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![handle is hein.amenin/aeiadsw0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
Key Points
The nw leaders in the Defense Decprtrnen nd C onress shnu$d agree on a budget
thatsets defnse sndin g an a trajectory 'f 3- percent red growth.
& If funding reductions occur, narrow chices of the pas- shoud oe expanded to levergni
lessons learned.
n ough thire are no easy buttons, a counterintuitive ic'-focsed a pproach that pri-
orries size and training of the fce over `orce structure and innova-ion over invention
could mitigate pevious bludgeHreduction consequences.
'e stakes are'hi, as the cost if bad dec isi n-rmaking is the Nives cf our yOuLing won men
arc men who will fight he nexr war.
The military is recovering from years of budgets
that insufficiently supported the missions requested
of it.' This recovery is perishable.
As a new team. of leaders assmres control of the
Pentagon and its decision-making processes, it
should support a new budgt agreement mat sets
the Dpartment of Defense (DOD) top line on a tra-
jectory retonndided by the National Defense
Strategy Commission of 3-5 percent real growth?]
If a budget agieeent imposes a defense top line
less than that, we should learn from the past and
consider countI~ntuitiVe options to mitigate impos-
:ng unacceptable risk to current or future forces and
military competitiveness. The stakes are high, as the
cost of bad decision-making is the lives ofouryoung
women and men who will fight the next war.
The History of Budget Ups and Downs
Over the nast seven decades, the DOD has experi-
enced nUfmerous, sometiies dramatic, funding
reductions and increases. Three years of increased
budgets, fiscal years (FY) 2M8---2oo, supported
readiness recovery lost during the previous down-
turn from FYzota to FY'207 and started rebuilding
near -peer competitiveness lost during the two dec-
ales of counterinSurgency operations. This roller-
coaster cycle of defense funcing is neither efficient
nor desired, but it does happen regularly. We can
learn from the past to inform the future.
The manner in which the department absorbed
budget reductions in the past led to readiness dis-
asters such as Kasserine Pass duting World War li
(+nmy four of 50 tanks of a U3S Army battalion sur-
vived a battle with the Gernians), Desert One dur-
ing the Iran Hostage Crisis in whh, at the height
of the hollow Army, we failed to execute the mis-
ston and lost eiat ri, sEce members), and the most
recent naval and air accicents (in which a lack of
training resulted i-n niedents with he US iahn S.
MicCai and USS Fitzgerald)'
There were many conriutors to previous
budget-recuction decisions, including poor plan-
ning horizons, strategic and operational irnpera-
tives, legislative restrictions, and institutional
tendencies.
'NecesNRO \_MAM](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.amenin/aeiadsw0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)