Pentagon’s pricey strategy outstrips its budget process

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is churning out a frenzy of strategy documents that bolster President Donald Trump’s calls for a massive — and pricey — military buildup that includes new weaponry and more troops. The department’s own budget process, however, has not yet caught up.

On Friday, the Defense Department rolled out the National Defense Strategy, coming on the heels of the National Security Strategy and a leaked draft of the Nuclear Posture Review. These documents detail policies that come with hefty price tags, such as surpassing China and Russia in fiercely competitive areas like cyberspace and outer space.

But it could be another year before the Pentagon figures out how to pay for many of these priorities.

Defense budgets, like aircraft carriers, can’t turn on a dime. The process of drafting the 2019 budget started a year ago, at the outset of the new administration. But Trump’s ability to leave a lasting mark on Pentagon spending has been hindered by his slowness to name the political appointees who help turn policy into real budgetary priorities.

Because of the long lead time for defense budgets, a new administration’s second budget request usually is the one that first reflects its national security policies. And that typically coincides with the release of a major review of defense strategy.

In releasing the strategy, Defense Secretary James Mattis bemoaned Congress’ handling of the defense budget and called on lawmakers to give the department predictable funding so it can carry out the strategy.

“No strategy can long survive without necessary funding and the stable, predictable budgets required to defend America,” Mattis told an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “For too long, we have asked our military to stoically carry a ‘success at any cost’ attitude, as they work tirelessly to accomplish the mission with inadequate and misaligned resources simply because the Congress could not maintain regular order.”

But Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has already downplayed expectations, suggesting that the much-vaunted buildup would have to wait for the 2020 budget.

Speaking with reporters last month, Shanahan said the 2019 proposal will be “a step up,” but the Pentagon will work hard to make sure the 2020 budget “is the masterpiece.”

“We had to build up ‘19 concurrently with doing the NDS,” he said. “Imagine trying to do those in parallel and adjusting in real time. We did a lot of that.” For the next budget cycle, the strategy will be firmly planted in the forefront of planners’ minds, he said.

The 2020 budget is “probably the biggest step we can take to make sure we can’t unwind the strategy,” Shanahan said. “This is where many of the bets, in terms of innovation and some of the new technology, will take place.”

What Shanahan didn’t say was that key officials who help translate policy positions into budget decisions — including Shanahan himself, as well as the Pentagon’s policy chief, comptroller and director of the powerful Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation — had no Senate-confirmed appointee for significant portions of 2017.

The Senate confirmed comptroller David Norquist on May 25, Shanahan as deputy secretary on July 18, Robert Daigle as CAPE director on Aug. 1, and John Rood as undersecretary for policy on Jan. 3.