When the Navy made the case to Congress that replacement of its Ohio-class nuclear submarines was a national imperative, it was given the National Sea-based Deterrence Fund where it could stash cash to pay for new subs. Wilson, speaking Friday at a Peter Huessy breakfast on Capitol Hill, said the same argument could be made for walling off funding for ICBM and long-range bomber recapitalization.
“In the main, we think that makes sense,” Wilson said of establishing a fund specifically for modernization of the air and ground legs of the triad. “These are a national priority…The Navy said we need this fund for the Ohio-class replacement and they got the sea-based deterrent fund. I think that same argument could be made for the other pieces, because this is something we recapitalize about every 50 years and to be able to set aside a fund to do that makes sense.”
The Navy’s protected fund has been dismissed as a gimmick to move funds around without increasing the service’s topline. Former Pentagon Comptroller and current fellow for Booz Allen Hamilton [BAH] Bob Hale, told Defense Daily that protected funds were not a viable approach to tackling modernization challenges without an increase in overall defense spending.
“They don’t provide any added resources,” Hale said in a recent interview. “It feels to me like we’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when we need to focus on not hitting the iceberg…Moving the money around, somebody else is not going to get that money and some of those needs are legitimate as well and if not as highly visible as the Ohio-class replacement, are nonetheless important.
