Crenshaw Consulting Associates
Business Advice with Integrity
I just published an OpEd piece in American Military News after looking at the FY 2019 DoD Budget again. I can’t believe we aren’t asking for more Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. The Reason? We are going to build a new Land Attack Missile by 2028…..that’s around 10 years folks! Any bets on a 2028 delivery? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone? Anyway, I think the piece says it all, so I invite you to read it. Here’s the link to the article…..Closing the Tomahawk Line is Risky Business.
I’ve been meaning to put together one of those “What’s Out, What’s In” lists. Recently I was speaking at an event and I came up with an abbreviated list of outs and ins that I thought I would share. You know the list I’m talking about? The Washington Post usually puts one in the Style section in the week between Christmas and New Years…probably because all the highly-paid writers are off on holiday, so the hoi polloi stuck in the office get the task of putting one together. Lately the list has served as notice to me that I seem to have lost track of what’s hot and what’s not in the world these days. Here’s a link to this year’s list. I got about 10% of the items. Swedish Death Cleaning? What’s that? I did think the “Plastic Bags Stuck in Trees ⇒ Cardboard Stuck in the Gutters” was pretty funny, given the huge number of Amazon boxes in circulation. You could spend all day clicking on the links to try and understand the humor, but why bother when I’m about to give you a much easier to understand list? Feel free to send me some more and I’ll put them in. Here goes:
LPTA
R&D
Big IT Buys
Servers
Desktop
Single Awards
Last of the Boomers
Office
Multiple Services
Service Medical
Audit Prep
Pokémon
Continuing Resolutions
Fires/Floods/Hurricanes
2016 Presidential Election
Service Dogs
National Security Strategy
Performance Based
Innovation
Agile
Cloud
Mobile
Multiple Awards
Millennials/Xers/iGen
Flex
Shared Services
DHA
Audit
Poke
More Continuing Resolutions
Meteors/Earthquakes/Zombie Apocalypse
2020 Presidential Election (Already?)
National Military Strategy
OK. That’s all I could come up with on short notice, but it’s a fun exercise to think about what seemed to be so critical 365 days ago is all but forgotten now. Every time I do this exercise, I am reminded about the progression on leadership themes I have seen in the Navy since I was a midshipman. Let’s see if anyone remembers: Day-long Sensitivity Training, Management by Objective (MBO), Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, Six Sigma, Navy Enterprise Model, Accelerated Learning, Business Process Reengineering. I can still see the TQM workshops with the red and white balls in my mind as well as watching videos of Demming droning on. I remember when it was declared that all SES and Flags should be at least a Brown Belt. I’m not quite sure what management fad we are in now, but if you have some ideas, please comment. By the way, I hope this page looks decent. It taxed my knowledge of HTML to get columns into the article…And harder still to get them to stop. By the way, for all you retired Flags and SESers, I will be happy to collect your brown belts and sell them on consignment.
Here is an Op Ed piece that I did which appeared in The Hill this morning in support of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. I welcome your comments.
This will be one of my briefest articles, but a couple of things have compelled me to write about service, sacrifice and the luxury of choice. First and foremost on my mind is the upcoming Veterans Day, a national tradition dating back to November 11th, 1918. The end of the “War to end all Wars”, marked by a cessation of hostilities between German and Allied forces, was put into force on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” When President Wilson declared Armistice Day to be observed beginning in 1919, his intent was to have nationwide parades and events at 11AM on November 11th. The Congress eventually formalized Veterans Day in 1938, when it was declared that this date would be a time to honor American veterans of all wars. There was a time in the 60’s when there was a push for the big Federal Holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day) to occur on Mondays, allowing for three-day weekends to encourage “travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production,” but it was confusing and in the end Veterans Day moved back to November 11th in 1978. I don’t know if Wikipedia is the final authoritative source on Veterans Day, but according to Wiki, the purpose of Veterans Day as we now celebrate it is to “honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.”
“I do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the president of the United States of America, and the orders of officers appointed over me.” 1789 Oath of Enlistment
While many veterans who served before 1973 may have been drafted and therefore not necessarily “volunteers” they still certainly sacrificed much in service to America. And many indeed volunteered to serve, even during the period when the draft was in effect. Since 1973 we have been an all-volunteer force and except for a few lean years, the Services haven’t had much trouble in filling enlistment quotas. I marvel at the extraordinary sacrifices our active duty, guard and reserve men and women in uniform make every day: risk to life in conflicts, separation from family and friends, careers put on hold, dangers at work, and countless others sacrifices that only they know. So I am proud to be among their number, although I am mindful that many have sacrificed so much more than I. They will be on my mind this upcoming Veterans Day. If you are looking for a way to honor those who have sacrificed much, there are many options….go to a Parade, give a homeless vet food and shelter, donate to a veteran-focused charity, etc. But for me, please don’t say “Thank you for your service.” As far as I’m concerned that’s a mindless phrase, a cop-out which allows one to feel good without having to commit anything. It’s expected and akin to saying “Bless You” after a sneeze. They are words spoken without commitment or consciousness by many who utter them. I would much rather hear, “I never served, but as a way of showing my gratitude for those who did, I work with homeless veterans at the local shelter”, or maybe, “Where did you serve and what did you do?” That shows interest not a clever, trendy reflex. And I would be OK with a “Thank you for your commitment America. I am grateful for your service.” At least put some thought and feeling in it!
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God..” Current Oath of Enlistment
I said I was going to be brief, so I better wrap up..The other event on my mind was the recent election of Representative Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. I certainly wouldn’t want that job. But I was struck with his “demands” and how they contrast with the service our veterans rendered to our nation. They didn’t get an opportunity to bargain for weekends off to be with family or to say “I will serve, but only in CONUS.” Seems to me that he’s only going to be Speaker for a few years (probably less time than the average enlistment contract), so suck it up! Remember all those who don’t get a chance to spend weekends with their families while being shot at……a far cry from dangerous caucuses or risky debates in the halls of Congress. So it must be nice to have the luxury of choice and get credit for service without too much sacrifice as so many on the Hill are wont to do. I guess that explains why there is no “Congress Day” on our national calendar.
Here’s a way to honor our Veterans this year. Attend the Navy Safe Harbor Foundation Veterans Day luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club at the 11th Hour of the 11 Day of the 11th month: Click here to register.
Those of you who have read some of my previous musings know that I have a bee in my bonnet about Pentagon “Double Speak.” You know… the overly complicated buzzwords and phrases for simple things. Here’s a link to one of my articles that has some examples. A few of my favorites include:
As I was reading the news this morning, I found this article on the name change of the “Air Sea Battle” concept in DoD Buzz. So forget about Air-Sea Battle and let me introduce you to Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons! True to form, the Joint Staff has managed to take a relatively simple name and complicate it to the point of non understanding. Of course what would a new concept be without its accompanying acronym, JAM-GC? I suppose the pronunciation will be JAM-Jic or something like that. I can here the conversation in the Pentagon Food Court now, “What are you working on now?”….”Oh, I’m now the JAM-Jic lead and believe you me there’s lots of jamming and jickin to be done now that this Air-Sea thing has vaporized.”
So, I was never a fan of the Air-Sea Battle thing. IMHO, it was just a budget ploy by the Air Force ( and a somewhat reluctant Navy) to show relevance in an era where it’s relevance was waning. It’s not the first time the Air Force, after becoming alarmed by increasing dependence on and relevance of naval forces, began to seek ways to move into Navy mission territory. This always puzzled me, because in my mind it’s always be a air-sea-land battle. Especially as the perceived budget pressures have forced all the Services to cut force structure. In any serious and protracted campaign, the Navy needs Air Force tanking and command and control capabilities. And the Air Force relies on the assets from the Navy with little or no support requirements to beef up the Joint Force. It was never clear to me why Air Force and Navy needed to invent a “new concept” for something that has always existed….except for the issue of the Joint Strike Fighter. This $160 Billion over-budget, 7 year-late program is costing the King’s treasure and consuming all other aspects of the budgets of both services. Why not influence operational concepts as well? The story line? Air Force and Navy are inextricably linked by the Air-Sea Battle Concept and we must have the JSF to make it work. To the Hawks on the Hill, this can be a very compelling argument. One wonders what was going through the minds of the Army folks while they watched this little menage a deux develop.
Well, I guess the Army dusted things up enough to cause a name change, albeit no less threatening to their budget. As they say in the Patriot’s locker room, “All’s fair in love and war!” So to appease the Army, it appears we now have a new concept. And the name is a doozy…..Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons. 
Access is there to appease the Air Force and Navy, while Maneuver is there to keep the Army below the horizon of the doctrinal landscape.
I have to comment that the new name doesn’t do much for me…..especially the Global Commons piece. To this dinosaur, Global Commons is just a hoity-toity pretentious way for the Pentagon illuminati to show how deep their thoughts are. What is/are the Global Commons? Here’s what Wikipedia says:
a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. Global commons include the earth’s shared natural resources, such as the deep oceans, the atmosphere, outer space and the Northern and Southern polar regions, the Antarctic in particular. Cyberspace may also meet the definition of a global commons.
I am assuming that in the context of the Pentagon’s understanding, global commons to us unenlightened means “the places we want to be, that others don’t want us to be.” My suggestion for the name of the concept would be the “Enter, Conquer,Stay, Operate” Concept, ECSO or EkSo. It’s sooooo much nicer than Jam-Jic, Don’t you think?
Anyway, as we face serious and deadly threats from everywhere and everything, Syria, Afghanistan, ISIS/L,Budgets, cyber, meteorites, ebola, global warming, etc., it’s good to know we still have thinkers working on US access and maneuver in the Global Commons.
I have written about the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship kerfuffle before. The recent “non-decision” by outgoing SECDEF Hagel concerning the fate of the LCS fleet has prompted me to write again on the subject. For those you you who haven’t followed this “crisis of our own making,” my previous musing, Rethinking LCS, provides some background which I will not repeat here. But I know it’s a hassle to click on the link, so here’s the Cliff Notes version:
I found these slides in an article by the US Naval Institute and they are attributed to the US Navy, however I couldn’t find them on the Navy website.
So that brings us to the big pre-made decision by SECDEF, after consulting, conferring and otherwise hobnobbing with the Pentagon cognoscenti. (Who are the cognoscenti you ask? Read SECDEF’s statement and find out.) And the decision was:
……stay with two LCS designs, bump them up a bit (maybe $53 or $61 Mil or so) and move on. I think the only one surprised by the answer may have been SECDEF himself! Otherwise, why bother? I shudder to think about the amount of money and time spent on this study which had only one answer. I haven’t seen the actual study, but from what I’ve read about it, no stone was left unturned (apparently 192 stones to be exact). Option after option considered, analyzed, pondered, etc……..by those who already knew there was only one answer……we can’t afford anything else, nor can we afford the time required to start the acquisition process all over again. The answer was pre-decided. My guess is most of the changes announced would have been made anyway.
These pre-decided decisions are common in the Pentagon, but all too often staffs are forced to do the kabuki dance
to give an air of legitimacy to them. Those in disagreement get to say their peace and then dismissed as “having an input”, even though no one was really listening. I recall this vividly while working on budget end-game around the 2006 timeframe. The Service programmers (three star resource folks) would be herded down to OSD about an hour before SECDEF was to receive a decision briefing on an issue, shown the slides prepared for him and then dismissed. I barely had enough time to run back to the Vice Chief to brief him on what I had seen, let alone provide him with any analysis of what OSD had pre-decided. Of course, if the Vice Chief were to raise an objection during the SECDEF briefing, the OSD Poobahs would announce,” Your folks have seen this and nothing was said.”
The point of this little tirade is that we waste money on these types of exercises all the time. I think about all the good we could have done for our wounded warriors with the money we wasted on this study. I think about all the time consumed by some very smart people who could have been working on something really important…how to deal with sequestration, how to keep the technological edge, how to fix our broken nuclear infrastructure…and any number of other problems.
Why does the Pentagon continue to do this? I suggest it’s because they have an endless supply of people and money. No one pays for people, they just have them. No one has to justify the cost of doing such a study because cost is not an issue. If I had done that in my civilian P&L life, I would have been shown the door. I had to spend my money and time on things that mattered and contributed to the bottom line. Since there’s no bottom line at DoD, everything tends to become equally important. Once on the Joint Staff I remember a staff briefing one day when the two topics discussed were the reduction of the nuclear arsenal by 50% and the Joint Staff savings bond campaign. We spent the same amount of time on each…in the end it was decided we should brief the Deputy Director daily on the savings bond campaign and as needed for the nuclear issue.
I think we need a study on studies.
Only in the DoD acquisition world would this sound like a good deal! But before we cast too many arrows at the acquisition community, I must admit the idea is mine. I developed this idea over the course of years of working in the Bizarro World of DoD ship financing. You remember Bizarro? 
It’s the world where everything is backwards….the name of the bizarro world planet is Htrae (so clever!) and the world is square. As I recall, it was featured occasionally in Superman comics in the 1960’s. One of the mottos in Bizarro World was ” Us do opposite of all earthly things.” Bizarro bonds were a hot item on Htrae because they were “guaranteed to lose money.” So I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to make the analogy here.
As I learned during my time as Chief Resources and Requirements Officer for the Navy, the normal things you learned about economics don’t necessarily hold true when it comes to buying ships. My initial experience was during my first year on the job. We were working on balancing the budget and were about $400 Million off. The staff proposed that we slide the purchase of a ship we were buying for the Army called the LMSR (contrary to popular belief, the Army moves primarily by sea, not air). The price tag was about $400 Million and the staff had determined that we could stand to slide it a year. “Sounds good to me!” I answered, happy at the prospect of putting a bow on the $130 Billion Navy budget and delivering it to OSD just in time for Thanksgiving. By the way, that’s how you make sure that you don’t get rejected right away…..Submit something just prior to a big holiday so no one is around to grade your work. This rule works in a variety of scenarios:
Anyway, I’m sure you have your own sea story that would make mine look minor. But back to the LMSR caper……
A few days after the decision was made, the staff came back and noted that since we slid the ship a year, it’s going to cost more…..I don’t remember how much, but it was around $100 Million or so. “Really?” I commented. ‘Oh, yes,” came the reply, ” money will cost more the next year, we have shipyard loading issues that we will have to pay for, the cost of steel is going up, blah, blah blah.” So I began to understand that the economics of shipbuilding were different. I formulated The Shipbuilding Entropy Rule: “Nothing ever costs less. NO matter what you do, it will always cost more.” You buy less, they cost more. You cancel the buy, you still have to pay the overhead. You remove capability, it costs more to redo drawings. Its all very counter-intuitive. This became very clear to me during the following year’s budget build when the staff came back and said “We made a mistake. We have to move the LMSR back to the original purchase year.” “Fine,” I replied, “No harm, no foul.” Sensing it wasn’t “Fine“, based on the furtive glances between the staffers (an admiral sees a lot of those looks in the Pentagon) I asked “What’s wrong?” Turns out, if we moved the ship back into the original purchase year, it added another $100 Million to the cost! Whadakknow? We essentially did nothing and paid $200 Million not to do it! That, my friends, is Bizarro accounting!
Anyway I could go on and on about this, but I want to get to the reason I chose the title of this article, One for the Price of Three.
The DDG-1000 (AKA CG(X), Arsenal Ship, Zumwalt Destroyer, DD21, DD(X), etc) was originally intended to have a buy of around 32 ships or so. 
They became so expensive and the requirements bounced around so much, we began advertising it as a fire support ship vital to the survival of the Marines during amphibious assaults. As such, we only needed about 10-12, just enough to support the number of amphibious ready groups (ARGS) we had at the time. The Marines were happy about that, even though they preferred to have 2 per ARG. I even went over to the Hill with my Marine counterpart extolling the virtues of the DDG-21 as the perfect fire support ship for the Marines. But once the Marines realized that the cost of the ship was so high that it would probably limit the amount of other stuff they could buy, they dropped it like a hot potato…..they would much rather have the 360 V-22’s than 24 DD(X)’s. So in the space of about a month we changed our tune from”vital” to “not so vital.” Now that they are $3 Billion a copy, we are only building 3 of them and I’m not sure there’s a real requirement out there. As my Grandmother said when she got her first taste of champagne in one of those dinky champagne flutes at my son’s baptism, “That’s not enough to wet my whistle.” So it is with DDG-1000 IMHO. The real requirement as far as I can tell is to have something for Bath Iron Works to build ( they will build all three) so they can stay in business in order to address industrial base concerns. Hence the title of the article.
I propose instead of spending $9 Billion for 3 ships we don’t need, why not pay the shipyard to build it, take it apart and then build it again? It keeps them busy. The Navy doesn’t have to shoulder the Operations and Maintenance costs necessary to support a ship class of 3 ships, and we don’t have rustle up the personnel and training facilities which must be specially developed on this one-of-a-kind weapons systems. Heck, we will save money by doing that! Of course, this idea only works on Bizarro World.
That, by the way, is how Bizarro JosBanks works too. You pick out one suit and pay for three!
What a world, what a world!
I always hesitate to comment on such matters, but after reading the article by the Associated Press 
regarding the relief of 16 Air Force officers involved in some fashion with nuclear weapons I decided I would offer a few thoughts. My nose was already tweeked this morning after watching the “victory” speech by Virginia Senate candidate Mark Warner (as I write this, the race is still not decided, by the way) in which he says something about how the voters of Virginia have spoken and put him in the Senate…well, (very) slightly over half the voters in Virginia thought he was the best candidate…..I would be careful about yakking about mandates and the like with only a few votes more than the other guy. To me the mandate is to be just as diligent about representing the other half of the Virginia voters as he is in representing the half that voted for him. But as soon as he gets back on the Senate floor, he will do what all politicians do…..follow his leader. So it occurred to me that in general, politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the will of their party, they follow the polls, they follow the money. Very few of them actually lead. Heck, even Speaker Boehner is as much a follower (to desires of tea party interests and the like) as is a leader. And don’t get me wrong, I’m OK with that. They are supposed to be followers, aren’t they?……following the will of the people they represent. They also tend to make lots of mischief when they “lead”.
In the military we expect everyone to be a leader to some extent and as one gets more senior, our expectations of them as a leader grow. I’ve been to a few leadership seminars in my day and I know all the various combinations and permutations of this concept:
And as a Three Star in the Pentagon I was always reminded that no matter how high and mighty you think you might be, there’s always someone above you to whose tune you must dance! In the end, everyone works for somebody, don’t they?
Back to the nuke thing. One thing I knew as an Attack Squadron Commanding Officer: The quickest way to be relieved without question was to score anything other than an outstanding on nuke inspections. Consequently, I put my absolute best officers and enlisted personnel in those positions. I assume the same is true in the Air Force, so that the absolute best must be assigned nuclear positions. In that business, there is no room for error. Obviously some house cleaning was needed and the Air Force leadership did what they had to do.
The Navy also frequently makes the news for relieving various leaders for all sorts of reasons. I liked the way a former boss of mine, Admiral Vern Clark, used to answer questions about excessive reliefs of Commanding Officers. He said the Navy sets the bar high for its Commanding Officers, holds them absolutely accountable for not only their own actions, but the actions of all under his/her command, and we make no apologies for that. Amen.
Leadership is about accountability…accountability to your seniors, accountability to those who work for you and those who you work with. All too frequently politicians tend to be accountable to the wrong people or things….big money donors, party leadership, special interest groups, etc. That’s another reason why they don’t necessarily make good leaders. (Yes there are some notable exceptions and I am not suggesting that ALL politicians are not good leaders, but work with me here!)
So I propose that accountability is why we are blessed with so many good leaders in our Armed Forces. So next time you read about someone in the military being held accountable, you should say to yourself, “That’s a good thing.”
But…..problems arise when the “followers” become the leaders….either because of their control of the purse strings or worse, because they fill a void left by leaders more interested in following than leading. Civilian control of our military is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy and I wholly endorse the concept. Nothing distresses me more than when I hear someone from the Hill say that if our military wants it, then it must be good. After all, militaries fight great wars but they are not all that great at making policy. They are only one of the instruments of national power (economic, diplomatic, informational, and military) that the US can bring to bear. All too often they tend to discount the value of other types of power because investments in them take money away from Defense coffers. To be fair here, there is a great deal of writing on the use of other instruments of power in military doctrine, but I submit it is mostly theoretical and when money is at stake, all the rhetoric goes out the window. According to our Constitution, our political masters are the ones to make those judgments. But our military also has an obligation to make sure their best advice is given to the “deciders.” Once they make a decision, the military’s job is to salute smartly and carry out the decisions.
It is a fine line, and I have the greatest respect for those in senior leadership positions who have the moxie to advise what they believe, not what they think their political masters believe. It can cost a career. Look what happened to Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki when he disagreed with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on the number of troops required to tame Iraq (in the end the General was right, but never played the “I told you so” card)? He was shown the door to the River Entrance at the Pentagon! Can we ever really succeed in Syria without putting some number of troops on the ground? Will Afghanistan implode if we pull all our troops out? Can we still have the world’s most capable military with sequestration? I admire those who give sincere, apolitical answers to these questions. But then again they are leaders! Beware those who do otherwise.
I saw a reprint of an article done by Reuters the other day entitled “Special Report: The Pentagon’s doctored ledgers conceal epic waste” and even though it’s almost a year old, I think it still applies. 
In just a few days, all the big accounting firms that do business with DoD will be submitting proposals to conduct audits of the the Army, Navy and Air Force Statements of Budgetary Activity (SBA)……that’s a high level balance sheet that has little applicability to the actual management of anything. Experience in auditing the Marine Corps proved that trying to do anything else was futile. One just has to read the Reuters article on “Plugs” to see just how daunting a task auditing any of the services really is. Inventing phantom ledger entries or “plugs” to explain away imbalances in the “goes-intas” and the “goes-outtas” is apparently the norm at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. What’s a little disturbing about this whole audit thing, is that many of these sins will go unexamined because they do not necessarily impact the SBA. See my article “DoD Audit: Is the cure worse than the disease?” for the details about just what the SBA is all about.
In fairness, I think the article’s title is misleading in that I doubt if the motivation behind plugging in numbers is a desire to conceal waste, but rather it’s the normal way of balancing the books in order to satisfy the Treasury Department. The real motivation is to keep the heat off oneself ……does that sound familiar? Think about recent VA scandal…..I doubt if the real motivation was to make sure deserving veterans didn’t get appointments, but it was done to keep the front office happy. Never mind that the green eye shades at Treasury are apparently more interested in balancing the numbers as opposed to the reliability of the numbers used to balance (a la VA!). It’s been going on for years, so that’s a good indication that nobody cares. Unlike the VA however, the DFAS guys were caught and still nobody cares!
But we do care these days about getting the DoD auditable. And the Pentagon’s efforts to get to auditability have been extensive and expensive, with some modest results. Take a look at the USMC……their SBA has passed audit scrutiny for two years running now. Some months ago I wrote an article on the USMC audit, “Hall of Heroes and Auditors“, which is worth reviewing for context for what follows.
I support the efforts of DoD to get auditable, but only in so far as those efforts are done for the right reasons….not to keep the front office happy, but to make sure DoD is properly accounting for dollars….When they say “We don’t have money for pay raises”, or “Retiree health care is costing us too much,” or “We have to furlough employees,” are they using data from the system that “plugs” in nonexistent dollars to satisfy the front office? Who knows if the numbers they are quoting are accurate, given the evidence that the numbers are inherently inaccurate! My point is DoD audits are only interesting science projects for green eyeshades if we are only auditing things that don’t matter. SBA audits are interesting, but not compelling. We must follow on and audit all the other aspects of DoD financial accounting and property, plant and equipment inventories. That’s the plan (I think), but after DoD has spent collectively over $200 Million just to get to SBA audit, will they have the fortitude to go further into the things that really matter? Will Congress let them? Will the operational pressures in an very unstable, terrorist filled world trump mundane administrative exercises like audits? 
Stay tuned, but I think with sequestration about to raise its head once again, the President under pressure to mount military responses to multiple spots around the globe, and political stalemate in the Congress, betting on continued funding for DoD audits is at best like wagering on red or black at the roulette wheel at Trump Towers in Atlantic City (ooppppsss, it’s out of business, so how about The Nugget in Las Vegas?).
So don’t get too worked up and break out the champagne if it turns out the the service SBA’s pass audit ( they are likely to do so because of the limited scope and usefulness). Instead remember:
So to sum it all up, I wholeheartedly support ensuring the DoD manages it funds effectively, efficiently and accurately. I’m not sure an audit of the SBA does any of those things. Victory is not a clean opinion on the SBA, it’s a clean opinion on the whole enchilada.
PS: Please do not reverse the order of this article’s title, no matter how applicable it may seem 😉
There’s lots of hot air blowing about on the subject of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) inside the Beltway. I thought I put a few points out there as food for thought. First of all, a quick explanation of the BRAC process is in order (Here’s a link to the 2005 BRAC web page). BRAC is the process by which the Defense Department determines what US bases and facilities are no longer needed or facilities which should be repurposed, obtains Congressional approval to close those bases and goes about closing the bases The determination process is done secretly within each Service based on criteria set in advance by OSD and the Services. The Service data is then forwarded to OSD where the lists are “modified” to accommodate the desires of the OSD staff and SECDEF. This list is then presented to an independent BRAC Commission. The commissioners are appointed by the President, in consultation with the Congress. The BRAC staff reviews the recommendations, conducts field visits and hearings around the country, and then the Commission produces a list of base closures. This list is given to the President for review and approval who then forwards the list to Congress. Congress has 45 days to vote “all or none” (no modifications allowed) on the recommendations. If they do nothing, the recommendations become law and DoD has six years to close or realign the bases on the list. In past BRACs the DoD has done a variety of disposal actions, including Federal real property made available by public benefit conveyances for airport, education, and homeless assistance; federal transfers to native American tribes; economic development conveyances to local redevelopment authorities; and public sales.
Communities spend vast amount of money and effort preparing for BRAC, making sure the contributions to the local economy from local bases are well known, lobbying the Hill and Pentagon and generally stirring up dust in an attempt to “BRAC-Proof” their bases. That’s a big reason why the process is kept under wraps until released to the Commission.
The Defense Department says it needs BRAC to rid itself of excess infrastructure in order to reduce costs. The big question is rather or not BRAC closures actually achieve the projected savings. That’s a tough question because there is a fair amount of conflicting data out there. The DoD uses a model (critics say it’s flawed and inaccurate) called COBRA (Cost of Base Realignment Actions) that projects closure costs and the modeling results are generally used for racking and stacking the recommendations. To my knowledge, the model has never be compared to actual costs in order to validate its results (partly because I doubt if the real costs are known). I just don’t know enough about it to have an opinion either way, but given that determining costs is involved I tend to agree with the critics.
There have been several problems related to BRAC which have limited savings or increased costs:
I just read today that the Navy’s Treasure Island Facility, BRACed in 1993, is now scheduled for radiation testing because high levels of radioactivity have been detected in the housing areas. YIKES!
The CNO has said that the Navy does not need another round of BRAC , but the Army and the Air Force maintain that it’s needed. The Army’s position is certainly understandable given the personnel reductions they are facing.
Although great pains were taken to “de-politicize” the BRAC process, politics inevitably creep in. Take for instance the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard located in Defense Committee Heavy New England. Its main purpose was to refuel nuclear submarines. The Navy’s newest version, the Virginia-class is designed to last 30 years without refueling. The last of the submarines requiring refueling are long gone, but when the Navy tried to close it, the fan was clogged by politics and it was removed from the list.
So keep an eye out in the Defense Budget debate over the next few months. To Bric-a-BRAC? That is the question.