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The Next Sec Def: Will Obama Choose Change or Stability?
Officially, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta isn’t going anywhere.
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Why Pentagon Won’t Say How It Would Cut $55 Billion Starting Jan. 1
Why, in a building filled with US military commanders who pride themselves on preparing for every contingency, particularly those considered dire, is there such a reluctance to plan – or at least to acknowledge any planning – for severe spending cuts mandated under this Washington budgetary regimen known as sequestration?
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The Defense Budget Challenges Obama Faces
The results of last night's election ensure that there will not be radical departures from recent discussions surrounding the size of the Defense Department's budget moving forward. What remains to be seen, of course, is whether some form of principled compromise can be reached before sequestration will kick in and remove another roughly $500 billion in defense spending over the next decade. (And right now any such compromise seems to be far from certain.) Regardless, serious thought and planning needs to go into preparing for current and future security threats, challenges, and opportunities because other state and nonstate actors internationally have designs and strategies that they are working to implement whether we like it or not, and we will have less resources to counter them.
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Budget Studies Could Change Mix of Active, Reserve Forces
When the military buys new weapons, it insists on studying in granular detail the potential "total life cycle costs." But when it comes to the biggest expense - personnel - decision-makers have far less visibility/.../
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The Battle for Resiliency in Asia: it’s the hardeners versus the dispersers
It's not yet clear the Obama administration is going to put its money where its mouth is on the pivot to Asia. One example of that fear may be found in the outcome of the debate on basing in Asia that is now being waged inside the Pentagon. As the military rebalances its personnel, assets and resources to the East, it's focused on "resilience" and what it will cost to achieve it. But for all the talk of the pivot, it's not clear the resources are there to back it up.
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Experts Say Sequestration Would Target Civilian Jobs
The potential for layoffs in the defense contracting industry is taking center stage in the congressional showdown on how to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” but experts say that sequestration’s most immediate workplace cuts would be felt by civilian defense employees.