CIAO DATE: 08/2012
July 2012
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The US faces the growing risk of a major crisis in national security because of the problems raised by the Budget Control Act and the risk of sequestration. This risk, however, is only one risk the US faces in trying to reshape its strategy and to deal with the end of the war in Iraq, Transition in Afghanistan, and the emerging challenges in the Middle East and Asia. Even if the risk of Sequestration did not exist, the US would still have to deal with the problems created by the Department of Defense’s failures to bring its costs under control, formulate realistic plans and budgets, and to close the gap between its strategy and the need for realistic plans and budgets. One key conclusion is that the CBO estimates that the Department of Defense has undercosted the true price of implementing its programs by $14 billion in FY2013 alone. This means that if Sequestration went into effect, the Department would actually be $66 billion short of the resources needed to implement its program in FY2013, and not simply the impact of Sequestration alone. An updated study by the Burke Chair analyzes all of these risks in detail. It compares the information in the new strategy document with the details of the President’s request for both the total FY2013 federal budget and the FY2013 defense budget, and examines how the trends in the total budget and in national security spending affect US capability to implement its national security strategy.
Resource link: The FY2013 Defense Budget, Sequestration, and the Growing Strategy-Reality Gap [PDF] - 2.6M