Defense decision stuns leaders

For a community that depends on the military for 45 percent of its economy, the Pentagon's decision to close the Joint Forces Command was a lightning-fast sucker punch.

Even so, we should have seen it coming. And we should have had a response.

In the past decade, the region has fended off repeated attempts to close Oceana or to shift its mission elsewhere. Hampton Roads is still in the midst of a battle to keep a carrier from being moved - at a huge cost and for dubious reasons - to Florida.

Those battles should have set leaders here, in Richmond and in Washington, on alert, ready to argue for Hampton Roads.

They did not.

The JFCOM announcement, which had been mentioned as rumor only two weeks before, caught state and local leaders unprepared. That fact highlights the need for regional unity in advocating for Hampton Roads and for challenging the Defense Department's conclusions that JFCOM is dispensible.

It shows that, despite repeated warnings, the region was not focused on its extensive military presence.

And it points out the risk that economists have warned about for years: Relying on the military, not a diversified economy, means Hampton Roads rises and falls with the defense budget.

Now that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has outlined budget cuts and a plan to reorganize, it's too late to begin making the case for Hampton Roads. A new state commission to retain military facilities is a welcome idea, but with a $5,000 budget and a volunteer board, the level of commitment remains an open question.

So, too, is the dedication of Hampton Roads' leaders.

Following the 2005 trouble over Oceana, the region briefly united to support the military and its mission here. Virginia Beach created a new framework to protect the base from further crowding.

Support came from all over Virginia. Legislators worked together.

But that commitment has waned. Reps. Randy Forbes and Bobby Scott, for example, not long ago said that they would not support locating an outlying landing field - needed by pilots at Oceana - in any community that doesn't want it. That preemptive position was at odds with other state leaders.

The two say they are simply heeding the wishes of their constituents. But the military reads such pronouncements as undermining its mission.

Military leaders argue that JFCOM, which oversees a force of more than 1.16 million people, had become too big and too reliant on contractors. They say that after a decade at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, jointness is baked into the system.

The question is whether national defense - which depends on the command to train various branches to work together, ensure their equipment is compatible and coordinate with other nations - is better served with a more focused force or with a complete dismantling.

JFCOM and its modeling and simulation technologies have been hailed as critical to the future of the military, as well as to the region's effort to become a high-tech business and education hub. It makes no sense to move them or their mission.

As painful as Gates' announcement was for Hampton Roads, the defense secretary outlined further reductions Monday that would hurt the rest of the state, too.

The commonwealth is home to more than 12,000 defense contractors and second only to California in military-related businesses, many of them in Northern Virginia. Cuts to military contracting - 10 percent a year for the next three years - could kill as much as half the projected growth for Northern Virginia, The Washington Post has reported.

Virginia has benefited for decades from military spending. As the Defense Department shifts and technology changes, it's time to figure out Plan B. Before it arrives in the form of a press conference.