UPDATE <\/i>\u2014 This story has been updated to reflect the accurate total funding spent on Southwest border operations. The Army under secretary provided an incomplete total in Tuesday\u2019s briefing and later corrected the record.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. military may run out of personnel funds before the end of the year, be forced to scale back operations and see ongoing modernization efforts harmed if Congress fails to pass a defense spending bill by the end of next week, service leaders warned Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The undersecretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force said they\u2019d have billions of dollars in \u201cmisaligned\u201d funds \u2014 money that exists but not in the right budget lines to support their current spending needs \u2014 if they\u2019re stuck with a full-year continuing resolution that keeps fiscal 2023 spending levels through the rest of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They agree that they\u2019d have to prioritize current operations first, then people and then acquisition and modernization in a CR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou see sailors and Marines across the globe today, performing important missions: the Red Sea is an excellent example of how current operations take precedence,\u201d Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven told reporters at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without sufficient funds, he said, \u201cwe have to make tough choices. But between the ability to fight tonight and be ready for all the threats, versus preparing for the future and modernizing our forces \u2014 it is a tough decision, but we have to lay our chips somewhere, and that\u2019s on the ability to perform our missions today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raven said the Navy\u2019s ability to make that prioritization, though, would require Congress to grant the services some \u201cunprecedented flexibilities\u201d in the form of massive reprogrammings, or moving money from one line item into another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Navy, for example, would have $26 billion in the wrong places, and would need Congress to approve $13 billion in formal reprogrammings \u2014 more than twice the money Congress approves for the entire Defense Department in a typical year, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the reprogramming frenzy would be vital to mitigate the risk the services would take in their modernization efforts and industry would face if contracts are delayed or nixed altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army is facing a similar misalignment in funds, to the tune of $6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese are production rate increases, new starts \u2014 both in programs for acquisition as well as military construction projects that we cannot start,\u201d Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Air Force\u2019s misalignment in funds equates to over $13 billion and \u201cimpacts are particularly challenging in the Space Force, who has seen their budgets rising over the last couple of years,\u201d Air Force Under Secretary Jones said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further complicating funding this fiscal year is the fact that Congress has yet to pass a sweeping supplemental request, which the Pentagon hoped would supply weapons to Ukraine and Israel in support of ongoing wars for both countries and would also fund the Southwest border mission. The lack of supplemental funding compounds the impact of a long-term CR, Camarillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Army is spending $500 million out of its base budget for operations costs in the European theater, another $100 million in the U.S. Central Command area of operations and another $500 million for the operations along the U.S. Southwest border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt one point in time, there was a thought that all of this could be funded through a supplemental, and it is now currently, today, in FY24, being funded 100% out of the Army\u2019s base budget,\u201d Camarillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are just burning hotter than we normally would across all of our appropriations accounts,\u201d he said. \u201c[U.S. Army Europe and Africa] in Germany has explained that \u2026 they will run out of money this summer in the absence of extraordinary relief, aka a reprogramming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This will be a problem across the board, he added, to include running out of funds in the Army\u2019s military personnel account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The services planned to ramp up munitions spending in FY24, to bolster their own stockpiles as a hedge against a future fight and to replenish allies\u2019 and partners\u2019 stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year-long CR puts that industry ramp-up in peril.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camarillo said he was \u201cparticularly concerned\u201d the CR would not allow the services to \u201csend that strong signal to give industry the incentive to be able to facilitize, invest in a workforce and be able to do those extra shifts that we know that we need in order to restore our munitions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camarillo said the Army intended to kick off a multiyear procurement effort for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) interceptors in FY24. Under a full-year CR, it would be $1.2 billion short to reach the production rates needed to achieve the economic order quantities and savings associated with the multiyear procurement deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lockheed Martin has invested significantly in the PAC-3 MSE line to grow production from 550 missiles per year to 650. The Army requested in its FY24 budget $775 million to ramp up that production. The company intends to grow production beyond 650 in the following year, as demand increases due to the war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Camarillo added the Army could not begin to field its Mid Range Capability missile to the first unit, which is important to its Pacific deterrence, due to new programs not being allowed to start under continuing resolutions. Nor could it increase production levels for the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, Javelin missile, and 155mm munitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will just say that we have always said our goal was to get on 155 artillery 100,000 per month rounds by the end of calendar year \u201825. We cannot get there unless we get both the appropriation and we get the supplemental,\u201d Camarillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very challenging, because we\u2019re asking industry to lean as far forward as they possibly can and to make investments both in additional personnel, unique tooling and machining that\u2019s required to ramp up production capacity,\u201d Camarillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the Army planned to buy 225 Coyote counter-unmanned aerial system interceptors \u2013 a spending need that hits home, he said, due to the recent deaths of three soldiers in Jordan who were killed by a drone strike from Iran-backed militants \u2014 but those, too, could not be purchased in a year-long CR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the Navy, Raven said the sea service wanted to double its Standard Missile 6 spending \u2014 something particularly timely, as Navy ships are expending the older SM-2 missiles almost daily in the Red Sea, shooting down Houthi missiles and drones \u2014 but that cannot happen under the full-year CR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n