The U.S. Defense Budget Must Be an Instrument of Lethality

American taxpayers expect that a trillion dollars annually allocated to national security activities should be enough to achieve global Peace through Strength. Secretary Hegseth has already implemented a series of streamlining initiatives to redirect funds from non-lethal programs to new warfighter requirements. We must now align every taxpayer dollar in the defense budget to a lethal effect that will deter war or defeat enemies.

A Lagacy of Poor Performance

The current defense budget process is beset by sixty years of inefficiency and stagnation. The military services independently develop budgets for weapon systems based on traditional domains (land, sea, air) without considering alternative delivery of lethal payloads and effects by asymmetrical means including space, cyber, or even pagers. Military services propose over $140 billion annually for duplicative activities in research, development, test, and evaluation (RDTE) that may not translate into rapid procurement of new capabilities. The $168 billion spent on major defense acquisition programs results in decades of delays, outdated requirements, emerging vulnerabilities, and perpetual cost overruns by an undercapitalized and unmotivated defense industrial base. Most alarming, the $300 billion spent on sustainment annually has resulted in lower mission-capable rates, deferred training, and deteriorated infrastructure. We spend over a $100 billion annually on professional services by companies with no incentivize to innovate because they get paid royally by the hour regardless of performance. Even worse, Pentagon program offices are incentivized to spend every dollar each year by September 30, regardless of effect, so they can justify their budget in future budgets. Spending efficiency does not correlate to lethality. We must fix these inertial problems immediately to deter an adversary, whether they be a Nation-State, a terrorist, or a cartel.

A Fundamental Restructuring is Required

Implementing Secretary Hegseth’s vision requires the direct alignment of budget processes to the consequential effects that will deter and defeat and adversary. We can no longer afford duplicative capabilities that will not result in a realistic and tangible effect relayed to an adversary. Case in point – It’s time to reassess strategic deterrence options in the Western Pacific if an aircraft carrier strike group is an existential risk inside the second Island chain. We need an immediate analysis of alternatives to enhance the effect of deterrence to hostilities targeting allies in the region.

A congressionally-mandated commission on DoD Budget reform proposed a new Defense Resourcing System, noting the “current budgeting and execution phases of the process, particularly in some key interfaces with Congress, do not provide the agility required to adopt technological advances at the speed of relevance” in capabilities like robotics and space, artificial intelligence and cyber. As a result, “strategic adversaries are operationalizing this rapid technological change as they seek to overmatch U.S. military capabilities.” The Commission recommended “a fundamental restructuring of the process for converting strategy into a budget along with improvements in analytic methodology that enable DoD resourcing decisions.” While the commission recommendations were a good first step, fundamental restructuring requires the connection of resources to immediate lethality implemented through the plans of Combatant Commanders (COCOM).

Lethal Effects for a Wartime Budget

Every defense dollar and manhour must be committed to implementing the “how” of deterring an enemy. Budget documents submitted to Congress must provide priorities and operating timelines for specific lethality effects including:

Defend the Homeland, our citizens, our infrastructure, and critical lines of communication
Develop the optimum force structure (military and civilian) to deliver effects.
Deploy (prepare, train, move, and preposition) capabilities for effective global support.
Determine an adversary’s intent, their center of gravity, and their crown jewels for strikes to:
Decapitate command and control including military leadership.
Destroy an adversary’s military industrial base.
Decimate an invading force, including fixing, firing, and expedient reloading.
Dominate data analytics and artificial intelligence for real time situational awareness and superior battlespace management.

Lethality in a defense budget requires accounts to have an immediate impact on a target regardless of the strategy. While aligning resources to strategy may sound good on paper, a strategy is only as good as the probability of a Combatant Commander to successfully conduct operations. When a forward operating team is in contact and calling for air support to suppress enemy action, they could care less about strategy or which Service capability is applied. They just want a successful effect to happen as quickly as possible. More importantly, they shouldn’t need to 3-D print their own systems or on-line purchases to deliver that effect.

Eliminating Military Department Budgets

We must tear down the inefficient Service-initiated budget process and quickly form swarming cross-service teams for the delivery of effects with firm timelines. Defense Planning Guidance must prioritize effects for the Deputy’s Management Action Group (DMAG) to charge Effects Delivery Teams (EDTs) comprised of the Services, the Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, and defense agencies to prioritize investments across all accounts to efficiently and effectively deliver and sustain the effect across a full range of war-gamed scenarios. The shift in the focus of the planning and budget process to the immediate delivery of effects results in a more active and immediate deterrent. We must adopt a zero-based budgeting process to allocate funding annually based on progress toward that effect’s deployment, rather than budget history.

Aligning All Budget Accounts to Effects

Now, RDTE expenses will respond to urgent operational needs directly supporting programs of record to minimize science and technology excursions and the “valley of death” which contains the wreckage of billions in wasted investments that never transitioned to deployment by the warfighter.

EDTs must consider all capabilities available within the Services AND the commercial sector to deliver lethal effects to the warfighter. EDTs must assess the cost, risk, and probability of success in payload delivery methods from both kinetic and virtual vectors to service the target. We must prioritize innovations in software, automation, robotics, and AI to enhance the modeling, simulation, reliability and resilience of effect success. We can no longer reveal to our adversaries the results of our wargames which lay bare the weaknesses and limitations of our weapon systems. Instead, we must game our effects and assess the impact on adversary decision making.

We must clearly articulate our desired effect to our defense industrial base and private equity partners to rapidly field technologies. We must also reward final operating capability ahead of schedule. We can no longer accept weapon system deployments that are years behind schedule and billions over budget. We have to find other ways to effectively deliver their intended effects and cancel contracts as we did with the F-22, Army Helicopters, and Littoral Combat Ships.

Our over-stressed sustainment accounts must then be realigned to prioritize the readiness of effects crucial to deter or defeat aggression. Our civilian workforce is being reviewed to ensure each job directly enable lethality, readiness, or strategic deterrence. Our defense infrastructure must also be optimized to save billions. Limiting factors in our organic industrial base must lead to the immediate analysis of alternatives for the delivery of other effects.

Impacting Our Adversaries

We must align budgets, program execution, and the messaging of every DoD official, both military and civilian in public forums to convey the confident delivery of effects. Every leader must describe the ways our adversaries are going to fail if they threaten or attack our citizens, our Nation, or our global interests. We are indeed facing armed aggression and a “hot war” in certain domains. Strong leadership in the Pentagon, with the support of Congress, can quickly make this transition to a wartime budget. Our adversaries have assessed that record defense spending has not resulted in our assured ability to preserve peace around the world. We need to change that calculus immediately with trillion-dollar budgets that translate spending into war-time effects to force consideration of a path to peace.

HON Lucian Niemeyer is an Air Force veteran, former professional staff member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense who also served in the White House Office of Management and Budget. The views expressed are personal and not connected to any Department of Defense activity.