Washington, D.C. -- "Building and maintaining military readiness is the Constitutional responsibility of Congress.  Unfortunately, this Administration has never produced a realistic, sustainable, national security strategy that truly addresses the world in which we ask our military to operate, and that Congress and the military can build on," U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie told a defense industry conference today.  "In its absence, Congress has mandated the first re-examination of military roles and missions in 60 years."

Speaking at Aviation Week magazine's annual Conference on Defense Technology and Requirements, Abercrombie, who chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, said a modern day review and assignment of military roles and missions will not take the place of a cogent, thoughtful national security strategy.

"In fact, the last few National Security Strategies have been little more than hopeful statements of how we'd like the world to look,” he said. "There's no specificity; no objective analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, or challenges, threats and opportunities.  There's precious little foundation on which to make decisions about a half trillion dollars worth of military priorities."

Abercrombie said that Congress has been put in the role of making decisions on aircraft and other weapons system programs: How many C-17s transport aircraft do we need?  Should we continue manufacturing F-22 fighters or shut down the line?  Should the Army or the Air Force be in charge of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles?

"The art of matching military capability to defense strategy is supposed to be an integral capability of the Department of Defense. But then the matters that should come to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees of Congress for their determination as the considered judgment of the Department of Defense, rather than a 'jump ball.' " 

"But," Abercrombie told the conference, "The military shouldn’t be faulted. How can any organization make the best decision on what they’re going to need if they don’t know where they’re going — or what they’re supposed to do when they get there?"

The results of the current process are reflected in the national defense priorities presented to the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees.  According to Abercrombie, they can be summed up in two words:  "Everything.  Now."

"Without a clear statement of our national security priorities, the armed services are seeking unlimited funding for everything – fighting the wars, fixing or replacing all the equipment that's broken, growing the size of the ground forces, increasing pay and benefits, buying every new weapon system in the pipeline AND beginning to develop the next generation of weapons systems."

The Hawaii Democrat warned about buying into political sloganeering that masquerades as strategy.  "It's already being argued that the U.S. has only two choices in Iraq: keep doing exactly what we are doing for the foreseeable future, or ‘wave the white flag of surrender.’  That is nonsense. Such simplistic commntary is worse than useless.  It is dangerous."

"In the absence of a real national defense strategy," Abercrombie concluded, "the military will have no choice but to continue trying to do everything at the same time.  And we will continue to waste a lot of money, and more tragically, we will spend more American lives along the way."

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