Four Lessons that Should Upend the Pentagon’s Five-Year Strategy
From the quick consumption of weapons in Ukraine to rising inflation, the current resourcing plan is untenable.
JOHN FERRARI | MAY 9, 2022
Though many of today's national-security discussions are focused on the war in Ukraine or congressional action on the 2023 budget, a far more important, strategic, and bureaucratic battle is taking place inside the Pentagon over the 2024 program build.
For those who are unfamiliar with Pentagon jargon and timelines: from January to July, the services build their five-year budget proposals, called “the Program.” Since the 2023 budget now lies with Congress, the armed services are currently building the 2024-29 Program, which will be submitted to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in July. The services build their program based upon the Defense Planning Guidance, detailed instructions and resource levels given to them by OSD. From August to November, the services defend these programs to the OSD staff, much in the same way a doctoral candidate defends their thesis. In December, the President’s Office of Management and Budget provides final topline financial guidance and in January, the budget goes to the printer to be submitted to Congress in February. (Of course, this schedule is in an ideal world.)
Today, the services are making their final programming decisions, such as which weapons are terminated, which force structure gets cut, and what levels of readiness they will maintain. Given what we are learning with the war in Ukraine, there are four crucial lessons to learn that would, if accepted, upend the current strategy that is underpinning the building of the defense budget.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/05/four-lessons-should-upend-pentagons-five-year-strategy/366695/
