Robert Gates and His Red Pencil

The Pentagon has to economize but is running into a lot of opposition

The federal deficit and the economic crisis are forcing the U.S. to take widespread action to economize. This also includes that major item of expense, the Pentagon.

In order to forestall more drastic measures from Congress, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has reiterated his intention to cut $100 million from the budget over the next five years. That’s far less drastic than Democratic Representative Barney Frank’s plan put forth jointly with two Republicans to cut nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. Meanwhile, Gates has outlined how and where he intends to make his cuts.

The most vehement opposition to the Pentagon’s economy measures was triggered by the intention to close the Norfolk, Virginia-based Joint Forces Command, along with two lesser subordinate commands. This command was created in 1999 from the former Atlantic Command and functioned primarily over the last decade as another in a long line of redundant Pentagon think tanks. Closing Joint Forces Command would result in the loss of 6,100 jobs, a total that includes uniformed personnel as well as civilian employees and contractors. The swift protest reaction covered the political spectrum and included Virginia’s Republican Governor, Robert McDonnell, and Democratic Representative Glenn Nye, who are calling for a thorough congressional review before any action is taken.

The cost of “contractor support” is also due to be reduced by ten percent over the next three years. While that has already caused displeasure among the lobbyists for these companies, it’s as yet unclear how many jobs would be affected by the reductions. Last year, Gates had to make the embarrassing confession that he had no reliable figures concerning the current number of contractor employees. Unofficial estimates say that the Pentagon employs as many as 790,000 personnel from private industry. As an encore, Gates announced a three-year freeze on personnel hiring at this budget year’s level.

In May of last year, Gates tried to initiate measures to economize on personnel. His intention was to eliminate 33,000 contractor positions by 2015, replacing them with full-time government positions, mainly in the area of procurement. To date, about 3,300 such new positions have been created, but this kind of de-privatization program was halted for budgetary reasons. Nevertheless, criticism continues to come from neo-conservative think tanks such as the Lexington Institute and Heritage Foundation.

The Lexington Institute’s Daniel Goure wrote on his “Early Warning” blog, “The undeclared war by the Department of Defense (DoD) on the private sector continues.” In the areas of logistics and sustainment, the Department of Defense is almost totally reliant on private contractors. As the Washington Post three part series “Top Secret America” showed, headhunting for well-trained workers has led to the youngest workforce in the area of intelligence services because the older, more experienced among them have been lured into the private sector. Many of them, primarily former military or intelligence employees, jump at the chance to work less and earn more while still remaining eligible for their government pensions.