CSBA in the News

America’s Army has developed a bit of a split personality of late. On the one hand, the top brass has very publicly embraced the administration’s January 2012 strategic guidance that emphasizes “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches” and “building partner capacity” in lieu of large ground force deployments. Leaders from Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno on down talk up the Army’s capabilities in cyberspace, missile defense, seaborne operations, and small advisor teams.

The head of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command told naval officers on Wednesday to maintain operational safety even as they begin to execute and manage across-the-board budget cuts from sequestration./…/

Pension reform can save money and improve fairness. Currently, those who serve for less than 20 years — 83 percent of those who join the military — get nothing, while those who do the full hitch can retire in their late 30s and get decades of benefits. The Pentagon’s Defense Business Board in 2011 proposed a better system for future troops that would introduce 401(k) plans, raise retirement ages, limit annual payouts to younger retirees and benefit all those serving more than five years. This could save $70 billion a year by 2034. The Pentagon would also do well to cut a head-scratcher of a program that gives $1 billion a year in unemployment checks to people who left the armed forces voluntarily.

Republican appropriators on Monday introduced a $984 billion government-funding bill that takes several steps to cushion the Pentagon and other agencies from the blow of $85 billion in sequester spending cuts.

Mandatory, across-the-board decreases in funding will spare the salaries of uniformed Cyber Command members, but many of those personnel will be focused on sequester planning rather than operations. Meanwhile, their civilian peers face furloughs. Defense Department officials must reduce every program’s budget by about 8 percent.