FEATURES
Extracts reprinted with permission from the publisher, American
Enterprise Institute, and the author, Ms. Mackenzie Eaglen.
Note: This article is available in its full form on the AEI website. Extracts of particular interest to the submarine community are provided
here. –Ed.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Trump administration and the 115th Congress are pursuing increased readiness and lethality for America’s military and, therefore, higher defense spending. Although the White House and the Hill are seeking different levels of investment, this is a long-overdue initiative that enjoys bipartisan support. The United States now fields a military that could not meet even the requirements of a benign Clinton-era world. The services have watched their relative over-match and capacity decline in almost every domain of warfare, and against select adversaries, for nearly two decades. As rival nation-states have accelerated their force development, the Department of Defense has stalled out, creating a dangerous window of relative military advantage for potential foes. The recommendations in Repair and Rebuild seek to narrow that period of opportunity for American adversaries before closing it permanently. While the United States continues to field the best military personnel in the world, policy makers have asked them to do too much with too little for too long. As a nation, we have moved toward adequately compensating our service members, but have fallen utterly short in our second sacred compact with the troops: providing them with the tools and training they need so that they never enter a fair fight.
To reduce the chance of war and restore the credibility of America’s nonmilitary tools of power, the United States must quickly repair and rebuild its military. Yet lawmakers and Pentagon leaders must also ensure that the necessary haste of repairing and rebuilding the force does not lead to strategically shortsighted choices. The investment strategy in this report does not exist in a vacuum but rather flows from the strategic rationale articulated in To Rebuild America’s Military, a report from the AEI Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies, to which this report should be understood as a supplement. While To Rebuild America’s Military provided an alternate set of military strategic ends and the necessary force structure and capabilities to achieve them, this report delves further into the specifics of building a balanced plan that meets the US military’s immediate needs and postures the force for the challenges of the 2020s and early 2030s.
As policymakers begin to rebuild the military, they should keep two overarching strategic truths in mind. First, global powers do not pivot. The US military cannot flit from crisis to crisis given its enduring security interests in three theaters: Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. The US military must return forward in force over the long haul and tailor its presence to the threats and requirements in each theater. Second, the military cannot always choose its fights. It must prepare for a full range of contingencies to support deterrence at all levels and avoid strategic surprise. The Pentagon cannot choose between preparing for the future or the present, as historical attempts to do so have left the nation unprepared for both. The military must immediately expand, increase its full-spectrum readiness, and arm itself with what is available—even as it invests heavily in the next-generation technologies that will manifest themselves in 2030 or 2035.
Under those guidelines, Repair and Rebuild fields an Army large enough and lethal enough to sustainably conduct stability operations and decisively win in high-end conventional warfare. Most notably, the Army should expand from 476,000 to 519,000 active-duty soldiers and create new, forward-based armored cavalry regiments in Eastern Europe. Modernization efforts must focus on doubling the upgrade and procurement rate of current weapons systems while expanding and improving the Army’s missile defense capabilities at all levels.
The Navy must refocus on sea control. To do so, this plan expands the fleet from 310 to 339 ships by the mid-2020s by hastening carrier and amphibious ship construction and expanding procurement of small surface combatants, expeditionary sea bases, attack submarines, and logistics ships. Instead of purchasing additional destroyers, it more rapidly upgrades current destroyers with advanced missile defense software and accelerates development of a new major surface combatant capable of hosting the weapons of the future.
Repair and Rebuild focuses the Marine Corps on dispersed power projection by accelerating aviation-focused amphibious assault ships, purchasing additional F-35B jump-jet stealth fighters, increasing KC- 130J aerial tanker production, and fielding new weapons and refueling packages for KC-130Js and V-22s. By 2023, the Corps should complete its expansion from 185,000 to 202,000 Marines and improve its ground warfare capabilities through additional artillery and rapid acquisition of new small-unit expeditionary capabilities.
The Air Force must refocus on air superiority by doubling F-22 upgrades and F-35A production while accelerating its efforts to recapitalize support and satellite launches to inform future acquisition decisions and decrease program risk. Lastly, to more sustainably conduct its missions, the Air Force should grow from 321,000 airmen to more than 350,000 and purchase two wings of low-cost close air support aircraft.
In joint matters, Repair and Rebuild double down on current ballistic missile defense plans by continuing Ground-Based Interceptor and THAAD procurement and accelerating kill vehicle and radar upgrades. The plan also provides funding to establish a new space-based missile defense sensor layer, as well as new defense-wide funding for joint networking, electronic warfare, and directed-energy weapons system development. Throughout the report, Repair and Rebuild endorses and funds rapid acquisition and experimental efforts that show promise in quickly delivering better capabilities to the warfighter. Lastly, the plan recommends significant increases in facilities sustainment funding— particularly for nuclear infrastructure—and invests heavily in building new, dispersed, and resilient forward basing.
Congress and the president cannot wait until 2019 to begin this endeavor. Rather, 2018 defense spending should be increased to $679 billion to provide a credible down payment on rebuilding the armed forces. In total, the plan articulated in Repair and Rebuild costs about $134 billion per year above the Budget Control Act caps extrapolated through 2022, for a total of $672 billion in additional defense funding above the BCA levels. That sum is roughly equal to funding lost from the past five years relative to Secretary Robert Gates’ 2012 budget proposal.
This plan is not only necessary but affordable. Out of the $9.5 trillion in new debt the Congressional Budget Office expects the United States to accrue by 2027, additional defense spending outlined in Repair and Rebuild would represent only 6 percent of that increase. Furthermore, research shows that periods of sustained increases in defense spending correlate with the lowest cost growth and schedule delays for major weapons programs, thereby saving money.1 While the per-unit cost savings of efficient production rates are well-known, the cost-effectiveness of combining spending increases with stability is incalculably valuable across all defense accounts.
While the tangible outputs resulting from increased defense spend- ing may take some time to manifest, the political signaling of budgetary increases will be immediate. The day after the president and Congress announce a detailed, large-scale military repair and rebuild plan, all other efforts—including diplomatic, economic, and cyber—will instantly become much more effective. By shoring up the military foundation of national power along the lines of Repair and Rebuild, the United States will be better able to achieve its national interests—not just today and in 2035, but during each day in between and far into the foreseeable future.
Notes:
1.David L. McNicol, “Are Changes in Acquisition Policy and Process and in Funding Climate Associated with Cost Growth?,” Institute for Defense Analyses, March 2015, https://www.ida.org/idamedia/Corporate/Files/Publications/IDA_Documents/CARD/ D-5448.pdf.
A SENSIBLE COURSE TO 350 SHIPS IN SUPPORT OF A THREE-HUB NAVY
When you ask me which do I want to buy—capability, or capacity, or readiness? The only answer is yes.
—Admiral Phil Davidson, January 2017
What objectives should the 350-ship fleet accomplish? That is the question now that the Trump administration, Congress, and US Navy leadership have endorsed the larger fleet size. Over the past decade, a bipartisan consensus has emerged that naval forces must expand to meet the increasing demands placed on them.1 Today’s Navy is too small to keep up with its myriad day-to-day missions and ill-equipped to fight for sea control in combat environments. Yet the Navy’s needs extend far beyond simple fleet size calculations. How the Navy grows and what that expansion includes will determine the Navy’s future ability to restore conventional deterrence through the right mix of presence and posture— and win a battle for sea control if called upon.
While President Trump campaigned on the bipartisan goal of constructing a 350-ship fleet, Navy leaders are currently more interested in maximizing the extant fleet’s utility. According to Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Bill Moran, that translates into spending new funds on ship and aircraft maintenance,2 along with more fighters and munitions.3 This approach is confirmed by the March 2017 request for additional appropriations and the FY2018 naval budget request.
There is eminent wisdom in this approach; the overall capacity and capability of the Navy is a product of many factors beyond the number and type of ships. Repair and Rebuild provides more than $38 billion over the FYDP to address deferred maintenance shortfalls created by the overextension of an underfunded force during the past decade.4 Properly funding the existing fleet and aviation enterprises to ensure they are performing up to standard represents an immediate, low-risk, and cost-effective path to shoring up near-term risk and repairing the foundation of the sea services.
Beyond readiness, Repair and Rebuild allocates an additional $85 billion in naval investment over the FYDP. Given the long lead time associated with shipbuilding, this five-year period will be particularly problematic for maritime force development. Policymakers cannot simply pay the bills to resolve the readiness problems of today while setting their sights on building a fleet for 2035. Such an approach ignores critical medium-term requirements. To compensate, Repair and Rebuild proposes a rapid initiative to field a more lethal fleet of 339 ships within eight years, cementing a three-hub Navy that can maintain a permanent presence in the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Western Pacific.5 How the Navy expands on this base of 339 ships remains an open question well-addressed by the fleet architecture studies recently released by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA),6 the Navy N81 staff,7 the Congressional Research Service (CRS),8 and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).9 As the CRS and CBO studies note, the necessity of timely ship retirements has problematic implications for any attempt to increase naval force structure over a prolonged period. Overall, Repair and Rebuild prioritizes immediate results and minimizing acquisition risk by expanding and accelerating the purchase of existing ship designs and upgrades instead of steering new funding toward newly designed ships or operationally speculative technologies, such as directed-energy weapons and railguns.
The CSBA and N81 studies in particular provide a thoughtful starting point for considering the needs of the Navy in 2030 and beyond. Both papers recommend serious departures from current Navy shipbuilding plans and operating concepts and a movement toward (semi)autonomous systems. While Repair and Rebuild adopts some of those recommendations, nothing below should preclude further naval experimentation. In several places, Repair and Rebuild takes a long-term view of naval modernization. For example, this plan avoids overinvestment in Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in favor of accelerating a cruiser replacement capable of hosting future weapons systems once they mature. At the same time, this plan continues investment in promising long-term technology projects, such as electro-magnetic railguns, high-powered lasers, and large autonomous underwater vehicles.
But in many ways, the future is now. Wholesale changes to existing plans would saddle the Navy with risks—especially in acquisition—that may once again allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good enough. For instance, canceling the littoral combat ship (LCS) program to pursue a true open-ocean frigate as soon as possible would assuredly result in the sailors of 2022 grumbling about schedule delays, cost overruns, and capability shortfalls of that new frigate. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson recently articulated this concern by stating his preference for using existing designs to grow the fleet,10 a desire echoed by Vice Admiral Moran.11
The force development plan in this report will take time to manifest, and Admiral Richardson cannot ask the Chinese Navy to press pause for five years. Since most shipbuilding choices take many years to bear fruit, the recommendations in Repair and Rebuild for improving the fleet extend far beyond shipbuilding. As the N81 study rightly notes, “Today’s fleet possesses most of the platform capacity and payload volume to support the distributed fleet architecture.”12 There are many existing modernization programs that can be fielded at an accelerated pace, from conducting existing ship upgrades faster (AEGIS Baseline 9) and expanding small-scale capability improvements meant to cover the entire fleet (SeaRAM) to supporting rapid procurement such as for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs)—and buying more munitions.
The Navy’s 2016 force structure assessment sets a requirement of 355 ships, up from the Obama-era target of 308 and the current fleet of 280.13 Relative to the existing plan for 310 ships by FY2021, Repair and Rebuild would complete or contract for another 29 vessels in the FYDP to achieve 339 ships by the mid-2020s. Sustained acceleration of construction programs for attack submarines, carriers, and amphibious ships beyond the next five years would allow the Navy to reach 350–355 vessels faster than current estimates. Repair and Rebuild seeks to grow the fleet using immediately available options by rectifying the massive shortfall in small surface combatants, meeting enduring carrier and amphibious requirements, and filling the existing and expanded attack sub-marine shortfall through 2040. The new large surface combatant shortfall created by the 2016 force structure assessment, which requests 104 of these ships instead of 88, is partially mitigated by increased ground-based ballistic missile defense capacity, an expansion of the small surface combatant fleet, and a combined acceleration of both the cruiser up- grade and cruiser replacement programs. Repair and Rebuild also funds the addition of 10,000 active Navy personnel in FY2018 and FY2019 to prepare the Navy for the early stage of this shipbuilding expansion.
According to both Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Rich- ardson14 and Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, the extant shipbuilding manufacturing workforce and facilities can meet the challenges of growing the fleet to up to 355 ships if pursued responsibly.15 The recommendations herein thus rely on plausibly conservative estimates of defense industrial base capacity.
ATTACK SUBMARINES
[Taken from A Sensible Course to 350 Ships in Support of a Three-Hub Navy –Ed.]
Undersea warfare remains America’s preeminent area of comparative advantage in its long-term conventional military competition with Russia and China. While the new force structure assessment leaves the Columbia-class Ohio Replacement Program untouched, it calls for an 18-boat increase from the current target of 48 attack submarines, for a total of 66.16 The current fleet of attack submarines meets only 62 percent of combatant commander requirements against a Russian Navy that operates first-class attack subs17 and a Chinese Navy fielding quiet diesel subs in numbers and rapidly moving toward serial production of nuclear attack subs.18 Yet such an expansion of the silent service would necessitate a significant investment in the current submarine industrial base right as those contractors prepare for the Columbia-class SSBN.19 So far there has been no indication that the Navy can or would accelerate boomer production before FY2021, the planned first year of Columbia procurement, but such opportunities should be explored. The Navy has stated there is currently no margin for error or delay built into the schedule for Columbia; owing to the importance of the nuclear deterrence mission, a production acceleration should be considered to build in schedule margins for the Columbia class.20 This plan also strongly recommends against moving Columbia-class procurement out of the shipbuilding budget.21
To start rebuilding the submarine force, Congress should lock in a second Virginia class in FY2021, the first year of Columbia-class production. This follows a course charted by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) in the FY2017 NDAA22 and endorsed in the Navy’s FY2018 budget request.23 Thereafter, the Navy should procure a second Virginia-class attack sub in each year of Columbia-class procurement, as well as a third attack sub in certain years. The fleet would continue procuring two attack subs a year even after transitioning from Virginia-class production to follow-on production of the SSN(X) in FY2034.24
Based on a current 60-month delivery time for each attack sub, such a procurement schedule would result in the attack submarine fleet bottoming out at 43 or 44 subs (instead of 41) in FY2028 or FY2029 and a subsequent climb back to the current force structure of nearly 50 attack submarines by FY2033 and 60 by FY2040. In response to a House of Representatives reporting provision in its draft FY2017 NDAA,25 the Navy affirmatively determined that the submarine industrial base could achieve such a build rate for attack subs.26 Given the remaining 23-boat shortfall in the late 2020s even under this plan, Congress should seek more information about further increasing the build rate to three Virginia-class subs per year during Columbia-class construction, a possibility hinted at by the Navy’s updated FY2017 unfunded priority list27 and endorsed by Sen. McCain’s plan,28 but cautioned against by recent news from the program and the need to maintain a balanced Navy.29 The Stackley memo calling for an increased fleet size confirms that increased SSN production prior to FY2021 is infeasible.30
Further, all extra Virginia-class attack subs should include the Virginia Payload Module, which adds 28 vertical launch cells to each vessel. This would improve naval power projection by creating an attack submarine force capable of tormenting adversaries’ defensive schemes.31 Hundreds of payload-independent tubes dispersed in the world’s oceans on American’s future submarine force will ably replace the retiring SSGNs, which have fired the opening shots in many of America’s modern conflicts.
Notes:
1. US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2014, Ensuring a Strong
U.S. National Defense for the Future, March 2014, 3, http://archive.defense.gov/ pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf.
2. Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Fix Readiness First, Shipbuilding Second: Navy to Trump,” Breaking Defense, January 11, 2017, http:// breakingdefense.com/2017/01/fix-readiness- first-shipbuilding-second-navy-to-trump/.
3. Justin Doubleday, “Maintenance, Modernization Are Navy’s Priorities Under Higher Topline,” Inside the Navy, December 12, 2016, https://insidedefense.com/inside-na- vy/maintenance-modernization-are-navys-priorities-under-higher-topline.
4. Sam LaGrone, “SECNAV Mabus Memo: Navy Budget Submission Built with Trump’s Pentagon in Mind,” USNI News, December 9, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/12/09/ navy-budget-submission-built-eye-toward-trumps-pentagon.
5. Mackenzie Eaglen and Bryan McGrath, “America’s Navy Needs 12 Carriers & Three Hubs,” Real Clear Defense, March 11, 2014, http://www.realcleardefense.com/arti- cles/2014/03/11/americas_navy_needs_12_carriers three_hubs_107129.html.
6. Bryan Clark et al., Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the United States Navy, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2017, http://cs- baonline.org/research/publications/restoring-american-seapower-a-new-fleet-architec- ture-for- the-united-states-.
7. Navy Project Team, Alternative Future Fleet Platform Architecture Study, US Depart- ment of the Navy, October 27, 2016, http:// www.mccain.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/ a98896a0-ebe7-4a44-9faf-3dbbb709f33d/navy-alternative-future-fleet-platform- archi- tecture-study.pdf.
8. Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, June 30, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/ crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf.
9. Eric J. Labs, Costs of Building a 355-Ship Navy, Congressional Budget Office, April
24, 2017, https://www.cbo.gov/ publication/52632.
10 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Build More Ships, but Not New Designs: CNO Richard- son on McCain Plan,” Breaking Defense, January 17, 2017, http://breakingdefense. com/2017/01/build-more-ships-but-not-new-designs-cno-richardson-to-mccain/.
11. Megan Eckstein, “Moran: Navy Needs as Much as $150B Extra to ‘Jump-Start’ Path to 355 Ships; Would Buy Mostly DDGs, SSNs, Carriers,” USNI News, March 22, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/03/22/moran-navy-needs-additional-150b-over-next- 7-years-to-get- on-355-ship-trajectory-would-buy-mostly-ddgs-ssns-carriers.
12. Navy Project Team, Alternative Future Fleet Platform Architecture Study, 8.
13. US Department of the Navy, executive summary to 2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment, December 14, 2016, https://news.usni. org/2016/12/16/document-summa- ry-navys-new-force-structure-assessment.
14. Andrea Shalal and Mike Stone, “U.S. Navy, Shipbuilders Ready for Trump’s Expan- sion Plan,” Reuters, December 4, 2016, http:// www.reuters.com/article/us-navy-ship- building-idUSKBN13T0U3.
15. Lee Hudson, “Trump Administration, Industry Differ on How to Build 350-Ship Navy,” Inside the Navy, November 28, 2016.
16. US Department of the Navy, executive summary to 2016 Navy Force Structure As- sessment, 3.
17. Norman Polmar and Michael Kofman, “Russian Navy: Part 3, Impressive Beneath the Waves,” Proceedings 143, no. 2 (February 2017), http://www.usni.org/magazines/ proceedings/2017-02/russian-navy-part-3.
18. Joseph Mulloy, testimony to the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forc-es, Committee on Armed Services, US House of Representatives, February 25, 2016, https://armedservices.house.gov/legislation/hearings/department-navy-2017-budget-re- quest-and- seapower-and-projection-forces.
19. Megan Eckstein, “NAVSEA Commander: Trump Administration Demands Lower Shipbuilding Costs,” USNI News, January 12, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/01/12/ navsea-commander-trump-administration-demands-lower-shipbuilding-costs.
20. Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “No Margin for Error as Navy Builds New Nukes: Tofalo,” Breaking Defense, May 29, 2015, http://breaking- defense.com/2015/05/no-margin-for- error-as-navy-builds-new-nukes-tofalo/.
21. Mackenzie Eaglen, “National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund: Myth vs. Reality,” Breaking Defense, December 22, 2015, http:// breakingdefense.com/2015/12/nation- al-sea-based-deterrence-fund-myth-vs-reality/.
22. Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Good News for Navy in 2017 NDAA & Beyond: Rep. Courtney,” Breaking Defense, November 30, 2016, http://breakingdefense.com/2016/11/ good-news-for-navy-in-2017-ndaa-beyond-rep-courtney/.
23. Megan Eckstein, “Navy Adds Second Attack Sub to 2021 Plans; Considering 3 SSNs in Future Years,” USNI News, May 24, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/05/24/navy- adds-second-attack-sub-to-2021-plans-considering-3-ssns-in-future-years.
24. Megan Eckstein, “Navy Seeking Unmanned Underwater Advances to Field Today, to Inform Next Generation Sub Design in 2020s,” USNI News, October 31, 2016, https:// news.usni.org/2016/10/31/navy-seeking-uuv-advances-to-field-today-to-inform-ssnx- design-in-2020s.
25. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, H.Rpt. 114-537, 114th Cong., 2nd Sess. (May 4, 2016), 25–26, https://www. congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt537/ CRPT-114hrpt537.pdf.
26. Megan Eckstein, “Navy Report: Submarine Industrial Base Can Maintain 2-Attack Boat Construction Rate, Bolstering Lawmak- ers’ Plans,” USNI News, July 18, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/07/18/navy-report-submarine-industrial-base-can-main- tain-2-ssn- construction-rate-bolstering-lawmakers-plans.
27. Megan Eckstein, “Update to Navy Unfunded Priorities List Emphasizes Readiness; Would Add More Super Hornets, Additional Amphib,” USNI News, January 24, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/01/24/update-to-navys-unfunded-priorities-list-now-empha- sizes- readiness-would-add-more-super-hornets-additional-amphib-ship.
28. John McCain, Restoring American Power, 9, https://www.mccain.senate.gov/pub- lic/_cache/files/25bff0ec-481e-466a-843f- 68ba5619e6d8/restoring-american-power-7. pdf.
29. Chris Cavas, “US Navy Submarine Program Loses Some of Its Shine,” Defense News, March 13, 2017, http://www.defensenews. com/articles/us-navy-submarine-pro- gram-loses-some-of-its-shine.
30. Sean J. Stackley to Jim Mattis, “United States Navy Accelerated Fleet Plan,” Febru- ary 9, 2017, 8, https://www.blumenthal.senate. gov/imo/media/doc/U.S.%20Navy%20 Accelerated%20Fleet%20Plan.pdf.
31. This will require significant funding during years of increased Virginia-class produc- tion beyond the FYDP.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS ENTERPRISE
President Trump has tasked Secretary of Defense James Mattis with conducting a new Nuclear Posture Review that will likely validate the necessity of the existing nuclear modernization program with some changes.1 If the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is any indication, translating the findings into changes to the nuclear program of record will take time. Current modernization priorities for the nuclear enterprise generally enjoy deep and widespread bipartisan consensus, although adjustments at the margins may eventually be needed in response to an evolving nuclear environment. No other defense modernization effort can boast of simultaneous endorsement by eight former combatant commanders.2 Except for the third offset evangelism proselytized by former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and his deputy Bob Work, no other spending area has benefited from the sustained support of senior leadership and such a sacrosanct budgetary commitment. As Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Paul Selva recently testified:
There is no higher priority for the Joint Force than fielding all components of an effective nuclear deterrent, including weapons, infrastructure, and personnel. Perhaps the clearest indicator of this prioritization is how we have chosen to spend our resources and the tradeoffs we have been willing to accept. Although our current nuclear strategy and program of record were developed before the Budget Control Act imposed strict caps on defense spending, we are emphasizing the nuclear mission over other modernization programs when faced with that choice.3
Given the military’s outstanding maintenance work to maintain the readiness of existing nuclear capabilities, it is not yet necessary to accelerate any of the core nuclear modernization programs. These programs, which will undergird the nuclear force of the future, include the Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, the Ground-Based Strategic Defense ICBM replacement program, the B-21 nuclear-capa- ble bomber variant, the Long-Range Standoff cruise missile, dual-capable F-35As, and the consolidation of existing nuclear warhead variants for the modernized B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. So far, these programs have exhibited many positive development markers, including much-im-proved life-cycle planning compared with the weapons they will replace. What cost overruns that exist are mostly a function of cost estimation difficulties rather than acquisition malpractice.
Yet Repair and Rebuild does establish a new fund to address one neglected component of the nuclear forces: the backlog in nuclear facilities FSRM. This funding will support deferred projects in support of nuclear weapons facilities to ensure the nuclear enterprise remains healthy in the immediate future.4 Similarly, this plan would create a new joint fund to bolster the integration and cyber resiliency of nuclear command, control, and communications systems. The 2018 Senate draft of the defense policy bill identified several shortcomings in the acquisition strategy of this bedrock of the nuclear weapons enterprise.5
Taken in concert, these measured steps will ensure the existing nuclear modernization plans successfully renew America’s strategic deterrent. However, the Department of Defense must also grapple with the reality that the enemy gets a vote. International actors could prompt a change in US nuclear posture on a timeline that renders the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, which is largely expected to continue the current modernization plans, insufficient or obsolete. Such a fate befell the 2010 review, which was written amid continuously evolving Russian nuclear doctrine and weapons modernization programs, worsening tri-lateral nuclear dynamics in South Asia, and souring multilateral relations between the regional non-nuclear neighbors of North Korea and Iran.
Numerous credible studies from disparate authors have raised red flags about the increasingly complex and dangerous nuclear weapons environment, which is characterized by the potential dynamics of multiple interlocking arms races. Notably, a December 2016 report by the Defense Science Board concluded that changes in the nuclear environment in forthcoming decades would require an expansion in the number of low-yield nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery methods. Yet the board went beyond analyzing low-yield weapons to present interesting and underappreciated analysis on ways to improve nuclear command and control and diagnostics to assess weapon readiness.6 Their recommendations may be worth pursuing, and the Pentagon should undertake continuous study of the evolving nuclear weapons landscape, even after the Nuclear Posture Review delivers its policy verdicts. No need for additional funding or programmatic choices exists at this early stage.
But that will not be true in perpetuity. In a landmark 2015 report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies organized three ideologically disparate teams to consider the future of the US nuclear deterrent. While the teams presented three different recommendations for changes at the margins of future US nuclear posture, they all accepted a broad set of framing assumptions that suggest the future nuclear weapons environment will become ever more complicated and more dangerous.7 The Marilyn Ware Center’s 2015 report To Rebuild America’s Military8 endorsed those assumptions and encouraged the Pentagon to begin laying a foundation for change in order to respond to an evolving threat environment.
Notes
1. Al Mauroni, “Mattis Talks Nukes, but Is Trump Listening?,” War on the Rocks, January 18, 2017, https://warontherocks. com/2017/01/mattis-talks-nukes-but-is-trump-lis- tening.
2. C. Robert Kehler et al., “The U.S. Nuclear Triad Needs an Upgrade,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/ articles/the-u-s-nuclear-triad-needs-an- upgrade-1484179459.
3. Paul Selva, testimony before the Committee on Armed Services, US House of Representatives, March 8, 2017, 6, http://docs. house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20170308/105640/ HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-SelvaUSAFP-20170308.pdf.
4. US Government Accountability Office, Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise,
August 2015, http://www.gao.gov/ assets/680/671873.pdf.
5. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, S. Rept. 115-125 (July 10, 2017), 303–4, https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/ srpt125/CRPT-115srpt125.pdf.
6. Miriam John, Michael Anastasio, and William Laplante, testimony before the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Committee on Armed Services, US House of Representatives, March 9, 2017, 5, https://armedservices.house.gov/legislation/hearings/ nuclear- deterrence-defense-science-boards-perspective.
7. Clark Murdock et al., Project Atom: A Competitive Strategies Approach to Defining
U.S. Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2025– 2030, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 22, 2015, 6–7, https://www.csis.org/analysis/project-atom.
8. Thomas Donnelly et al., To Rebuild America’s Military, American Enterprise Institute, October 2015, 29, http://www.aei.org/ publication/to-rebuild-americas-military/.
CONCLUSION AND FULL FUNDING INDEX
The intellectual, cultural, and programmatic underpinnings of the second offset began under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering William Perry in the late 1970s. This work prepared the Pentagon for the Reagan buildup in the early to mid-1980s. Similarly, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work set the conditions for a third offset by fostering discussion on restoring Ameri- can military technological superiority—a long-overdue recognition that the period of assumed American supremacy has come to an end.
The core tenet of Repair and Rebuild lies in my belief that while regaining technological superiority will be necessary to ensuring conventional deterrence in the future, this alone is far from sufficient. As articulated by the strategic vision underpinning To Rebuild America’s Military, the Pentagon requires a three-theater force-sizing construct to inform a balanced and sustainable force development strategy. The global threat environment is changing too quickly to accept multi-year periods of risk generated by pivoting from theater to theater or by investing only in the readiness of today’s military or the technological capabilities of the future force.
To Rebuild America’s Military concluded that haste is of the essence in rebuilding our armed forces. Clearly, the Pentagon’s inability to deliver a five-year spending plan in FY2018 and a strategy for rebuilding does not align with that urgency.
Thus, my intention is that Repair and Rebuild spark the necessary discussions on thorny force development questions at the programmatic level, with the aim of resolving them ahead of the point of no return. As such, please do not hesitate to reach out to discuss the calculations or the choices made in this study. For those with further interest in the budgetary specifics, a full index of the additional expenditures recommended by this report follows.
The table referred to by the author is available in the original version of this report at the website of the American Enterprise Institute, www.aei.org. –Ed.
