Welcome Back, Dr. Carter

Ashton Carter will be the next secretary of defense, if Congress agrees to confirm him. It is not the first time Ash Carter has set foot in town, so that’s a good start. But he comes at an extremely critical time for the Pentagon and is walking into one of the most challenging sets of problems that have confronted a defense secretary.

The problems are not what you think, at least not directly. The media chatter is full of speculation about the future of operations against the Islamic State (IS), and about Ebola and the machinations of Vlad the Impaler in Moscow. And Carter will spend far too much time meeting with his colleagues about those things. But these meetings amount to little more than a sideshow, especially when compared to the more serious institutional issues Carter will have to confront once he assumes his new post.

Here are the five priority challenges he will face.

No. 1: Restoring Civil-Military Order

No relationship is more critical to the longevity and health of the Pentagon and our military capability than that of the secretary of defense and the senior military leadership — the service chiefs and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. As a former senior civilian defense official once told me: “If I don’t have the chiefs with me, I can’t run the building.”

While this sentiment is understandable, it is a fateful way of dealing with this institutional dynamic. If the secretary wants to be loved by the chiefs, he has lost his leadership. He needs their respect and a recognition that, in the end, he is the president’s representative and the final arbiter on policies, plans, and resources. There is a necessary tension between the secretary and the Pentagon’s permanent government (the services). The secretary needs to face it and manage it directly, or the services will run the building, the budget, and the policy.

Robert McNamara understood this when he instituted the Pentagon’s planning and budgeting system, which the services detested. He won friends and enemies, but he also won respect and, over time, created a planning system that, for all its faults, remains the best practice in the federal government in linking policies, programs, and resources and projecting those plans into the future.

Melvin Laird understood it when he had to preside over a drawdown after the Vietnam War. He won affection, but picked service pockets most effectively, according to a first-rate little bio on his time there by the late Richard Stubbing.

One of the most effective secretaries in disciplining the Pentagon and the military services in particular was Dick Cheney. He and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell executed much of the post-Cold War drawdown, which, for all its bumps, was one of the most effective in post-World War II history.

Don Rumsfeld did not get it. His idea of winning respect was to show disrespect, shutting the service chiefs out of decisions and running a parallel strategy review to the normal Quadrennial Defense Review. Were it not for 9/11, he might have been gone in his first year, so tense was the relationship. Bob Gates got it and makes it clear in his recent book that handling the inevitable tensions with the chiefs was one of his greatest challenges.

Secretary Chuck Hagel clearly did not discipline the chiefs. As I wrote in my last column, the chiefs have stepped out of their lane over the past two years, arguing publicly for force size and budgets that are well beyond the president’s official budget requests. A disciplined secretary would have kept a lid on this disagreement, as an act of civilian control over the military.

The budget will be Carter’s top priority as secretary: It determines his priorities and lays out the way strategy can be implemented, and Carter will have to tend to it first (as I discuss further below). But the first step in disciplined budgeting is a disciplined process at DOD, which means Carter will have to talk turkey with the service chiefs, as part of restoring normal civil-military order.

No. 2: Establishing Clarity With the White House

“Micromanagement” is the latest version of the inevitable tension between the White House/National Security Council and the Department of Defense. Most recently, two former secretaries of defense — Robert Gates and Leon Panetta — have complained about the excessive degree to which the White House has dipped into managing the details of wars, planning, and internal Pentagon decisions.

Now, I am a former White House guy. I get the importance of the White house setting direction for policy and the inevitable disagreements that result when the policy does not suit a federal department. Welcome to government and the interagency relationship. But there does seem to be an excess conflict between the White House and the DOD in this administration that goes beyond the normal sandpaper of the interagency process. It has bred a distrust that can poison the well of good policymaking.

It may not just be Obama and his staff — maybe White House operational control is inevitable in a complex world. But I don’t think so. History suggests that each president has his own approach to the duties and size of the NSC staff (now swollen to over 400) and the role of the national security advisor. This staff and advisor do not fit the Brent Scowcroft mold of “honest broker,” but act like a collective, somewhat chaotic Henry Kissinger of policy direction and operational control. As Gates has said, “When a president wants highly centralized control in the White House at the degree of micromanagement that I’m describing, that’s not bureaucratic, that’s political.”

This is not going to be easy for Ash Carter. He has already seen the tension up close, as a deputy secretary of defense under Panetta and Hagel. And he has an outspoken style, which could serve him well, or guarantee endless wrangling in the Situation Room. He has strong political experience in the halls of power — good luck on this one.

No. 3: Wrestling With the 535-Member Republican-Led Board of Directors

This is a big one for the next secretary. Not only is the Congress a bear every secretary has to wrestle, it has become an unruly bear over the past 20 years. And it approves the department’s budget. And it is run by a party that is determined to make life difficult for the administration.

Carter had better not assume that this unruly bear is prepared to roll over and approve every decision he makes. More specifically, it would be unwise to make the assumption that the bear wants to give him more money. Washington is full of gossip that this Republican Congress is going to increase the defense budget.

I don’t think it likely. The same trade-offs exist today as did before: If you want a budget deal, it has to involve mandatories, revenues, domestic spending, and defense spending. Otherwise, no deal, certainly no 60 votes in the Senate for a separate deal for defense, and continuing discussions of a shutdown. The players may have changed, but the issues are the same. And the atmosphere is not especially friendly.

So Carter will have his work on the Hill cut out for him. Fortunately, he is not in the Hagel position — where everyone assumed that as a nominal Republican his former colleagues would listen to him. One look at his confirmation hearing should have put that “spin” to rest. Carter comes to the job with greater knowledge in defense, greater respect in the Congress, and as more of a technocrat that politician. Those characteristics should help grease the skids at the start, but only at the start.

No. 4: The Budget Priority

It’s all about the budget, and Carter has a budget problem. Not the one you think: not enough money. DOD has plenty of money, courtesy of a Budget Control Act cap that now starts to rise, and thanks, especially, to the Overseas Contingency Operations “bonus” the department has received every year.

The challenge is about discipline, reining in the chiefs in their incessant demands for more, running a tight planning process, and forecasting the defense program to the resources Congress is realistically likely to provide, instead of a “wish list” that gets built into military programs that only need to be cut when the fiscal well runs dry.

If he thinks he needs money, the secretary needs to look for it where the money is to be found. It is not in pay and benefits reform, though it is worth pointing out that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the rather pitiful increase in TRICARE copays the Congress just passed ($3 more rather than the $30 more the Pentagon requested) will produce 10-year savings projected at more than $2.4 billion.

But it is two tough areas that will force him, once again, to grapple with the chiefs. The Army must get smaller, which means taking on Gen. Ray Odierno about force size. And, for my money, the trade space is in the Pentagon back office — the 1.8 million people who support 1.1 million in uniform. That also means taking on the chiefs, for back-office bulk is a direct outgrowth of budget padding in service planning. There are too many service contractors, too many offices, too many headquarters, and too much duplication. There’s the money; I just showed it to you.

No. 5: Time (and Energy) Are Running Out

The tyranny of the calendar will set in quickly. It is the last two years of the administration, when the energy to change anything has sagged and the bureaucrats and uniforms are mostly waiting out this bunch and anticipating the next. The White House won’t buy many reforms; the Congress won’t welcome them; and the chiefs are likely to resist them.

Carter has, at the most, one more budget. It is not the one Chuck Hagel is leaving behind, which is likely to avoid most of the tough choices. Carter’s first budget is for fiscal year 2017, and gives him the only window he has to impose discipline. And once that lands on Capitol Hill, it will be an election year, so good luck with reasoned debate.

So welcome back, Dr. Carter, and best of luck with the Sweathogs of Washington.

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