Budgets and Burden Sharing
The Case for reframing the DoD budget and a Nuclear Modernization Fund
Desperate times, desperate measures. America faces a trifecta of defense budget challenges at a time when we can ill-afford to waste another fiscal year. These challenges are both new and old. Old in the sense that they are years, if not decades in the making, and new in the sense that they are all hitting us right now, with no easy answer to overcome or bypass. Of course, I’m talking about the unholy trinity of hyper-partisan budget caps, conventional modernization and expansion, and nuclear modernization. We can no longer ignore this trinity, push it, or a component of it of off for a later time, nor force through a bipartisan resolution under the present DoD budget framework under present political conditions. And so, I’d like to propose a somewhat radical solution to our problem: a nuclear forces modernization fund to circumvent budget caps, provide greater accountability for nuclear force modernization, demonstrate the real budget burden each service carries, and free up space below present (and likely future) DoD budget caps for conventional modernization. You’ve probably heard a variant of this before, but I’d like to pitch it with my own flavor.
But first, a short history lesson.
As hyper partisanship has grown exponentially in the United States, particularly after the Global Financial Crisis, political tricks like budget caps have waxed and waned with populists and budget hawks alike. The Budget Control Act of 2011 and follow-on legislation infamously slashed the budget with a machete, instead of a scalpel. The second and third order effects of the BCA resulted in part shortages, maintenance shortfalls, delayed weapons systems development, personnel shortfalls, and so on and so on. These in turn resulted in decreased force readiness, training accidents, and an overworked and hollowed-out forced when paired with the Global War on Terror (GWOT). These cuts likely got people killed is what I’m trying to say.
Congress eventually wrote a cheap way to get around its own political ploys: the overseas contingency operations (OCO) fund. This was a supplemental (and/or slush fund) meant to fund GWOT operations like Iraq and Afghanistan…and other places without going over the limits of BCA. When the caps from the BCA ended a decade after implementation, the OCO went away. Well, the caps are back and the GWOT is mostly over. Ukraine and other foreign aid are funded through supplementals beyond the DoD budget, so we’re all good, right? Well, no.
Remember how I said the force was hollowed out? Well, that bill is coming due as the threat from the PLA grows and war over Taiwan becomes a more likely possibility, and specifically we face a protracted conflict with a peer enemy capable of shooting down our planes, sinking our ships, degrading infrastructure, killing soldiers, blowing up satellites, at the same scale that the US military is capable of doing in a major conflict (even if specific capabilities vary). But as the PLA has spent the last 20+ years modernizing their forces, we have done so at a slower (and somewhat failed) pace. The Navy is now on its third failed shipbuilding program in the last 15 years, the Air Force is forced to choose between a new bomber and nearly every other weapons or intelligence platform it needs in war, and the Army is trying to reorganize itself to fight massed armor, drones, and artillery instead of the Taliban. All in a political atmosphere that does not lend itself a massive boost in defense spending. These things cost a lot of money. And the DoD spends a lot of money on a lot of things, but the burden isn’t quite equal. You see, over the last few decades, an unofficial mantra among policymakers and others has manifested: that the services share a somewhat equal portion of the budget in order to limit infighting and Joint budgetary mayhem. We can talk about the overall bloat of aspects of the DoD budget, contractors, personnel costs, etc. But the fundamental belief that the services carry an equal burden, and therefore deserve an equal share, has become a serious problem for force design and modernization when we’re talking about actually meeting the threats outlined in the National Defense Strategy. That’s where the nuclear modernization problem hits hardest.
Depending on who you ask, we’ve been pushing off the nuclear modernization issue since as far back as the 1990s. We’ve been trading that money for present operations and other spending priorities. The fact is that it’s not the first cold war anymore, and nukes are not a popular spending item even among defense hawks. But our nuclear systems are now so old, particularly the infrastructure and systems that enable them (command and control systems, missile silos, submarines and aircraft) that reliability of the systems and our nuclear deterrent itself is beginning to become a national security concern that can no longer be ignored. Long time readers know I’m not exactly a nuclear hawk, I view nukes as a necessary evil to limit the extent of conflict. I’m not here to make the case for expansion (yet), especially in this budget environment. But the nuclear threat from the PRC is growing, significantly, and the Russians continue to flex their nuclear muscles. Deterrence requires the best assurances that our systems work, and can remain functioning to standard under adverse conditions. Therefore, we have to build new missile siloes that can support new and more reliable communications that aren’t from the 1960s, survive more accurate nuclear targeting, and withstand changes in climate that might disrupt the underlying integrity of the engineering. Additionally, we have to build the new Columbia-class submarine capable of acting as our reliable and stealthy second strike capability to make the PRC and Russia think twice about a surprise attack in a conflict. We need new bombers and airfield support infrastructure that can take the load off of the aging conventional bomber force and ensure we can provide both mission sets for commanders. Anyone trying to build a house will tell you that construction materials and labor these days are expensive, particularly for exquisite designs and in far-flung parts of the country where labor pools are seasonal or small, and building seasons are short. Don’t even get me started on supply chains for submarines with thousands of niche parts spread across the country. Not to mention the oversight and design for these projects, has been…lacking and neglected, to say the least. But we’ve hit the point where our previous crossroads deals for budgets have left us with nowhere to run. We have to spend simultaneously on a budget that funds nukes and conventional forces when there’s little political will in Congress to do so at a level that meets what we need. Or we can just do nothing and get caught with out pants down as the threat of major war grows every year, whether we act or not.
And on the topic of political will for funding, allow me to address the defense hawk counterargument that we should be spending 3-5% each year on top of the current budget to meet our needs. That’s been an argument since the McCain days, and while I am very sympathetic, if not a champion, of spending more on defense to meet our national security needs…I’d also like a pony. Spending think tank paper after think tank paper on 3-5% above topline, as if that was some magic number that restores deterrence instead of funding assigned to specific, DoD-identified force structure requirements and threat assessments, borders on malpractice as much as the analysts who want to cut the budget by some magic number that they think will somehow make the DoD more lean and efficient. Until you can talk line by line, bullet to body, and somehow make those needs line up with a 3-5% budget growth above inflation for the next 10 years, I don’t want to hear it. It’s not a serious argument in this political environment. And that brings me to our final challenge: how do we reorganize the budget to meet force design needs, without making politically impossible choices? Well, we make a new OCO…sort of.
Since the latest caps were passed, a new OCO-type supplemental to better fund the DoD has been talked about, but little political appetite short of a new war has been found. But I’d argue that’s because we’ve been talking about it incorrectly. A supplemental of a hodgepodge of political interests won’t make it through congress nor will it solve our force design problem. We need a focused, separate budget bill that not only answers the mail on one aspect of our unholy trinity, but also alleviates pressures on the services in a manner that acknowledges the specific need to grow the Air Force and Navy to meet the challenges of the Indo-Pacific…without making the politically impossible choice to make major cuts to the Army as a war rages in Europe and the Army faces its own challenges in the Pacific. How do we do that? Well, we create a nuclear modernization fund.
In my vision, a nuclear modernization fund would exist for the decade or so long sprint modernization of the nuclear triad: ICBM missile, silo, and communications for the land leg, Columbia-class submarines for the sea leg, and necessary bomber builds and maintenance for the air leg. This fund would also accelerate funding and development for early warning systems in orbit and on ground. Importantly, this fund would require a new oversight program, with lessons learned applied from the F-35 joint program office misadventures and with a required re-up vote from Congress each year. The cost overruns of previous programs cannot be ignored, and a rigorous oversight program would be needed to sell at least some budget hawks and watchdogs on the program In an ideal world, I’d love to partially fund this with a sin tax on sports gambling, but that might have some moral hazards attached. Operationally, the services and commands would still retain control over these systems, so in terms of design the triad would not change. The fact is that our nuclear deterrent is a core component of our national security infrastructure and deserves its own budget bill so as to not impede on conventional force budgets and ensure that the gravity of nuclear modernization is understood in the halls of Congress. Nuclear deterrence is simply not just another line item.
Like pulling an aging veteran quarterback from the team roster, the removal of the nuclear bill from the services toplines would open up billions of cap space for both the Air Force and the Navy. In order to reduce perceptions of this becoming a slush fund, or enabling the services to perpetuate the poor investments they’ve made over the last few decades, there would have to be some strings attached to this new money. Specifically, the services could spend more than was alleviated by the nuclear burden so long as caps are in place. Additionally, they must be spent on R&D, production, and operation and maintenance of systems deemed (in writing to Congress) by the Secretary of Defense, to meet the pacing challenge of the PLA. That means this money is going to the systems that the USAF and Navy have said they want but could not buy because of the nuclear modernization tumor eating their budgets. This money is going to rebuilding and expanding shipyards, airfields, drones, aerial refuelers, munitions, and new ships and subs. This money is also not going to the Army. My service has more than enough to meet the challenge, and frankly, we could probably cut a few brigades, but those are politically difficult choices these days that won’t make it past HASC or SASC.
Now, it’s only fair that I should address the potential risks and drawbacks of this proposal. First, there’s no guarantee this succeeds, but it’s certainly a better option than the pending line item cannibalism that we face today. Remember, a lot of lives and the free world are on the line. Second, it’s very possible this bill becomes another political circus with policy riders, poison pills, and other circus acts for the social media age that make our nuclear deterrent a freak show for the House Freedom Caucus or anti-military progressives. The Ukraine supplementals are an example of this, however, you would need another significant disinformation campaign to rally the votes against it. Third, there’s no guarantee that Congress, in its divine wisdom and desire to protect district projects, won’t allocate a bunch of that freed up money for projects that do not actually meet force design requirements. Some legacy Army programs are excellent examples of this problem. Fourth, there’s no guarantee the services (mostly the Navy) will get their acts together any time soon and actually fix their program design issues that result in wasted taxpayer dollars, corruption, and failed programs that put our national security at greater risk. However, the USAF has proven with the B-21 Raider that design and development lessons can be learned, put into action, and keep big budget programs on track. At the end of the day, we have to choose between letting the nuclear monster eat our budget and put our deterrent and warfighting ability at greater risk, or we can change how we do business and accept the above risks with the hope that we can survive this budgetary greater filter and live to fight another day.
The longer we wait to alleviate budget pressures and modernize both forces, the more we expose ourselves to being unprepared for when the next war comes, and then that bill gets paid in the blood of your sons and daughters with no guarantee of retribution. We can’t wait another year to hope Congress finds its will and boosts the defense budget topline 3-5% above inflation for the next decade or that the Army will magically give up a portion of its budget for the Air Force or Navy. A nuclear modernization fund is the worst option, but it’s better than all the others right now.
If you would like to read more about the future of US-China conflict, the next evolution in warfare, and what the world looks like if we don’t fix our budget priorities, check out my book, EX SUPRA, about the world after the fall of Taiwan, an isolationist and hyper partisan America, and World War III. It was nominated for a Prometheus Award for best science fiction novel! And if you have any suggestions for topics for future newsletters, please send them my way on Twitter @Iron_Man_Actual.