Planners of the defense budget face an unprecedented challenge in responding to new threats in a post-9/11 era at the same time resources are diminishing, experts said Thursday.
The analysts from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments were speaking at the National Press Club on lessons learned 10 years after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The defense budget over the next decade could decline by 31 percent, said senior fellow Todd Harrison, assuming enactment of all cuts proposed by President Obama as well as decreases that could be automatically triggered under the recently enacted Budget Control Act. That drawdown, he said compares with cuts of 53 percent after the Korean War, 26 percent after the Vietnam War and 34 percent after the end of the Cold War.
What makes the current defense budget situation unusual, Harrison said, is that the past decade's average defense spending hike of $300 billion a year "was not really a buildup" in that much of it went to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increases in salaries, health care and benefits for military personnel."9/11 obscured the need to prioritize at the Pentagon," he said, "and it's not realistic to continue to do what we do today. But the moment now provides a fiscal imperative to make choices on countering future threats."
Rather than making across-the-board cuts that are "fair and balanced," he said, the cuts should be strategically targeted. "But given the current uncertainty, the best the Pentagon can do is come up with a list of options," he added.