February 12, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Joe Gould
WASHINGTON ― California Republican Rep. Ken Calvert is willing to meet Democratic lawmakers partway in their reported plans to trim the defense budget: cut back on civilian employees, not equipment and modernization.
“Like everything else in government, personnel is your biggest cost, and the civilian-to-uniform ratio ... is at an all-time high,” Calvert, the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subpanel, said in an interview Wednesday. “Our inability to correct that trend is eating away at our military, our procurement, our readiness, all the above, and so we need to do this.”
President Joe Biden is expected to release his federal budget plan in April, but battle lines are being drawn on Capitol Hill ahead of what is expected to be a tighter military budget than in recent years.
While some key Republicans want to protect the military budget increases that came under then-President Donald Trump, or even build upon them, Calvert said he is open to “responsible reductions.” He is offering civilian cuts as an alternative to cutting end strength and weapons platforms.
“Rather than reducing [personnel in] uniforms ― and I think there's some talk about doing that, especially in the Army ― we need to look at the civilian workforce, which is at the highest ratio to uniformed service members than it has ever been,” Calvert said.
“If you're going to cut defense, are you going to cut procurement? People are arguing we need to build the Columbia-class submarine and Virginia-class submarine ― and I agree ― that we [keep the] Space Force, and [that] our satellite program is woefully behind ― and I agree. Where do you make your reductions when your overwhelming cost is personnel?”
Under Calvert's bill, the Rebalance for an Effective Defense Uniform and Civilian Employees Act, or Reduce Act, a 15 percent cut to the civilian workforce overall and a cap for the Defense Department's Senior Executive Service at 1,000 employees would have to be in place by fiscal 2025 and remain through 2029. The defense secretary would be empowered to use voluntary-separation and early-retirement incentives toward the reduction.
The legislation, which has been introduced several times before, was inspired by a 2015 study by the Defense Business Board that illustrated how the Department of Defense could save $125 billion over five years by slashing overhead.
Still, the proposal to cut civilians would face new optics this year. As civilian voices were muted in favor of uniformed leaders under the Trump administration, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a former general, committed under bipartisan pressure to “rebalance” Pentagon decision- and policy-making in favor of civilian leaders.
It's also a different tact than that of the House Armed Services Committee's new top Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers, who plans to guard against cuts and would prefer a 3-5 percent increase in defense spending ― which Pentagon leaders say is required to carry out the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
It's still early in the budgeting cycle, and the two may align. But in meantime, Calvert's approach offers something to fiscal conservatives, and it tracks with past efforts from Rogers' predecessor, former Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas.
Even if Republicans can fend off a top-line cut or win an adjustment for inflation to keep shipbuilding and aircraft procurement on track, Calvert said he supports cutting the Defense Department's civilian workforce.
“Hey, I hope Mike's right. I mean, he is a good friend, but I think he's a realist too,” Calvert said. “I worked with his predecessor on procurement reform, I'm trying to do some personnel reform, and we need those reforms on both sides.”
For their part, Democrats swiftly rejected Calvert's legislation, making it one of the first skirmishes of the annual battle over the defense budget. The defense subpanel's new chairwoman, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., said she discussed the matter with Calvert and disagrees with him.
“His proposal could lead to some of the most talented and committed DOD public servants losing their jobs,” McCollum said in a statement. “While we agree there is excess defense spending, my focus is on making smart investments that yield demonstrable outcomes by cutting waste and ending subsidies for outdated and unnecessary programs and facilities. In my view, the existing Department of Defense civilian workforce is mission critical to ensuring our national security.”
The American Federation of Government Employees has historically opposed the bill, and a spokesman said funding and defense policy legislation passed last year prohibit civilian workforce cuts “without regard to impacts on readiness, lethality, military force structure, stress of the force, operational effectiveness and fully burdened costs.”
With 768,000 federal employees working across all Defense Department components, the proposed cut amounts to 100,000 employees. Between 2015 and 2019, an average of just under 82,000 employees left DoD jobs each year.
Calvert contends his 15 percent cut could be accomplished through attrition, not firings, and target “growth in middle management,” not the supply depots scattered around the country that have political backing. Previous cuts of civilian personnel have fueled increases in contracting costs ― and Calvert said he is open to cutting those too, in partnership with McCollum.
“There would be discretion on the part of the people running the Pentagon; there are people you don't want to lose, they're in a special category, I get it,” Calvert said. “There are probably a lot of people you wouldn't miss, people up for retirement.”
Democrats are more apt to take on nuclear modernization, which is projected to cost the Pentagon more than $240 billion in taxpayer dollars through 2028. In the balance is the contract for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, awarded to Northrop Grumman last year, to replace aging, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Politico reports that progressive lawmakers and disarmament advocates are lobbying allies in the Biden administration for a pause in the GBSD program, while the Air Force and its allies in Congress, think tanks, and defense contractors are sharpening their arguments to preserve the program.
Calvert acknowledged criticism of nuclear spending from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., but said big cuts to the nuclear triad lack the backing to succeed. (The panel rejected a funding cut for GBSD last year.)
“I know Adam has been critical of that, but there's absolute support for redundancy of the deterrent within the Republican ranks, and so I don't see that going away. What I'm hearing so far out of the administration is that they feel the same way, so I don't think that's going to happen,” Calvert said.
Austin and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks have voiced support for nuclear modernization broadly but stopped short of pledging to uphold the current nuclear modernization strategy in its entirety.
Nuclear modernization cutbacks would “weaken the United States,” Calvert argued.
“We're not just thinking about Russia; we've got China, who's rapidly militarizing space, and their missile capability is improving. Obviously we've got countries like North Korea or Iran that are building their own missile capability, so we have to have a strong deterrent to make sure we are ready for any contingency.”
Jessie Bur of Federal Times and Leo Shane III of Military Times contributed to this report.
September 26, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Romania plans to buy 32 latest-generation F-35 fighter planes from U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin , for $6.5 billion, the defence ministry said on Tuesday, under a deal whose outline was announced in April.
March 10, 2021 | International, Aerospace
La France mène cette semaine son premier exercice militaire spatial afin d'évaluer ses capacités à protéger ses satellites, dans un espace de plus en plus militarisé. « Notre but est de montrer que la stratégie spatiale de défense n'est pas qu'un document, mais qu'on passe de la parole aux actes », a expliqué, mardi 9 mars, lors d'une conférence de presse, le général Michel Friedling, en charge du Commandement de l'Espace. L'ensemble de l'exercice, qui a lieu au CNES à Toulouse, reste virtuel : aucune véritable modification de la trajectoire des satellites français ne sera opérée. 60 militaires du commandement de l'espace y participent. La « Space Force » américaine et le Centre de situation spatiale allemand ont été invités à s'y joindre. Le CNES, l'ONERA, Safran, ArianeGroup et CS Group sont aussi mobilisés. La stratégie spatiale de défense a prévu un investissement de 3,6 milliards pour le renouvellement des capacités satellitaires de l'armée française, avec les nouveaux satellites CSO de surveillance optique, Ceres de renseignement électromagnétique, et Syracuse de communications militaires, rappellent Les Echos. En juillet 2019, la ministre des Armées, Florence Parly, a aussi annoncé un nouveau programme d'armement nommé « Maîtrise de l'Espace », pour intégrer deux volets : la surveillance de l'espace et la défense active dans l'espace. Ensemble de la presse du 10 mars
September 6, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army faces problems on multiple fronts when it comes to sending business to small companies, the head of Army Futures Command said Wednesday. Gen. John Murray said small businesses struggle under a procurement system that can take years, and then struggle to scale their businesses to meet the Army's needs. “There is a lack of trust [on the part of small businesses] that the government can sustain [a] small-business model,” Murray told the audience at the third annual Defense News Conference. “The way we do budgeting, [program objectives memorandum] POM cycles and all that — a small business can't survive. We're going to have to prove to small businesses that we can adjust our POM cycles to meet their needs. “And from the small business perspective, there are only a few ways that they can scale to the size we are talking about in terms of production. One of those ways is partnering with a traditional [defense contractor], so that's going to be a challenge going forward.” Murray's comments come as the Army tries to engage with a range of partners — from universities and small businesses to the traditional prime contractors such as Raytheon and General Dynamics — to find ways to integrate new technologies into the force. The outreach to small businesses at Army Futures Command is about finding new ways to get after the challenges the service faces, Murray said, but that in and of itself comes with challenges. “This outreach to small business is not because there is anything wrong with traditional defense primes, it's really an outreach to find new ways to solve our problems,” he said. “I've been in the Army 37 years, and I think about solving our problems a certain way. I guarantee a lot of these small businesses think about how to solve problems a different way. “Part of the challenge I have with small business is comfortably describing our problem to them. I can't talk in acronyms, I can't talk with 37 years of experience, I need to talk very clearly and very plainly.” Murray said his teams have staged events aimed at the private sector, such as a recent one where startups gathered to figure out how to move artillery shells 250 meters using autonomous unmanned systems. Such events have been instructive, he noted. Ultimately, however, the Army will choose the business that best meets the service's requirements, he said. “What it really comes down to is what are our problems and where is the best place — whether that's small business or a university or a traditional prime — where is the best place to solve that problem,” Murray said. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2019/09/04/the-us-army-faces-struggles-working-with-small-businesses/