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Tuesday |
Wednesday |
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1 May 2000 |
2 May 2000 |
3 May 2000 |
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0830 - 1030 (LS) |
0830 - 1130 (IS) |
0830 - 1130 (IS) |
Some people criticize us for being conservative to hold on to a two-major-regional contingency strategy. I would agree that is conservative, but three times in the last five years we had two nearly simultaneous regional contingencies. We were able to deter both of them, but I think it validated the fact that we need to retain this capability right now.
John J. Hamre
Deputy Secretary of Defense
March 11, 1999
The President has provided $54.9 billion more in budget authority for the period fiscal year 2000 through fiscal year 2003 than either the House or the Senate budget resolution last year provided over the same period of time....Now we have a problem this year....we are going to have to figure out how we can get that under the caps and what gets displaced in order to accommodate the increase in defense.
John R. Kasich
House of Representatives
Chairman, Committee on the Budget
March 11, 1999
Purpose
The purpose of this three-day exercise is to evaluate the US defense budget in light of current military strategy and future military requirements. You will be challenged to complete an evaluation of the defense budget using Fiscal Year (FY) 2000 and 2001 information. You will create and devise fiscally constrained alternative military strategies, plans, or forces based upon your nine-month educational experience. Additional information and instructions are contained in the exercise handbook.
Learning Objectives
1. Comprehend the complexity of the US Department of Defense budget as an expression of national military strategy that is shaped by the bureaucratic and political processes inherent to American government.
2. Evaluate the Fiscal Year 2001 Defense Budget in light of current National Military Strategy to meet future warfighting requirements.
3. Develop, compare, and recommend fiscally constrained alternative military strategies, force structure changes, modernization adjustments, and other program changes to live within the top line of FY2001 budget submission.
4. Comprehend the Department of Defense Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS)
Discussion
This three-day exercise is an opportunity to review the current US defense budget as it relates to the national military strategy. Strategy has been defined by one wit as the "allocation of scarcity." Implicit in this description is that there seemingly is never "enough" to satisfy all of the requirements of a national strategy. Even at the height of World War II, when US economic mobilization was near total, decisions about the allocation of resources among the production of tanks, aircraft, shipping and so on, often were made by President Roosevelt himself. Within shipping, decisions about the allocation of amphibious landing craft were also made by the President. The decision to spend the Nation's treasure for any purpose carries with it the "opportunity cost" of other choices and so implies the acceptance of risk in those areas. This is the perspective that strategists must try to maintain as they work a budget through the seemingly endless bureaucratic and political compromises inherent to our system of government.
This exercise is designed to allow you to examine how the US is currently spending it defense dollars and to decide for yourself whether that expenditure makes good military strategic sense. The budget enumerates the operational capabilities, force structure, modernization, and other defense programs that constitute the means by which US forces accomplish their strategic purposes. This exercise will allow you to examine all facets of the national military strategy, and devise your own solution to the difficult problem of balancing ends, ways, means and strategic risk in an environment of constrained resources.
Required Readings
1. Review:
a. Sections of Joint Pub 5-0 assigned for Topic 19, The Joint Strategic Planning System. (Student issue)
b. National Military Strategy of the United States of America 1997 (Student issue)
2. An Executive Level Text in Resource Allocation, Volume I, The Formal Process, "Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System," US Naval War College Student Text, March 1999, Chapter 3. (Reprint)
3. William McNaught, Defense Requirements and Resource Allocation, Washington DC: National Defense University, 1989, pp. 71-104. (Reprint)
4. Thomas Davis, "Linking the Budget to the Mission," Government Executive, April 1999, pp. 62-64. (Reprint)
5. Exercise Handbook (Student issue)
Recommended Reading
The Joint Staff Officer's Guide 1997, Chapter 5.
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