Murray: Army may have to 'unprotect' certain priorities as pandemic affects budget

The Army will likely have to cut funding from programs supporting the service's modernization priorities if the COVID-19 outbreak prevents defense budget growth in the outyears as many expect, the service's leader for modernization said today.

"I'll start off by repeating the message that [Defense] Secretary Esper and [Army] Secretary McCarthy both have repeatedly said: In order to modernize, DOD, and that includes the Army, needs real growth, and I think that number was 3 to 5% . . . in the out years," Army Futures Command Gen. Mike Murray told viewers of an Association of the U.S. Army virtual event.

"Right now, [my] personal opinion is we're probably not going to see real growth in the out years, and it's based on a lot of things -- COVID, obviously is going to have a huge impact on national debt and the way we look at budgets in the future," he said.

Murray said he thinks it's too early to tell yet what the effects will be, but if there is an impact, the Army will have to "unprotect" some of the secondary priorities it's investing in to prepare for a near-peer conflict.

"Starting last year and continuing to this year, we expanded the scope of what we looked at as a priority," he said. "We had Tier 1, which is the 31 plus three [modernization programs]. And then Tier 2 was critical enablers. And then Tier 3 is [ammunition]. If you look at the budgeting, we have over the last few years protected a large portion of those 684 programs . . . about 85% [of them]. And the deep dives focused in most cases on the 15%."

He noted the Tier 2 group includes 18 key enablers pulled from a list of 31 gaps identified by the Combined Arms Center -- for example, fuel systems for Next Generation Combat Vehicles.

"I have a one-to-end list in my mind . . . for the 31 plus three," he said. "I think it depends on which theater you're talking about. I think it depends on what timeframe you're talking about. And it absolutely depends on what budgets do in fact look like in the out years. And if budgets are impacted, is it a short-term impact, or is it a long-term impact? Is it a big spike in early years and then starts to grow again, or is it a more sustained cut in resources?"