Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates canceled scads of dubious, expensive weapons systems and began preparing for big budget cuts. His successor, Leon Panetta, managed those budget cuts, but didn't cancel any more big-ticket items. Their new successor, Chuck Hagel, used his first major speech as defense secretary to signal that he wants to be more Gates than Panetta.
Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University today that the onset of deep, congressionally mandated and across-the-board cuts to the Pentagon budget will prompt him to re-evaluate the military's hardware, its personnel size, its expensive benefits systems and its bureaucracy -- and "challenge all past assumptions" about them.
"This effort will by necessity consider big choices that could lead to fundamental change and a further prioritization of the use of our resources," Hagel said. "Change that involves not just tweaking or chipping away at existing structures and practices but, where necessary, fashioning entirely new ones that are better suited to 21st-century realities and challenges."
As one of his earliest acts in office, Hagel ordered a review of the defense strategy the Obama administration rolled out last year, following on Panetta's warning that the budget cuts might render it obsolete. Hagel didn't go that far -- his goal, he said, was to "better execute the strategic guidance set out by the president" -- but said that he would now examine "the full range of options" that undergird a strategy emphasizing the western Pacific region, launching military assets from the sea, and lots of robots. Yet Hagel briefly mentioned some "core strengths" of the U.S. military that might end up newly emphasized in Hagel's review: "leader development, training, mobility and logistics, special operations forces, cyber, space, and research and development."
The speech had much to offer dovish defense analysts who argue that the Pentagon still suffers from too much overhead bloat and commitment to un-strategic weapons systems. Hagel referred to previous rounds of weapons cancelations as "pruning" and said he was concerned that "the military's modernization strategy still depends on systems that are vastly more expensive and technologically risky than what was promised or budgeted for." He singled out no major weapons system, but he probably got the attention of military offices working on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Army's forthcoming Ground Combat Vehicle.
Without getting specific in a speech that mostly was about broadcasting intent, Hagel skewered a few sacred Pentagon cows. He worried that the military's expensive benefits system was crowding out core missions to prepare for, deter and wage conflict. He said the Pentagon's bureaucratic acquisitions system was ensuring that new programs "take longer, cost more and deliver less than initially planned and promised." He said he would take "another hard look at personnel," hinting that he's willing to cut the size of the services and their civilian supporters. "Reducing layers of upper and middle management," particularly from headquarters staffs, will also be part of Hagel's new review, he said, pointedly noting that the Pentagon had not restructured its institutions since before the Berlin Wall fell.
But Hagel also tempered much of his criticisms. The reviews might determine that dramatic changes are "unwise, untenable or politically impossible," he said. His speech also rejected doing less around the world, saying that the United States lacked the "luxury of retrenchment": "If we refuse to lead, something, someone will fill the vacuum." And there was an olive branch to congressional hawks who don't like Hagel. "If we get time and flexibility to implement savings, we could limit the impact of spending reductions on force structure and modernization while still making a significant contribution to deficit reduction," he said. Translated from the politician, Republicans need to raise taxes if they don't want deeper defense cuts.
Hagel may have provided few specifics in the speech, and Pentagon chiefs' ambitious priorities have a tendency to get ground down by daily bureaucratic resistance and real-world crises. But next Wednesday, the Pentagon plans on releasing its first budget under his tenure. Critics have pointed out that his deployment of new Alaska-based missile interceptors to guard against North Korea's renewed bellicosity represent the kind of short-sighted thinking his speech criticized. His budget documents will provide a better sense of whether they're an exception or the rule.
Yet Hagel has not described the Pentagon cuts in the hysterical language Panetta employed to avert them. His speech underscored that he sees them as a challenge to be managed -- and perhaps more. "The Department must understand the challenges and uncertainties, plan for the risks," Hagel said, "and, yes, recognize the opportunities inherent in budget constraints and more efficient and effective restructuring." That's been a task that has vexed his predecessors.
