U.S. Security Challenges Not Insurmountable, Work Says

By Jim Garamone

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2014 – The present-day security environment is challenging, but it is not insurmountable, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work told the Center for Strategic and International Studies here today.

Work -- who opened the center’s Global Defense Forum -- disagreed with assumptions that security challenges facing the United States are unprecedented.

He cited the challenges facing President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he took office in 1953 as proof.

Eisenhower Faced Unsettled Security Environment

“That was also an unsettled period,” Work said. “When President Eisenhower took office in 1953, the U.S. was engaged in a costly, protracted, and unpopular war in Korea. Even after he managed to end the war, U.S.-China relations remained hostile and tense, punctuated by the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1954.”

The Soviet Union had the nuclear bomb and developed hydrogen bombs in 1954, stoking fears of nuclear annihilation. The Iron Curtain had descended across Eastern Europe, and Cold War proxies were fighting in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

While all this was going on, Eisenhower worked to build NATO into a strong and effective military alliance.

“I use this example not to downplay the challenges facing us today, but simply to show we have faced enormous challenges in the past,” the deputy defense secretary said. “I could have picked 1979 and 1983.”

The United States got through that and will get through these days, Work said.

Employing Strategic Patience

Americans today should look to Eisenhower’s approach as he took the vast experience he had gained as a wartime leader and set out to develop a patient strategy for peace, the deputy defense secretary suggested.

“He played the long game,” Work said of Eisenhower. “The thing I admire the most about him was his strategic patience. He knew the U.S. was in for a long, persistent struggle against the Soviet Union and he was determined to best position all elements of our national power to give us the greatest possibility of winning. He rejected both undisciplined defense spending and unwise defense cuts.”

Like Eisenhower, President Barack Obama entered the White House during a time of war “and he was similarly determined to responsibly end ongoing combat operations as quickly as he could,” Work said.

Drawing Down the Military

Obama looked to draw down the military in a responsible way, also, Work said.

“Now post-war defense drawdowns are nothing new,” he said. “This is the fifth major sustained drawdown since World War II. However, I would argue this particular drawdown has been as unpredictable as the current strategic environment, and perhaps even more chaotic.”

It didn’t start out that way, the deputy defense secretary said.

Then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates saw this coming as he moved to draw down the U.S. military responsibly. He eliminated 33 underperforming programs. He told DoD planners to expect slower growth, with fiscal 2015 having no growth. He directed an efficiency initiative to shift dollars from “tail” -- overhead -- to -- “tooth” -- warfighting capability.

Sequestration Presents Big Challenges

And that worked right up until it ran into the 2011 Budget Control Act and sequestration. The planned-for cuts and the added cuts of sequestration meant $1 trillion was taken out of the defense budget over 10 years.

“How can one really plan a program if they do not know for sure if they must prepare to absorb an additional $500 billion over 10 years?” Work asked.

Sequestration triggered on Jan. 1, 2013, although cuts did not start until March 1.

“This represented a one-year, 8-percent cut -- ka-boom -- in base defense spending, and a 12-percent drop in overall spending -- the largest single-year decline in defense spending since 1955 and the Korean War demobilization,” he said. “It is no exaggeration to say we are still recovering from the incomprehensible destructive way sequestration was implemented.”

Changes did come in the shape of the Balanced Budget Act that provided some budget stability for fiscal 2014 and 2015. Sequestration remains on the books and can trigger on Jan. 1, 2016.

Lack of Budgetary Stability Impacts Strategic Planning

“Unless we return to some sort of regular budget order soon, and Congress provides us some budgetary stability and room to make the hard choices we must, we run the risk of building a program that will become increasingly misaligned with strategic environment that we all see is so chaotic,” the deputy defense secretary said.

All this “makes a mockery out of strategic planning,” Work said.

Readiness has been severely impacted, Work said. The readiness crisis came to a head last year, he said, when sequester hit despite the Joint Chiefs going up on the Hill to warn of just that outcome.

The deputy defense secretary said people expected readiness to nosedive or be like a car having a blowout. But it was more a slow leak than an explosion.

“The reality is sequester impacted every node of the man, train, and equipping pipeline and yielded dangerous operational effects,” he said.

Readiness across the force remains fragile and vulnerable to budget uncertainty, Work said.

“What we do know is that we’re in a real readiness trough and it will take time, money, and fiscal predictability to recover,” he said.