BRAC - The Preheat Mode

http://www.meridianstar.com/MERIDIAN...84&PubID=10197

Unified Germany...
No more comment on that ****

If you want an enlightening look on the pre-BRAC mayhem, try a search on all
newspaper articles. Just about every paper from Anchorage to Key West has
had several BRAC related articles.

OBTW, your link is no longer valid.

R / John

"Yofuri" wrote in message
...

http://www.meridianstar.com/MERIDIAN...84&PubID=10197

In previous posts months ago,,,,,
I tried to shed light on the entire BRAC fiasco,,,
From "anonomous sources", the whole process is currently being
frontloaded with base closures and realignments overseas. Currently
and in the very soon future, the only overseas sea duty will be rota
and misawa.
By doing these realignments the Navy can show they already
saved as much money as any base closures stateside.
More importantly, the announcement was just made this week
that all BRAC processes are on a 2 year recess, or, "time out".
Yes chicken little,,,the sky is not falling.


On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:06:20 -0500, "John Carrier"
wrote:

If you want an enlightening look on the pre-BRAC mayhem, try a search on all
newspaper articles. Just about every paper from Anchorage to Key West has
had several BRAC related articles.

OBTW, your link is no longer valid.

R / John

"Yofuri" wrote in message
...

http://www.meridianstar.com/MERIDIAN...84&PubID=10197

"fudog50" wrote in message
news
In previous posts months ago,,,,,
I tried to shed light on the entire BRAC fiasco,,,
From "anonomous sources", the whole process is currently being
frontloaded with base closures and realignments overseas. Currently
and in the very soon future, the only overseas sea duty will be rota
and misawa.
By doing these realignments the Navy can show they already
saved as much money as any base closures stateside.
More importantly, the announcement was just made this week
that all BRAC processes are on a 2 year recess, or, "time out".
Yes chicken little,,,the sky is not falling.


On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:06:20 -0500, "John Carrier"
wrote:

If you want an enlightening look on the pre-BRAC mayhem, try a search on
all
newspaper articles. Just about every paper from Anchorage to Key West
has
had several BRAC related articles.

OBTW, your link is no longer valid.

R / John

"Yofuri" wrote in message
...


http://www.meridianstar.com/MERIDIAN...775&S=584&PubI
D=10197




Do you have a citation or link on the 2 year recess?


Joe




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Actually the 2 year delay passed the house as part of the 2005 defense
authorization bill just today. The Senate might not like it. It could die
in conference committee. It could be vetoed (several administration reps,
including Rummie, say they will "recommend" veto ... of course the Pres is
silent so far, maintaining his maneuvering room).

I personally think that any normally introspective SecDef would take a good
hard look at what the meaning of "transformational" might be post 9/11, but
I don't think introspection is in Mr. R's vocabulary. That good hard look
might well be reason to delay the BRAC a bit.

The mantra of the BRAC faithful is that we have 25% excess infrastructure in
DoD. Anyone have a source on that number (not a sound bite, but real data
from real analysis)?

R / John

"fudog50" wrote in message
news
In previous posts months ago,,,,,
I tried to shed light on the entire BRAC fiasco,,,
From "anonomous sources", the whole process is currently being
frontloaded with base closures and realignments overseas. Currently
and in the very soon future, the only overseas sea duty will be rota
and misawa.
By doing these realignments the Navy can show they already
saved as much money as any base closures stateside.
More importantly, the announcement was just made this week
that all BRAC processes are on a 2 year recess, or, "time out".
Yes chicken little,,,the sky is not falling.

"It is estimated that ..." and "a 1998 report indicated that ..." are
probably as close as you'll get:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ility/brac.htm

Rick

"John Carrier" wrote in message
...
Actually the 2 year delay passed the house as part of the 2005 defense
authorization bill just today. The Senate might not like it. It could
die
in conference committee. It could be vetoed (several administration reps,
including Rummie, say they will "recommend" veto ... of course the Pres is
silent so far, maintaining his maneuvering room).

I personally think that any normally introspective SecDef would take a
good
hard look at what the meaning of "transformational" might be post 9/11,
but
I don't think introspection is in Mr. R's vocabulary. That good hard look
might well be reason to delay the BRAC a bit.

The mantra of the BRAC faithful is that we have 25% excess infrastructure
in
DoD. Anyone have a source on that number (not a sound bite, but real data
from real analysis)?

R / John

"fudog50" wrote in message
news
In previous posts months ago,,,,,
I tried to shed light on the entire BRAC fiasco,,,
From "anonomous sources", the whole process is currently being
frontloaded with base closures and realignments overseas. Currently
and in the very soon future, the only overseas sea duty will be rota
and misawa.
By doing these realignments the Navy can show they already
saved as much money as any base closures stateside.
More importantly, the announcement was just made this week
that all BRAC processes are on a 2 year recess, or, "time out".
Yes chicken little,,,the sky is not falling.

Good link for some other stuff. Thanks,
John

"Yofuri" wrote in message
...
"It is estimated that ..." and "a 1998 report indicated that ..." are
probably as close as you'll get:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ility/brac.htm

Rick

"John Carrier" wrote in message
...
Actually the 2 year delay passed the house as part of the 2005 defense
authorization bill just today. The Senate might not like it. It could
die
in conference committee. It could be vetoed (several administration
reps,
including Rummie, say they will "recommend" veto ... of course the Pres
is
silent so far, maintaining his maneuvering room).

I personally think that any normally introspective SecDef would take a
good
hard look at what the meaning of "transformational" might be post 9/11,
but
I don't think introspection is in Mr. R's vocabulary. That good hard
look
might well be reason to delay the BRAC a bit.

The mantra of the BRAC faithful is that we have 25% excess
infrastructure
in
DoD. Anyone have a source on that number (not a sound bite, but real
data
from real analysis)?

R / John

"fudog50" wrote in message
news
In previous posts months ago,,,,,
I tried to shed light on the entire BRAC fiasco,,,
From "anonomous sources", the whole process is currently being
frontloaded with base closures and realignments overseas. Currently
and in the very soon future, the only overseas sea duty will be rota
and misawa.
By doing these realignments the Navy can show they already
saved as much money as any base closures stateside.
More importantly, the announcement was just made this week
that all BRAC processes are on a 2 year recess, or, "time out".
Yes chicken little,,,the sky is not falling.

On 5/21/04 2:49 PM, in article , "John
Carrier" wrote:

Actually the 2 year delay passed the house as part of the 2005 defense
authorization bill just today. The Senate might not like it. It could die
in conference committee. It could be vetoed (several administration reps,
including Rummie, say they will "recommend" veto ... of course the Pres is
silent so far, maintaining his maneuvering room).

I personally think that any normally introspective SecDef would take a good
hard look at what the meaning of "transformational" might be post 9/11, but
I don't think introspection is in Mr. R's vocabulary. That good hard look
might well be reason to delay the BRAC a bit.

The mantra of the BRAC faithful is that we have 25% excess infrastructure in
DoD. Anyone have a source on that number (not a sound bite, but real data
from real analysis)?

R / John


I doubt that the 25% is anything more than an estimate spun by those who
only want to see defense dollars cut... for two reasons: (1) It's a round
number (suspicious). (2) Many of those sound-bite-type bullets are made up.

When BRAC '95 was going on, I got to watch the gathering of numbers for a
few of the data calls at NAWCWPNS up close and personal. The data that
comes OUT of BRAC is fairly accurate--at least from the Navy side. Can't
speak for the blue-suiters, the grunts, or the forces of one. The observers
of the data calls were fairly strict about gathering accurate, reproducable,
and verifiable data.

That having been said, even though these days (for example) Holloman may
have a bounce strip and China Lake may have a bounce strip, the capabilities
and fidelity of the two my be markedly different, so do you really have
duplication of facilities?

Sorry. No hard data, just hard skepticism.

By the way, does any other government agency work so hard to reduce cost and
STILL have problems re-capitalizing their equipment?

--Woody

I doubt that the 25% is anything more than an estimate spun by those who
only want to see defense dollars cut... for two reasons: (1) It's a round
number (suspicious). (2) Many of those sound-bite-type bullets are made
up.

Possible, even probable. But you never know. The Navy had a thing out in
the late 90's claiming there was a 21% excess capacity in the Naval Air
Training command and I think that was based on BRAC data calls.

When BRAC '95 was going on, I got to watch the gathering of numbers for a
few of the data calls at NAWCWPNS up close and personal. The data that
comes OUT of BRAC is fairly accurate--at least from the Navy side. Can't
speak for the blue-suiters, the grunts, or the forces of one. The
observers
of the data calls were fairly strict about gathering accurate,
reproducable,
and verifiable data.

True. I was intimately familiar with the content of the data for TRACOM and
browsed all of the rest for any NAS or AFB. There were some instances of
transposed numbers (birdstrike data ... they were THOROUGH!) and a couple of
gross misrepresentations (a CNATRA staffer intentionally changed a formula
multiplier because he KNEW the FAA algorithm was wrong). The USAF
perspective was slightly different, but generated very usable data.

But the old adage "Figures lie and liars figure" is very appropriate to the
process. The Navy installed their data into a weighted matrix to generate a
military value for each base. You'd think that was intended to determine
the lowest military value and then nominate the base. Not so. The Navy
rule was that the average military value of the bases remaining after
implementation of their proposed scenario must be equal or higher to the
average value for all the bases examined in a particular category. A base
could be a comparative "winner" in the value matrix and still become part of
the proposed closure scenario. This happened in 1993.

The 1995 rules were essentially unchanged. The Navy group, which did not
get its entire plan approved by the commission in 1993, attacked the issue
somewhat differently. They kept fiddling the value matrix (documented in
the minutes) until the numbers fell out the way they wanted (that's my
assumption, but it seems pretty obvious the results were reverse engineered
to produce the desired outcome). How bad was it? Well, one base got credit
for an aerial target on which even practice ordnance could not be expended.

The Navy has a long history (perhaps shared by the other services, but my
experience doesn't allow that comparison) of generating and manipulating
data to justify/support a decision. The decision has very little input
(except in the form of the data calls) from the operational side of the
Navy. CNO, his deputies, the CINCs, type commanders, etc don't weigh in.
The process was within DON, headed by a super grade civilian and staffed by
a mixed bag of civilians and military temporarily assigned to the BRAC
group. I met several of the military types, good folks for the most part
(albeit there was a Helo captain who hadn't seen the light of day for a
decade or more) but utterly ignorant about the majority of issues they were
analyzing. They existed to staff the master plan of the big boss. In most
part, they succeeded.

Given the nature of the current DOD (my way or the highway), I think we'll
see a similar process in 2005. Rumsfeld's inner cadre has a vision (I've
finally found a document describing it) of a "transformation" in military
affairs. I think there's also a vision about the infrastructure that they
believe is needed to support it. I suspect there's already a pretty good
idea of which bases conform to this vision and which don't. And I believe
that the BRAC group within DOD will be directed (perhaps subtly) to massage
the data to support that vision.

There's no list, but you're on it.

R / John