The Insider

Why would the Pentagon add a whopping $57 billion to the FY-10 budget request? Defense Department Spokesman Geoff Morrell, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon today, refused to discuss specific figures. However, he sketched out the budgetary dilemma that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is working to address during the FY-10 budget endgame in the coming weeks:

"We are looking at ways to reduce our reliance on supplementals. And so that is the discussion -- that is the work that is currently being conducted among the budgeters in this building. How far we'll go I'm not prepared to say, because I think that's an ongoing project."

He added:

"We are going to be involved in persistent conflict for some time to come -- the secretary's talked at length about that; that's the reality of the world we now live in -- and we need to budget for it. So whether that's done in the supplemental or in the base in the years to come, we're going to need monies to fight these conflicts. But I think there is an effort under way to see if we can move away from supplementals and increasingly on base budgets to fund these conflicts."

While shifting predictable war costs from supplemental appropriations to the base budget is part of the calculus, there are much larger allocations being considered for buying new weapons and ensuring all of the military services can sustain high operational tempos. Pentagon officials are considering a "range of possibilities" for boosting the FY-10 budget proposal, which will ultimately be the responsibility of the next administration to advance. At the upper end of the increases being weighed is a $57 billion hike. Here's how an internal Pentagon document we obtained would spread the windfall, across three categories:

The first category is called "capitalization and accelerations," to be used for buying new weapon systems, which would get $14 billion -- $2 billion more than expected earlier this summer.

Another category is titled "fact-of-life/inflation," which covers higher fuel prices, a weaker U.S. dollar, health care bills and shifting select recurring war costs funded through supplemental appropriations into the base budget. This area is penciled in for a $12 billion boost, $2 billion lower than a plan earlier this summer.

Finally, $31 billion is set aside for the "Long War," a catchall category that includes new funding for recruiting and retention; projects to build partnership capacity -- a category that stood on its own in an earlier budget drill; funding for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization; and funding for efforts broadly described as "presence."

The Air Force and the Navy are in line for a combined $12.7 billion boost -- the lion's share of the modernization spending in "capitalization and acceleration" -- to buy aircraft and ships. The Navy and Marine Corps would receive a combined $8 billion hike, the Air Force a $4.7 billion increase. The Army's portion of this category would be $600 million and U.S. Special Operations Command would see $400 million, according to the chart.

Additional funding for "fact-of-life" allocations includes: $1.6 billion for the Army, $1.5 billion for the Navy and Marines Corps; $900 million for the Air Force; and $6.2 billion for defense-wide accounts. This category also includes $1. 8 billion the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a sum that the Pentagon official familiar with ongoing budget discussions says is being withheld to apply to last-minute needs.

Under the "long war" category, the Army would receive $2.5 billion and the Navy and Marine Corps $300 million for recruiting and retention. The Army also would receive $1.4 billion to pass on to the Joint Improvised Device Defeat Organization. And the Office of the Secretary of Defense would deal defense-wide accounts $5 billion for building partnership capacity activities.

Nearly $22 billion, the bulk of increases in the "long war" category, would fund a broad range of activities -- none of which yet are assigned line items in the budget -- for "presence-" related activities, programs required to set all of the services on a solid footing to sustain the high tempo of operations around the world associated with fighting terrorist networks.

The "presence" funding would include $11 billion for the Army; $3.9 billion for the Navy and Marine Corps; $4.2 billion for the Air Force; $1.2 billion for SOCOM; and $1.5 billion for defense-wide accounts.

In total, the Army would receive $17.1 billion, or 30 percent; the Navy and Marine Corps $13.7 billion, or 24 percent; the Air Force $9.8 billion, or 17.2 percent, SOCOM $1.6 billion, or 2.8 percent; and defense-wide accounts $12.7 billion, or 22.2 percent. The Office of the Secretary of Defense would hold back $2.1 billion, or 3.7 percent, to make last-minute allocations for unforeseen needs.

The combatant commanders are involved in a set campaigns of their own that could have major ramifications for the next president.

In March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates tasked them to craft a set of first-ever "campaign plans" that will essentially define how the commands do business during peacetime, in wartime, and every time in between.

Gates' Guidance for the Employment of the Force, which mandated the campaign plans, does not spell out a deadline, but folks are trying to wrap them up by year's end, a Pentagon spokeswoman told InsideDefense.com in May.

The first drafts started trickling in during the summer, affording Pentagon officials a chance to comment.

The emerging plans recently landed on the desks of the folks in the Joint Staff's Joint Operational War Planning Division, which is part of the J-7 directorate.

"What we're in the process of reviewing now are really the outlines of frameworks in which the combatant commands think that they'll be operating," said Marine Corps Col. Jerome Driscoll, who heads the war planning shop.

There are high expectations connected to the plans. For example, officials hope the documents will finally shed some light on the issue of how many people and what kind of equipment the combatant commanders need to execute Gates' direction of increased focus on the training of foreign security forces.

The hope behind boosting foreign armies is that the U.S. military will need to interfere less in future crises.

It has been hard to get a clear picture of exactly what the COCOMs' requirements are in that area because U.S. Central Command needs, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are "sucking up all resources," one official said.

(In Pentagon-speak, there's even a fancy term to describe this: "suppressed demand signal.")

"No combatant commander would ever articulate a need, knowing that he wouldn't get it filled anyway," the official said.

Of course, much will depend on how the next president decides to use the COCOM campaign plans, if he gives credence to them at all.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is making news today for comments made at a hearing on Capitol Hill, where the subject was Iraq and how/when/if to get out.

From the AP:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday urged the next U.S. president, who will take office in January, to proceed cautiously in withdrawing troops from Iraq despite an 80 percent drop in violence there.

"I worry the great progress that our troops and the Iraqis have made has the potential to override a measure of caution born of uncertainty," Gates told a congressional hearing in Washington.

Transcript coming as soon as we can get it.

Meanwhile, Inside the Army has news on Iraq transition issues involving a key database of information -- and concerns over how it might be misused:

Defense Department representatives have begun discussing with Iraqi government officials how the U.S. military could help Baghdad set up a biometric identification system -- a technology deemed crucial in quelling the insurgency there, defense officials tell Inside the Army.

"The Iraqis have a biometric capability that they're building," Myra Gray, director of the DOD Biometrics Task Force, said in a Sept. 11 interview. "They need to continue to protect themselves from terrorists, so we will assist them in growing their own, because we have the expertise," she added.

Defense officials are tight-lipped about the extent of the Pentagon's assistance, citing the sensitivity of ongoing discussions with the Iraqis.

"There is some sense of urgency," one U.S. defense source said. . . .

One issue that has sparked some concern is the idea that the data, if it falls into the wrong hands, could underpin an effective "enemies" list that could be used in crackdowns.

"The biometric, in and of itself, is fairly harmless," said Gray. "It's the abuse of the capability to build more than just the biometrics, to build a hit list, to build a discriminatory list of who's privileged and who's not, who can and cannot have certain things" that could be harmful, she added.

The New York Times today takes a good look at what the two campaigns are doing to get ready for a transition of power should they win. It's not all about defense, but it's worth a read.

To wit:

Democrats said that John D. Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, was leading the transition preparations for Mr. Obama. Mr. Podesta, who founded a lobbying firm with his brother in 1988, is president of the Center for American Progress, a sort of government-in-exile waiting for Democrats to regain power. At the McCain campaign, Republicans said, transition work is being coordinated by William E. Timmons, a longtime Washington lobbyist whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute and the mortgage company Freddie Mac.

If Mr. McCain wins, Republicans said, his transition team will probably be led by Mr. Timmons and John F. Lehman, a McCain fund-raiser who was secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan. . . .

Clay Johnson III, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said "the White House staff has met with transition representatives" for Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.

"Both campaigns are doing what they need to do to be prepared to govern on Jan. 20 at noon," said Mr. Johnson, who was executive director of the Bush transition team in 2000-1. "The amount of work being done before the election, formal and informal, is the most ever."

One more excerpt, this one more on-target for our purposes:

Experts on national security worry that America's opponents will try to take advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the transition, the first since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

"In every transition, there's a total vacuum for anywhere from three months to a year," Mr. Lehman said. "It's appalling. On 9/11, President Bush had only 30 percent of his national security appointees in place, and that was eight months after the inauguration."

Elaine C. Duke, an under secretary of homeland security, said her department was "poised and ready" to work with the McCain and Obama campaigns on transition planning before the Nov. 4 election. But she said, "We have not been contacted by either campaign."

Planning is essential, Ms. Duke said, because "terrorists perceive government transitions to be periods of increased vulnerability." She cited the bombing of the World Trade Center five weeks after Mr. Clinton took office in 1993; the Madrid train bombings in 2004, three days before national elections in Spain; and the car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow just days after a new British prime minister took office in 2007.

Last night in an interview with 60 Minutes, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said government spending has gone "out of control" -- and that his administration would take steps to reduce it, which he said would include cuts in defense spending.

McCain: ... I think the major point here is that spending got out of control. How many Americans know that the size of government increased by 40 percent in the last seven years? We Republicans for six of the eight years presided over the greatest increase in government since the Great Society. Republicans came to power to change Washington. And Washington changed us.

Pelley: But how do you cut the budget?

McCain: Oh, easy. Look

Pelley: That much.

McCain: Look, if you were able to increase the budget and the size of government by 40 percent, don't you think you could cut some of it?

Pelley: What are you gonna cut?

McCain: I think we'll frankly, you can eliminate so many agencies of government that are outmoded. Obviously I would scrub defense spending. Obviously we would look at every institution of government. I would stop these protectionist tariffs. I would stop subsidizing sugar.

Pelley: Did I just hear you say you're gonna cut the defense budget?

McCain: I think there's areas in defense where we can save a lot of money in cost over runs.

McCain offered no specifics, though he has issued a budget plan that includes the following:

Balance the budget requires slowing outlay growth to 2.4 percent. The roughly $470 billion dollars (by 2013) in slower spending growth come from reduced deployments abroad ($150 billion; consistent with success in Iraq/Afghanistan that permits deployments to be cut by half -- hopefully more), slower discretionary spending in non-defense and Pentagon procurements ($160 billion; there are lots of procurements -- airborne laser, Globemaster, Future Combat System -- that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed). . . .

However, there's been some confusion on that FCS bit -- he has, in fact, criticized Sen. Obama for allegedly opposing the program.

FURTHER READING: FCS

• Pentagon Protests FCS Funding Cuts, Restrictions in House Bill
• Funneling Resources to FCS, Army POM STrips Vehicle Program Funding
• Army Proposes Additional Funds for Programs Key to FCS Plans

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was in Baltimore today to talk to, and about, the National Guard.

The occasion was the 130th General Conference of the National Guard Association of the United States. He called for a "new and lasting commitment" to the Guard that he said "must begin with our political leadership recognizing the sheer magnitude of what we ask Guard units to accomplish -- abroad and here at home -- with a force comprised primarily of part-time soldiers and airmen."

This means a national leadership that respects and treats our governors and adjutant generals as partners in national and homeland security policymaking, rather than as impediments and intruders. Part of that essential effort was to grant the Chief of the National Guard Bureau the fourth star that the position merits -- and I'm pleased to congratulate General-Select Craig McKinley on being the first Guardsman to wear that fourth star.

This means getting rid of policies, practices, and customs that fail to promote a seamless Total Force based on cooperation, jointness, and the mutual respect that all components, including the Guard and Reserve, have earned with their blood and bravery. We cannot afford -- and I will not tolerate -- an environment in which parochialism stands in the way of building an integrated Total Force.

This means giving the National Guard all the manpower it needs -- including a sufficient complement of full-time positions -- so that every unit is ready to mobilize for any contingency. This means providing all the training the Guard requires, so that no one is asked to take on a mission unprepared. And it means ensuring that our Guard is well supplied, so that no unit will ever go into harm's way without the best equipment that America can provide.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) speaks for the Democratic ticket tomorrow.

And it is a race -- for the new administration to figure out what to do with space, according to a new report written up today on InsideDefense.com:

In the wake of last year's Chinese anti-satellite test and the more recent U.S. shoot-down of a defective intelligence satellite, the next administration needs to address as soon as possible what kind of international space regime best suits its interests, according to a new Council on Foreign Relations report.

Last December, a Chinese missile destroyed an aging weather satellite, and earlier this year, the United States shot down a defective intelligence satellite deemed to pose a danger to human health because of its toxic fuel.

"While the United States will likely remain the preeminent space power at least for the next twenty to thirty years, it will no longer enjoy the level of near-monopoly on military space capability that it has enjoyed since the fall of the Soviet Union," the report, released Sept. 18, states. "As China becomes a credible space power with a demonstrated offensive counterspace capability, the question for U.S. policy is what kind of feasible and stable space regime best serves U.S. long-term security interests.

"This question should be addressed early in the new administration's tenure, if not earlier," the report emphasizes.

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey recently wrote his own report on Air Force Space Command, asserting that because the existing Air Force space strategy is "under-resourced and severely constrained," the next administration will have "at most a year" to make critical decisions relating to the United States' global superiority in space -- before it starts "rapidly eroding."