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A F-35B fighter jet assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 262 (Reinforced) lands aboard amphibious assault carrier USS Tripoli (US Navy)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has been unable to adequately prepare for great power competition with Russia and China due in large part to the inability of service chiefs to prioritize funding and other resources away from today’s needs to those of tomorrow, argues a new policy paper from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

It’s a problem that would require a significant restructuring of the Pentagon chain of command and one that the institute calls on the incoming Trump administration — no stranger to pursuing big changes — to fix.

“Deficiencies of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Reform Act (GNA) are a root cause of under-resourcing our critical warfighting forces. This legislation restructured the DOD, resulting in a bureaucratic structure that severely restricts the ability of the services to prioritize long-term strategic threats in favor of the immediate, non-combat demands of the combatant commands and civilian defense bureaucracy. Consequently, there is a pervasive pattern within the military of neglect of long-term defense procurement strategies and requirements,” the paper, “A Call for a New NSC-68 and Goldwater Nichols Reform,” states.

In addition, the paper argues, “organizational misallocation of priority is not only limited to short- versus long- term planning needs but also service equities.” The result has been that the Pentagon has not been able to properly fun its pivot to the Indo-Pacific theater, which the paper asserts requires a shift in resources from the Army to the Air Force, Space Force and the Navy.

“Instead, the service shares of the defense budget remain static, and DOD’s leadership continues to approve Army investments in duplicative capabilities — for example, the Army’s $60 – 70 million-a-shot long-range surface-to-surface missiles for long-range strikes, which the Air Force could conduct with far more cost-effective capabilities,” the paper says.

The key to fixing the short- vs. long-term priorities problem is “repositioning the service chiefs within the chain of command while taking steps to preserve the ability of U.S. forces to conduct joint operations.” Service chiefs need to be able to set future requirements and ensure that funding is allocated to fulfill those requirements with kit and personnel resources, the paper elaborates.

The authors — Richard Andres, Mitchell non-resident senior fellow, along with retired Air Force generals Michael Moseley and Larry Stutzriem — further maintain another reason for the failure to reformulate US forces to face peer competitors is stultification and inefficiencies caused by “over centralization” of the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD).

“A full-scale review of the array of bureaucracies connected with OSD should be accomplished with an eye to shifting missions and authorities toward the services. Emphasis should be placed on enabling strategic decision-making that prioritizes the acquisition of capabilities based on an honest assessment of cost-per-effect and the deployment of forces geared toward addressing the challenges of great power competition,” the paper says.

The paper makes four recommendations:

  • Initiate a comprehensive reassessment of national security, objectively evaluating the prevailing threat landscape and acknowledging the shortcomings of existing strategies.
  • Take immediate action to restructure the DOD and correct the organizational deficiencies that hindered past reform efforts aimed at countering the threats posed by China and Russia.
  • Increase the defense budget to bring it in line with the evolving security landscape.
  • Evaluate defense capabilities and shift investment among the services based on a cost-per-effect assessment. This requires a holistic review of the roles and missions of service contributions to the National Defense Strategy.