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Is the Pentagon’s sequester plan sound?

2013_07_defenselandscapesquareThe Defense Landscape is a weekly conversation with national security experts on the news of the day.

When the Pentagon submitted its 2014 budget request earlier this year, the numbers did not take into account the possibility that sequester cuts might remain in effect through 2014.

But with only a handful of remaining legislative days before the end of this current fiscal year, and little political will to offset the sequester cuts from continuing, the Pentagon has been forced to outline what that might mean for its 2014 budget.

In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel presented the findings of a four-month review called the Strategic Choices and Management Review, or SCMR.

I spoke with Todd Harrison, the senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments, to get some perspective on Hagel’s findings.

Earlier this summer, Harrison and his colleagues teamed up with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for a New American Security, to conduct their own DOD budgetary review.

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