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NGAUS News Summary is compiled from various news outlets throughout the United States and is intended for informational purposes only. Republishing, reproducing, transmitting, or distributing this publication by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, outside of the organization is strictly prohibited. Use of these news items does not reflect official NGAUS endorsement.
AF, Air Guard ready for face off
Source: DoD Buzz, http://bit.ly/yLEV8W
By Michael Hoffman
Feb 1, 2012
The Air National Guard has fired the first salvo in what is sure to be a protracted battle with Air Force leadership over service budget cuts. Air National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt parsed his words on Tuesday when he questioned Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz’s definition of “balance,” but his message was clear: You hung us out to dry.
“Chief said we are going to do this in a ‘balanced’ fashion. It will be interesting to see on the 13th of this month the practical implications of what ‘balanced’ means,” Wyatt told a crowd of Reserve and Guard officers at the Reserve Officer Association’s National Security Symposium in Washington D.C.
I wrote a longer article on Wyatt’s frustration for the main site here, but there are further issues the Air Force will face. First, the battle the Air Force has brought upon itself with Congress. Just because the Defense Department has rolled out what it wants to cut from the president’s budget doesn’t mean that’s what will be cut. Congress has already pushed back against Panetta’s request for two rounds of base closures. Each service will need as many allies in Congress it can muster. Targeting the Guard, which has quite a few champions on Capitol Hill, could hurt the Air Force’s ability to get what it wants in the defense budget, defense analysts said.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld said the Air Force will retire four Guard squadrons out of the seven the service requested. The Air Force also canceled the C-27 program, which would have had a number of aircraft sent to Guard units. Once the Air Force officially announces which squadrons it will retire, its leaders can be sure to expect a call from the members of Congress whose represent them. The Air Force brass will also have to explain to the senators of each state why the Guard will lose four squadrons and the active duty will only lose two. The Reserves will lose the last squadron.
The Air Force lost credibility on the Hill during the bungled tanker contract, not to mention thewounds it suffered when it lost track of six nuclear warheads in 2007. Air Force leaders will need protection from Congress in this budget battle. Making enemies with the Guard lobby will only hurt those efforts. Don’t be surprised if representatives from Indiana, Michigan, Arkansas and Iowa — the states that many expect to lose Guard fighter squadrons — have some pointed critiques for Air Force leaders in the upcoming parade of defense budget hearings.
Reserve Forces On The Cusp Of New 'Golden Age'
Source: AOL, http://bit.ly/wGFZ3k
By: John Grady
Feb 1, 2012
The chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board sees this as "the golden age of the reserve component" as the active land forces and three components of the Air Force draw down personnel and the Defense Department's new strategic guidance calls for maintaining a reserve component that is ready and available when needed. Arnold Punaro, who also chaired the congressionally-created Commission on the National Guard and Reserve, said the reserve components were a "true bargain for the taxpayer," but warned attendees at a Washington conference that they needed "to think smarter, not richer" when looking at maintaining operational readiness.
Speaking Jan. 31, Punaro addedthat the Defense Department through the policy board is trying to determine the true cost of the reserve components versus active. He said the commission's earlier study found the reserve components were 70 to 75 percent less expensive than the active component. The retired Marine Corps Reserve major general also said that mobilized reservists were less expensive than their activecounterparts because they are not drawing on the department's infrastructure – housing, schools, child care centers, etc.
"We've go to get at the bottom line" in determining actual costs, he said. Vice Adm. Dirk Debbink,chief of the Navy Reserve, said as promising as the future may appear for his 64,000 officers and sailors that what was critical to know "what the Navy will value in the future ... capability by capability." Punaro, also a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, advised the reserve component chiefs to find ways to better recruit service members leaving active service.
"Make it transition, not separation" from active military service. Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, seconded that idea. He said he likes the Marine Corps model of recruiting and retention. "A Marine for Life" is effective in attracting and keeping good people. "We need to stop talking [in the Army] about getting out; talk about transition." He added, "We need to make it easy to go back and forth" in a "continuum of service," an idea he has pushed in his six years as head of the Army Reserve. Debbink said his service calls it "Highway Navy" and now includes the Individual Ready Reserve, sailors who have completed their active service but have not joined a reserve unit as part of their obligated service.
"We've set up a billet structure for the IRR, a first for us."He said that these sailors would report a few days per year and be paid for attending training sessions. Stultz said that the Army's reserve components need to be able to say to soldiers leaving active duty, "We're going to help you find a job; we're going to help you re-locate. Our intent is you're never going to leave."
Airspace Security Flights Require Improvements from Air Force, National Guard, GAO Says
Source: Homeland Security
Today – Online, http://bit.ly/AmrQV1
By: Mickey McCarter
Feb 2, 2012
The US Air Force and the National Guard Bureau have been unable to provide accurate costs for patrols protecting US airspace since 9/11, and they lack plans to update important directives to define air sovereignty flights and the areas they protect, congressional investigators said recently.
Moreover, the Pentagon lacks plans to replace air assets supporting air sovereignty alerts (ASA) and has not stabilized the effort to identity replacement aircraft when ASA units deploy elsewhere, criticized the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its report, Homeland Defense: Continued Actions Needed to Improve Management of Air Sovereignty Alert Operations.
GAO first reviewed the ASA operations in 2009 and made a host of recommendations for the Department of Defense (DoD) to improve them. The Pentagon declined to address therecommendations, however, leading GAO Tuesday to suggest that Congress might consider legislation to compel DoD to do so. DoD continued to largely disagree with many of the GAO recommendations.
First and foremost, GAO found that the Air Force and the Air National Guard could not fully account for the costs of ASA flights nor could they consistently define which flights constituted an ASA patrol. Weak internal controls limit the ability of the Air Force and National Guard Bureau to accurately identify ASA expenditures," the GAO report stated. "GAO analyzed the Fiscal Year [FY] 2010 expenditure information that the Air Force and National Guard Bureau submitted to Congress along with DoD's FY 2012 budget justification and found the reported expenditures of more than $246 million to be inaccurate.
"For example, GAO found that the Air Force overstated ASA flying-hour expenditures by at least $22 million and included expenditures related to national special security events, which are not part of ASA operations," the report added. he Air Force has not assigned clear responsibilities for ASA budgeting and programs and it has not issued guidance on identifying and tracking expenditures for ASA flights, GAO said. These types of internal controls are important to ensuring basic accountability, maintaining funds control, and preventing fraud and abuse," the report read.
The Air Force did follow a recommendation to assign ASA duties to units that support them. But the National Guard Bureau has disagreed with the approach, contending that the Air Force's standard deployment processes more efficiently fulfill the intent of the GAO recommendation. But the Air Force did not set up a timetable to support future ASA operations and has not set forth a plan to recapitalize old aircraft used in ASA flights before the end of their service lives. The Air Force also continues to identify replacement aircraft for ASA missions on an ad hoc basis when ASA units deploy elsewhere.
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McKeon on potential BRAC request: 'Kill it'
Source: Army Times, http://bit.ly/xQSBwC
By: Kate Brannen
Feb 2, 2012
Rep. Buck McKeon, Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, did not mince words when asked what he would do to a Pentagon request for domestic base closures. “Kill it,” he told an audience at a Wednesday conference of the Reserve Officers Association. “That's going to be our approach.”
Speaking before McKeon took the stage, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said if Congress will not allow reductions in DoD infrastructure, lawmakers would have to identify other areas in the defense budget that can be cut. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that as part of the 2013 budget, the Pentagon will ask Congress for legislation that would establish a new Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) Commission, last formed in 2005.
“If we're adjusting the size of the force, we think we should ask Congress for a BRAC,” Dempsey said. Less than an hour later, McKeon said such a request would be dead on arrival, at least in the House. “I am not going to put it in our bill,” he said in reference to the annual defense authorization bill, the major defense policy legislation. He urged people in the audience to get in touch with any Senator friends they may have to convince the Senate Armed Services Committee not to include such a provision in its version of the bill.
If the Senate passes a bill that includes it, “we'll fight it out in conference,” he said. After the House and Senate pass versions of the defense policy bill, members from each chamber reconcile disagreements in conference before sending the bill to the president to sign into law.
McKeon also said he would like to hold hearings this spring on how much money has been saved through the last round of BRAC. The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith has said he's supportive of base closures.
“I think without question we're going to have to do base realignment,” he said in an interview last week. “I don't see how any person looking at the strategy and looking at the changes coming down could conclude otherwise.” The most likely scenario, according to history, is Congress will ask for reports on the effectiveness of BRAC in its 2013 policy bill and then wait until 2014 to include language that would authorize a new BRAC, David Berteau, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
“The track record says that you've got to request it, knowing you might not get it this year,” said Berteau. Berteau served as a senior BRAC official during the 1990s base closures. That President Obama is making a BRAC request during an election year shows just how serious the administration is about getting it done, Berteau said.
For the military, reductions in infrastructure are part of an overall approach to creating a “balanced force;” cuts need to be distributed across manpower, training, equipment and infrastructure, Dempsey said. If Congress tells DoD it can't touch its stateside facilities and installations, the question becomes, “OK, where do you want me to tinker?” Dempsey said. Whether it's military pay, retirement benefits, end strength or BRAC, if Congress limits cuts in one area, it will need to identify new areas for savings otherwise the defense budget won't meet the requirements of the Budget Control Act, Dempsey said.
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GOP senators to release plan to stop triggered defense cuts
Source: The Hill, http://bit.ly/woyr1V
By Jeremy Herb
Feb 1, 2012
Five Republican senators will release their plan Thursday morning to stop as much as $500 billion in automatic cuts to defense spending slated to take effect in 2013.
The senators — Jon Kyl (Ariz.), John McCain (Ariz), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) — did not release details of their legislation ahead of the press conference Thursday. The bill's title, “Down Payment to Protect National Security Act of 2012,” suggests that the bill will change the sequestration cuts for only a short period, and not wipe out the full $500 billion cut over 10 years.
That would follow a similar proposal from House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who introduced a bill in December to undo the first year of sequestration cuts to both defense and non-defense spending by trimming the federal workforce over 10 years by 10 percent.
McKeon’s proposal, however, was panned by Democrats, who say that the sequestration should not be changed unless tax increases are on the table.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said last week that the sequestration should not be split up. By taking it on the whole, Levin said, it will have its intended effect of forcing a deal on the $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction needed to do away with the full sequester.
Levin predicted that the GOP would change their staunch opposition to raising taxes in order to erase sequestration.
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Panetta: Combat Mission in Afghanistan to End in 2013
Source: Air Force Magazine, http://bit.ly/nSZuQO
By: Karen Parrish
Feb 2, 2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday US and NATO forces will begin transitioning from the traditional combat mission in Afghanistan to a training and advising role in 2013, similar to the final days in Iraq.
However, US troops will remain in Afghanistan through 2014, Panetta told reporters while aboard a military aircraft headed to Brussels where Panetta would meet with NATO defense ministers. "Hopefully by the mid to latter part of 2013, we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise, and assist role," he said. This "doesn't mean we're not going to be combat-ready," noted Panetta. Rather, forces just won't be in "the formal combat role we're in now," he said.
Panetta said he intends to ask his fellow defense ministers to commit one billion euros for the Afghan army and police forces. "The key is to have a sufficient and sustainable [Afghan] force that can be there for the future," he said.
NGAUS Bills of Interest Report: http://www.ngaus.org/content.asp?bid=7462
Current NG Activation Levels
Guardsmen Currently Activated in Support of Operations NOBLE EAGLE / ENDURING FREEDOM / NEW DAWN (as of Jan 31, 2011)*
ARNG: 35,550
ANG: 5,225
Total Guardsmen Activated in Support of Operations NOBLE EAGLE / ENDURING FREEDOM / NEW DAWN (Since 9/11)
ARNG: 360,796
ANG: 92,509
* Includes members placed on Active Duty under 10 USC Sections 688, 12301(a), 12302 and 12304 and members placed on Active Duty under 10 USC 12301(d) and members categorized as unknown in CTS statute code. |
