continued use of emergency supplementals has meant that war funding has not received the same scrutiny or oversight as the regular defense budget, long-term cost estimates have been overly optimistic, and year-to-year supplemental funding has obscured the total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Source: Data provided by CSIS, Resourcing for Defeat by Erin Fitzgerald and Anthony Cordesman
Looking forward, the Obama administration has tough decisions to make regarding wartime funding and resources. The economic crisis further compounds these hard choices, as Americans are understandably more cautious about the direction of US foreign policy and their associated financial costs. While concern grows, for the immediate future the unsettled mood in America is not enough to drastically change the funding patterns of the last few years. In fact, the Senate Defense appropriations committee approved $128.2 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday for FY 2010.
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:01AM | BFAD The full Senate Appropriations Committee will vote on the FY 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill today. The Obama Administration requested a total of $550.2 billion in baseline defense and Department of Energy defense activities funding.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 9:04AM | Guest Blogger It took the firings of two top officials, the truncation or termination of several major acquisitions programs and a heated, months-long political battle, but in the past year or so, U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has successfully reformed the once-hidebound U.S. Air Force.
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 12:00PM | Rebecca Williams Several accounts of debauchery and unethical behavior by contractors working at the US embassy in Kabul were reported this week. Aside from an unsettling and embarrassing scandal, such behavior evokes serious questions about the current structure of US engagement abroad as the DOD increasingly relies upon contractors to support overseas operations.
Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 10:35AM | Rebecca Williams With such bleak reports, it’s no wonder that George Will and others are calling for the withdrawal of US troops. US strategy, however, is not gearing down and funding trends suggest that Afghanistan is growing in importance.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 9:24AM | Rebecca Williams As Washington prepares for Congress to return after Labor Day, the annual federal budget process is coming to a close. But, as any runner will tell you, there are two races in any marathon: the first 20 miles and the last 6. Congress may be nearing the end of the FY 2010 budget cycle, but September will resolve what may be wide disparities between the House and Senate, not to mention those between Congress and the President.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 9:39AM | Guest Blogger Of all the consequences of the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps the most important for U.S. policymakers will be the desire to avoid another prolonged and costly engagement of U.S. ground forces. Yet America’s global security responsibilities are not going away.
Monday, August 31, 2009 at 1:05AM | BFAD Defense procurement and R&D will be under increasing budgetary pressure over the next few years, posing a challenge for the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) now underway in the Pentagon. Internally, budget pressure comes from two principal sources, rising healthcare and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.
Friday, August 28, 2009 at 12:43PM | Rebecca Williams The Washington Post this past week featured an interesting piece on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the emerging changes at the State Department. It mostly praised the Secretary, relatively uncritically, and pretty superficially. Behind the changes now underway, we at BFAD just wanted to underline a couple, only mentioned in passing in the piece, that could lay the groundwork for a major long-term change in the civilian toolkit of American statecraft.
Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 12:56PM | Rebecca Williams OMB released its Mid-Session Review (MSR) earlier this week, which updates the administration’s economic forecast and budget projections. The MSR projected a smaller 2009 deficit than was believed in May, totaling $1.58 trillion or 11.2 percent of GDP, down from the previous projection of $1.84 trillion, or 12.9 percent.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 11:04AM | Guest Blogger Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military’s encroachment into an increasing number of foreign policy missions has intensified the long-standing animosity between the State Department and Congress. The trend toward militarizing diplomacy has negatively impacted both congressional perceptions of State’s efficacy and Foggy Bottom’s ability to secure adequate funding.
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 10:02AM | Rebecca Williams 
Source: CIAAs US troop levels rise in Afghanistan and new Afghan security forces are being trained, the new US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is arguing for a civilian “surge” of hundreds of additional US officials to bolster US counterinsurgency efforts. According to General McChrystal, the additional civilians would help DOD efforts to stabilize and rebuild the country by taking on some of the stabilization and reconstruction efforts that DOD has been responsible for, namely economic and development assistance. What General McChrystal is advocating, fundamentally, is a better civil-military balance in US operations. He is not alone.
The Obama administration has pledged to balance the civil-military relationship, promising to put a civilian face on development and governance efforts. The administration has increased the number of US civilian position in Afghanistan from approximately 560 US government civilian employees at the end of 2008 to 1,000 by the end of this year. Some of the new civilian forces would work at the US Embassy in Kabul; others are to be assigned to US provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and with US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A).
Even with the Executive commitment to increase the number of civilians in Afghanistan, the State Department, USAID and other federal agencies are having difficulty staffing the higher levels mandated by the Obama administration. The State Department wants to increase their presence in Afghanistan to 380 positions, from 136 budgeted earlier this year. However, of those already-budgeted positions, less than half were filled. Current reports put State personnel at 159, leaving 221 additional personnel to be hired and deployed. While pushing hard to fill these positions, the already undermanned State Department, already saddled with a personnel shortfall of 2,400 in 2008, is not well positioned to fill them easily.
USAID is having even more difficulty filing their new positions, with an overburdened HR system that is only slowly deploying people to Afghanistan. USAID has been downsized drastically since the Cold War, falling from a permanent American workforce of 4,300 in 1975 to 2,200 in 2007. As its workforce decreased and administered budget increased, since 1990, USAID has been forced to hire increasing numbers of consultants, contractors, and other non-permanent staff. The shrinking USAID staff has left the agency with few experts in the technical aspects of development and often unable to conduct sufficient oversight over all of its programs. The result is a small Washington-based workforce, unable to deploy significant numbers of full-time American employees abroad.
None of this is good news for General McChrystal. The continued lack of civilian capacity will equate to the US military being asked to perform a growing number of stabilization and reconstruction missions. The consequence has been, and will remain, an overstretched military and uniformed face on America’s global engagement.
