BRAC: There's no list, but you're on it!

The military is preparing for the first round of base closures since 1995. But are the right criteria being used to shape the 21st century force and infrastructure?

No later than 16 May 2005, the Department of Defense must submit a list of Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps bases recommended for closure or realignment to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission chaired by Anthony J. Principi, former secretary of Veterans Affairs. The list will be derived using criteria unveiled in December 2003, which emphasize military value within the context of the transformational military of the early 21st century.

DoD maintains that a 24% excess capacity in infrastructure exists following the post-Cold War downsizing of the armed forces.¹ One might assume this figure was derived using clear-cut analytical techniques comparing the current force structure to support requirements. One would be wrong. Officials took a look at the 1989 force and infrastructure and compared the current reduction of force relative to the reduction in infrastructure to generate the number of 24%. To call the method used to derive the 24% excess imprecise is charitable, but it remains the mantra of DoD officials in or out of uniform.

The assumption has been made that there is a linear relationship between the force and the infrastructure necessary to support it. Since the military is now roughly twothirds the size of the military of the 1990s, we need roughly two-thirds the infrastructure. But is that logic correct? What effect does the operational tempo have on the support requirement, particularly in the training environment?

For example, the Navy and Marine Corps will likely buy significantly fewer F-18 and F-35 fighters to replace the current inventory as there aren't enough procurement dollars in the years ahead. However, current mission requirements are undiminished from the Cold War era. Fewer aircraft will have to fly the same number of missions. To maintain the higher operational readiness rates, maintenance and logistics will be intensified. The same number of targets, the same volume of airspace, and the same number of runways will be required to support the sorties needed to develop and maintain war fighting skills. The same undergraduate pilot training capacity will be necessary to provide the higher manning levels (per aircraft) within the squadrons. As a result, while an F-18 squadron might go to sea with 9 aircraft instead of 12, nothing else will change in the requirements to support it.

So in the effort to identify the unneeded or excess within DoD (regardless of the fleeting nature of that excess), Peter will be robbed to fund Paul. Despite the goal to create an infrastructure for the 21st century, it's likely the snapshots used to make the decisions will have an event horizon of a fiscal year or two at most.

Historical Perspective

Past Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) rounds were conducted by the individual services. Each service set particular goals for the effort. The Navy BRACs for 1993 and 1995 placed a premium on proximity: several bases in a shared geographic location or complex were desirable; a base relatively isolated was not. The process was done in steps:

1. Determine if an excess capacity existed.

2. If so, analyze all the similar bases with regard to their comparative military values.

3. Develop a scenario in which a base could be closed while maintaining or improving the average military value of the remaining bases.

The process was hardly perfect. It was sometimes difficult to determine if an excess existed. It's easy to match piers to ships, but somewhat less practical to match airspace or runways to sorties. Data to support the decision process was typically collected on site by relatively junior individuals. Often the data was subject to best interpretation regarding the derivation of the information desired. Mistakes were occasionally made but, once signed off as certified data, the information, regardless of accuracy or derivation, became gospel.

On at least one occasion, an excess was illusory or was developed in one subcategory and then applied to another. In the Naval Air Training Command, the most significant apparent excess existed in primary flight training capacity, yet a strike training base was nominated for closure.

Military value was determined through the use of the data collection process described above. When the military value matrix produced (evidently) undesirable results, the information queries were modified until the matrix output was acceptable. Specific to undergraduate pilot training, overwater training areas were tallied in addition to overland training areas, despite the fact that little or no training was conducted overwater. The mere fact that a base possessed a target was rewarded despite the fact that the target could not be used for ordnance delivery.

The relocation of missions and capabilities was often the least thoroughly examined portion of the BRAC. Often the receiving site's capacities to absorb specific mission capabilities were ignored and prompted the CNO to publicly express his misgivings during a 1995 hearing.

Perhaps the greatest significance is that there was no requirement to close the lowest value base, only that the average military value of remaining bases was retained.

Post-BRAC Analysis Opportunities

Two earlier BRAC decisions (one implemented, one not) offer revealing case studies of the process.

After the 1993 BRAC, Navy mine warfare surface assets were relocated from Charleston, South Carolina to Ingleside, Texas. Mine warfare airborne assets were consolidated into HM-14 and HM-15 as well and moved to NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, from their East and West Coast locations. With the exception of deployed units (four mine countermeasures ships are permanently forward deployed), the bulk of the force afloat resides on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The concentration of mine warfare assets undoubtedly offers a number of logistic and command advantages. But why did we move this vital capability well over one thousand miles from the forces it is intended to support? Are the CinC's happy their mine warfare support is in South Texas instead of alongside their combat units?

In 1995 the BRAC commission overrode the Navy's decision to close one of two aviation strike training bases. The Navy (less its CNO) felt it could perform all strike training at one base. The service had an opportunity to experience what would have resulted from its plan in fiscal year 1997 when the T-2C intermediate training aircraft was grounded for an extensive period of time. Now one of its strike training bases was tasked with three-quarters of the training requirements while the T-2Cs were out of service (not quite the single site plan envisioned, but close enough). They were afforded ample funding and logistics support and received additional instructors to assume the greater tempo of operations. They also enjoyed significant advantages in that the effort was temporary and the required pilot graduation numbers for that year were well under peak requirements.

However, the results were interesting. Training efficiencies plummeted by a factor of between 8% and 12% as the Navy received increasingly diminished return for effort expended. This is not an indictment of the site or its training wing. The results would have undoubtedly been identical had the roles been reversed. Rather the experience demonstrated the non-linear nature of a complex system's response to increased demand.

The Current Effort

A number of individuals who served in various capacities in past BRAC efforts are eagerly offering their expertise to the 2005 effort. This creates both an advantage and a handicap for the development of the closure recommendations. While experience provides expertise in the process, it can ialso bring with it a built-in prejudices and a perspective perhaps insufficiently reflective of the current transformation in military affairs. At the other end of the spectrum, those individuals involved in the process for the first time must be sure they understand the complex issue of force versus infrastructure. Are they sufficiently knowledgeable about the complexities of the missions performed within the facilities they might review? Can they critically analyze the data they will receive (it may be "certified" but what of its accuracy)? Can they approach the selection process with a clean sheet of paper mentality?

The DoD BRAC organization must develop closure recommendations based on the following published criteria: Military Value

1. The current and future mission capabilities and the impact on operational readiness of the Department of Defense's total force, including the impact on joint warfighting, training, and readiness.

2. The availability and condition of land, facilities and associated airspace (including training areas suitable for maneuver by ground, naval, or air forces throughout a diversity of climate and terrain areas and staging areas for the use of the Armed Forces in homeland defense missions) at both existing and potential receiving locations.

3. The ability to accommodate contingency, mobilization, and future total force requirements at both existing and potential receiving locations to support operations and training.

4. The cost of operations and the manpower implications. Other Considerations

5. The extent and timing of potential costs and savings, including the number of years, beginning with the date of completion of the closure or realignment, for the savings to exceed the costs.

6. The economic impact on existing communities in the vicinity of military installations.

7. The ability of both the existing and potential receiving communities' infrastructure to support forces, missions, and personnel.

8. The environmental impact, including the impact of costs related to potential environmental restoration, waste management, and environmental compliance activities.²

The Military Value criteria are quite generalized. That can be good and bad. It enables those within DoD whose responsibility it is to generate the list flexibility in determining the best match of infrastructure to force in a continuously changing environment. On the other hand, that flexibility can also produce arbitrary decisions with unintended consequences not subject to critical review.

This last point is important. The current BRAC commission, tasked with review of the DoD submitted list, has had its authority significantly compromised. To add a base to the list, the commission must generate a supermajority in opposition to the DoD submittal (This requires 7 of 9 commissioners, a greater majority than required for Congress to override a presidential veto. To remove a base continues to require a simple majority as in prior BRAC rounds). Moreover, President Bush just appointed the commission members in early April. The commission will be allowed less time for its analysis and deliberations. Past commissions worked hard to verify service BRAC plans in earlier rounds and rarely reversed those submissions (the decisions of sitting presidents not withstanding). The 2005 legislation appears designed to minimize the influence and oversight of the latest commission on the process.

The real difficulty facing those who must formulate a closure list is the simple fact that no one knows precisely what requirements may be necessary five years down the road, much less for the first quarter of the century. Two recent examples come to mind: the effects on military requirements generated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the first case, we are discovering that the cost and effort required of the only superpower in a dangerous world is greater and more diverse than those of merely maintaining the balance during the Cold War. In the latter, we are only beginning to understand the role of the military against a fluid insurgency under no flag.

Military Value criterion 2 indirectly addresses encroachment, but that may be an overwhelming issue in the years ahead. Commercial and residential development in proximity to many of our bases places a premium on those that are relatively free of encroachment. Failure to adequately account for this factor could have unpleasant outcomes. While jet noise may be the sound of freedom, a vocal and litigious organization of citizens in Virginia Beach, Virginia certainly didn't think so. They lobbied long and hard against the Navy's plan to replace over 100 relatively quiet F-14's with an equal number of noisy F-18's at NAS Oceana. The Navy's plan to locate the aircraft at both MCAS Cherry Point and Oceana (thereby reducing the number of aircraft at Oceana) came about at least in part as a response to this citizen effort. The cost to develop dual site support and logistics will be considerably greater than the original plan to base all the aircraft at Oceana.

The Other Considerations category is fascinating. How much weight will these four carry? Past BRAC's had little or no regard for economic impact or the level of community support for the base. Of greater significance is the environmental impact criterion. Will bases with minimal value but dirty environmental secrets remain open simply because their environmental cleanup costs would be excessive? Will outstanding bases be more likely to close simply because one of their outstanding qualities is their lack of EPA issues?

Late Breaking Developments

The Bush administration has decided to review overseas basing requirements. This could affect the number and type of units deployed overseas and may well lead to an overall reduction in deployed units and a requirement for increased domestic infrastructure for those units coming home.

It would seem logical to delay a domestic infrastructure review until the impact of overseas base realignment and closure can be accurately assessed, but that seems not to be the case. The rush to BRAC 2005 continues despite numerous unknowns confronting the process. Administration officials have said they will recommend a veto of the defense authorization bill should it include language delaying the BRAC process.

Other political forces can exert pressure on BRAC recommendations as well. The Florida panhandle was recently struck by Hurricane Ivan. Naval Air Station Pensacola and Naval Air Station Whiting both received heavy damage totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. These might be seen as prime candidates for the BRAC list since doing so would eliminate most or at least much of the high repair cost to bring both bases back to 100%.

The Chief of Naval Air Training quickly formulated a plan to transfer much of the training from the two bases while they underwent repairs. Florida officials thought it better to recommence training with all due haste, fearing a "down-and-out" air station was too juicy a target for BRAC. Within 72 hours of approval, the Navy plan was rescinded in favor of the Florida politicians' plan to recommence training as soon as possible and efforts are now underway to fund the rebuilding of the two bases, an initiative that could cost as much as $1 billion dollars. It seems likely NAS Pensacola and NAS Whiting will be rebuilt better than they were before the disaster.

There's a hidden message in this effort. If there is an imperative to rebuild the bases, then they must be essential. As there are no training functions so unique at either base that they could not be relocated elsewhere, that essential nature must be based on the lack of excess training capability throughout the air training infrastructure (which includes one Army base, six Air Force bases, and five Naval Air Stations, not counting ground technical training, which could be performed in any classroom environment). Ergo, while excesses may exist in certain infrastructure categories, they apparently do not exist in these training facilities at numbers approaching the current DoD standard of 24%.

BRAC continues to march toward its deadline despite a number of unresolved issues in the process. Data is being developed, sometimes meticulously, sometimes badly. (When two sites with similar capabilities doing similar missions at similar levels of effort report they are operating at 85% and 25% of capacity, I'd suggest they interpreted the question quite differently.) Decisions with farreaching effects on our nation's military readiness will be made, hopefully without pre-conceived notions or prejudices, based on the best facts available. Or is there already a list, and someone's on it?