While most of the country focused on the elections, one of the most important and widely underappreciated documents to emerge from any White House was released, the 2022 National Security Strategy.  Join Steve Ellis and TCS National Security Expert Wendy Jordan for a budget watchdog’s take on President Biden’s national security vision.

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Episode 34: Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Budget Watchdog All Federal, the podcast dedicated to making sense of the budget, spending and tax issues facing the nation. Cut through the partisan rhetoric and talking points with the facts about what’s being talked about, bandied about, and pushed in Washington. Brought to you by Taxpayers for Common Sense. Now, the host of Budget Watchdog AF, TCS president, Steve Ellis.

Steve Ellis:

Welcome to all American taxpayers seeking common sense. You’ve made it to the right place. For over 25 years, TCS, that’s Taxpayers for Common Sense, has served as an independent, nonpartisan budget watchdog group based in Washington DC. We believe in fiscal policy for America that is based on facts. We believe in transparency and accountability because no matter where you are in the political spectrum, no one wants to see their tax dollars wasted. It’s Thanksgiving week, 2022, and it is clear now that the new year will bring a divided Congress. Democrats control the Senate, Republicans in control of the House of Representatives. While most of the country is focused in on the elections, one of the most important and widely-underappreciated documents to emerge from any White House was recently released.

On October 12th, President Biden transmitted his administration’s update to our National Security Strategy, or NSS for short. Dear podcast listeners, the NSS is a report mandated by Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. This is how the President tells Congress, the Executive Branch’s national security vision. Here now, to give us the Budget Watchdog’s take on the 2022 National Security Strategy, is TCS Senior Policy Analyst, Wendy Jordan. Welcome back to the podcast, Wendy.

Wendy Jordan:

Thanks Steve. Are you ready to nerd out on national security?

Steve Ellis:

Always. Wendy, the NSS is a 47 page document that begins with a quote from President Biden’s May 19th, 2021 address in New London, Connecticut, to the United States Coast Guard Academy’s 140th commencement exercise.

President Biden:

The world is changing. We’re at a significant inflection point in world history. Our country and the world, and the United States of America has always been able to chart the future in times of great change. We’ve been able to consistently renew ourselves. Time and again, we’ve proven there’s not a single thing we cannot do as a nation when we do it together.

Steve Ellis:

How does President Biden describe the strategic challenges facing the nation in the NSS?

Wendy Jordan:

Well, I should have known you’d bring it back to your very own alma mater, Steve, the Coast Guard Academy.

Steve Ellis:

The mothership.

Wendy Jordan:

What year did you graduate from the Coast Guard Academy?

Steve Ellis:

1991.

Wendy Jordan:

That’s a while ago. Who spoke at your..?

Steve Ellis:

This would’ve been 30 years after I had my commencement…

Wendy Jordan:

Oh, that’s right.

Steve Ellis:

… where then Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powell, was actually my speaker, the late General Powell.

Wendy Jordan:

Yours would’ve been the 110th commencement exercise, if I’m doing my math correctly.

Steve Ellis:

That’s about right.

Wendy Jordan:

Yep. I have to say it’s so cool to have a call back to the Goldwater-Nichols bill from ’86, because that was a huge shift, a sea change really, in how the Pentagon operates within the overall national security apparatus of the country. Among other things, Goldwater-Nichols brought about Special Forces Command, which was a major change in both the organization and emphasis of the Department of Defense. Hearing about it, and reading about it, and thinking about it really takes me back to my days as a Young Hill staffer. That’s a walk down memory lane for me. I had been on the hill just a few years when Goldwater-Nichols was considered un-passed and signed by President Reagan.

What you need to remember about the National Security strategy, which is the going to be the focus of what we talked about today, is that it’s one of four major overviews that are required every four years that coincide with each presidential administration, even if it’s the second term of a president. Every four years, you go through this drill and they produce the National Defense Strategy, which is specific to the Pentagon, the Nuclear Posture Review, and the Missile Defense Review. But the National Security Strategy is the big kahuna of them all, or maybe the Big Lebowski. I’m not sure.

Steve Ellis:

I think kahuna goes right, but I was born in Hawaii. Digging into the NSS, Wendy, as I see it, there’s three specific lines of effort informing the overall national security strategy. I’m quoting here, number one, “Invest in the underlying sources and tools of American power and influence.” Two, “Build the strongest possible coalition of nations to enhance our collective influences to shape the global strategic environment and to solve shared challenges.” And three, “Modernize and strengthen our military so it is equipped for the era of strategic competition with major powers while maintaining the capability to disrupt the terrorist threat to the homeland.” All right. What do you take from that, Wendy?

Wendy Jordan:

Well, it’s really a diplomacy heavy approach, especially when you hear the first two in particular. Underlying sources and tools appears to be talking about non-military capabilities. Of course, coalition building is definitely a diplomatic effort like the United Nations, NATO, et cetera.

Steve Ellis:

Got it. Wendy, what should those who watch the federal budget read into the NSS and its emphasis on diplomacy? Does President Biden’s national security vision mean less spending on the defense side of the ledger?

Wendy Jordan:

Well, happy as we are to see these “soft power” ideas as numbers one and two, my spidey senses, developed over many years of watching the Pentagon budget, tell me that the National Security strategy is going to be used to justify still more spending on national security in the coming years. Number three in particular, that line of effort is “modernize and strengthen our military”, as you just said. Look for that phrase to be quoted a lot as members of Congress seek to justify a higher Pentagon top line, because as you and I both know, Steve, modernization ain’t cheap.

Steve Ellis:

Well, and actually Wendy, it seems like a lot of times, even though they’re talking about modernizing, they’re still trying to keep legacy systems along as well. You’re buying the new stuff, but you’re not actually getting rid of the old stuff. You’re just piling on more maintenance and more cost onto the Pentagon and taxpayers.

Wendy Jordan:

Yeah. Don’t get me started on legacy systems. We’ve written a lot about that at TCS. People can go to our website and search for legacy systems and read a lot about, particularly the Secretary of the Air Force trying to retire some systems and Congress saying, no, no, can’t do that.

Steve Ellis:

Okay, so digging a little deeper and shifting a little bit here, Wendy, how does climate change stack up as a national security threat? What can we expect to see by way of spending here based on the NSS?

Wendy Jordan:

There is, I’m happy to say, significant emphasis on both climate change and energy security issues. The strategy seeks to reduce risk to food and water supplies, public health, infrastructure, and obviously, the pandemic and the ongoing war that Russia is waging in Ukraine are top of mind when talking about energy security, in particular. One of the things we’ve been advocating for at TCS is for in the future, requests for proposal for government contracts at the Pentagon to give an edge to bidders who take corporate action to reduce their own climate impact with a vast, vast buying power of the Pentagon. Having such an element in future Pentagon contracts would make a significant impact on corporate responsibility. We’re pleased to see the Biden Administration appears to be moving in that direction, although that idea is not specifically called out in the national security strategy.

Steve Ellis:

Gotcha, but yeah, we are preparing comments for a rule making that would amend the federal acquisition regulations, the far which governs the Pentagon, but also NASA and GSA, which is basically all the buying going on in government, or a lot of the vast majority of the buying going on in government. That’s something that can have huge, huge impact because podcast listeners, the government buys a lot of stuff.

Wendy Jordan:

It sure does.

Steve Ellis:

You’re listening to Budget Watchdog All Federal, the podcast dedicated to making sense of the budget, spending and tax issues facing the nation. I’m your host, TCS president Steve Ellis, and we continue now with Wendy Jordan, TCS senior policy Analyst.

Okay, Wendy, let’s discuss some of the budget wild cards here as we consider the Biden addition of the national security strategy. You mentioned Ukraine, but I assume that’s one of these wild cards that’s going to be impacted, right?

Wendy Jordan:

Yeah, I think the ongoing war in Ukraine has to be top of mind when you’re thinking about what’s going on with the Pentagon budget, as well as policy. If you think about, I don’t even know, was it a week or 10 days ago when we all got twisted around the axle when a rocket landed on the Polish side of the border with Ukraine? I know I was holding my breath at the thought of a potential article five declaration by NATO, because Poland is a member of NATO, and as you know, Steve, as all national security nerds know, article five is the so-called three Musketeers clause of the NATO charter, which means all for one, one for all. If one NATO nation is attacked, it is as if you have attacked all NATO nations and all NATO nations respond. Anything that tips the balance of power in central Europe is going to have a major impact on the Pentagon budget.

Steve Ellis:

Absolutely. I certainly remember some scary times about that, about the missile and where it was fired from and directed to. I actually saw today that the AP reporter who relied on one unnamed source actually lost his job. It was that serious for a AP.

Looking again at some of these wild cards, and maybe not wildcards, but really major players in the deck, I’m sure that there was a lot of emphasis on China and the NSS as well, no doubt.

Wendy Jordan:

Yeah, of course. China, Taiwan, that’s been, for as long as I’ve been doing national security issues, what’s going on in that region of the world has had a major impact on how the military services prepare for potential war in that part of the world. No doubt, President [inaudible 00:11:45] is watching the Russian invasion into central Europe with interest. Enough said.

Steve Ellis:

Well, thankfully he actually talked about that nuclear weapons and nuclear activity should be off the table. Hopefully [inaudible 00:11:59]…

Wendy Jordan:

Well, that’s comforting.

Steve Ellis:

… was listening. Yes. Yes, exactly. Well, it’s better than not saying it at all.

While we have you here, Wendy, what are some of the other national security budget issues that our podcast Faithful should know about?

Wendy Jordan:

As you and I have just alluded to in this conversation, top line negotiations for the Pentagon for fiscal year 2023, which by the way, started on October 1st, but we still don’t have the spending bills for each federal agency. The negotiations over the top line for the Pentagon are ongoing on the hill right now. What we are looking closely at is will Congress just automatically give the Pentagon everything it asks for on the so-called unfunded priorities list at the beginning of the year? That would be over 20 billion right there. There’s evidently a second set of unfunded priority lists, which is something I have never heard of in my years of watching the Pentagon budget. It’s evidently circulating on the hill. We have no idea what the top line number for that is. My guess is that some of that will be related to inflation pressures on the budget, but none of these stories that we’re hearing about negotiations are anything that would give comfort to a fiscal conservative.

Steve Ellis:

Yeah, well, and you have some members of the house, or incoming members of the house, and a few senators as well, talking about kicking the can past December 16th into actually calendar year 2023 to deal with the negotiation so that hopefully, in their mind, the house would then be a Republican majority and they may have some more leverage over both increasing Pentagon spending and decreasing domestic spending, and even the incoming current minority leader, soon to be majority leader, or even speaker of the house, leader of the Republicans in the house, Congressman McCarthy, he’s even talked about kicking the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization into the next year, which is something that they’ve got a decades and decades long track record of getting that done every year. We’re kind of in an interesting time right now.

Wendy Jordan:

More than 60 years of passing the NDAA. Not always on time, I’ll say that. It’s not always before the fiscal year starts. Sometimes it even bleeds over into the calendar year, but it always passes. This will be an interesting debate to watch.

Steve Ellis:

We both know that things don’t happen quickly. If they kick the can into January, it’s going to quickly be March. Who knows, we may even be looking at a year long continuing resolution or whatever. Certainly, considering the house Republicans are going to have a very small majority, it’s going to be… And they’ve definitely got… Some of the majority makers from them are the more moderate members, not the more conservative members, yet the conservative members are the ones who are flexing their muscles. It’s going to be a pretty unwieldy majority that the Republicans have in the house. At least that’s my view.

Wendy Jordan:

Yeah, mine too. It’s going to be interesting to watch. By interesting, I mean awful. I just buckle up and get ready for the ride.

Steve Ellis:

Buckle up buttercup. You got it. All right. One other thing that was just recently in the news, National Security Pentagon related, is the audit. You haven’t mentioned the audit. What’s going on with that soap opera?

Wendy Jordan:

Oh God, when will this long sad story end? It’s been going on for a long time. More than a decade that Congress has been debating whether or not to require the Pentagon to subject itself to an audit. It was the only agency that had never been audited. The law was finally passed that yes, the Pentagon has to subject itself to an audit. Since 2016, I think, right? The Pentagon has repeatedly… We don’t like to say failed. I guess it has not gotten a clean audit opinion, which is the same as failing. You’ve got an op-ed coming out on this that we hope to see in the next few days. Not to spoil that, I’ll just point out that of all the hundreds of procurement programs in the Pentagon, just one was called out for failure to “provide or obtain accurate and reliable data to verify the existence, completeness, or value of its government property.” Care to guess which one, Steve?

Steve Ellis:

Well, we were talking about big kahuna before, so I’m thinking F35 with a trillion dollar sustainment cost.

Wendy Jordan:

Yeah, that’s right, Steve, the F35. As I was reading through the latest iteration of the audit… We read these things so you don’t have to. As I was going through it, I found the section on identified material weaknesses of which there were 28 identified in the audit. Most of them have these insomnia solving phrases like segregation of duties, universe of transaction, accounts payable. Those are the so-called identified material weaknesses. Then the Joint Strike Fighter program.

Of all the programs in the world, of course, that would be the one that, for whatever reason, is incapable of offering up for the auditors the information that they need to give it a clean audit opinion. More to come on that, I’m sure, but Congress has almost always in the last few years, added to the Pentagon’s request for F35s, and I’m sure that will continue in the future.

Steve Ellis:

Well, you can be assured Budget Watchdog AF Faithful that TCS has passed its audit, but then again, we don’t have an F35 program. Bringing it back to the NSS, Wendy, this is kind of laid out in the beginning really this sort of 30,000 foot view of the national security strategy. It’s only, what, I think you said 48 pages. That’s a lot of ground to cover in 48 pages. What’s the real world implications of the NSS? Does it really guide how the Pentagon and Congress approaches things, particularly considering we’re having divided government again going forward, or is it just another document?

Wendy Jordan:

Well, for sure, Goldwater-Nichols, when they were writing it, wanted these documents to… Wanted the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy to inform the budget process, as well as the policy process. I can remember when I was a staffer in the Pentagon. You wanted your program, whatever it was, to be obviously covered by whatever was written in the National Defense Strategy, which is the one that really is just the Pentagon. Then the overarching National Security Strategy, which includes State department and now Homeland Security, and as we discussed, climate and all sorts of things are in the more overarching National Security Strategy. What you want, if in the future you are going to be arguing for money for your program, whatever it is, it can be a policy program, it can be a procurement program. If you are wanting Congress to fund your program, the best position to be in is to be able to harken back to what’s in the National Defense Strategy or the National Security Strategy and say, “To achieve X, we need my program,” whoever you are in the Pentagon, “we need this program to be successfully funded to a certain level.”

Steve Ellis:

Gotcha. You really just want to have a hook to hang your hat on to be able to argue for your program. Well, there you have it listeners. We talked about diplomacy and putting that forward, and we talked about some of the national security impacts. As you all know from previous podcasts, just as it’s cheaper to [inaudible 00:20:41] to disasters as opposed to merely respond to them, so too is it a huge cost savings for taxpayers when we were able to invest in diplomacy rather than fight a hot war. This is the frequency, mark it on your dial, subscribe and share, and know this. Taxpayers for Common Sense has your back, America. We read the bills, monitor the earmarks, and highlight those wasteful programs that poorly spent our money and shift long term risk to taxpayers. We’ll be back with a new episode. I hope you’ll meet us right here.