One week ago, the largest military base on the West Coast was created when the BRAC-directed merger of Ft. Lewis army post and McChord Air Force Base took place. While the missions of the installations in Washington State will remain unchanged, the consolidated base, now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), falls under the administrative control of the US Army. Much like an arranged marriage, there will be plenty of growing pains as each side learns more about the other, even though the two branches were once one prior to 1947. But much has changed since the Army Air Corps spread its wings and became the United States Air Force.
JBLM is one of seven new joint installations created by the 2005 BRAC mandate, joining five other joint installations created in 2009. While many of the new super-bases share a common fence line, as JBLM does, others are spread over a wider area, such as Joint Base San Antonio, which combined Lackland and Randolph Air Force Bases with Ft. Sam Houston. Most of the combined installations involve mergers between the Army and Air Force, but naval facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Charleston, South Carolina, were combined with Air Force installations in those locations. Administrative control of joint facilities reverts to the larger branch, which usually means Army or Navy oversight.
Other than gaining an unwieldy new name, such as Joint Base Andrews-Naval Air Facility Washington (formerly Andrews AFB, the home of Air Force One), what does the new joint realignment process actually do? Not much.
Sure, some essential services, such as perimeter security, civil engineering, base housing, and landscaping, will be streamlined, but in many cases, the civilian workforce at joint bases will increase, not decrease, due to an expected increase in services needed by a larger installation. Other base facilities, such as the main exchange and commissary service, will remain unchanged; these functions have combined decades ago as the Army Air Force Exchange Service and Defense Commissary Agency, respectively. At JBLM, the Army assumed command of the Air Force clinic some time ago, but the ultimate goal of closing the clinic and combining medical care at Madigan Army Hospital will never be realized due to a lack of space available and simple logistics. Even as one installation, redundancies at JBLM will continue to exist indefinitely, challenging the BRAC goal of saving money in the long run.
Money is what the joint process is all about. Shrinking defense budgets have forced the entire BRAC direction, even though Congress is not supposed to dictate how the Defense Department spends its allocated funds. That is not their job, but the BRAC completely subverted the traditional process. In any event, defense officials believe that merged operations will save money in the long run; they claim joint bases would need fewer delivery trucks, and contracts could be negotiated at better terms to the government. That reasoning is seriously flawed, since they will actually use the same amount of vehicles, if not more at geographically separate facilities like Joint Base San Antonio. Furthermore, since when has the same government responsible for $600 hammers ever negotiated anything from a position of strength?
Even the government is skeptical of the expected cost savings. Last year the GAO pointed out that the BRAC’s expected $2.3 billion savings over 20 years had already dwindled to $273 million, a difference of 88 percent. Furthermore, the GAO report concluded that the amount will continue to decline in the future, and could result in an actual increase in costs due to higher administrative costs and the loss of efficiencies in the wake of new DOD standards for service levels. Yep, the joint process could actually cost more money than if nothing had been done at all.
Maybe it’s not about the money; many experts believe it will encourage greater joint operations between the branches. Representative Adam Smith (D-Tacoma), the chairman of the House subcommittee on air and land forces, believes that the armed forces will move toward greater jointness despite their historical perspectives. However, the historical differences are what make each branch unique and ideally suited to each respective mission. Blending the branches together ignores their heritage and their skill sets, and could water down their warfighting mission. Sure, Canada has unified armed forces, but they haven’t conducted offensive operations since WWII. If all you need are peacekeeping troops, the Canadians are the world’s best. If you want to win a war, you’d better pass on a nation with unified armed forces.
Don’t get me wrong; jointness in an age of declining defense budgets despite an increase in demands for military power is a great thing. We operate joint bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, but those facilities are expeditionary camps for the most part. Joint operations were the only way to get the Navy and Marines into the land war in Afghanistan, a landlocked country more than 600 miles from the sea. Yes, their help is imperative to the war there; in fact without them, the early air war over Afghanistan would have much more difficult. But that is more a confirmation of naval air power and the need for the aircraft carrier than it is for joint operations.
The Air Force has much to lose in joint basing arrangements. We have always spent more on quality of life programs and facilities than the other branches. Our airbases and the aircraft based there are the equivalent of the naval fleet and deployed forces that the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army meticulously fund and support. The other branches often defer base maintenance when limited funding is needed for other priorities. Under joint basing arrangements, which typically fall under Army or Navy control, reducing the quality of life and facilities may reduce readiness at bases where the Air Force has lost control. McChord AFB was one of the shining jewels in the Air Force crown; the base is the only home of the Air Mobility Command Rodeo, an international airlift competition that the new Army landlords are lukewarm at best about hosting next year. Other bases, like Hickam AFB in Hawaii, also have a long and distinguished history that will undoubtedly be diminished under Navy control.
In reality, little will change for me, personally, at JBLM. It will almost be transparent. I will continue to fly the C-17 wherever the Air Force needs me to go. My day-to-day life will change little more than seeing base decals on car windshields once again and browner grass and crumbling buildings endemic on army installations nationwide. But it could be worse; at least we don’t have a name like Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. Try putting that on a letterhead.
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