Military experts at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday argued the United States needs to adequately fund and arrange forces in a way that allow the nation to respond to an array of situations in the face of a changing global landscape.
"We’ve been in a period when our ability to hold a strategic dialogue about air power or land power or sea power has been terribly constrained," said Dr. Rebecca Grant, president of IRIS Independent Research during the Air Force panel.
The nearly six-hour event was made up of three panels, each focusing on one branch of the military: Navy, Army, and Air Force.
The Department of Defense projected a base budget of $495.6 billion for fiscal year 2015, a reduction of $400 million from FY 2014 and recently released a report on how sequestration will "undesirably" affect defense spending.
It anticipates reductions of hundreds of thousands in personnel to the Army, National Guard, and Marine Corps, and the shrinking of Navy’s inventory and its carrier fleet.
Accommodating service restrictions in arranging the military to combat future military issues will take a forward-thinking approach, panelists said.
"The decision-making framework within which we’re deciding on defense capabilities is actually incomplete," Army War College associate professor Nathan Freier said.
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula later said preparing the military requires the prioritization of America’s security objectives.
He said the military already has the necessary means, given the declining budget, but that its capabilities need to be properly exploited through new concepts to meet those objectives.
In determining what the nation’s security objectives are, Deptula referred to the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, saying that our government’s role is to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the country.
He said financing that purpose is fundamental.
"The issue of how much to spend on national security is directly related to what the American people want our nation to be able to accomplish," Deptula said.