Posted on 07/05/2005 9:35:52 AM PDT by Paul Ross
Sometimes The BRAC Process Gets It Wrong
Over the past 12 years there have been five Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) commissions leading to the elimination of some bases and other military facilities. The process for determining which facilities to close or realign is relatively straightforward. The Department of Defense (DoD) proposes a list of bases that is reviewed by an independent commission that passes the final set of names to Congress which must vote to accept or reject the list as a whole. In general, if a facility is on the Pentagon’s initial list its fate is sealed; but not always. Historically, about 15 percent of the initial recommendations are changed or rejected by the Commissioners.
The decision to close the submarine base at New London, Connecticut, is an example of the one-in-seven cases in the BRAC process where the Pentagon gets it wrong. DoD wants to save money by consolidating all East Coast submarines at two facilities, Norfolk and King’s Bay. But just moving the 16 boats at New London would not save much money. The "answer" was to close the entire facility.
The recommendation is wrong on two counts. First, it is inconsistent with the 2005 BRAC criteria. In particular, closing New London will negatively impact the operational readiness of the submarine force. New London is home to more than just its three submarine squadrons. It also houses the Submarine School and the Naval Submarine Support Facility (NSSF). The Naval Undersea Warfare Center which develops new operational concepts for submarine operations is close by at Newport, RI. Next door is the General Dynamic’s Electric Boat Division (EB) that both builds nuclear submarines and designs future boats. The value for readiness of co-locating submarine training, concept development and design work with a nuclear submarine shipyard cannot be over estimated.
Second, it incorrectly assesses the savings from New London’s closure. A synergy exists between the base and the shipyard. Skilled personnel from EB provide maintenance support for New London. This maintenance work is critical to keeping a large and capable workforce at EB. Advanced submarine design work at EB, such as the Tango Bravo program, benefits from the close proximity of the Submarine School and Undersea Warfare Center. Submarine crews, who go on board their boat a year or more before it is launched, make use of the facilities at the naval base. Without the base, the cost of servicing their needs will inevitably rise. New London is one half of a sophisticated, complex and world-class submarine design/build/repair capability. One will not do well without the other. It is not simply a matter of dollars saved but of capabilities potentially lost.
The BRAC Commission should easily recognize that closing New London is a bad idea. Any savings gained are likely to be offset by such tangible losses due to increased maintenance costs and the intangible costs associated with destroying a unique network of capabilities. Weakening the U.S. strategic advantage in undersea warfare is not worth a few hundred million dollars of savings.
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Operational capability degradation, of incalculably dangerous degree... is noted in this recently-reported BRAC "CUT". Substitute CHINA for Korea, and you have the real problem.
BRAC Threatens MDA -- Dispersing Missile Expertise Could Hinder Projects
By Robert Snyder, Defense News, July 8th, 2005
As the U.S. Department of Defense kicks off its Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, recommending 63 major military facilities for realignment, closure and consolidation, a little-noticed and potentially more significant move has been proposed.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is slated to be carved up and moved out of Northern Virginia. Of all the BRAC recommendations, none is likely to deliver such a vast, immediate blow to national security.
Under current plans a small Washington headquarters staff would move to Fort Belvior, Va., while several thousand of the remaining government and contractor program management and technical staff would shift to Huntsville, Ala.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.; Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; ;and Los Angeles Air Force Base.
Ostensibly, this is proposed in the name of security and economic efficiency. The plan would move the MDA outside the beltway and out of leased commercial offices that do not comply with the Defense Department’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, facility security requirements. The department claims this move would save $359 million over 20 years.
On the surface, the security issue sounds prudent. The MDA sits atop a hill overlooking the Pentagon in a facility historically known as the Navy Annex. My office overlooked the side of the Pentagon that was struck by the airliner flown by the Sept. 11 terrorists. That jet flew over the Navy Annex before crashing into the Pentagon.
While moving the MDA outside the Washington metro area may make sense, widely dispersing its employees does not.
The supposed economic efficiencies are penny-wise and pound-foolish. New buildings will need to be built to house the agency in six different states. The lack of a central location will require more travel. Add to this the cost of building and operating an elaborate enterprise information management system to foster a collaborative work environment across the multiple facilities. The $359 million in projected savings over 20 years amounts to about $18 million a year. An agency with an annual budget of about $8 billion could certainly deliver similar efficiencies without such a disruptive move.
But beyond the cost issue, consider the near-term priorities. The MDA must complete the development and fielding of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense and ;Aegis ballistic missile defense systems. The MDA also needs to demonstrate the technical capabilities of the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense system and the Air Force’s Airborne Laser, and initiate the development of the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and other advanced systems, all while integrating them into the planned ballistic missile defense system. No single location outside the Washington metropolitan area can offer this level of jointness.
The MDA needs to focus on these priorities now, while North Korea continues to threaten its neighbors as well as the United States. The MDA needs to field these systems reliably before other nations, such as Iran and others, can threaten our forces, our friends and our homeland.
The department’s proposed BRAC-inspired moves are wrong both in timing and effect. Even if the agency does not move until the 2008-2009 time frame, the effect on people will be immediate. During the next three years, when the integrated missile defense system should be deployed in its initial spirals using ground- and sea-based defenses, MDA leaders and work force will be distracted by the prospect of uprooting itself and moving.
The ability to coordinate, communicate and focus on executing critical missile defense programs will be undermined as people focus on their own “here-and-now” issues of whether or not they move or take new jobs. Typically, only a small fraction of the work force moves following a BRAC decision. The MDA’s leaders will discover that the best and brightest will quickly find other jobs in the Northern Virginia area.
Rear Adm. Wayne Meyer, the architect of the U.S. Navy’s Aegis weapon system, has often noted that, “The system reflects the organization that built it.” An organization that is effectively led, coherently organized, populated with quality people and strongly focused on execution is more likely to develop and field effective weapon systems. The converse is true as well.
If the admiral’s sage advice rings true, what would a missile defense system built by such a perversely organized and managed agency look like? How could such a structure execute the program and build the world’s most complex system in an effective and integrated manner?
In any organization or endeavor, success comes down to the people who do the work. I have had the privilege to occupy missile defense leadership positions dating back to the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. I know the quality, dedication, technical competence and tireless sacrifice of these wonderful people. Their dedication to service deserves that we reciprocate;, that our leaders lead.
As the BRAC Commission considers myriad facilities and bases recommended for realignment or closure, it must pay special attention to the disposition of the MDA. The commission must weigh the physical security and economic issues against the national security challenge, and the likely impact this will have on the MDA’s ability to field those systems needed in times of national emergency.
Failure to do what is right, right now, may leave the United States largely defenseless for the foreseeable future against existing and emerging threats from missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction.
Robert Snyder was executive director of the Missile Defense Agency from 1998 to 2004.
They are "Re-aligning" Alaska's Eielson AFB.
Certainly not a blue state.
Are the folks writing these opinion pieces are paid by defense contractors and the civil service unions? There should be disclaimer if that is the case.
And the value as a lucrative target is also pretty high!
I'm certain that this was a top priority for the Pentagon . . .
BRAC is nominally done with fiscal prudence motives alone. But the intelligence behind that prudence is suspect. Penny-wise pound foolish seems to sum it up perfectly. The timing, in conjunction with the $30 billion of cuts makes it clear what is going on. These are just lame last-second cuts being forced for arbitrary budget reasons. The President promised $10 billion in increased annual defense procurement revenues. Now he uses his OMB to direct a cut of $30 billion.... knowing that such a huge number will have to come out of primarily procurements, and operational capability. The BRAC decisions are defacto cuts in capability. A great deal of the individually puny BRAC "savings" being forced here will turn out to be phony: entirely consumed, and exceeded, by the actual costs of relocation, trying to hire replacements for the people that won't up and move.
The BRAC process as it is being dictated by the OMB, instead of saving us a good chunk of the $30 billion...could instead cost us our entire country when the balloon goes up with China, while we have a military hobbled with playing geographical musical chairs.
Especially with regard to the cuts in Alaska, I would agree.
I Hope they have a good and prudent plan for the defense of Alaska's important military sites.
As yet, I haven't seen them.
Indeed it is. All the more reason not to further concentrate those forces into fewer still targets. Going down to one is clearly too few baskets. Particularly these kinds of forces so critical to our military advantage. And especially where they want to send them, down to Kings Bay, where the channel can be much more easily blocked by a sunken ship. Exacerbating the vulnerabilty issues to an overwhelming degree. If we have multiple bases, the attacker's level of certainty of effectiveness is severely diminished. And the chance of American recovery is dramatically improved. Hence, these are manifestly false savings.
This is still more evidence of economic implosion...and politically directed at that. So much for the American economic superpower. Can't...or won't... even maintain what we found a relatively trivial expense all through the last 60 years.
Imagine of what it would cost us to try and rebuild all this being squandered if we needed to?
Your cynicism is well founded! I would have never believed GWB would sink so low as to do these Xlintonesque shell-games that further abet the demise of America's military superiority, but obviously I was wrong.
The corruption of the RATs is blatant. But our GOP members of Congress can no longer escape scrutiny...as they fail to do anything to hold the RATs to account themselves.
By contrast, Remember how in the 20's the Teapot Dome scandal rocked the Warren G. Harding administration? And yet what did we see happen in 1999, without even a squeak by the GOP? Al Gore, while Vice President...has the Defense Dept. and Interior Dept. sell off the nearby 47,000 acre Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve in Bakersfield, California for peanuts to Occidental Petroleum...a company of the Arm&Hammer group...which is only a little better than selling to China...It was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history, one that tripled Occidental's U.S. oil reserves overnight. Discouraging other bidders, the Xlinton Interior Dept. misrepresented the quality of the reserve, exaggerating per-barrel production costs at $4.50 bbl when they were only $1.50 bbl.
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