How like the services…

In the absence of the Congress — now in recess — the Army, Navy, and Air Force have continued to litter the universe with more confetti about sequester. For those of you familiar with Carl Builder’s masterful study of military service culture, these recently released documents are a fascinating look at the different cultures of the three largest military services.

The Army document is classic Army. Fifty-five pages long, it marches a division, step-by-step, through the purported impact of sequester on every state in the Union. It is an overwhelming show of force, as recommended years ago by Colin Powell. And it says these terrible things will happen: "every base will be affected," and the Army "is taking action."

The Navy document is more succinct — only 11 pages. And it is more honest. While it describes impacts, it also calls them "representative in nature" and "potential." It does not say these things are being implemented and it more carefully lays out the assumptions that lead to the impact. The tone is cautious and independent, like the Navy.

And the Air Force document is classic Air Force: one page, blunt, and in your face. A simple map of the United States, with data, state-by-state, of civilian furlough numbers, lost pay, and facility projects cancelled. No text, just the facts, ma’am. Like a quick air strike on a communications node — accurate kill, as needed.

The trouble is, of course, that sequester has not happened. The secretary has not made choices; priorities have not been allocated. But the services have been let out to make the worst case they can. Only the Navy is straightforward in saying these are "potential" impacts, and that is true not only because sequester has not happened, but because the decisions and prioritizations have not been made.

Meanwhile, one wonders why these things are the outcome, and not others, in case of sequester. For example, Tom Vanden Brook in yesterday’s USA Today highlights serious doubts about the Army’s $250 million program to put otherwise inadequately employed social scientists out in the battlefield to assess the "human terrain." The program is not clearly value-added, commanders think, and internal Army documents apparently reveal incidents of sexual harassment, racism, and possible fraud.

The program is doubtless funded in the same operational accounts where cuts would purportedly hit the same civil servants the Army sequester briefing warns about. In the priority-setting process, it is a perfect candidate for elimination, and all the services have the flexibility, under sequester, to make such a choice. I would readily trade a civil servant’s furlough for getting rid of social scientists used in this way.

The underlying problem is that the service briefings are not plans, they betray no underlying decision-making or prioritization. They are political documents, intended to instill fear and to bring politicians to the table.

And they are not working; for all the cacophony, almost everybody in Washington thinks we will blow through National Sequester Day (March 1), issue furlough notices (DOD’s go out today, in advance of sequester), and lay out a menu of cut-backs.

Then the Congress will spend March focusing on the real issue: FY 2013 spending levels and what happens by March 27, when the current continuing resolution expires. Sequester madness will step aside, and the real budget battle will get under way.

If the services are lucky, they will get funding pretty much like the past fiscal year. And Congress may provide them with more flexibility to allocate those funds than the sequester would. Then the services would have to do the real management job, instead of the Washington Monument closings they are sending out now.