A central aspect of Army Gen. Martin E.
Dempsey’s term as chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff has been budget
uncertainty.
Dempsey took office soon after the
passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011. The act was specifically designed to
be so onerous that it would force Congress to act together rather than trigger
the gun called sequestration.
That didn’t happen. In 2013,
sequestration happened. That first year, DoD civilian employees were
furloughed, military units found themselves without training money, squadrons
were grounded and ships were tied to piers rather than sailing.
While Congress provided relief in 2014
and 2015, the Budget Control Act remains the law of the land and could still be
triggered.
“It’s been challenging,” the chairman
said during a recent interview. “When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were
beginning to wind down, the Joint Chiefs of Staff all said that it would take
several years to recover from the tempo of the previous 10 years, and in
particular that we needed to recover some lost skills.”
Because of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the U.S. military had become the most skilled force in the world
on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. But these skills came at a price:
high-end capabilities to deter peer competitors suffered, the chairman said. Decisive
maneuver -- the integration of air and ground affects -- was one example of a
skill that had atrophied. In the air, the Air Force needed to recover the ability
to dominate in air-to-air combat.
Readiness
Suffered Under Budget Control Act
Because of the Budget Control Act,
readiness money was diverted to other needs, the chairman said.
Readiness – that combination of
personnel, training and equipment that produces capability -- suffered even as
the pace of operations grew. “We had a period of prolonged commitments,” Dempsey
said. “Those commitments have both taxed the force in terms of [operational] tempo.”
While readiness has improved from where
it was, “it’s not where it needs to be,” the general said.
Particular parts of the force, he said,
have been taxed: Patriot batteries, Marine aviation, remotely piloted aircraft.
“The list goes on and on,” the chairman said. “Those men and women have been
operating at an even higher operational tempo.”
It’s a measure of the caliber of the
people in the military that the force is responding as well as it is, Dempsey
said. “It’s remarkable, actually. It keeps rolling along and it keeps getting
the job done,” he said. “But the budget uncertainty has not allowed us to
recover the readiness we need to recover at the pace we need to recover it.”
Budget certainty is one key to
recovering readiness, the chairman said. “The threats that we face are
increasing,” he said. “So this budget uncertainty exacerbates what is already a
pretty challenging circumstance.”
Time is another key. “If we have to
reduce the budget, spread it out as opposed to imposing it one year at a time
and through a series of continuing resolutions,” Dempsey said.
Finally, the chairman would like
Congress to give DoD more budget flexibility. “We’ve been challenged by our
elected leaders to reform and to become more efficient and to eliminate
excesses,” he said. “And we’ve tried.”
DoD has proposed a number of efforts
that Congress has not allowed, the chairman said. These include another round
of base closure and realignment, a slowing of the increases in pay and
benefits, changes to the military health system and retiring older systems and
platforms.
“If you bake the savings into your
budget, because you have to meet all of the requirements and maintain a balance
of capability, capacity and readiness, and then you don’t get the reforms and
the money that comes with them, you’ve got to find it someplace,” Dempsey said.
“And normally where you have to go find it is in readiness.”
It has been tough on the men and women
serving today, but they are powering through it, the chairman said.
“God bless them, they continue to be
great soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen,” he said.
(Follow Jim Garamone on Twitter: @GaramoneDoDNews)