News Story: US ‘Will Lose Ability To Project Power’ In 5 Years If Hill Doesn’t Act - CJCS

By COLIN CLARK

WASHINGTON: The United States, guarantor of the current world order, will lose the ability to maintain that role in five years unless something fundamental changes on Capitol Hill, Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress at an extraordinary Monday evening hearing.

Dunford made it personal, saying “…without sustained, sufficient, and predictable funding I assess that within 5 years we will lose our ability to project power; the basis of how we defend the homeland, advance U.S. interests, and meet our alliance commitments.”

Why? It’s simple, really. “The Budget Control Act (BCA) has forced the Department of Defense (DoD) to operate with about $450 billion less than planned and required. These reductions have been aggravated by repeated Continuing Resolutions (CR) which hamper long-term investment and often result in increased costs,” Dunford testified before the House Armed Services Committee at the first of the annual budget posture hearings for the 2018 request. “For nine of the last ten years, the Department of Defense has operated under some type of CR, delaying critical new starts, deferring installation and infrastructure modernization, and canceling major training events. A year-long FY18 CR would cut $33 billion from the Department’s request, further exacerbating these problems.”

If you want to be nasty and boil that down, he’s telling Congress that it’s their fault the United States will no longer be the world’s global power because they can’t do their jobs and pass annual appropriations bills or break the agonizingly long impasse over the too honestly-named Budget Control Act, fondly known in shorthand as sequestration. There’s time to fix things, but not much.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense