Could Gates' cuts lead to another BRAC round?
Published: August 11, 2010
The last round of U.S. base closures in 2005 was wildly unpopular with lawmakers and panned by financial experts as much less cost effective than military planners had hoped. So no one stood up to applaud when Defense Secretary Robert Gates mentioned the idea of more base closings in his long-term budget cut plans on Monday.
"This is obviously a politically fraught topic," Gates told reporters. "Currently, Congress has placed legal constraints on DOD's ability to close installations. But hard is not impossible, and I hope Congress will work with us to reduce unnecessary costs in this part of the defense enterprise."
Still, don't expect a revival of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission just yet.
"Any base closings we'd see would probably be minimal," Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told me yesterday. "Another major round of closings would have to coincide with significant changes in force structure, and Gates is resisting that so far."
Off-base offices and even smaller defense facilities will get a closer examination, and workers outside of Joint Forces Command could end up having their desks moved.
But Harrison said he thinks other budget cutting proposals from the Defense Business Board, such as changes in retirement pay and reduction of permanent-change-of-station moves, are move likely targets for savings in the months to come. Those could end up having an even larger impact on troops in the long run.
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