The Senate might confirm Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s replacement in less than a month. At the moment, chances look good for former deputy defense secretary Ash Carter to take the helm at the Pentagon. Steve Grundman is George Lund fellow for emerging defense challenges for the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. He’s also former deputy defense undersecretary for industrial affairs and installations. On In Depth with Francis Rose, Steve tells Federal News Radio’s Sean McCalley Congress has an opportunity to appoint a leader who wants change.

Steve Grundman’s Top 3 for 2015

1. Republican majorities in Congress: The mid-term election will put the Republican Party in control of both house of Congress for the first time since 2006. It will be worth watching closely the impact new leadership of the defense committees — Sen. John McCain on SASC, Sen. Thad Cochran on SAC, Rep. Mac Thornberry on HASC, and Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen on HAC-D — will have on oversight of the DoD, the direction of defense policy and the size and composition of defense budgets? In particular, it’s notable that reform of the Pentagon’s acquisition and business-management practices has been a signature issue in the legislative careers of the two authorizing committee chairmen, and so I would anticipate the advance of legislation on those themes to be a feature of next year’s mark-up of the defense authorization bills. Still, it’s not obvious exactly what shape those initiatives will take, and there may well be as much rancor within the Republican caucus on issues such as Base Realignment and Closure as there tends to be between the parties.
2. Appointment of Ashton Carter as Secretary of Defense: The resignation of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has set the stage for Ashton Carter’s third tour of duty at the Pentagon. Carter’s stewardship of the DoD will set the priorities and shape the choices that animate the Pentagon in these last two years of the Obama Administration? Although all secretaries of defense end up spending more of their time and energy on matters of war/peace and foreign policy than management, Carter comes to the office with an extant agenda of change for the acquisition-management system — Better Buying Power — and with a pent up appetite for pushing through the military services reforms that have required the full authority of the Secretary to achieve. Combined with the reformist impulses of Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry, Carter’s ascendency at the Pentagon holds the potential for turning 2015 into a “golden moment” for defense reform.
3. Passage of the omnibus appropriations act for 2015: The surprising passage of a full-year appropriations bill in the lame duck session of the 113th Congress has set the tone and trajectory of defense spending through the end of this decade. That Congress was able to resist the impulse instead to pass a simple continuing resolution that would have kicked the hard decisions over 2015 appropriations into next year signifies to me that we have “broken the fever” of sequestration and of passion over the debt limit. For the purposes of planning future budgets, the 2015 omnibus creates a foundation of confidence in the outlook for defense spending that makes possible final decisions about a range of issues overhanging force and program plans. Five years from now, I believe we will look back at 2015 as marking the trough in the cycle of defense budget authority that peaked in 2010.

In our special radio report, Top 3 for 2015, federal experts tell In Depth host Francis Rose what top three concepts, trends or priorities they believe will be important in 2015.

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