Military takes new aim at sequester

The Pentagon’s war on the sequester is back.

Three months after the Pentagon won a significant victory in the two-year budget deal that rolled back $31 billion in automatic defense spending cuts, defense leaders are telling Congress it has to tackle sequestration again.

{mosads}On Tuesday, the military released a 2014 review that warned looming cuts beginning in 2016 will hollow out the military, risking longer wars and more U.S. casualties.

“We believe that if we return to sequester level cuts in ’16, that we will be facing a significantly higher level of risk,” Christine Wormuth, deputy undersecretary for strategy, plans and force development, said at a briefing on the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

The strategic review was released in conjunction with the Pentagon’s $496 billion 2015 budget request. The request would break through the spending caps approved by Congress, authorizing $115 billion more than the caps allow between 2016 and 2019.

Pentagon officials said that the extra $115 billion is essential for the Pentagon to carry out its military strategy.

They’ve warned that sequestration would prompt the retirement of an aircraft carrier and carrier air wing, and would bring the Army down to 420,000 troops.

The warnings harkened back to the pleas that military leaders made to Congress in past years to reverse sequestration, which remains in effect through 2022.

The two-year budget deal reached in December that gave some solace to the Pentagon was a major political lift, and it will be difficult to convince Congress to do so again in 2014.

Lawmakers who are some of the biggest opponents of the sequester have already predicted that Congress won’t undo the planned cuts for next year.

“Right now looking forward I don’t see any possibility of overturning it,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said last week.

Most Democrats and Republicans who are on the Armed Services Committee have long agreed that the sequester cuts — which were set in motion in the 2011 Budget Control Act to raise the debt ceiling — are bad for the military. But the two sides remain deadlocked over taxes and entitlements, two areas that weren’t touched in the December budget deal.

Some defense analysts say the Pentagon misplayed its hand by warning the sequester would have a devastating impact. These analysts argue that Congress didn’t see the sky fall.

Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale insisted Tuesday that the Pentagon “didn’t cry wolf.”

“It was a serious problem,” Hale said, listing the civilian furloughs, grounded air squadrons and canceled trainings that occurred last year. Even with some sequester relief, the Pentagon is having to do with less money that it had once planned.

The $496 billion budget, which is flat compared to 2014, retires weapons platforms, reduces pay and benefits and would cut the Army’s size to roughly 450,000 by 2019, the lowest levels since before World War II.

GOP defense hawks have slammed the proposal, warning that it cuts the military at a time of growing threats, but the Pentagon argues they are necessary to create a smaller and more modern military.

“As we move off the longest continuous war footing in our nation’s history, this QDR explains how we will adapt, reshape and rebalance our military for the challenges and opportunities of the future,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement. 

The strategy review says that the military will be able to carry out its defense strategy at the 2015 funding levels, but with increased risk for some missions.

“We will continue to experience gaps in training and maintenance over the near term and will have a reduced margin of error in dealing with risks of uncertainty in a dynamic and shifting security environment over the long term,” the document says.

McKeon blasted the Pentagon’s strategy document for focusing on the budget constraints rather than strategy.

He said in a statement that it defied the law that mandates a QDR every four years, and that he would introduce legislation requiring the Pentagon to re-write the document.

“This QDR provides no insight into what a moderate-to-low risk strategy would be, is clearly budget driven, and is shortsighted,” McKeon said. “It allows the president to duck the consequences of the deep defense cuts he has advocated and leaves us all wondering what the true future costs of those cuts will be.”

Hagel, however, said that the Pentagon’s fiscal constraints “cannot be ignored.”

“It would be dishonest and irresponsible to present a QDR articulating a strategy disconnected from the reality of resource constraints,” he said.

Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey will testify before the Senate and House Armed Services committees on Wednesday and Thursday to defend the budget.

Kristina Wong contributed.