Professional Note: The Military Needs BRAC

At the end of 2005, Congress will take an up-or-down vote on a list of military base realignments and closures, thus completing the decision phase of the process known as Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005. This could be the largest list of base closures ever—perhaps larger than all four previous BRAC rounds combined. (See the schedule in Figure 1.)

Why BRAC?

The Navy needs the savings that base closures will provide. It has excess capacity because the rate of base closures has not kept pace with the draw down of forces since the end of the Cold War. The BRAC 2005 process promises the Navy and other military services relief from the burden of maintaining unneeded facilities and bases. For example, the Navy has fewer than 300 ships. Yet even with the closures accomplished in previous BRAC decisions, its base structure remains sized to the 1980s' dream of a 600-ship Navy. And, in common with the other services, Navy bases are in sad shape; they lack funds for the maintenance and resources needed to upgrade them for future use.

In February, the General Accounting Office (GAO) published its report on conditions of the 524,000 Department of Defense (DoD) barracks, housing units, warehouses, office buildings, and other military facilities.¹ The GAO found that, in spite of increasing maintenance funds by 26% (fiscal years 1998 to 2001) and doubling military construction funds, nearly 70% of DoD facilities are crumbling from age and disrepair. The hole is getting deeper. Further, funds earmarked for facilities are diverted routinely to other priorities, and none of the services has sufficient information to steer resources and measure progress—much less the funds to fix things. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vernon Clark is taking steps to improve the condition of his bases by establishing Commander Navy Installations (CNI) as single manager of Navy installations world wide. (The Army established a comparable Installations Management Agency.) The base closures resulting from BRAC 2005 will give the CNI's first commander, Rear Admiral Christopher Weaver, the downsizing he needs to reverse trends and accelerate improvements at the remaining Navy bases. Without BRAC, he faces a hopeless task.

Beyond merely closing bases, the BRAC program gives the Navy much-needed opportunities to realign installations to changing missions and command relationships. The buzzword for this is "transformation," which for the Navy has accelerated joint operations and justified the recent emphasis on network-centric warfare. But, even though the naval service has learned to seamlessly exchange battle data with the other services and fight in concert with them, it trains and lives separately on Navy and Marine Corps bases, divided by fences and physical distances from its comrades in arms.

This will change under BRAC 2005-or at least that is the intention of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the prime mover of transformation. He recently said, "If we were to approach BRAC from simply a basing or an 'infrastructure-footprint, real-property assessment' point of view, it would be simplistic and ineffective. We must approach BRAC from a warfighting, mission-oriented point of view."² Given the Secretary's stated intention to steer BRAC and control its results, stand by for a move to joint bases aligned to battlefield missions as a certain outcome.³

Fighting Back at BRAC

So, it is a no-brainer, right? Shut down the unneeded bases and realign the rest to best support war fighters. If it is this easy, why all the BRAC kabuki dances: legislation, the BRAC Commission, and the rest of the laborious process? Obviously, closing a military base is hard on the economy of the surrounding community. But there is more to it than that. The true creator of the BRAC process is the harm that closing a base can do to the political careers of those associated with it. The program's elaborate legislation is designed to give top cover and distance to politicians of all stripes, who otherwise might want to do the right thing and close unneeded bases—except if it means taking the blame. The BRAC exercise insulates them. It lets them howl at the moon over all the harm that shutting Camp Swampy would do to its neighbors and gives them the excuse to pose Camp Swampy (left over from World War II and falling apart) as the center of the modern military universe. In the end, in spite of total political opposition to closing anything, it is closed by virtue of a process designed to be fair, free of political influence, and considerate of local economic impact.

Some communities will gain from BRAC when they become the realignment locations for functions moved from bases being closed. In those communities where bases are on the closing list, however, how much damage can they expect? Perhaps it is not as bad as envisioned initially. The GAO has studied the impact of BRAC and found that the horror stories we often hear are exaggerated greatly: "Our analysis of annual unemployment rates . . . indicates that most of the 62 BRAC-affected communities compare favorably with the national average. . . [as do] the annual real per capita income growth rates."⁴ Navy installations that will be closed have special advantages because they are located mostly in or near large urban areas with diverse economies and high real estate values. At former Navy bases from San Diego, California, to Orlando, Florida—and at other places, such as the Army's Cameron Station in suburban Washington, D.C.—prime real estate previously shielded from development is now the launching pad for new communities.

In general, there is enough accrued BRAC experience to say that closing a base is not all bad locally. In fact, it can be good. Most politicians know this, but they cannot say it aloud lest their constituents eat them alive. Instead, what politicians (and others engaged in local economic issues) do is make valiant and highly visible efforts at "BRAC-proofing" their bases. Does this change the outcome? Probably not, but these actions have a defensive element in them, even if they cannot drive the outcome—staying out of the fight entirely might mean losing by default. Communities and states feel they are competing with each other and they may be right. So they form alliances and public-private partnerships to fight BRAC, assist local bases with encroachment issues and infrastructure improvements, and generally work together to finely hone the arguments against closing their bases.

These same interest groups would be wise to also think the unthinkable: plan what to do if the nearby base is on the closure list. If it is, the local authorities will get help and funding from DoD to ease the transition to private ownership. The "local reuse authority" mandated by law will be prepared to reap financial gains from the military property it inherits. Nonetheless, the immediate pain is real and the economic reorientation is traumatic. Thus, the faster local leaders can get organized efficiently, the sooner a positive future will arrive. Some communities have done this well; others have mismanaged the situation entirely. Realistic expectations and advanced planning are the best responses to the threat of BRAC.

Local military commanders and others in uniform will sense a natural temptation to side with the community in fighting BRAC. This is doubly wrong: it may lend false hopes locally, and it is directly counter to the intentions of their military service. For naval personnel, the rules are spelled out clearly: "Navy and Marine Corps personnel may not participate in their official capacities in activities of any organization that has as its purpose, either directly or indirectly, insulating Navy and Marine Corps installations from closure or realignment."⁵

Congress grumbles constantly about BRAC. One argument says it is not saving the money it intended to save. It is true that closing a base requires up-front money and it takes time for BRAC's savings to flow. The savings line, however, has moved above costs; the figures now favor BRAC and its continuance. The GAO study shows that BRAC's previous four rounds produced nearly $17 billion in net savings through fiscal year 2001—and this is accelerating. The DoD estimates its annual recurring savings from the first four rounds to be $6.6 billion in each future year, which the GAO views as understated. Until 1998, BRAC was costing more than it saved, but that argument has vanished.

Also vanished (or at least subdued) is the belief that the BRAC process can be easily manipulated for political gain. Accusations that President Bill Clinton somehow influenced BRAC to reduce its impact on states leaning toward his parly caused Congress to revamp the already tight process to prevent such intervention. This is not good news for two military-rich states that otherwise might be hoping for political help: Texas, where President George W. Bush was governor, and Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor. The level BRAC playing field is bolstered by current laws and that is much of its wisdom.

The Military Needs BRAC

The politics of BRAC make it inevitable that the process will sail into a headwind of opposition. Will any of these attempts to delay or derail BRAC succeed? One hopes this will not be the case, because success in fighting base closures means harm to the nation's defense. In a time of new threats and rapidly changing defense needs, the dysfunctional structure of military bases poses the classic political dilemma: pork or patriotism? An uncomfortable number of installations are largely unneeded and propped up to offer jobs and patronage to local communities and protection for their politicians.

A strong national security posture demands that the military services free up wasted resources to sustain their fighters and give them the base support they need to train and do their jobs. That means closing bases. For all its clumsiness, the BRAC program has evolved considerably. It now operates in the best fashion our democratic system can offer. We should expect great things from BRAC 2005—indeed, we should demand it.