The Insider

The folks over at sister publication Defense Environment Alert are reporting this week that the Army and Navy are pushing to define the guidelines of their future energy policies, focusing on energy savings and increased self-reliance for the military services, before the Bush administration leaves office:

The Army's effort will attempt to establish a prescriptive, apolitical energy policy that officials say should nonetheless be in line with the incoming Obama administration, and, due to its necessity, be long-lasting. The Navy also expects to lay out plans for a new energy policy by time Obama takes office.

The Army’s drive to cut energy use and make itself more energy independent within 15 years will take on concrete form before Bush leaves the White House Jan. 20, Keith Eastin, assistant service secretary for installations and environment, told delegates to an Army-sponsored energy conference Nov. 17.

"This energy initiative . . . has been a long time coming, and will live long beyond this administration and hopefully the next," Eastin said.

The Army unveiled the energy initiative last month. Under the effort, Army bases will attempt to become net exporters of energy using a variety of methods, including renewable, alternative and conventional energy sources, while energy savings in transportation at forward operating bases are also envisioned:

The changes are driven by unstable energy prices and concerns over energy security, rather than politics, Eastin said. The changes will boost Army energy policy beyond its traditional focus on easily attainable energy savings measures at installations.

Addressing why the Army has left this policy shift until so late in the current administration, Eastin said: "We want to leave a little legacy for everybody else to work with." Earlier this year, Eastin recruited former Air Force energy expert Paul Bollinger to be his junior in the newly renamed post of deputy assistant Army secretary for energy and partnerships.

A draft strategic implementation plan for the energy initiative will be drawn up by Dec. 8, based on the results of consultations with industry at the Nov. 17 event, according to Bollinger. Multiple Army commands will then scrutinize the draft plan and the modified product will be presented to the Army’s new senior energy council Jan. 7. Army Secretary Pete Geren will then sign off on the plan.

The Navy, meanwhile, is the last of the three services to get into the energy act, with a new high-level initiative under preparation that will set up an "executive committee" to establish a strategy to be presented to the next Navy secretary, DEA reported.

Pat Tamburrino, assistant deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, told the conference that the Navy’s strategy is still "embryonic," but will be "three-pronged." The three elements are doctrine, investment in new equipment, and security of supply, he said.

As for the Air Force, Mike Aimone, the service's deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support, said the Air Force will press ahead with its goal to supply half of its domestic fuel requirements from domestic, synthetic fuel sources, using primarily coal-to-liquids (CTL) fuels. Since the price of oil has now dropped sharply from its peak over the summer, the driving force for this program is now energy security, rather than cost, Aimone said.

The Associated Press and others are reporting today that Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- in a widely distributed 41-page memo issued in response to the most recent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves report -- is calling for a broad review of the reserve component's ability to handle domestic disasters.

As Inside the Army reported upon its release in early 2008, the commission's report called for the Pentagon to better integrate the active and reserve components of the military and to “improve its capabilities and readiness to play a primary role in the response to major catastrophes that incapacitate civilian government over a wide geographic area.”

The report contended that the National Guard and Reserves “should play the lead role” in supporting the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies.

In the new memo, Gates also calls for a review to consider how best to ensure visibility of National Guard and Reserve equipment and funding.

The document, sent to a large group of Pentagon and service leaders, asks them to “complete the work done by the Commission and ensure that the Commission's efforts result in lasting improvements to our national security.”

Last month, Gates signed a new DOD directive -- first reported right here -- that changed official Pentagon policy to say the reserve components “provide operational capabilities and strategic depth to meet U.S. defense requirements across the full spectrum of conflict,” and that active and reserve components “are integrated as a total force based on the attributes of the particular component and individual competencies.”

Arnold Punaro, chair of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, told ITA earlier this month that the document was “one of the most significant documents in the Pentagon in a long, long time.”

We'll have more on the Gates memo shortly.

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz are scheduled to meet with a senior member of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team today.

The meeting between the Air Force's top two officials and Michèle Flournoy will serve as an introduction and an opportunity for the service to initially present some of its big issues, according to an Air Force official. Those issues will be discussed in further detail when service officials hold formal briefings with the transition team in the coming weeks.

Transition team officials met with several senior Pentagon officials from other services last week; however, Donley and Schwartz were not in Washington.

The incoming administration will face some major Air Force-related decisions immediately upon taking office in January. At the top of that list is deciding whether to continue Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III production.

The Missile Defense Agency has a new director. Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly took the reins today from retiring Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering in a ceremony at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, VA.

O'Reilly has his work cut out for him, what with two wars and a faltering economy and promises from senior lawmakers of a "severe scrubbing" of MDA's budget next year.

Obering last week reiterated his agency's argument that MDA is "a very small part of the defense budget," somewhere around "less than 2 percent."

I believe that we have gone to great pains to outline a balanced program, with obviously the emphasis being on the near-term fielding and the development to support the near-term fielding, testing and sustainment, and that accounts for about 75 percent of our budget today. The 25 percent left over goes for programs like the Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptor, . . . ((and)) our Space Tracking and Surveillance System.

Obering told reporters in a Nov. 12 teleconference call that Congress' "propensity" for cutting funding for future missile defense programs "would be a very bad mistake."

We're going to have to develop these capabilities to stay up with the threat and make sure that the interceptors and the sensors that we're fielding today remain effective in the future. If you cut those future programs, that's going to mean that basically we're going to be fielding systems today that are going to be obsolete in the mid-term of the future.

The Washington Post is reporting on its Web site this afternoon that President-Elect Obama is "close" to naming his national security adviser -- retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones.

The Jones appointment would put the one-time Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander in charge of managing an interagency process that many Democratic foreign policy experts contend has been broken under the Bush administration. . . .

In picking Jones to coordinate his team, Obama would be sending a powerful sign of a desire to conduct a non-partisan national security policy. Jones is also close to Sen. John McCain, his colleague as a military liaison to Capitol Hill in the 1970s, and stayed publicly neutral during the campaign, but quietly provided advice to Obama in telephone conversations, according to someone who knows both men. He is one of the few individuals in public life who likely would have been courted for government service regardless of the election's outcome.

"He would bring a lot of the military dimension to the job," said Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general who was one of Jones' predecessors as NATO commander. "And his non- partisanship at this juncture is really important. He provides a nonpartisan standard for the national interest--that would be the presumption given his previous experience."

Jones currently heads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy. His name circulated briefly as a possible vice-president pick, and he and Obama have discussed possible roles for Jones in an Obama administration since before the election.

Jones has not been silent of late, and we've been able to glean some of his latest thinking:

JONES WORRIES ABOUT UNDERFUNDING MILITARY ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES
Inside the Pentagon - November 20, 2008

The new administration must ensure U.S. combatant commanders receive adequate resources to support essential, global engagement activities that have faced budget challenges in wartime, retired Marine Gen. James Jones tells Inside the Pentagon.

JONES: NEW TEAM MUST BUILD ON ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PROGRESS IN JENIN
Inside the Pentagon - November 13, 2008

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who served as the Bush administration’s special envoy for Middle East regional security, is urging President-elect Barack Obama's team to continue to foster improvements on the Israeli-occupied West Bank that could lay the foundation for a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

JONES MUM AS OBAMA TEAM MULLS POSSIBLE ROLE FOR RETIRED GENERAL
Inside the Pentagon - November 6, 2008

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who is reportedly being eyed for the job of national security adviser in the Obama White House, is not ruling out the possibility of joining the new administration.

Former Pentagon weapons tester Philip Coyle told Inside Missile Defense this week that he does not think the Obama administration “can avoid cutting missile defense,” noting the likely need for cash to pay for “higher priorities, and there are not many places where you can so easily find $10 billion year after year for the foreseeable future that could be better spent on important national needs, such as energy independence.” Coyle is a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information.

And James Clay Moltz, an associate professor on the National Security Affairs faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School, said downward pressure on the Obama administration’s overall defense budget is likely to be significant.

“Missile defense spending will almost certainly be affected, but the Obama administration will also be leery of appearing weak on defense or hurting programs with significant prior investment, capabilities, or perceived deterrent value,” he told IMD in an e-mail. “For these reasons, I think we can expect a continuation of Aegis, ((Patriot Advanced Capability))-3, and domestic GMD spending (with some slippage in planned numbers and deployment dates for new hardware), a slowdown of funding for proposed European defenses, and cuts for less-proven technologies (like the Airborne Laser, the ((Multiple Kill Vehicle)), the ((Kinetic Energy Interceptor)), and ((Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense))).”

Lawmakers long skeptical of the outgoing Bush administration's missile defense policies are sure to get in on the action, with House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee Chairwoman Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) promising a "severe scrubbing" of the Missile Defense Agency's budget by the next Congress, IMD reported:

“We're going to finally get to a place I think where we have had a number of programs that have been moderately extended -- you know, not-full-funding, a-little-funding, you know, resuscitation funding, as we call it, resuscitating funding, just keeping them going, and make decisions on where we're going to go,” Tauscher told reporters following a Nov. 12 speech at a Center for Nonproliferation Studies event. “And that's going to be part of the hearing process that we start in January ((or)) February when we begin to build toward the ((fiscal year 2010 defense authorization)) bill.”

When asked if that scrubbing would include funding cuts to missile defense programs, Tauscher said she could “not speculate because we have a new administration coming in . . . we've got the Strategic Posture Commission, we've got a number of different things that are going to inform us, including where exactly our numbers are.

“And until I have that information, I cannot speculate and I won't speculate, but everything I think is on the table,” she continued. “Everything has to be reviewed; we're looking forward to . . . going back to regular order, where we have hearings, where we have comprehensive overview, oversight, and the hearing process will illuminate where we think we need to be going.”

MDA Director Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, fearing some outside the government may be "dated" in their knowledge of U.S. missile defense efforts, said the same day as Tauscher's speech that his agency stands ready to brief incoming Obama administration officials on the status of its programs.

Some related future-of-missile-defense-funding stories from recent weeks:

MEADS Missile Defense Program Undergoes Management Overhaul

Young Establishes Joint Missile Defense Analysis Team

Report Urges 'Renewed Emphasis' on RDT&E at Missile Defense Agency

Report Says MDA Should Play No Role In Cruise Missile Defense

Defense Department Opposes FY-09 Multiple Kill Vehicle Funding Cuts

Campbell: Army Would Need More Money From OSD to Run GMD System

President-elect Obama's transition team announced today that James Steinberg and Susan Rice will lead its national security policy working group.

“The focus of the Policy Working Groups will be to develop the priority policy proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration,” according to the announcement.

Steinberg, dean of the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs since 2006, served as deputy national security advisor to President Clinton from 1996 to 2000.

He also worked as vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution from 2001 to 2005 and recently co-authored with Kurt Campbell a book titled "Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Power."

Rice, who served as a senior foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, has been on leave from her post as a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's foreign policy and global economy and development programs.

She is also part of the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board, the announcement adds.

Previously, Rice was assistant secretary of state for African affairs, from 1997 to 2001, and special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council.