Budget guru Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is holding his latest briefing on the defense budget this morning, and we got a sneak peek at the report he'll be unveiling. The takeaway: The Pentagon's spending plan doesn't match its long-term strategy.
The Defense Department, Harrison writes, would need an additional $200 billion to $300 billion over the next five years above the current congressional spending caps to carry out the defense program outlined in the latest Quadrennial Defense Review. And Harrison explains the disconnect could force the Defense Department to either rewrite the strategy or make painful spending cuts that lead to greater risk.
"The department appears to be caught between these two approaches - it has not budgeted enough to fully resource its strategy, nor has it revised its strategy to fit within the budget constraints set by Congress," Harrison says, urging Pentagon leaders to pick one approach or the other. "Without a stark choice, it appears unlikely Congress will remove the [Budget Control Act] caps or grant DoD the flexibility it needs to manage within the caps."