Challenges, opportunities ahead for defense.

• Author: L. Punaro, Arnold
• Position: Chairman's Report

* In a world characterized by increasing threats and instability, the inability of the government to complete its most basic task of funding national defense is a disturbing inconsistency. Many events swirling through the world are outside of our control, so it is particularly distressing when addressing and managing something that is so obviously within our control becomes an extraordinary event.

As I write this column, we started the 2016 fiscal year under a continuing resolution, a sad but unbroken record since 1998. There is no shortage of national security challenges facing the United States today. None of these are insurmountable, but they are acute and many are certainly dangerous.

First among them is the state of U.S. finances. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, noted in 2010 that our debt was the number one national security threat, and I believe that remains true today. Fixing the dire U.S. fiscal situation will require reining in long-term entitlement spending, reforming the tax code and holding the line on discretionary spending. But efforts to date have only focused on the last piece, discretionary spending, and as a noted economist once commented, "that's not the problem, and it's not the solution."

Since the height of the Reagan buildup, the military has been shrinking while the budget has increased. Nonetheless, our warfighting capacity is considerably reduced from those halcyon days. While sequestration constrains the topline, the defense budget is being pressured from within by unsustainable cost growth in three areas: the acquisition process, the full lifecycle costs of the all-volunteer force, and the department's massive overhead. These three areas are putting significant strain on our warfighting capacity, but with strong leadership and smart policies, these trends can be reversed.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter recognizes these adverse trends and has set the right strategic priorities to correct them. First, he's undertaking significant steps to create the foundation for the force of the future. The military personnel system is a relic from a bygone era and must be reformed from top to bottom. Under Secretary Brad Carson has produced a plan that will significantly overhaul this system and allow the department to recruit and retain our most talented sons and daughters. Congress has included many of the recommended reforms of retirement and other benefits into this year's defense...