Trump’s defense secretary should focus on internal Pentagon challenges to meet external threats

As the Trump administration begins the process of forming its government and assuming the presidency, one of the most consequential decisions will be selecting the next secretary of defense. This person will be charged with the immense responsibility of leading two million uniformed military members and nearly 750,000 civilian employees across the globe.

The secretary of defense is really three jobs rolled into one. The first is that the secretary is a global leader, travelling the world to advance US national security and guiding combat and non-combat operations 24/7 in all domains. The second is that the secretary is the largest employer in the United States, leading one of the most complex organizations ever assembled, with a budget of over $850 billion per year. Lastly, the secretary is the principal assistant to the president in all matters relating to the Department of Defense and serves on the National Security Council.

The “to-do” list on day one for the incoming secretary will be staggering, with two ongoing wars, an aggressive China, and the responsibilities of working with the president on crafting the National Security Strategy within the National Security Council process. These will undoubtedly be the most urgent tasks, drawing the secretary towards jobs number one and three above.

If the incoming defense chief does this, they will be following a well-worn path of outsourcing the management of the Pentagon to the deputy secretary of defense. This, however, would be a substantial mistake.

The most urgent and strategically important job that the secretary must personally be involved in is the management of the department, the second job mentioned above. Our military is in its most perilous shape since the end of the 1970s: Woefully behind in utilizing existing technologies, sized for one-short war which our adversaries are willing to take advantage of, and burdened with an acquisition process and programs that cost billions to deliver hand-crafted weapons that cannot be manufactured to scale and often do not even work. Finally, if that is not bad enough, the military is short of people, and a coming demographic cliff is going to exacerbate this problem right at the time we need to project strength to our adversaries.

The secretary should therefore come in and personally lead the charge to fix three things inside the Pentagon: acquisition, resources, and recruiting.

Much ink has been spent describing in detail the disaster that is the acquisition system within the Pentagon. While some former secretaries such as Bob Gates and Ash Carter have tried to fix the system, it has, to date, remained stuck in the 1970s, producing high-cost, low-volume, and technologically-antiquated systems. Fixing this cannot be outsourced to the Deputy Secretary or the acquisition chief. Only the Secretary of defense, over the course of four years, will be able to drive the change that is needed.

On day one, the secretary should come in and signal his or her seriousness by cancelling a major weapon system built for a past fight — think the Joint Strike Fighter or the Army’s Future Vertical Lift —vowing to use all of the dollars to invest in unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and the mass production of weapons. Why go after the dollars immediately rather than changing acquisition regulations? Because if the secretary did the latter, the bureaucracy would wait him or her out and four years would go by without change.

Next, the secretary must address the fact that the budget of the Pentagon is currently sized to fight only one, short-term war. Some will make the argument that the nation should pivot away from the Middle East and Europe in order to fit our national strategy to the fiscal constraints of the current budget. This, however, belies the fact that today, the North Koreans are supplying troops to the Russians to fight a war in Europe with Iranian weapons bought with oil proceeds from China. Our adversaries are using the entire globe to challenge us and no amount of “wish-casting” is going to change that.

On day one, the secretary should come in and signal his or her seriousness by stating that the new force-sizing construct for the military will be to fight one long war, with two simultaneous small wars. This matches up with the incoming president’s strategy of peace through strength. This new force-sizing construct will then drive the budget process going forward.

And while the defense secretary doesn’t control the budget, they should use their early juice in the new role to push Congress to step up spending. Sen. Roger Wicker, who might become the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has put together a plan that provides an additional $55 billion to the Pentagon per year. This should be a starting point.

Finally, but probably most importantly, the military needs people to serve. The wars in both Europe and the Middle East are teaching us the same lesson: That in a test of wills, the side that runs out of people and money first will lose. With wages in the private sector heading higher and a smaller number of available 18-years olds due to a demographic cliff expected to start in 2026, the secretary has no time to waste. On day one, they should signal their seriousness by stating that the Department of Defense supports the Congressional plan to dramatically increase the pay of the junior enlisted force.

Some have said that the world is dangerously close to tipping into an all-out war. One way to prevent war is to make sure that those who wish you harm believe that they cannot prevail. This can only be done through an American military force that is utilizing the most technologically sophisticated weapons, produced at a scale that cannot be matched by our rivals, and used by the best service members the world has ever seen.

Through strength comes peace. While the incoming secretary of defense will want to look to travel the globe and tend to the White House, his or her most important task is to first fix the Pentagon.

Retired US Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.