Net-Centric changes on the horizon?

One of the most significant changes came Jan. 11, when new Defense secretary Robert Gates recommended increasing the size of Army and Marine Corps ground forces by 92,000 over five years, scrapping predecessor Donald Rumsfeld’s notions of a light, lean military.

“I am confident that the increase in troop end strength will be supported on both sides of the aisle,” secretary of the Army Francis Harvey said during a recent appearance at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, echoed that belief. “I have long advocated for an increase in Army and Marine Corps end strength,” he said in a statement.

But adding tens of thousands of new troops also will cost money—as much as $100 billion through 2013—which could affect the Pentagon’s planned modernization programs. “We need to find the resources to build the force,” Harvey said, but “it can’t be done at the expense of transformation and modernization.”

The QDR had advocated increasing investments in unmanned aerial vehicles and adding resources to implement the Global Information Grid, the Transformational Satellite program and the Global Force Management System, among others.

These programs are fundamental to recasting the military for network-centric warfare, an arena where the United States holds a potentially prohibitive advantage over other nations. But the programs are expensive. Building the GIG out to its full potential could cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 20 years. TSAT’s price tag is $16 billion, and the first satellite is not expected to launch until 2014.

Another key program, the Army’s Future Combat Systems, is projected to cost $21 billion for R&D alone between this year and 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Some experts believe Congress will boost DOD’s budget in the short term to meet these needs. “Congress may let the Defense budget grow by leaps and bounds this year,” said Lawrence Korb, an assistant Defense secretary in the Reagan administration and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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