Another round of base realignments and closures looks to be out of the question for now, but BRAC — and its potential costs — dominated some discussions at a summit on the future of military communities.

The Association of Defense Communities summit was the backdrop for exchanging ideas on how the private sector could get more involved in the installations of the future, to the point of perhaps even managing military bases.

Ongoing talk of budget constraints in the near future has led the Defense Department and the services to seek another BRAC round, to reduce unneeded infrastructure that costs precious dollars to maintain.

But Congress is standing firm against that idea, even as budget constraints complicate efforts to operate and maintain bases, summit participants said.

If the current budget climate rolls on over the next few years, base facilities will be increasingly at risk, said Robert Hale, former DoD comptroller.

"It will be a constrained environment for everything in defense, including installations," he said in a panel discussion at the opening general session of the summitAssociation of Defense Communities, attended by about 500 public- and private-sector officials from communities, states and regions with a significant military presence.

Some facilities already are failing, said John Conger, acting assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment.

Hale said he thinks another BRAC round will happen eventually, but the focus isn't likely to be on main operating installations — the big bases and posts. Rather, he noted there are too many depots, as well as "significant underutilization" of some military hospitals.

Lawmakers probably won't go along with another BRAC round until they conclude that the alternative is worse, Conger said. For example, when the Army makes its announcement in the next few weeks about where it will cut 40,000 soldiers, some bases may gain personnel, but others will have fewer.

"It will make it certainly more clear that this dynamic is more painful than a BRAC round," Conger said.

The active-duty force grew just 3.8 percent after 2001, noted American Enterprise Institute resident fellow Mackenzie Eaglen. In contrast, about 20 percent to 25 percent of the total base infrastructure is considered excess.

She suggested that rather than conducting the BRAC process secretly within DoD, perhaps the department should take a lower-profile role in the process. Congress might find another way of looking at BRAC, possibly canvassing communities about installations where they would accept a closure, perhaps on land that they want, she said.

But Hale cautioned that a BRAC round, first and foremost, must meet DoD's military needs. "We have to be careful how far we move away from that," he said.

Not all communities are necessarily opposed to another round of BRAC. An informal, anonymous quick poll conducted of the audience -- which included a many community and state leaders and private sector companies -- indicated that 92 percent of the 113 who voted felt that the status quo would be actually worse for communities than another round of BRAC. And 87 percent of the 119 who voted said they believe Congress will approve another BRAC in the next five years.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon stressed that DoD owes it to the national debate to think through the question of the possible future need for force increases, and how much the military could grow on relatively short notice if DoD gets the slimmed-down future base infrastructure it wants.

"How much bigger could the military be without having to confiscate national parks?" O'Hanlon said.

This continued pressure to save money in every nook and cranny of the defense budget, along with the success of family housing privatization efforts, raised other questions during the summit, such as whether the concept of privatization could be extended as far as having a private company manage an installation.

That may be possible in an urban area, but each installation would have to be considered separately, based on its needs, said Carla Coulson, director of installation services for the Army's assistant chief of staff for installation management.

Coulson noted that about 70 percent of soldiers live off post, and are used to receiving services from the private sector.

The Army doesn't take risks in areas like soldier and family programs, she said, citing child development centers as an example.

"Within the Army, quality of life is all important," she said.

Whatever the public-private partnership arrangement, the private partner needs to recognize "the Army culture is all important to leadership and plan to provide the service in a manner consistent with the culture," Coulson said.

cut for space if have to for print: "As the military and DoD continue to redefine what a military base is, I think there will be lots of opportunities for the private sector to step in and provide services or redesign and redeliver the concept that needs to evolve," said Greg Cannito, senior vice president of program development for Corvias Group, which operates privatized military housing at six Air Force and seven Army bases.

The example is military family housing, which started as a basic need to replace dilapidated homes. "As it evolved, it actually became about quality of life — not just a structure and asset, but about building a community and sense of community," he said.

Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.

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