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Official: DoD re-examining major programs

The Obama administration’s plan to “rebalance” the U.S. military will include a “hard look” at several major acquisition programs, a top Pentagon official said Thursday.

Michael Vickers, deputy undersecretary of defense for special operations, low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, became the latest senior defense official to warn that the Bush-era build-up is ending. Defense Secretary Robert Gates late last month told lawmakers “nothing is off the table” in terms of cuts, not even the services’ favorite acquisition projects.

Vickers told an industry audience in Washington that “to rebalance the force, we’re going to look hard at several modernization programs.”

Such program reviews, he said, will be a part of a 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review project that will be geared toward “further adapting the department to an era of persistent conflict.”

The QDR will be the Obama administration’s first comprehensive statement of its defense strategy.

Vickers said the review will closely examine the proper balance the Pentagon should be pursuing “between conventional forces and irregular warfare investments.”

The quadrennial review, Vickers said, must examine “several capability gaps for irregular warfare,” including: ISR platforms, rotary-wing lift, civil affairs and military police.

Many defense experts in Washington criticized the Bush administration for building a long-term defense plan that seems out of step with strategies and likely threats.

On that note, Vickers, a Bush appointee who might remain on in the Obama administration, said “our budgets and our programs must be linked up with our strategies.”

A few hours later, across town, Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told reporters Pentagon watchers should “take to the bank” recent statements by Gates that the Bush-era “spigot” of federal dollars for defense is being turned off.

With the economy struggling and Washington allocating billions of dollars in bank bailouts and economic stimulus legislation, Krepinevich said it is unlikely the Pentagon budget will be spared.

“If people are still losing their jobs … I don’t see any way DoD avoids the knife,” the CSBA president said during the think tank’s annual defense budget preview.

The fate of several major programs that had been expected to replace existing systems is unclear because of their skyrocketing costs. And that has industry officials, Krepinevich said, wondering whether the Pentagon may fall back on legacy systems to replace aging and war-weary platforms.

Defense observers could get the first hints at how the new administration will come down on defense budget issues in a few weeks. Krepinevich said defense officials have indicated they will release some broad-brush details of the 2010 defense budget by the end of this month.

A full 2010 Pentagon spending plan, reviewed and tweaked by the Obama administration, will be delivered to Congress this spring, according to defense officials.