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Gen. Dempsey: ‘Risk on the rise’ as budgets take automatic cuts
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said Monday that “risk is on the rise” in the world at the same time that the U.S. military is facing deep cutbacks.
“Mayhem is here to stay, but the money is not. In a sense, the deductible on our national insurance policy has just gone up — way up,” Dempsey said at a forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies Monday.
“As I stand here, I don’t yet know how much our defense strategy will change, but I predict it will,” Dempsey said, according to prepared remarks. “We’ll need to relook our assumptions. We’ll need to adjust our ambitions to match our abilities. That means doing less, but not doing it less well.”
But despite the challenges that scenario poses, Dempsey emphasized that the U.S. military would remain strong even if it’s ultimately doing less. He told the crowd that he came with a “message of assurance.”
“The coverage may be less than what you were used to, but it’s still the best available, and it’s going to get better in time,” Dempsey said. “Here’s where I hope my confidence offers some comfort.”
Dempsey’s speech Monday was an opportunity for him to more freely express his thoughts than his comments in recent congressional hearings over how the military will deal with budget cuts under sequestration — which he called the “worst-case scenario.”
As it draws down from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military is preparing to cut $487 billion over the next decade as part of the Budget Control Act — and is now contemplating how to cut an additional $500 billion under sequestration if Congress doesn’t reverse those cuts.
Dempsey repeated the sentiment that his predecessor Adm. Mike Mullen often expressed that deficit reduction is “a national security imperative.”
Still, he cautioned that he and the other chiefs have been through previous drawdowns where mistake were made — “big ones,” Dempsey said — and the military still eventually came out the other end stronger.
“Make no mistake, those were tough times for our military family,” Dempsey said. "This one may be tougher. It’s at least going to be different. This will be the first with an All-Volunteer Force. There’s no mass demobilization.”
Dempsey said one of the things needed to deal with the drawdown in a responsible way is to take steps that have often been blocked by Congress. In his speech Monday, Dempsey endorsed reforms to pay and benefits and for cutting to weapons programs and infrastructure that “we don’t need.”
Those are all areas where the Pentagon has run into resistance on Capitol Hill. House lawmakers, for instance, rejected any talk of a new round of base closures at a hearing last week even before the Obama administration put it in its 2014 budget, which it’s likely to do. A plan for two new rounds of base closings went nowhere after the Pentagon requested it in the 2013 budget request.
Dempsey also lamented the uncertainty in the budget that’s loomed over the Pentagon for years — he noted in his speech that he’s yet to have a budget since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“We are going to have to find opportunity in the midst of crisis. We need to seize this moment to think differently and to be different,” Dempsey said. “We can’t do it alone. We need the help of our elected officials to give us the certainty the flexibility and the time to make real change.”
