With the US debt super committee failing to reach an agreement last month and mandatory costs of about $1 trillion looming, defense IT is now in the crosshairs.
The stakes are high for the Defense Department. From the Pentagon on down to the local level, IT personnel are tasked with monitoring the battlefield, safeguarding networks, ensuring servicepeople are safe on the front lines, and keeping steady lines of communication open between those on the ground and centers around the world.
Back in October, the TechAmerica Foundation reported that IT spending at the federal level will hit $81.2 billion in the 2012 fiscal year but is expected to decline over the next several years to an inflation-adjusted $77.7 billion by fiscal 2017.
But those are government-wide figures. Unlike other divisions, the Defense Department has safeguarded its IT investments over the years and has asked for an 8 percent increase in its fiscal 2012 budget, even though it’s expected to cut $450 billion in spending over the next 10 years.
But with the super committee's failure forcing additional cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars over the next several years, the Defense Department might have no choice but to cut in areas it has heretofore been loath to target.
“If Congress fails to act over the next year, the Department of Defense will face devastating, automatic, across-the-board cuts that will tear a seam in the nation’s defense,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said last month.
But there’s more to this than simply cutting funds. Before the super committee’s failure, the Defense Department was working on a datacenter consolidation plan that includes cloud computing and would eventually achieve more efficiency and help the department in its many efforts around the world.
But following through on the plan, which would be part of the federal government’s effort to cut 40 percent of all datacenters by 2015, will cost money in the short term.
The Defense Department wrote in a report (PDF) on the matter last month:
Continuing budget resolutions have delayed the implementation of consolidation plans... Although significant savings are expected in future years, those savings cannot be borrowed to fund required investments for consolidating data centers. Consolidation requires an investment in labor, new and more efficient hardware, upgrades to computer facilities, and increased operating costs when legacy systems run in parallel with new systems.
Surely given all this, the Defense Department has a plan in place to address the potential cash shortfall it will face in the coming years, right?
Think again.
“In short, it's too soon to tell,” Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Robbins told me in an e-mail. “Department of Defense is not planning for the effects of sequestration. The President's budget is implemented by Office of Management and Budget from which we take direction [and] it has not put out sequestration planning guidance.”
“Sequestration” refers to the spending cuts triggered by the super committee’s failure last month. Whether or not it happens to other federal agencies, many on Capitol Hill don’t want to cut defense spending, and that could very well provide defense IT with the reprieve it’s so desperately after.
“No one wants to go there,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently about cutting defense spending.
— Don Reisinger is a technology and video game columnist.
Is, these potential cuts have to be approved by Congress. So, whether the "super committee" agreed or did nothing is a non-issue. Or am I wrong.
"While mandatory cuts triggered by the Super Committee's failure to produce an agreement are fantastic in theory, they are hardly the be-all, end-all of forcing functions. The mandatory sequesters don't kick in until January 1, 2013, giving Congress over a year to change their minds and repeal sequesters."
I'm sorry that came off as rude to you as it did the second time I read it. It was not my intention to be disrespectful of civilians. It was my intention to point out the capabilities that are possessed by the people who are already in service to the country as members of the military.
Wow. Government IT seems to attract some problems, but I won't argue that it's not the civilians. I defer to your firsthand experience. Surely, there's a lot to fix.
I spent over half of my life in the military. And I will stand by this statement til I draw my last breath; There isn't anything a civilian can do, think or produce that a military person can't ccomplish, usually with better results and for less time & money. Be it installing a 100 gig ethernet data center or dropping a bomb on the enemy's data center.
I have been in meetings with civilian DOD personnel whose sole reason for being was to come up with trendy acronyms for projects and operations. Your defense budget tax dollars at work.
It wasn't a military member who designed, built or approved a $600.00 toilet seat for the P3 Orion. And it wasn't a military member who payed bribes to congressman Duke Cunningham. That's the kind of boondogles you get when the DOD puts civilians in the war effort...
Whil I'm not sure I agree with your specifics here, Kurtkeys, I think there's plenty of room for improvement in government IT. That's what Vivek Kundra intended during his tenure, after all. Sadly, the improvements will now be at risk if there's no budget for them. One hand shoots the other. Or something.
Defense IT has a close relationship with lots of private companies. If the government cuts its IT purchases, these private firms are affected. Everyone suffers.
I see this is a really good thing I see this is a really good thing. This monetary shortfall will allow the military to take over its own IT services and put the civilians out in the civilian sector were they belong. They could probably save $1 trillion just and personnel cuts alone by taking the best and the brightest who are already signed up to serve their nation and putting them to work in these data centers. We're already paying them to perform these functions as well as carry a gun into the field. Who would be more devoted to the issue of saving the lives of other military members and one of his comrades in arms? Certainly not some college war protester, who managed to land a government job, squeak through security background investigations and sits around updating his Facebook page while trying to get a date with a girl down the street!
Put the business of warfare and defense in the hands of warriors and defenders. It'll save us money and provide a more secure system in the long run.
The super committee was a bad idea to begin with. Never have a voting committee that has an equal number of members. All committees that expect to actually make a decision have an odd number of members so as to always have a non-deadlocked vote.
In any event, the defense department will never run out of ample funds for necessary and unnecessary work. The large corporations involved in defense contracts will never suffer for huge profits even in "peacetime."
“With the US debt super committee failing to reach an agreement last month and mandatory costs of about $1 trillion looming, defense IT is now in the crosshairs”
Don, the deal is for a huge sum so I think they have to take care and analysis about different aspects of the deal to a fine print. This will help them to avoid controversies and for a better deal with most modern technology.
To get involved in the politics a bit more, it is unclear to me that the government IT spend is more important than any company's money - it certainly means fewer jobs, but I don't know that a $5b budget cut at the Pentagon has more effect than $5b in cuts at other firms - they are just really big.
I'm not sure if anyone has any policy studies that look at the effects of military sepnding on IT (not government research, but their internal IT.)
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