More money, more balance for Army

Gen. George Casey, the 36th chief of staff of the U.S. Army, has testified in public hearings and spoken privately with many members of Congress about the Army being out of balance.

According to Gen. Casey, “Balance is a state of continual readiness that provides strategic flexibility and depth, while sustaining the all-volunteer force and simultaneously meeting the current and future demands of the National Security Strategy in an era of persistent conflict.”

There are some who believe that the Army can’t afford to simultaneously fight the Global War on Terror, reset its force, grow that force, and modernize — all at the same time. Some of these same people have suggested that the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) should be scaled back in order to fund these other near-term priorities.

I believe the prudent path forward is to increase the Army’s budget. The Army’s funding crisis cannot be solved by continuing to cut funding for the FCS program, or any other key modernization program. The Army must be allowed to invest in technologies and equipment that enable our most important asset — the soldier — to remain more effective than our adversaries. Mind you, our enemies are quickly adapting our tactics, procedures and tools of warfare.

This is not to say that Congress shouldn’t provide close oversight of the FCS program. In fact, it was the House Armed Services Committee that first started questioning the Army’s FCS strategy back in 2005. Consequently, the Army has made several improvements to the program.

This year, we will spend approximately 70 percent of our defense budget on operations and support, and 30 percent on modernization. In 1985, this was not the case. Throughout the 1980s, we spent approximately 55 percent of our budget on operations and support and 45 percent on modernization. We shifted to a 30 percent modernization budget in the early 1990s as the Cold War ended. And we’ve stayed at 30 percent ever since.

Strong national security doesn’t come without a price tag. The president’s 2009 budget requests $515.4 billion for defense spending. The relative cost is not as overwhelming as one would think. National spending on defense as a percentage of our gross domestic product is relatively low. This year’s base budget request equals about 3.4 percent of GDP. To put this in perspective, the National Retail Federation estimated holiday sales for 2007 to also equal 3.4 percent of GDP.

As Congress crafts the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009, we should not forget that the Army entered the post-9/11 world with an approximate $56 billion shortfall that the former Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, referred to as the existing “holes in the yard.” Let’s not recreate the conditions of the 1990s, which are partly responsible for putting the Army out of balance in the first place.

The Army is out of balance for a variety of reasons. The more compelling issue is whether Congress will step up to the plate and provide the necessary funding to restore the balance that Gen. Casey has identified.

Saxton is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and its Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. His district includes Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base.