Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

Winslow T. Wheeler • 225What Our Expanding Defense Budget Has BoughtWhile many appreciate that Pentagon spending is now higher than it has ever beensince the end of World War II, it should also be conventional wisdom, yet isn’t, thatour military forces are smaller than they have ever been since 1946. Major categoriesof equipment are also, on average, older than they ever have been before; and keyelements of our most important fighting forces are not ready for combat.The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the cause. The negative trends have beenaround for decades. 2 The wars have not siphoned off money from the non-war partsof the Pentagon budget. While the Pentagon has received more than $800 billion forthe wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, since 2001 it has also received $770 billion morethan was anticipated for it for the years 2001 to 2009. One would hope this huge“plus-up” for the “peacetime” (or “base,” non-war) budget would have addressed someof the decades-old problems. It did not, and today they are worse.The “base” DOD budget has increased, in inflation-adjusted dollars, from $370.8billion in 2001 to $518.3 billion in 2009, a 40-percent increase. 3 Comparing theactual annual Pentagon base budgets to the base budgets planned at the start of thefirst George W. Bush administration (for the years from 2001 to 2009 4 ) computes toan added $770 billion. These data are shown in Table 2.Assessing the plus-ups each of the military services has received will demonstratehow more money has made our problems worse.Table 2. Additional Funding in the “Base” DOD Budget 52001 “Plan”(Extrapolatedfor 2006-20092001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total291.1 294.8 301 308.3 316.4 325 335 346 358 2875.6“Base” Budgets 295 327.8 378.6 379.6 402.6 421.1 441 483.2 518.3 3647.2DOD “Plus-Up” 3.9 33.0 77.6 71.3 86.2 96.1 106 137.2 160.3 771.6The ArmyIn early 2001, the Army anticipated an approximate budget of $719 billion for theperiod 2001 to 2009. Not counting the $387 billion subsequently appropriated forArmy participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s “base” budgetwas increased by $191 billion to $911 billion. The data used for these calculations aredisplayed in Table 3 on the next page.And yet, the $191 billion plus up the Army received in its base budget for 2001 to2009 resulted in no increase in the Army’s size. In fact, the historic trend is for more