President Obama is moving quickly to secure a new arms reduction treaty with Moscow even as Iran and North Korea resist U.S. entreaties.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
by James Kitfield
On May 19, President Obama and his top national security advisers huddled in the Oval Office with an unlikely collection of Cold Warriors. After meeting for more than an hour with the bipartisan group that some have dubbed "the four horsemen of the anti-apocalypse," Obama emerged with critical backing for the administration's plans for resuscitating a moribund nuclear nonproliferation regime.
"I don't think anybody would accuse these four gentlemen of being dreamers. They're hard-headed, tough defenders of American interests and American security," Obama told the press, motioning to former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn. "But what they have come together to help galvanize is a recognition that we do not want a world of continued nuclear proliferation, and that in order for us to meet the security challenges of the future, America has to take leadership in this area."
Ever since a signed article by the four former officials ran in a January 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal under the headline "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," they have galvanized the debate over nuclear proliferation. Absent urgent action by the United States, they argued, the world will soon enter a new nuclear age that "will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence."
As a candidate, Obama embraced the officials' vision, promising to put the United States back on "the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons." In a speech in Prague on April 5, Obama outlined the difficult steps that his administration will take to begin the journey.
The United States will move quickly to negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, Obama pledged, as well as a multilateral Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty to end the production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. He called for creating an international fuel bank to safely supply civilian nuclear energy programs and for more-robust verification inspections and tougher sanctions for cheaters to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Obama also pledged to fully secure global stockpiles of nuclear materials within four years, and he promised to "aggressively pursue" U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Republican-led Senate rejected in 1999.
"I know that there are some who will question whether we can act on such a broad agenda," Obama said in Prague. "There are those who doubt whether true international cooperation is possible, given inevitable differences among nations. And there are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it's worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve. But make no mistake: We know where that road leads."
Lost Time
Taken together, these measures represent a dramatic departure from a Bush administration approach that viewed arms control treaties and multilateral nonproliferation agreements as inherently unverifiable and overly constraining on U.S. freedom of action.
The Bush White House thus ignored the CTBT; withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty to pursue a national missile defense system; and signed a cursory arms reduction treaty with Russia that didn't even include counting measures, let alone verification. The administration proposed developing a nuclear bunker-buster weapon; explored the option of putting anti-missile weapons in space; and reached a nuclear cooperation deal with India, which is not a party to the nonproliferation treaty. Bush also tried unsuccessfully to coerce nuclear rogues through threats of pre-emption.
Whatever you think about that approach, even proponents have conceded that the results were disappointing. During the Bush administration's watch, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. On May 25, Pyongyang exploded a second, just weeks after testing a long-range missile. It has also kicked out international inspectors again, and taken steps to begin reprocessing plutonium.
For its part, Iran has announced a significant increase in the number of centrifuges being used to enrich uranium, and Tehran also recently tested a long-range missile capable of reaching Israel and other targets in the Middle East. If Iran and North Korea become established nuclear weapons states, many experts predict a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and Asia. Such an occurrence could collapse the structure of arms control treaties; multilateral and bilateral agreements; and threat-reduction and counter-proliferation programs that taken together form the international nonproliferation regime.
The Bush administration's argument that it needed new nuclear weapons and missile defense systems, and its perceived hostility to arms control agreements, has caused many countries to question the core pledge at the heart of the nonproliferation treaty. Under that treaty, the nuclear "haves" promised to reduce the role of such weapons and move toward disarmament on some indeterminable timeline, and to help non-nuclear powers with civilian nuclear power. In return, the 180 or so NPT signatories without nuclear weapons agreed not to pursue them.
"There's an old Winston Churchill saying that no matter how beautiful the strategy, occasionally you have to consider the results; and the results are pretty clear that we're heading in the wrong direction on nuclear proliferation," Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, told National Journal last year. "That's why [the four horsemen] tried to breathe new life into an old idea, because without the United States displaying leadership and a vision of a world that will someday be rid of nuclear weapons, we will not get the cooperation internationally for steps that are necessary to protect our own society."
Dramatic Cuts
Yet, as the Obama administration will soon discover, each of the steps it has proposed to reclaim leadership in the realm of nonproliferation is fraught with complexity and risk. On April 1 in London, for instance, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to conclude a follow-on strategic reduction treaty by December 5, when the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires. To meet that deadline, the outline of a deal will probably have to be ready in July for a planned Obama summit with the Russians in Moscow, in order to leave time for Senate ratification hearings in the fall. By traditional standards, that represents arms control negotiations on fast-forward.
Nor are the potential disagreements between Moscow and Washington trivial. Under the 1991 START, both the United States and Russia are limited to 6,000 deployed nuclear warheads. The 2002 Moscow Treaty called for reducing that number to between 1,700 and 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads by 2012, but the agreement lacked verification mechanisms.
Many arms control advocates want the new treaty to limit deployed strategic warheads to a maximum of 1,000. Such a dramatic decrease, however, raises other contentious issues, such as the U.S. missile defense system proposed for Eastern Europe; Russia's much larger stockpile of tactical nuclear warheads; and the nuclear arsenals of third-party nations, including China, France, Great Britain, India, Israel, and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Pentagon will not complete a congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review in time to influence the negotiations this year, a sticking point sure to be raised by lawmakers.
"My personal preference would be a treaty that limits deployed warheads to 1,000. But with the Nuclear Posture Review still under way and only seven months to complete the START follow-on, I think they should set the limit at a more modest 1,500 warheads and address the more-contentious issues at a later date," said Steven Pifer a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution who wrote a recent paper on the subject. "In his Prague speech, President Obama made pretty clear that this treaty only represents a first step in an arms reduction process that will eventually tackle issues such as missile defense, tactical nukes, and third-party arsenals."
Test Ban Battle
Even if a new agreement with Russia is signed and ratified by December, a nonproliferation treaty review conference scheduled for the spring of 2010 imposes another difficult deadline. At the last NPT review, in 2005, the Bush administration infuriated many participants by sending a midlevel delegation that essentially stood on the sidelines and ignored calls for strengthening the treaty. At the 2000 conference, the Clinton administration committed to resurrecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Because the Senate's 1999 rejection of the CTBT is seen by many as the first sign that the United States was stepping back from a nonproliferation regime largely of its own making, many delegations at the upcoming review conference will be expecting the Obama administration to have made good on its pledge to ratify the treaty.
In that regard, the recent report by the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States was not encouraging. Although the commission supported further, unspecified reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, it split down the middle on the goal of ratifying the test ban treaty and disagreed on the desirability of seeking a world without nuclear weapons.
"On the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I believe the United States will not be able to assume leadership in the world on nonproliferation if we do not ratify the treaty, but I must say the commission is split by that issue," said Co-Chairman William Perry, speaking recently at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "About half our members disagree with the goal of ratifying CTBT; and indeed, if the Senate proceeds to hold hearings on that, I suspect some of our members may be testifying on one side of the issue and others will testify on the other side."
The test ban treaty has well-known weaknesses in terms of verification and definitions of exactly what constitutes a nuclear test. Some experts believe that the commission's inability to reach consensus on such a fundamental issue, however, reveals the same party-line divisions that scuttled the agreement in 1999. That raises the possibility that a unified Republican caucus could deal Obama's nonproliferation agenda a potentially crippling blow with a vote to once again reject the test ban.
"The Obama administration talks a lot about the need for bipartisanship, and they are going to find it's absolutely critical on arms control treaties that require a two-thirds Senate majority for ratification," said John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "My reading at this point is that there are likely 60 Democrats in the Senate united in favor of ratifying the CTBT, and 40 Republicans united in opposition. At the end of the day, it's probably going to come down to Obama or [Vice President] Biden sitting down with seven to 10 key Republicans and saying, 'OK, what do you need in order to pass this treaty?' "
Wild Cards
The most significant challenge to the nonproliferation regime and the Obama agenda comes, of course, from former or current NPT signatories, such as North Korea and Iran, respectively, who circumvent its strictures with secret nuclear weapons programs. Such nuclear rogues not only erode confidence in the nonproliferation regime itself but also pose the threat of starting a chain reaction as neighboring states and potential adversaries scramble for their own nuclear deterrent. Presented with the reality of an Iranian nuclear test one day or further nuclear weapons development by North Korea, and the possibility that the U.S. nuclear umbrella will have to be extended, the Senate is unlikely to look favorably on dramatic reductions in America's nuclear arsenal or a test ban treaty.
"There's no question that the NPT regime has become a little shaky in recent years, but the truth is that what the United States does in that regard is less important than what Iran does," said James Schlesinger, the former Energy and Defense secretary who co-chaired the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. "If Iran achieves a nuclear weapons capability, it would probably end our hopes for nonproliferation."
With the nonproliferation regime rocked by repeated blows in recent years, other experts believe that it must be shored up quickly to avoid an outright collapse. In this view, the sequence of arms reductions, treaty enhancements, and confidence-building measures outlined by the Obama administration can rebuild a firewall that makes a nuclear breakout less likely.
Joseph Cirincione is a longtime arms control advocate who now heads the Ploughshares Fund, a nonprofit grant-making organization. "There's no question that nuclear proliferation threats are still growing, having built up a fierce momentum over the past six or seven years. President Obama is not going to be able to reverse that momentum quickly, but already he has changed the dynamic by indicating that the way to solve the problem of Iran and North Korea is to first look at our own obligations and responsibilities," he said in an interview.
Cirincione believes that the disarmament steps Obama has outlined will eventually lead to more cooperation on preventing proliferation, which will increase security, making room for further disarmament and cooperation. "With luck, that coin will just keep flipping over and over, until eventually a lot of things become possible," he said. "My biggest concern, however, is the cynicism that has built up on this issue that tends to disparage the whole nonproliferation agenda. That cynicism chills politicians and officials who are worried about looking weak, and it demoralizes those who fear they are wasting time on a hopeless agenda. That kind of fatalism really is our greatest adversary."
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30 May 2009
29 May 2009
Democrats Toughen Image
President Obama helps the public to stop seeing his party as soft on national security.
National Journal Saturday, May 30, 2009 by James A. Barnes
Have Democrats finally recovered from the weak-on-defense image that has lingered since the days of the Vietnam War? Two of the party's leading pollsters argue that they have.
Stanley Greenberg and Jeremy Rosner base their conclusion on the results of a national survey they conducted recently for Democracy Corps, a survey research operation that Greenberg help found to advise the party on strategy and positioning
The poll's central finding is that in the wake of President Obama's election, the traditional Republican advantage on national security issues has evaporated. Asked May 10-12 which party is better at handling "national security," 43 percent of respondents said Republican and 41 percent said Democratic -- a statistical tie.
That contrasts with the 14-point advantage (49 percent to 35 percent) that Republicans held last August in a Greenberg-Rosner poll, and the 29-point edge (54 percent to 25 percent) that they held six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Moreover, the latest survey indicates that Democrats now hold sizable leads over Republicans on several components of national security, such as diplomacy. Asked which party is superior at "improving global respect for America," respondents gave Democrats a whopping 36-point edge. On "working with our allies around the world," Democrats ended up with a 27-point margin.
The new Democracy Corps poll also found that Democrats hold advantages -- albeit slimmer ones -- on the questions of which party would do a better job with "the situation in Afghanistan" (12 percentage points) and "the situation in Iraq" (10 points).
Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who co-founded Resurgent Republic, a GOP research consortium intended as a counterweight to Democracy Corps, says that independents are more likely to side with his party on such key issues as torture, interrogation investigations, and the use of force in Afghanistan. He plays down some of the Democracy Corps findings, noting, "Any time you attach the words 'Republican' and 'Democrat' to anything these days, the Republican position is going to be disadvantaged because of the damaged Republican brand."
In the Democracy Corps survey, Republicans and Democrats tied on the question of which party would do a better job conducting "the war on terrorism" (41 percent each). And the GOP still held a commanding, 18-point lead (53 percent to 35 percent) on "ensuring a strong military."
"Obama's very strong handling of national security [issues] has effectively erased the [partisan] gap on national security," said Rosner, who was a senior director for legislative affairs on the staff of President Clinton's National Security Council.
Perhaps most impressive is the substantial bipartisan support that Obama garnered in the Democracy Corps poll for his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. A decisive 73 percent of those surveyed said they approved of his plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 but leave as many as 50,000 service members in the country in supporting roles until 2011. (Even a majority of Republicans, 59 percent, approved.)
An identical 73 percent gave a thumbs-up to the president's Afghanistan strategy, which includes increasing the number of U.S. combat troops. On that, 67 percent of Republicans approved.
At the same time, the poll revealed potential stumbling blocks for Obama and his party on national security topics where public opinion is divided.
For example, 48 percent of likely voters in the survey agreed with the statement "I do not believe we have a clear military mission in Afghanistan," while 46 percent thought "our military mission in Afghanistan seems pretty clear to me."
Likewise, 50 percent of likely voters thought that torture of suspected terrorists was justified, while 45 percent agreed with Obama that it wasn't. A solid 55 percent said that it was "not useful to launch a bipartisan inquiry into the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding." Only 32 percent said that it was "important" to launch such a probe, which Obama doesn't want but which many congressional Democrats have endorsed.
Democrats could also be hurt, Ayres believes, by the recent flap between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the Central Intelligence Agency over the CIA's briefings on interrogation techniques. "The more the Nancy Pelosis of the world are in the spotlight," he said, "the more independents will be persuaded that Republicans share their values more than Democrats. Winning back independents is the key to Republicans' rebuilding their majority."
But Rosner dismisses the idea that the Pelosi-CIA dustup hurts Democrats' standing on national security. "I would be stunned if stories about the speaker changed that in any way," he said.
Wendy Sherman, who was a counselor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and held the rank of ambassador as Albright's chief troubleshooter on hot spots that included North Korea, said she was not surprised by the poll's good tidings for Democrats. She said that the presidential election was at least in part a referendum on Obama's contention that the Bush administration had led the country in the wrong direction on national security.
But Sherman, a veteran Democratic political operative who has seen the party's candidates struggle with national security issues, says that Democrats still have "a lot" of work to do to maintain their newfound strength. "One has to institutionalize that sentiment," she said. "Events sometimes conspire to challenge what people hope for and believe. And President Obama has set a high bar."
She praised the deliberative way the Obama team has handled national security issues but cautioned, "It's early for any administration."
Meanwhile, Carroll Doherty, associate editorial director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, noted that independents are generally siding more with Democrats on national security in polls these days, but they can be unpredictable. "In the event of a new crisis, it's hard to know how they'll track," he said.
One element of Obama's approach to national security that appeals to many independents is his pursuit of bipartisanship. Although he cultivated the anti-war wing of his party during the Democratic primaries and caucuses last year, Obama balanced that by touting his ability to work with Republicans. Early in his general election campaign, he ran a TV spot that emphasized his close working relationship with the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana. After winning the White House, Obama quickly chose then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his more hawkish rival in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, to be secretary of State. He also asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who oversaw the troop surge in Iraq that Obama once criticized, to stay on. And Obama recently tapped Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to be ambassador to China.
But at times Obama's balancing acts not only send mixed signals to the public, they also elicit mixed signals from the public. Last month, the president delivered a speech in Prague that embraced the idea of eliminating all nuclear arms. The Democracy Corps poll found that likely voters approved of the job the president was doing on "America's policies on nuclear weapons" by more than 2-to-1; but by nearly the same ratio, those respondents also thought that eliminating all nuclear weapons "is not realistic or good for America's security."
To buttress his initiatives, Obama continues to court the GOP foreign-policy establishment. At a May 19 photo op in the White House, Obama sat next to former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Reagan and endorsed Sen. John McCain of Arizona in last year's presidential contest. Shultz was at the White House for a meeting of foreign-policy heavy hitters that included former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga.; and former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry. They discussed upcoming strategic arms talks with Russia.
Afterward, Obama pointedly told reporters, "I don't think anybody would accuse these four gentlemen of being dreamers." He also touted the bipartisan nature of the group. Shultz, who dealt with the politics of the nuclear freeze during the Reagan years, said that the issue was "really nonpartisan." The former university professor added, as if instructing the new president, "This is a subject that ought to somehow get above trying to get a partisan advantage."
It's hard to tell whether Shultz was just quibbling over language or whether he sensed that Obama was subtly trying to use the aura of bipartisanship for political leverage. But whatever Obama's motives, there are always partisan consequences to the way that voters perceive the performance of the commander-in-chief.
National Journal Saturday, May 30, 2009 by James A. Barnes
Have Democrats finally recovered from the weak-on-defense image that has lingered since the days of the Vietnam War? Two of the party's leading pollsters argue that they have.
Stanley Greenberg and Jeremy Rosner base their conclusion on the results of a national survey they conducted recently for Democracy Corps, a survey research operation that Greenberg help found to advise the party on strategy and positioning
The poll's central finding is that in the wake of President Obama's election, the traditional Republican advantage on national security issues has evaporated. Asked May 10-12 which party is better at handling "national security," 43 percent of respondents said Republican and 41 percent said Democratic -- a statistical tie.
That contrasts with the 14-point advantage (49 percent to 35 percent) that Republicans held last August in a Greenberg-Rosner poll, and the 29-point edge (54 percent to 25 percent) that they held six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Moreover, the latest survey indicates that Democrats now hold sizable leads over Republicans on several components of national security, such as diplomacy. Asked which party is superior at "improving global respect for America," respondents gave Democrats a whopping 36-point edge. On "working with our allies around the world," Democrats ended up with a 27-point margin.
The new Democracy Corps poll also found that Democrats hold advantages -- albeit slimmer ones -- on the questions of which party would do a better job with "the situation in Afghanistan" (12 percentage points) and "the situation in Iraq" (10 points).
Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who co-founded Resurgent Republic, a GOP research consortium intended as a counterweight to Democracy Corps, says that independents are more likely to side with his party on such key issues as torture, interrogation investigations, and the use of force in Afghanistan. He plays down some of the Democracy Corps findings, noting, "Any time you attach the words 'Republican' and 'Democrat' to anything these days, the Republican position is going to be disadvantaged because of the damaged Republican brand."
In the Democracy Corps survey, Republicans and Democrats tied on the question of which party would do a better job conducting "the war on terrorism" (41 percent each). And the GOP still held a commanding, 18-point lead (53 percent to 35 percent) on "ensuring a strong military."
"Obama's very strong handling of national security [issues] has effectively erased the [partisan] gap on national security," said Rosner, who was a senior director for legislative affairs on the staff of President Clinton's National Security Council.
Perhaps most impressive is the substantial bipartisan support that Obama garnered in the Democracy Corps poll for his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. A decisive 73 percent of those surveyed said they approved of his plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 but leave as many as 50,000 service members in the country in supporting roles until 2011. (Even a majority of Republicans, 59 percent, approved.)
An identical 73 percent gave a thumbs-up to the president's Afghanistan strategy, which includes increasing the number of U.S. combat troops. On that, 67 percent of Republicans approved.
At the same time, the poll revealed potential stumbling blocks for Obama and his party on national security topics where public opinion is divided.
For example, 48 percent of likely voters in the survey agreed with the statement "I do not believe we have a clear military mission in Afghanistan," while 46 percent thought "our military mission in Afghanistan seems pretty clear to me."
Likewise, 50 percent of likely voters thought that torture of suspected terrorists was justified, while 45 percent agreed with Obama that it wasn't. A solid 55 percent said that it was "not useful to launch a bipartisan inquiry into the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding." Only 32 percent said that it was "important" to launch such a probe, which Obama doesn't want but which many congressional Democrats have endorsed.
Democrats could also be hurt, Ayres believes, by the recent flap between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the Central Intelligence Agency over the CIA's briefings on interrogation techniques. "The more the Nancy Pelosis of the world are in the spotlight," he said, "the more independents will be persuaded that Republicans share their values more than Democrats. Winning back independents is the key to Republicans' rebuilding their majority."
But Rosner dismisses the idea that the Pelosi-CIA dustup hurts Democrats' standing on national security. "I would be stunned if stories about the speaker changed that in any way," he said.
Wendy Sherman, who was a counselor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and held the rank of ambassador as Albright's chief troubleshooter on hot spots that included North Korea, said she was not surprised by the poll's good tidings for Democrats. She said that the presidential election was at least in part a referendum on Obama's contention that the Bush administration had led the country in the wrong direction on national security.
But Sherman, a veteran Democratic political operative who has seen the party's candidates struggle with national security issues, says that Democrats still have "a lot" of work to do to maintain their newfound strength. "One has to institutionalize that sentiment," she said. "Events sometimes conspire to challenge what people hope for and believe. And President Obama has set a high bar."
She praised the deliberative way the Obama team has handled national security issues but cautioned, "It's early for any administration."
Meanwhile, Carroll Doherty, associate editorial director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, noted that independents are generally siding more with Democrats on national security in polls these days, but they can be unpredictable. "In the event of a new crisis, it's hard to know how they'll track," he said.
One element of Obama's approach to national security that appeals to many independents is his pursuit of bipartisanship. Although he cultivated the anti-war wing of his party during the Democratic primaries and caucuses last year, Obama balanced that by touting his ability to work with Republicans. Early in his general election campaign, he ran a TV spot that emphasized his close working relationship with the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana. After winning the White House, Obama quickly chose then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his more hawkish rival in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, to be secretary of State. He also asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who oversaw the troop surge in Iraq that Obama once criticized, to stay on. And Obama recently tapped Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to be ambassador to China.
But at times Obama's balancing acts not only send mixed signals to the public, they also elicit mixed signals from the public. Last month, the president delivered a speech in Prague that embraced the idea of eliminating all nuclear arms. The Democracy Corps poll found that likely voters approved of the job the president was doing on "America's policies on nuclear weapons" by more than 2-to-1; but by nearly the same ratio, those respondents also thought that eliminating all nuclear weapons "is not realistic or good for America's security."
To buttress his initiatives, Obama continues to court the GOP foreign-policy establishment. At a May 19 photo op in the White House, Obama sat next to former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Reagan and endorsed Sen. John McCain of Arizona in last year's presidential contest. Shultz was at the White House for a meeting of foreign-policy heavy hitters that included former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga.; and former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry. They discussed upcoming strategic arms talks with Russia.
Afterward, Obama pointedly told reporters, "I don't think anybody would accuse these four gentlemen of being dreamers." He also touted the bipartisan nature of the group. Shultz, who dealt with the politics of the nuclear freeze during the Reagan years, said that the issue was "really nonpartisan." The former university professor added, as if instructing the new president, "This is a subject that ought to somehow get above trying to get a partisan advantage."
It's hard to tell whether Shultz was just quibbling over language or whether he sensed that Obama was subtly trying to use the aura of bipartisanship for political leverage. But whatever Obama's motives, there are always partisan consequences to the way that voters perceive the performance of the commander-in-chief.
QDR SHAKES UP PLANNING PROCESS FOR FUTURE MILITARY MISSIONS
scenarios emphasized
The ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review will draw heavily on classified, country-specific scenarios for military missions, departing from a previous “infatuation” with capabilities-based planning, according to a senior defense official.
David Ochmanek, who earlier this year became deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and the head of the QDR analysis and integration cell, has been charged with reconstituting a planning capability to close the gap between the National Defense Strategy and how the department allocates its resources.
In his first interview on the job, Ochmanek told Inside the Pentagon last week that force planning requires three components: a strategy that explains what the force must be prepared to do; concrete scenarios that detail future expectations related to executing those missions; and assessments that illuminate the ability of alternative forces to achieve their missions in those scenarios.
“I think in the past our QDRs have done a good job of strategy development,” he said. “I think we wandered a bit off the farm with regard to scenarios. There was this infatuation with ‘capability-based’ planning, which I think is not the thing. And our assessments have been uneven.”
The Bush administration’s 2006 QDR report states that in 2001 DOD shifted from threat-based planning to capabilities-based planning, changing the way warfighting needs were defined and prioritized. Capabilities-based planning aimed to “identify capabilities that adversaries could employ and capabilities that could be available to the United States, then evaluate their interaction, rather than over-optimize the joint force for a limited set of threat scenarios,” the 2006 report stated.
But now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. To inform the QDR, groups of defense officials are mulling a little over a dozen defense planning scenarios specified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and related to irregular warfare, defeating high-end asymmetric threats, civil support at home and abroad, and global posture, Ochmanek noted. This work began in April.
“They’re out there charged with examining their issue areas, what analysis has already been done, what scenarios relate to those issue areas and what additional work can we do . . . between April and basically July, to shed more light on an assessment of the programmed force in the context of those scenarios,” he said. Members of Ochmanek’s analysis and integration cell are also involved.
Another Pentagon official said it is unclear what will become of the joint capability areas developed on the Bush administration’s watch, noting this was a source of tension between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff when officials mulled how to organize working-level analytical efforts for the QDR. Although OSD has opted to use “reality” and the defense planning scenarios to test alternative force mixes, this does not necessarily preclude JCAs being used in some way, the official opined.
“It’s just that they aren’t the organizing framework for QDR analysis,” the Pentagon official added.
Ochmanek said that with the National Defense Strategy in hand officials have been focused on “articulating scenarios, ensuring that they do indeed cover the full range of plausible challenges.” Then the focus has been on assessing scenarios using various means -- not just computer-based campaign modeling but also table-top war games.
War games have looked at future scenarios and the capability of the force envisioned for the next decade to cope with those scenarios. “And my guys have been in with the . . . high-end asymmetric [threats group] to do that, so we’re getting insights just as they are,” he said. DOD is also holding meetings in which the program analysis and evaluation directorate, the Joint Staff’s J-8 force structure, resources and assessment office and others have discussed results of analyses from the last couple of years that bear on these scenarios, he said.
“So I am a believer in scenarios, if that isn’t already apparent,” Ochmanek said. “That hasn’t always been the case. I think you need to craft stories that capture your expectations of future challenges. If the process has integrity you need to give your adversary credit for being able to operate with the capabilities available to him competently.”
The idea is to develop “a yardstick against which to measure your force,” he said. As officials conduct table-top exercises and review past studies, the looming question is to what degree the capabilities provided by the force of record are satisfactory for meeting challenges out to 2016.
“What you want to get from that is some sense of gaps in capability and/or shortfalls in capacity which then will focus your work on how to adjust going forward,” Ochmanek said. In addition, officials are gathering ideas about programs and development projects that might provide solutions. That work is slated to culminate in June, when Ochmanek’s office must harvest the “1,000 flowers” that have bloomed and turn them into “perfume,” he said.
There is also a separate “red team” effort established by Gates, which is looking at a “smaller number” of their own scenarios, Ochmanek said, noting this team will draw on irregular warfare insights gleaned from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (ITP, May 14, p1).
“So we have scenarios but we also have reality, right?” Ochmanek said. “And in the world of IW . . . counterinsurgency, stability operations, we have a treasure trove of experience and lessons from the last eight years since Afghanistan. So when I say there are about a dozen scenarios in there there’s also this massive thing called reality and our expectations about the future for U.S. strategy and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan going forward. So that’s a big source of insights about requirements for the IW piece of the whole thing.”
The independent red team is led by Andrew Marshall, the head of the Pentagon’s net assessment office, with assistance from U.S. Joint Forces Command chief Gen. James Mattis.
“It would be astonishing if there were no overlap between the scenarios we were looking at and the scenarios they were looking at, right?” Ochmanek said. “There are some pretty obvious things out there that can impinge on U.S. interests. And if they came in with a list that was completely from Mars it would be remarkable. And it isn’t from Mars.”
The QDR team is keeping its distance from the red team effort. Ochmanek said his boss, Kathleen Hicks, the deputy under secretary of defense for strategy, plans and forces, has been pretty clear that QDR officials should not attempt to influence the red team and should also avoid the appearance of doing so.
“So we’ve been very hands off, deliberately,” he said. “Also, you know time is a limited commodity and I don’t have a lot of time to schmooze Gen. Mattis on what I think his scenarios ought to be like.” Ochmanek said he expects these scenarios to be “sort of hybridish and so forth,” but added he is unaware of the details. In a March 11 memo to Gates, Mattis said the red team should tackle complex, hybrid threats (ITP, May 14, p1). Geoff Morrell, Gates’ spokesman, told InsideDefense.com May 13 the defense secretary drew inspiration for the red team effort from Andrew Krepinevich’s book “7 Deadly Scenarios.”
Ochmanek said the QDR team is also eying hybrid warfare, noting Gates is on the record saying the set of future challenges that DOD is concerned with differ qualitatively from traditional worries.
“And there is a blurring between irregular and conventional, that the adversaries that we face in the future won’t be shy about adopting things from the world of insurgents and terrorists that would be challenging to us,” Ochmanek added. “So our scenario suite is pretty hybridish too, so I don’t think there’s a dramatic distinction qualitatively between our set and theirs.”
Ochmanek said both scenario suites will inform the QDR, but it is not a matter of reconciling the two lists.
“I would say insights from both streams of activity are going to inform our evaluation of the future force,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going to sit down and say, OK we’ll take two from here and one from here.” All of the scenario work will be considered, he said.
There will come a time before the completion of the QDR when DOD will look at both scenario sets and draw insights from them, he added. “It’s going to happen whenever Mattis and Marshall outbrief the results of their assessment,” he said.
According to a draft Joint Staff memo, upon the completion of the QDR the Pentagon’s policy directorate will begin the development of a new lineup of defense planning scenarios via an “inclusive process” that will feature a review of the existing library by both DOD and outside experts, and will “ensure the family of scenarios is appropriately balanced to address the future threat environment” (ITP, May 14, p1). Told of the memo, Ochmanek said that “sounds right.”
“I think that everyone is comfortable with the suite of scenarios we have now in light of the red team’s effort to supplement those,” he said. “And we recognize this is not the time to get out and rebuild the engine while we’re driving down this road. We’ll drive with what we have and then, after the QDR, review the whole suite of scenarios.”
Some Pentagon officials have wondered whether the red team’s scenarios will be weighted equally in the QDR because they will be less detailed and prepared more quickly than the other scenarios. But Ochmanek insisted the red team’s work would be considered as important as the other scenario set.
“Because of the stature of the people in charge of that effort, they’re going to carry just as much weight as what those of us down in the engine room are doing,” he said.
Ochmanek is upbeat about the overall QDR effort.
“So I feel pretty strongly that the approach we’re taking is sound, that it is strategy-based,” he said. “Whether we pull it off or not you can be the judge when we get to the end.” -- Christopher J. Castelli
PENTAGON-25-21-1
The ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review will draw heavily on classified, country-specific scenarios for military missions, departing from a previous “infatuation” with capabilities-based planning, according to a senior defense official.
David Ochmanek, who earlier this year became deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and the head of the QDR analysis and integration cell, has been charged with reconstituting a planning capability to close the gap between the National Defense Strategy and how the department allocates its resources.
In his first interview on the job, Ochmanek told Inside the Pentagon last week that force planning requires three components: a strategy that explains what the force must be prepared to do; concrete scenarios that detail future expectations related to executing those missions; and assessments that illuminate the ability of alternative forces to achieve their missions in those scenarios.
“I think in the past our QDRs have done a good job of strategy development,” he said. “I think we wandered a bit off the farm with regard to scenarios. There was this infatuation with ‘capability-based’ planning, which I think is not the thing. And our assessments have been uneven.”
The Bush administration’s 2006 QDR report states that in 2001 DOD shifted from threat-based planning to capabilities-based planning, changing the way warfighting needs were defined and prioritized. Capabilities-based planning aimed to “identify capabilities that adversaries could employ and capabilities that could be available to the United States, then evaluate their interaction, rather than over-optimize the joint force for a limited set of threat scenarios,” the 2006 report stated.
But now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. To inform the QDR, groups of defense officials are mulling a little over a dozen defense planning scenarios specified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and related to irregular warfare, defeating high-end asymmetric threats, civil support at home and abroad, and global posture, Ochmanek noted. This work began in April.
“They’re out there charged with examining their issue areas, what analysis has already been done, what scenarios relate to those issue areas and what additional work can we do . . . between April and basically July, to shed more light on an assessment of the programmed force in the context of those scenarios,” he said. Members of Ochmanek’s analysis and integration cell are also involved.
Another Pentagon official said it is unclear what will become of the joint capability areas developed on the Bush administration’s watch, noting this was a source of tension between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff when officials mulled how to organize working-level analytical efforts for the QDR. Although OSD has opted to use “reality” and the defense planning scenarios to test alternative force mixes, this does not necessarily preclude JCAs being used in some way, the official opined.
“It’s just that they aren’t the organizing framework for QDR analysis,” the Pentagon official added.
Ochmanek said that with the National Defense Strategy in hand officials have been focused on “articulating scenarios, ensuring that they do indeed cover the full range of plausible challenges.” Then the focus has been on assessing scenarios using various means -- not just computer-based campaign modeling but also table-top war games.
War games have looked at future scenarios and the capability of the force envisioned for the next decade to cope with those scenarios. “And my guys have been in with the . . . high-end asymmetric [threats group] to do that, so we’re getting insights just as they are,” he said. DOD is also holding meetings in which the program analysis and evaluation directorate, the Joint Staff’s J-8 force structure, resources and assessment office and others have discussed results of analyses from the last couple of years that bear on these scenarios, he said.
“So I am a believer in scenarios, if that isn’t already apparent,” Ochmanek said. “That hasn’t always been the case. I think you need to craft stories that capture your expectations of future challenges. If the process has integrity you need to give your adversary credit for being able to operate with the capabilities available to him competently.”
The idea is to develop “a yardstick against which to measure your force,” he said. As officials conduct table-top exercises and review past studies, the looming question is to what degree the capabilities provided by the force of record are satisfactory for meeting challenges out to 2016.
“What you want to get from that is some sense of gaps in capability and/or shortfalls in capacity which then will focus your work on how to adjust going forward,” Ochmanek said. In addition, officials are gathering ideas about programs and development projects that might provide solutions. That work is slated to culminate in June, when Ochmanek’s office must harvest the “1,000 flowers” that have bloomed and turn them into “perfume,” he said.
There is also a separate “red team” effort established by Gates, which is looking at a “smaller number” of their own scenarios, Ochmanek said, noting this team will draw on irregular warfare insights gleaned from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (ITP, May 14, p1).
“So we have scenarios but we also have reality, right?” Ochmanek said. “And in the world of IW . . . counterinsurgency, stability operations, we have a treasure trove of experience and lessons from the last eight years since Afghanistan. So when I say there are about a dozen scenarios in there there’s also this massive thing called reality and our expectations about the future for U.S. strategy and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan going forward. So that’s a big source of insights about requirements for the IW piece of the whole thing.”
The independent red team is led by Andrew Marshall, the head of the Pentagon’s net assessment office, with assistance from U.S. Joint Forces Command chief Gen. James Mattis.
“It would be astonishing if there were no overlap between the scenarios we were looking at and the scenarios they were looking at, right?” Ochmanek said. “There are some pretty obvious things out there that can impinge on U.S. interests. And if they came in with a list that was completely from Mars it would be remarkable. And it isn’t from Mars.”
The QDR team is keeping its distance from the red team effort. Ochmanek said his boss, Kathleen Hicks, the deputy under secretary of defense for strategy, plans and forces, has been pretty clear that QDR officials should not attempt to influence the red team and should also avoid the appearance of doing so.
“So we’ve been very hands off, deliberately,” he said. “Also, you know time is a limited commodity and I don’t have a lot of time to schmooze Gen. Mattis on what I think his scenarios ought to be like.” Ochmanek said he expects these scenarios to be “sort of hybridish and so forth,” but added he is unaware of the details. In a March 11 memo to Gates, Mattis said the red team should tackle complex, hybrid threats (ITP, May 14, p1). Geoff Morrell, Gates’ spokesman, told InsideDefense.com May 13 the defense secretary drew inspiration for the red team effort from Andrew Krepinevich’s book “7 Deadly Scenarios.”
Ochmanek said the QDR team is also eying hybrid warfare, noting Gates is on the record saying the set of future challenges that DOD is concerned with differ qualitatively from traditional worries.
“And there is a blurring between irregular and conventional, that the adversaries that we face in the future won’t be shy about adopting things from the world of insurgents and terrorists that would be challenging to us,” Ochmanek added. “So our scenario suite is pretty hybridish too, so I don’t think there’s a dramatic distinction qualitatively between our set and theirs.”
Ochmanek said both scenario suites will inform the QDR, but it is not a matter of reconciling the two lists.
“I would say insights from both streams of activity are going to inform our evaluation of the future force,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going to sit down and say, OK we’ll take two from here and one from here.” All of the scenario work will be considered, he said.
There will come a time before the completion of the QDR when DOD will look at both scenario sets and draw insights from them, he added. “It’s going to happen whenever Mattis and Marshall outbrief the results of their assessment,” he said.
According to a draft Joint Staff memo, upon the completion of the QDR the Pentagon’s policy directorate will begin the development of a new lineup of defense planning scenarios via an “inclusive process” that will feature a review of the existing library by both DOD and outside experts, and will “ensure the family of scenarios is appropriately balanced to address the future threat environment” (ITP, May 14, p1). Told of the memo, Ochmanek said that “sounds right.”
“I think that everyone is comfortable with the suite of scenarios we have now in light of the red team’s effort to supplement those,” he said. “And we recognize this is not the time to get out and rebuild the engine while we’re driving down this road. We’ll drive with what we have and then, after the QDR, review the whole suite of scenarios.”
Some Pentagon officials have wondered whether the red team’s scenarios will be weighted equally in the QDR because they will be less detailed and prepared more quickly than the other scenarios. But Ochmanek insisted the red team’s work would be considered as important as the other scenario set.
“Because of the stature of the people in charge of that effort, they’re going to carry just as much weight as what those of us down in the engine room are doing,” he said.
Ochmanek is upbeat about the overall QDR effort.
“So I feel pretty strongly that the approach we’re taking is sound, that it is strategy-based,” he said. “Whether we pull it off or not you can be the judge when we get to the end.” -- Christopher J. Castelli
PENTAGON-25-21-1
21 May 2009
MULLEN TO UPDATE GATES ON MATTIS’ IRREGULAR WARFARE PROPOSALS
The military’s top officer is preparing to update Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the status of an influential general’s ideas for institutionalizing irregular warfare as a core competency, according to internal documents reviewed by Inside the Pentagon.
Marine Gen. James Mattis, the head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, proposed seven “anchor points” for institutionalizing irregular warfare (IW) in a March 11 memo to Gates. During a meeting in February, Gates asked Mattis for thoughts on how to accomplish the goal while “maintaining a balance with other required capabilities and without negating our conventional and nuclear superiority,” the memo notes. Mattis -- who Gates described during a hearing last week as one of the military’s most “creative and thoughtful” minds -- kept the list short to avoid the appearance of going overboard.
Now the office of Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is drafting a memo to update Gates on the issues raised by Mattis. The unsigned draft -- which is subject to change -- says Mullen will form an IW working group to monitor these issues and provide Gates with periodic updates. But a military official said the group has not been created yet and that the Pentagon is exploring whether it might piggyback on an existing IW group of some kind, rather than establish a new organization.
In accordance with the DOD directive on irregular warfare, JFCOM has the overall responsibility for exploring new concepts and capabilities so that the U.S. armed forces are as effective in IW as they are in traditional warfare, recommending mechanisms and capabilities for increasing interoperability and integration in IW-related activities, and leading the collaborative development of joint standards for IW relevant training and readiness for individuals and units of the general purpose forces, said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Almarah Belk.
Mattis’ first idea calls for establishing a National Center for Small Unit Excellence to ensure IW superiority. The general argues in his memo this is the “first critical step” in ensuring the lessons of the battlefield are not lost at the tactical level, but rather that they are expanded and built upon as fundamental competencies of the armed forces.
“Innovative, adaptive leadership at the lowest levels is necessary to successfully conduct irregular warfare,” Mattis writes. “The Department of Defense lacks a comprehensive, interagency or joint approach to integrate and coordinate small unit excellence.” The center would integrate and leverage joint, service, interagency and academic initiatives for improving the ground combat performance of small unit leaders and units, including Army, Marine Corps and special operations troops, according to the general.
In its draft response, the Joint Staff notes the National Center for Small Unit Excellence is funded in the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2010 budget request. DOD budgeted $21.7 million for the center in FY-10 and $145.2 million across the future years defense plan. The under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness was tasked with developing a DOD instruction by Sept. 1 addressing the roles, responsibilities and authorities of the components of the center, which is in the process of being stood up by JFCOM.
JFCOM also established the Joint Irregular Warfare Center last June to proactively coordinate, prioritize and provide subject matter expertise and partner on all IW matters. The JIWC integrates IW activities across DOD, multinational and interagency partners for joint IW concept development and experimentation, training, doctrines and capability development. It also executes JFCOM’s responsibilities as the DOD executive agent for joint urban operations. In FY-09, the center has $7.8 million in operations accounts and $5 million in research and development; in FY-10 it is slated to receive $9 million in operations funding and $5.2 million in R&D.
As ITP reported last week, Mattis’ memo also calls for the outside review of the classified, country-specific defense planning scenarios to advocate the “appropriate inclusion of hybrid, complex threats.” The external “red team” review would ensure the “refinement” of defense planning scenarios if they are “too simplistic, or lacking in IW or hybrid aspects, or otherwise insufficient,” according to the memo. He suggested the outside team report directly to Gates or Pentagon policy chief Michèle Flournoy. The red team, he wrote, should be “directed to consider adding the Afghan Campaign as a stand-alone DPS -- it appears we will fight it for years, why not discipline the Department to include it in our DPS?”
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Gates said he created the red team to review not only the defense planning scenarios but also the QDR as a whole.
The Joint Staff’s draft says upon the completion of the QDR the Pentagon’s policy directorate will begin the development of a new lineup of DPS scenarios, noting, this “inclusive process” will feature a review of the existing library by both DOD and outside experts, and will “ensure the family of scenarios is appropriately balanced to address the future threat environment,” according to the Joint Staff.
Mattis also urges Gates to direct the Defense Intelligence Agency to produce an annual, unclassified update on the IW/hybrid threat akin to the Cold War-era “Soviet Military Power” booklet that helped broaden understanding of the Soviet threat throughout “our force and other interested parties at home and abroad.” The complexity of today’s transnational threat requires DOD to define enemies with clear, straightforward language in such a document, according to the general. “There is still too much confusion in our ranks,” he writes. The Joint Staff, JFCOM and DIA are working to define the handbook’s scope.
The general’s fourth proposal calls for DOD to run an IW/hybrid war game for the State Department and other agencies. “If we keep trying to incorporate the interagency into DOD war games, we continue to send the message that we (DOD) are in the lead,” he writes. “The other Departments do not have our wargaming capability, but if we offered to host and support their war game, we would reinforce the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor’s ongoing efforts to build the interagency effort without assuming DOD would always lead.”
The Joint Staff’s draft update says its J-8 directorate will contact JFCOM and determine through discussion the relevant State and interagency organizations that would benefit from an IW/hybrid warfare war game offering. Based on this assessment, the J-8 office and the Pentagon’s policy shop will research wargaming requirements and provide a recommendation on how to best represent those capabilities to the relevant State and interagency organizations in order to allow for these organizations to take the lead in the execution of such an effort.
Mattis also presses Gates to use the professional military education (PME) program as a strategic asset by directing each service to expand seats available for Gates to include foreign students of U.S. paid tuition assistance. The idea is to permit Gates to focus on select countries, offering additional seats to non-commissioned officers and junior, field-grade and senior officers from those priority countries. The general’s memo notes former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani rooted out corruption in the city’s police force with significant infusions of retrained personnel.
“If we want to turn, for example, Pakistan’s officer corps more rapidly to a different footing, significantly increased numbers of their students may be a way for the Department to use targeted PME to our strategic advantage,” Mattis writes. “The selected countries would be your priorities and the seats, with free tuition, would be a strong inducement. We have the best military PME in the world but are too parsimonious with seats for foreign officers to gate full effect of gaining mil-to-mil ties.”
According to the Joint Staff, however, Mullen approved a five-year Pakistan PME plan last December, which not only increased Pakistani participation but also directed an annual determination of countries of emphasis to attend senior service schools. The Joint Staff’s J-5 and J-7 directorates are slated to host a meeting this month for National Defense University and service stakeholders to develop a holistic view of capability, capacity and constraints and to develop a process for prioritized invitations for the 2010 to 2011 academic year. A synchronized invitation plan would be developed for approval by July 30, according to the draft update.
In addition, Mattis urges Gates to direct officials to fix shortfalls with high-demand, low-density forces identified by JFCOM by making changes in organizational and personnel policies. “This is broadly stated on purpose, to permit the Chairman to prioritize and balance the organizational adaptations,” the general writes. “Bottom line would be for the Joint Staff and JFCOM to identify deficiencies in military specialties and organizations for the Chairman to direct a timeline for resolutions.”
The Joint Staff maintains its J-8 office leads the ongoing “force sufficiency” effort as part of the global force management process, developing recommendations to resolve capability shortfalls identified during the global force management “force sourcing process.” This effort follows the annual submission of the combatant command request for forces (RFFs) to meet rotational requirements, including requirements in support of IW activities, and joint force provider actions to satisfy those requests with the allocation of forces.
Those RFFs left “unsourced” are reviewed in the force sufficiency effort and, following an assessment of each capability, recommendations are developed to address the shortfalls, according to the Joint Staff. Recommendations may include programmatic changes to increase inventory, identification of “in-lieu of” options, changes in active component/Reserve component mix and accepting risk in a particular area, among other options.
The QDR process will “look at” irregular warfare and specifically at developing options to increase joint force capability in historically high-demand, low-density force areas, according to the Joint Staff.
The final recommendation in Mattis’ missive calls for DOD to launch a fully resourced effort to immediately develop first-class simulators for IW training. “We currently enjoy the best aviation and maritime training simulations in the world for our air and sea forces,” he writes. “Only the lack of focus and resources prevent our [special operations forces], Army and Marine ground units from gaining the same advantages in simulating tactical and ethical decision-making in ground combat. Simulators using gaming technology currently available can be resourced to replicate the close combat where we take most of our casualties under the most ethically bruising conditions. Casualty reduction, fewer ethical missteps, [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] reduction and enhanced mission success rates can be expected.”
According to the Joint Staff, the services have a number of fielded programs and ongoing initiatives to improve IW training. A JFCOM-led technology demonstration also fuses service requirements for better IW training. Recognizing the work already done in this area, the Joint Staff’s J-7 directorate plans to work with the services and combatant commands to update the survey of existing and planned IW training simulators and identify any persistent gaps this month. J-7 also plans to work with JFCOM to establish an IW training simulation working group. -- Christopher J. Castelli
Marine Gen. James Mattis, the head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, proposed seven “anchor points” for institutionalizing irregular warfare (IW) in a March 11 memo to Gates. During a meeting in February, Gates asked Mattis for thoughts on how to accomplish the goal while “maintaining a balance with other required capabilities and without negating our conventional and nuclear superiority,” the memo notes. Mattis -- who Gates described during a hearing last week as one of the military’s most “creative and thoughtful” minds -- kept the list short to avoid the appearance of going overboard.
Now the office of Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is drafting a memo to update Gates on the issues raised by Mattis. The unsigned draft -- which is subject to change -- says Mullen will form an IW working group to monitor these issues and provide Gates with periodic updates. But a military official said the group has not been created yet and that the Pentagon is exploring whether it might piggyback on an existing IW group of some kind, rather than establish a new organization.
In accordance with the DOD directive on irregular warfare, JFCOM has the overall responsibility for exploring new concepts and capabilities so that the U.S. armed forces are as effective in IW as they are in traditional warfare, recommending mechanisms and capabilities for increasing interoperability and integration in IW-related activities, and leading the collaborative development of joint standards for IW relevant training and readiness for individuals and units of the general purpose forces, said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Almarah Belk.
Mattis’ first idea calls for establishing a National Center for Small Unit Excellence to ensure IW superiority. The general argues in his memo this is the “first critical step” in ensuring the lessons of the battlefield are not lost at the tactical level, but rather that they are expanded and built upon as fundamental competencies of the armed forces.
“Innovative, adaptive leadership at the lowest levels is necessary to successfully conduct irregular warfare,” Mattis writes. “The Department of Defense lacks a comprehensive, interagency or joint approach to integrate and coordinate small unit excellence.” The center would integrate and leverage joint, service, interagency and academic initiatives for improving the ground combat performance of small unit leaders and units, including Army, Marine Corps and special operations troops, according to the general.
In its draft response, the Joint Staff notes the National Center for Small Unit Excellence is funded in the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2010 budget request. DOD budgeted $21.7 million for the center in FY-10 and $145.2 million across the future years defense plan. The under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness was tasked with developing a DOD instruction by Sept. 1 addressing the roles, responsibilities and authorities of the components of the center, which is in the process of being stood up by JFCOM.
JFCOM also established the Joint Irregular Warfare Center last June to proactively coordinate, prioritize and provide subject matter expertise and partner on all IW matters. The JIWC integrates IW activities across DOD, multinational and interagency partners for joint IW concept development and experimentation, training, doctrines and capability development. It also executes JFCOM’s responsibilities as the DOD executive agent for joint urban operations. In FY-09, the center has $7.8 million in operations accounts and $5 million in research and development; in FY-10 it is slated to receive $9 million in operations funding and $5.2 million in R&D.
As ITP reported last week, Mattis’ memo also calls for the outside review of the classified, country-specific defense planning scenarios to advocate the “appropriate inclusion of hybrid, complex threats.” The external “red team” review would ensure the “refinement” of defense planning scenarios if they are “too simplistic, or lacking in IW or hybrid aspects, or otherwise insufficient,” according to the memo. He suggested the outside team report directly to Gates or Pentagon policy chief Michèle Flournoy. The red team, he wrote, should be “directed to consider adding the Afghan Campaign as a stand-alone DPS -- it appears we will fight it for years, why not discipline the Department to include it in our DPS?”
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Gates said he created the red team to review not only the defense planning scenarios but also the QDR as a whole.
The Joint Staff’s draft says upon the completion of the QDR the Pentagon’s policy directorate will begin the development of a new lineup of DPS scenarios, noting, this “inclusive process” will feature a review of the existing library by both DOD and outside experts, and will “ensure the family of scenarios is appropriately balanced to address the future threat environment,” according to the Joint Staff.
Mattis also urges Gates to direct the Defense Intelligence Agency to produce an annual, unclassified update on the IW/hybrid threat akin to the Cold War-era “Soviet Military Power” booklet that helped broaden understanding of the Soviet threat throughout “our force and other interested parties at home and abroad.” The complexity of today’s transnational threat requires DOD to define enemies with clear, straightforward language in such a document, according to the general. “There is still too much confusion in our ranks,” he writes. The Joint Staff, JFCOM and DIA are working to define the handbook’s scope.
The general’s fourth proposal calls for DOD to run an IW/hybrid war game for the State Department and other agencies. “If we keep trying to incorporate the interagency into DOD war games, we continue to send the message that we (DOD) are in the lead,” he writes. “The other Departments do not have our wargaming capability, but if we offered to host and support their war game, we would reinforce the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor’s ongoing efforts to build the interagency effort without assuming DOD would always lead.”
The Joint Staff’s draft update says its J-8 directorate will contact JFCOM and determine through discussion the relevant State and interagency organizations that would benefit from an IW/hybrid warfare war game offering. Based on this assessment, the J-8 office and the Pentagon’s policy shop will research wargaming requirements and provide a recommendation on how to best represent those capabilities to the relevant State and interagency organizations in order to allow for these organizations to take the lead in the execution of such an effort.
Mattis also presses Gates to use the professional military education (PME) program as a strategic asset by directing each service to expand seats available for Gates to include foreign students of U.S. paid tuition assistance. The idea is to permit Gates to focus on select countries, offering additional seats to non-commissioned officers and junior, field-grade and senior officers from those priority countries. The general’s memo notes former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani rooted out corruption in the city’s police force with significant infusions of retrained personnel.
“If we want to turn, for example, Pakistan’s officer corps more rapidly to a different footing, significantly increased numbers of their students may be a way for the Department to use targeted PME to our strategic advantage,” Mattis writes. “The selected countries would be your priorities and the seats, with free tuition, would be a strong inducement. We have the best military PME in the world but are too parsimonious with seats for foreign officers to gate full effect of gaining mil-to-mil ties.”
According to the Joint Staff, however, Mullen approved a five-year Pakistan PME plan last December, which not only increased Pakistani participation but also directed an annual determination of countries of emphasis to attend senior service schools. The Joint Staff’s J-5 and J-7 directorates are slated to host a meeting this month for National Defense University and service stakeholders to develop a holistic view of capability, capacity and constraints and to develop a process for prioritized invitations for the 2010 to 2011 academic year. A synchronized invitation plan would be developed for approval by July 30, according to the draft update.
In addition, Mattis urges Gates to direct officials to fix shortfalls with high-demand, low-density forces identified by JFCOM by making changes in organizational and personnel policies. “This is broadly stated on purpose, to permit the Chairman to prioritize and balance the organizational adaptations,” the general writes. “Bottom line would be for the Joint Staff and JFCOM to identify deficiencies in military specialties and organizations for the Chairman to direct a timeline for resolutions.”
The Joint Staff maintains its J-8 office leads the ongoing “force sufficiency” effort as part of the global force management process, developing recommendations to resolve capability shortfalls identified during the global force management “force sourcing process.” This effort follows the annual submission of the combatant command request for forces (RFFs) to meet rotational requirements, including requirements in support of IW activities, and joint force provider actions to satisfy those requests with the allocation of forces.
Those RFFs left “unsourced” are reviewed in the force sufficiency effort and, following an assessment of each capability, recommendations are developed to address the shortfalls, according to the Joint Staff. Recommendations may include programmatic changes to increase inventory, identification of “in-lieu of” options, changes in active component/Reserve component mix and accepting risk in a particular area, among other options.
The QDR process will “look at” irregular warfare and specifically at developing options to increase joint force capability in historically high-demand, low-density force areas, according to the Joint Staff.
The final recommendation in Mattis’ missive calls for DOD to launch a fully resourced effort to immediately develop first-class simulators for IW training. “We currently enjoy the best aviation and maritime training simulations in the world for our air and sea forces,” he writes. “Only the lack of focus and resources prevent our [special operations forces], Army and Marine ground units from gaining the same advantages in simulating tactical and ethical decision-making in ground combat. Simulators using gaming technology currently available can be resourced to replicate the close combat where we take most of our casualties under the most ethically bruising conditions. Casualty reduction, fewer ethical missteps, [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] reduction and enhanced mission success rates can be expected.”
According to the Joint Staff, the services have a number of fielded programs and ongoing initiatives to improve IW training. A JFCOM-led technology demonstration also fuses service requirements for better IW training. Recognizing the work already done in this area, the Joint Staff’s J-7 directorate plans to work with the services and combatant commands to update the survey of existing and planned IW training simulators and identify any persistent gaps this month. J-7 also plans to work with JFCOM to establish an IW training simulation working group. -- Christopher J. Castelli
Flournoy: Gates, Lynn 'Very Engaged' in QDR, Will Ensure Budget Decisions 'Stick'
May 20, 2009 -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his deputy, William Lynn, are "very engaged" in guiding the Quadrennial Defense Review, a change from previous assessments that were "bottom-up staff exercises," the Pentagon's No. 3 official said today.
That dynamic, according to the under secretary of defense for policy, is expected to ensure forthcoming recommendations on altering weapon systems investment decisions endure.
Michèle Flournoy, a key player in the QDR, told defense reporters the sweeping assessment of the U.S. military enterprise will by summer's end lead to a new round of decisions about what ships, aircraft and ground vehicle programs can be purged from the modernization portfolio in order to increase spending on irregular warfare capabilities and efforts to deal with high-end asymmetric threats.
“To the extent we want to get out of the review insights that help frame and guide decision-making for the program in FY-11, we're aiming to have those insights by the summer time frame so that we can influence the program review,” Flournoy said.
The hands-on role being played by top Pentagon leaders, she added, “will make a difference in terms of making the results stick.”
The QDR, a congressionally mandated assessment that includes a review of force structure, strategy and equipment, recently kicked off with guidance from Gates to consider how the military might “rebalance” its capabilities to deal with an increasingly complex set of national security challenges. These include not only traditional military allies and terrorist groups, but forces like climate change and the global financial crisis.
“This QDR is going to continue the process of rebalancing that secretary Gates has begun in the FY-10 budget,”she said. “But I can't give you a sense of magnitude because we don't have the answers yet.”
Last month, Gates directed the formation of a QDR Red Team to provide an alternative to the assessment Flournoy and her office are leading. The Red Team is being led by Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net Assessment, and Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, with participation from experts outside the government.
“The primary purpose of this Red Team effort is to introduce a different range of scenarios, some of which actually are very high-end and very intensive, and they are beyond the scenario set that has been developed inside the [Pentagon],” she said.
The scenarios, she said, are an “important tool, but only one tool in the analysis in the QDR,” Flournoy said. These scenarios “don't determine outcomes, they don't dictate decisions,” she added. “But they will help frame some of the issues that we want to look at more closely with further analysis.”
Flournoy said that an internal assessment of previous QDRs found that having a red team was beneficial in many ways, one of which is it provides an avenue for nongovernmental officials to participate.
“There are some incredibly knowledgeable thoughtful people in the think-tank world, in academia, former government officials,” she said. “So we just want to have a mechanism to bring them into the process and benefit from their wisdom and insights. It is a way to open up the process and to find expertise wherever it resides.”
Through the QDR, the Pentagon is also revising its Force Planning Construct, which since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been designed around preparing to fight two major wars.
“Reality shows that we have to be able to do multiple things,” she said. “We're trying to capture [in an updated force planning construct] not just how many things, but the diverse range of the kinds of challenges that we may be called on to deal with.” -- Jason Sherman
That dynamic, according to the under secretary of defense for policy, is expected to ensure forthcoming recommendations on altering weapon systems investment decisions endure.
Michèle Flournoy, a key player in the QDR, told defense reporters the sweeping assessment of the U.S. military enterprise will by summer's end lead to a new round of decisions about what ships, aircraft and ground vehicle programs can be purged from the modernization portfolio in order to increase spending on irregular warfare capabilities and efforts to deal with high-end asymmetric threats.
“To the extent we want to get out of the review insights that help frame and guide decision-making for the program in FY-11, we're aiming to have those insights by the summer time frame so that we can influence the program review,” Flournoy said.
The hands-on role being played by top Pentagon leaders, she added, “will make a difference in terms of making the results stick.”
The QDR, a congressionally mandated assessment that includes a review of force structure, strategy and equipment, recently kicked off with guidance from Gates to consider how the military might “rebalance” its capabilities to deal with an increasingly complex set of national security challenges. These include not only traditional military allies and terrorist groups, but forces like climate change and the global financial crisis.
“This QDR is going to continue the process of rebalancing that secretary Gates has begun in the FY-10 budget,”she said. “But I can't give you a sense of magnitude because we don't have the answers yet.”
Last month, Gates directed the formation of a QDR Red Team to provide an alternative to the assessment Flournoy and her office are leading. The Red Team is being led by Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net Assessment, and Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, with participation from experts outside the government.
“The primary purpose of this Red Team effort is to introduce a different range of scenarios, some of which actually are very high-end and very intensive, and they are beyond the scenario set that has been developed inside the [Pentagon],” she said.
The scenarios, she said, are an “important tool, but only one tool in the analysis in the QDR,” Flournoy said. These scenarios “don't determine outcomes, they don't dictate decisions,” she added. “But they will help frame some of the issues that we want to look at more closely with further analysis.”
Flournoy said that an internal assessment of previous QDRs found that having a red team was beneficial in many ways, one of which is it provides an avenue for nongovernmental officials to participate.
“There are some incredibly knowledgeable thoughtful people in the think-tank world, in academia, former government officials,” she said. “So we just want to have a mechanism to bring them into the process and benefit from their wisdom and insights. It is a way to open up the process and to find expertise wherever it resides.”
Through the QDR, the Pentagon is also revising its Force Planning Construct, which since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been designed around preparing to fight two major wars.
“Reality shows that we have to be able to do multiple things,” she said. “We're trying to capture [in an updated force planning construct] not just how many things, but the diverse range of the kinds of challenges that we may be called on to deal with.” -- Jason Sherman
19 May 2009
Under Close Scrutiny from Gates, Service Wish Lists Get Smaller
May 18, 2009 -- The Air Force and Marine Corps have dramatically scaled back the size and scope of their new-equipment wish lists, suggesting that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is bringing the service chiefs to heel in curbing an annual practice through which the top brass have indirectly sought billions of dollars for systems not funded in Pentagon budget requests.
The Air Force today sent Congress a $1.9 billion list of unfunded requirements for fiscal year 2010 -- a list considerably smaller than the services' FY-09 compilation of $18.8 billion -- which features items urgently sought by combatant commanders, such as $180 million for the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node.
Likewise, the Marine Corps, which last year compiled more than $3 billion in “unfunded requirements” -- including $1.7 billion for a new amphibious assault warship -- today sent lawmakers a request that totals just $188 million for FY-10, including $117 million for new equipment.
InsideDefense.com obtained copies of the Air Force and Marine Corps lists. The Army and Navy are due to deliver their unfunded requirements lists to Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, who requested them last month.
Since the mid-1990s, when Congress began asking service chiefs to provide such lists, the service chiefs have prepared them without input from their political masters in the Office of the Secretary of Defense or the White House Office of Management and Budget. The cumulative total of equipment the services include in the list has grown dramatically from $7 billion in FY-01 to $35 billion in FY-08. Last year's lists -- for FY-09 -- added up to more than $30 billion.
This year, however, Gates is taking a new interest in these lists. Last month, he became the first defense secretary to assert a statutory prerogative to review the lists before the service chiefs sent them to Congress, as InsideDefense.com first reported May 6.
“I decided to actually ensure that everybody followed the statute,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee May 15. “I have no problem with them [service chiefs] putting together a list of unfundeds. But the law requires them to inform me, about that list, before they send it up here.”
Gates met with the service chiefs on Friday to hear exactly what they deemed “unfunded” beyond items included in the $435 billion FY-10 annual budget and accompanying $130 billion request for war funding.
The Marines list $100.4 million in procurement needs, including $10.5 million for 146 digital data link upgrade kits to improve communication with unmanned aerial vehicles; $28.9 million for 352 tactical truck trailers; and $58 million for tactical engineering vehicles. In addition, the Marine Corps could use an additional $17 million for a series of enhancements to the MV-22 Osprey, according to its list.
The Air Force has 20 items on its FY-10 wish list. Big-ticket items include $180.2 million for two commercial business jets that could carry airborne data link translators and $158 million for two Lockheed Martin HC-130J rescue tankers.
“These requirements provide direct support to our combatant commanders for the joint fight, accelerate programs to achieve national security goals, or identify programatic disconnects that resulted from the rapid close of the FY-10” budget revision, Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff, wrote in a letter to McHugh dated today that accompanies the list.
“Among the 20 items there are a few so mission-critical to the combatant commanders that we would provide offsets to ensure their funding, such as Battlefield Airborne Communications Node,” Norton added. “These urgent operational needs are our highest priorities.”
Schwartz last week said the Bombardier BD-700 jets equipped with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) have become a top urgent operational need for U.S. Central Command.
The tankers are needed for personnel recovery in the European and African theaters and “will help the Air Force meet the increasing demands for CSAR assets” from the combatant commanders, according to the document.
Another $120 million has been requested for three Sikorsky HH-60G combat search-and-rescue helicopters to replace aircraft lost in theater. The Air Force's base budget requested funding for two Pave Low choppers.
In addition, $169.5 million has been eyed for 11 high-priority military construction projects. The Air Force has substantially decreased its military construction budget in recent years to fund aircraft recapitalization projects.
Another $143 million has been requested for “F-35 procurement shortfalls.”
If approved, the money would “complete F-35 funding requirements to procure spares and support equipment for 10 programmed aircraft in FY-10,” the document states.
The service also has asked for $103.4 million for two Goodrich-built Operationally Responsive Space satellites' development and launch. Funding the satellites will mitigate a “CENTCOM ISR capability shortfall projected in FY-10,” according to the document.
The Air Force wants $50 million to buy five Active Electronically Scanned Array radars for F-15C fighter jets “to capitalize on previous development funding and continue outfitting the F-15C fleet with enhanced radar” and an electronic warfare capability, according to the document.
Another $44 million has been eyed for the procurement of 17 AIM-9X Sidewinder and 33 AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles. Both weapons are built by Raytheon. -- Jason Sherman and Marcus Weisgerber
The Air Force today sent Congress a $1.9 billion list of unfunded requirements for fiscal year 2010 -- a list considerably smaller than the services' FY-09 compilation of $18.8 billion -- which features items urgently sought by combatant commanders, such as $180 million for the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node.
Likewise, the Marine Corps, which last year compiled more than $3 billion in “unfunded requirements” -- including $1.7 billion for a new amphibious assault warship -- today sent lawmakers a request that totals just $188 million for FY-10, including $117 million for new equipment.
InsideDefense.com obtained copies of the Air Force and Marine Corps lists. The Army and Navy are due to deliver their unfunded requirements lists to Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, who requested them last month.
Since the mid-1990s, when Congress began asking service chiefs to provide such lists, the service chiefs have prepared them without input from their political masters in the Office of the Secretary of Defense or the White House Office of Management and Budget. The cumulative total of equipment the services include in the list has grown dramatically from $7 billion in FY-01 to $35 billion in FY-08. Last year's lists -- for FY-09 -- added up to more than $30 billion.
This year, however, Gates is taking a new interest in these lists. Last month, he became the first defense secretary to assert a statutory prerogative to review the lists before the service chiefs sent them to Congress, as InsideDefense.com first reported May 6.
“I decided to actually ensure that everybody followed the statute,” Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee May 15. “I have no problem with them [service chiefs] putting together a list of unfundeds. But the law requires them to inform me, about that list, before they send it up here.”
Gates met with the service chiefs on Friday to hear exactly what they deemed “unfunded” beyond items included in the $435 billion FY-10 annual budget and accompanying $130 billion request for war funding.
The Marines list $100.4 million in procurement needs, including $10.5 million for 146 digital data link upgrade kits to improve communication with unmanned aerial vehicles; $28.9 million for 352 tactical truck trailers; and $58 million for tactical engineering vehicles. In addition, the Marine Corps could use an additional $17 million for a series of enhancements to the MV-22 Osprey, according to its list.
The Air Force has 20 items on its FY-10 wish list. Big-ticket items include $180.2 million for two commercial business jets that could carry airborne data link translators and $158 million for two Lockheed Martin HC-130J rescue tankers.
“These requirements provide direct support to our combatant commanders for the joint fight, accelerate programs to achieve national security goals, or identify programatic disconnects that resulted from the rapid close of the FY-10” budget revision, Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff, wrote in a letter to McHugh dated today that accompanies the list.
“Among the 20 items there are a few so mission-critical to the combatant commanders that we would provide offsets to ensure their funding, such as Battlefield Airborne Communications Node,” Norton added. “These urgent operational needs are our highest priorities.”
Schwartz last week said the Bombardier BD-700 jets equipped with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) have become a top urgent operational need for U.S. Central Command.
The tankers are needed for personnel recovery in the European and African theaters and “will help the Air Force meet the increasing demands for CSAR assets” from the combatant commanders, according to the document.
Another $120 million has been requested for three Sikorsky HH-60G combat search-and-rescue helicopters to replace aircraft lost in theater. The Air Force's base budget requested funding for two Pave Low choppers.
In addition, $169.5 million has been eyed for 11 high-priority military construction projects. The Air Force has substantially decreased its military construction budget in recent years to fund aircraft recapitalization projects.
Another $143 million has been requested for “F-35 procurement shortfalls.”
If approved, the money would “complete F-35 funding requirements to procure spares and support equipment for 10 programmed aircraft in FY-10,” the document states.
The service also has asked for $103.4 million for two Goodrich-built Operationally Responsive Space satellites' development and launch. Funding the satellites will mitigate a “CENTCOM ISR capability shortfall projected in FY-10,” according to the document.
The Air Force wants $50 million to buy five Active Electronically Scanned Array radars for F-15C fighter jets “to capitalize on previous development funding and continue outfitting the F-15C fleet with enhanced radar” and an electronic warfare capability, according to the document.
Another $44 million has been eyed for the procurement of 17 AIM-9X Sidewinder and 33 AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles. Both weapons are built by Raytheon. -- Jason Sherman and Marcus Weisgerber
Future of Army Acquisition; Programs Live on
FCS Is Dead; Programs Live On. U.S. Army To Dissolve Flagship Acquisition Effort
Some six weeks after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was killing the vehicle portion of the Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems, service officials are poised to announce that the entire program will be broken up, Army spokes-man Paul Mehney said.
Many parts of the world's largest land warfare weapons program - overseen by a Boeing-SAIC team - will be swept into a new servicewide modernization effort, Mehney said.
Service leaders are still working out the contours of the successor program, which is to be called Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization (ABCTM). It will be asked to take over buying new vehicles - perhaps with wheels, not the rubber-band tracks of the FCS vehicles. And it will have a much bigger hand in the effort, now that FCS lead system integrator Boeing-SAIC has been yanked off the job.
Army sources say the firms will receive roughly $350 million in cancellation penalties.
ABCTM's name reflects the final death of the original vision of FCS: a program that would create a group of brand-new super-brigades and outfit them with next-generation, hyper-connected vehicles and gear.
Instead, the breakup highlights the philosophical shift that began with plans to spin out UAVs and networking equipment to existing units. Henceforth, the fruits of FCS will flow, in principle, to all of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams.
"The Future Combat Systems program is transitioning to an Army Brigade Combat Team effort which still encompasses a good percentage of FCS capabilities, but will not be limited to only FCS capabilities," Mehney said.
One analyst downplayed the changes.
"What comes out of this process will be fundamentally indistinguishable from FCS as we know it. You will still have a servicewide modernization effort," said Tom Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
And Boeing officials offered hopeful words.
"Boeing and its partners are meeting all FCS program milestones established by our customer, and our focus remains on continuing to execute to the Army's plan," Boeing spokesman Matt Billingsley said. "We look forward to building on the substantial investment and progress made to date on the program in support of Army modernization objectives and our nation's soldiers."
Revamping Plans
Army leaders are scrambling to revamp their acquisition plans for the new vehicles and the FCS command-and-control equipment, radios, UAVs, sensors and other gear.
In April, they sent a preliminary list of goals for the new efforts to Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter. The service is awaiting a response from Carter's office, as well as DoD's office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.
Meanwhile, the Army is laying more detailed plans to set up the new program office.
Yet the Army less than two weeks ago sent Congress a 2010 budget request that included $2.9 billion for FCS work. That number is down from the $3.6 billion the service received for FCS in 2009, and it's also less than the $3.6 billion that it had planned to request this year.
The missing $700 million was cut primarily from the Manned Ground Vehicle account, leaving $368 million - basically enough to cover the anticipated cancellation penalty.
According to the list, other FCS-related items in the 2010 request include:
■ $1 billion for systems engineering.
■ $749 million for network hardware and software.
■ $125 million for Unmanned Ground Vehicles.
■ $88 million for the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System.
■ $68 million for UAVs and other airborne reconnaissance gear.
■ $58 million for the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon.
■ $26 million for Unattended Ground Sensors.
Army officials say they hope they will receive strong congressional support for their new approach.
"There is broad-based support for IBCTs [infantry brigade combat teams] and good support for the incremental strategy that is being worked now to deliver spinouts to all 73 BCTs [Brigade Combat Teams] between now and 2025," Mehney said.
One House Armed Services Committee member said lawmakers want to know more.
"We are all ears and awaiting details. Nobody on the committee will be surprised that FCS is being restructured," said Rep. Jim Marshall, R-Ga.
One congressional source said adjustments to the budget submission are likely.
"The one thing out of the whole program that has strong member support is spinout EIBCT," the source said. EIBCT refers to the items that the Army has been calling Spinout 1, the source said.
"With all the contract changes proposed, will that stay on schedule?" he asked.
New Vehicles
The Army has asked for $100 million in 2010 to launch the ABCTM effort, according to a list of FCS-related items in the 2010 budget request. A copy of the list was obtained by Defense News.
Program officials, led by Rickey Smith, who directs the Army's Capabilities Integration Center-Forward, are already drawing up requirements for the new vehicles.
The new vehicles might run on wheels instead of the tracks envisioned for the MGVs, Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on May 14. They will include at least some FCS technology, he said.
Service officials intend to present preliminary requirements to Carter by Labor Day, Mehney said.
The Army aims to field its first vehicle within five to seven years, according to Lt. Gen. James Thurman, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations.
At least one analyst doubts that.
"You will probably see a minimum of a two- to five-year delay from the production date of 2013," said Jim McAleese, principal associate with McAleese and Associates, a Virginia-based law firm.
Contracting Changes
It's not yet clear how much the breakup of FCS will affect industry. Army officials are already talking with Boeing-SAIC about the early-termination charges for the cancelled vehicles, and will soon open formal talks.
"With any procurement and development contract, there are standard termination liabilities. We will enter into a negotiation period to discuss the contract," Mehney said.
A Boeing-SAIC spokesman declined to confirm the Army source's figure of roughly $350 million.
The Army planned to spend $87 billion over 15 years to develop and build the eight variants of the now-cancelled Manned Ground Vehicle. Experts estimate at least $10 billion to $15 billion has been spent since FCS got off the ground in 1999.
Boeing-SAIC, which has been paid about $4 billion to date for its FCS work, stood to have taken a good chunk of the remaining vehicle funding, but much of that money would have gone to subcontractors such as BAE Systems, which is currently testing prototypes of the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon.
Under the new ABCTM program, the Army will deal directly with vehicle suppliers, leaving Boeing-SAIC out.
"The immediate downside for Boeing is approximately a 15-percent loss in profit from the $750 million which was in the 2010 plan for MGV," McAleese said.
But McAleese said Boeing-SAIC will still have a critical role in the new vehicles because they will carry FCS networking gear, requiring support and training.
"Those vehicles will host the FCS network. They will be integrally involved," he said.
And Boeing-SAIC will remain lead systems integrator (LSI) for the spinout technologies, network and other gear, an Army official said.
Donnelly said the Army would be well-served by keeping an LSI for the new vehicles.
"If you don't design the vehicle around the network, you will go back to the old traditional contractor-determined vehicle design," he said. "At the end of the day, you still will have to have a force that talks to each other. The whole idea of an LSI is to make changes across the whole force as opposed to having individual systems.
"You will still need an electric-drive engine to run all the widgets. I doubt we will build a 70-ton tank again. If you are looking for a family of vehicles to build a force around, there are a lot of questions regarding whether a big tank is what you need."
Another analyst said the breakup of FCS was the right move for the Army.
"It will be better for the ground forces to have FCS broken up. Conventional insurgencies turn out to be situations where you want heavy vehicles," said Ben Friedman, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies with the CATO Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. "We don't need to get there that fast, you can get to theater on sealift. It is probably good that the Pentagon is adjusting to realities that turn out to be different." ■
E-mail: kosborn@defensenews.com.
Some six weeks after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was killing the vehicle portion of the Army's $160 billion Future Combat Systems, service officials are poised to announce that the entire program will be broken up, Army spokes-man Paul Mehney said.
Many parts of the world's largest land warfare weapons program - overseen by a Boeing-SAIC team - will be swept into a new servicewide modernization effort, Mehney said.
Service leaders are still working out the contours of the successor program, which is to be called Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization (ABCTM). It will be asked to take over buying new vehicles - perhaps with wheels, not the rubber-band tracks of the FCS vehicles. And it will have a much bigger hand in the effort, now that FCS lead system integrator Boeing-SAIC has been yanked off the job.
Army sources say the firms will receive roughly $350 million in cancellation penalties.
ABCTM's name reflects the final death of the original vision of FCS: a program that would create a group of brand-new super-brigades and outfit them with next-generation, hyper-connected vehicles and gear.
Instead, the breakup highlights the philosophical shift that began with plans to spin out UAVs and networking equipment to existing units. Henceforth, the fruits of FCS will flow, in principle, to all of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams.
"The Future Combat Systems program is transitioning to an Army Brigade Combat Team effort which still encompasses a good percentage of FCS capabilities, but will not be limited to only FCS capabilities," Mehney said.
One analyst downplayed the changes.
"What comes out of this process will be fundamentally indistinguishable from FCS as we know it. You will still have a servicewide modernization effort," said Tom Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
And Boeing officials offered hopeful words.
"Boeing and its partners are meeting all FCS program milestones established by our customer, and our focus remains on continuing to execute to the Army's plan," Boeing spokesman Matt Billingsley said. "We look forward to building on the substantial investment and progress made to date on the program in support of Army modernization objectives and our nation's soldiers."
Revamping Plans
Army leaders are scrambling to revamp their acquisition plans for the new vehicles and the FCS command-and-control equipment, radios, UAVs, sensors and other gear.
In April, they sent a preliminary list of goals for the new efforts to Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter. The service is awaiting a response from Carter's office, as well as DoD's office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.
Meanwhile, the Army is laying more detailed plans to set up the new program office.
Yet the Army less than two weeks ago sent Congress a 2010 budget request that included $2.9 billion for FCS work. That number is down from the $3.6 billion the service received for FCS in 2009, and it's also less than the $3.6 billion that it had planned to request this year.
The missing $700 million was cut primarily from the Manned Ground Vehicle account, leaving $368 million - basically enough to cover the anticipated cancellation penalty.
According to the list, other FCS-related items in the 2010 request include:
■ $1 billion for systems engineering.
■ $749 million for network hardware and software.
■ $125 million for Unmanned Ground Vehicles.
■ $88 million for the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System.
■ $68 million for UAVs and other airborne reconnaissance gear.
■ $58 million for the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon.
■ $26 million for Unattended Ground Sensors.
Army officials say they hope they will receive strong congressional support for their new approach.
"There is broad-based support for IBCTs [infantry brigade combat teams] and good support for the incremental strategy that is being worked now to deliver spinouts to all 73 BCTs [Brigade Combat Teams] between now and 2025," Mehney said.
One House Armed Services Committee member said lawmakers want to know more.
"We are all ears and awaiting details. Nobody on the committee will be surprised that FCS is being restructured," said Rep. Jim Marshall, R-Ga.
One congressional source said adjustments to the budget submission are likely.
"The one thing out of the whole program that has strong member support is spinout EIBCT," the source said. EIBCT refers to the items that the Army has been calling Spinout 1, the source said.
"With all the contract changes proposed, will that stay on schedule?" he asked.
New Vehicles
The Army has asked for $100 million in 2010 to launch the ABCTM effort, according to a list of FCS-related items in the 2010 budget request. A copy of the list was obtained by Defense News.
Program officials, led by Rickey Smith, who directs the Army's Capabilities Integration Center-Forward, are already drawing up requirements for the new vehicles.
The new vehicles might run on wheels instead of the tracks envisioned for the MGVs, Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on May 14. They will include at least some FCS technology, he said.
Service officials intend to present preliminary requirements to Carter by Labor Day, Mehney said.
The Army aims to field its first vehicle within five to seven years, according to Lt. Gen. James Thurman, the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations.
At least one analyst doubts that.
"You will probably see a minimum of a two- to five-year delay from the production date of 2013," said Jim McAleese, principal associate with McAleese and Associates, a Virginia-based law firm.
Contracting Changes
It's not yet clear how much the breakup of FCS will affect industry. Army officials are already talking with Boeing-SAIC about the early-termination charges for the cancelled vehicles, and will soon open formal talks.
"With any procurement and development contract, there are standard termination liabilities. We will enter into a negotiation period to discuss the contract," Mehney said.
A Boeing-SAIC spokesman declined to confirm the Army source's figure of roughly $350 million.
The Army planned to spend $87 billion over 15 years to develop and build the eight variants of the now-cancelled Manned Ground Vehicle. Experts estimate at least $10 billion to $15 billion has been spent since FCS got off the ground in 1999.
Boeing-SAIC, which has been paid about $4 billion to date for its FCS work, stood to have taken a good chunk of the remaining vehicle funding, but much of that money would have gone to subcontractors such as BAE Systems, which is currently testing prototypes of the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon.
Under the new ABCTM program, the Army will deal directly with vehicle suppliers, leaving Boeing-SAIC out.
"The immediate downside for Boeing is approximately a 15-percent loss in profit from the $750 million which was in the 2010 plan for MGV," McAleese said.
But McAleese said Boeing-SAIC will still have a critical role in the new vehicles because they will carry FCS networking gear, requiring support and training.
"Those vehicles will host the FCS network. They will be integrally involved," he said.
And Boeing-SAIC will remain lead systems integrator (LSI) for the spinout technologies, network and other gear, an Army official said.
Donnelly said the Army would be well-served by keeping an LSI for the new vehicles.
"If you don't design the vehicle around the network, you will go back to the old traditional contractor-determined vehicle design," he said. "At the end of the day, you still will have to have a force that talks to each other. The whole idea of an LSI is to make changes across the whole force as opposed to having individual systems.
"You will still need an electric-drive engine to run all the widgets. I doubt we will build a 70-ton tank again. If you are looking for a family of vehicles to build a force around, there are a lot of questions regarding whether a big tank is what you need."
Another analyst said the breakup of FCS was the right move for the Army.
"It will be better for the ground forces to have FCS broken up. Conventional insurgencies turn out to be situations where you want heavy vehicles," said Ben Friedman, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies with the CATO Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank. "We don't need to get there that fast, you can get to theater on sealift. It is probably good that the Pentagon is adjusting to realities that turn out to be different." ■
E-mail: kosborn@defensenews.com.
18 May 2009
ARMY ASSESSING BRIGADE COMBAT MODERNIZATION IN PLAN DUE TO OSD
The Army is slated to return by Labor Day a large-scale review that addresses its brigade combat team modernization strategy -- including its new ground combat vehicle effort, the remaining parts of the Future Combat Systems program and the FCS spin-out effort, according to an Army official.
The source tells Inside the Army the plan, due to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and being prepared by the Army office for programs (G-8) and Training and Doctrine Command, is part of the service’s effort to adapt its modernization strategy to reflect Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ termination of the manned ground vehicle component of the FCS program.
The Army official tells ITA that the service’s sweeping review is being coordinated with the Quadrennial Defense Review now under way.
The analysis is set to certainly address the ground combat vehicle effort, the initiative to find a new vehicle to replace the MGV family. During a May 14 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said the work is now the service’s “highest priority, and I totally support it.”
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee last week that he would like to see the new vehicle fielded in five to seven years. That tight deadline means the service will likely have to rely on existing technology, he told reporters after the hearing.
Casey stressed that the service is starting with a blank page and “will work to include both lessons from the current fight and what we’ve learned from technology and build a better vehicle.”
The Army official tells ITA that the new ground combat vehicle will prioritize survivability, meaning some mobility and transportability requirements may be eased. The survivability requirement could result in a tracked vehicle, the source said.
Speaking to reporters after testifying May 14 before the House Armed Services Committee, Casey said the vehicle must “have a range of capabilities.
“Survivability certainly will be a very important factor, but -- as within all these vehicles -- we have to weigh survivability, mobility, speed, everything,” he continued.
Both Casey and the Army source said the service -- in weighing off-the-shelf technology -- will be open to considering foreign-made vehicles. Additionally, Casey told reporters on Capitol Hill last week that the Army is “going to want to put these on C-17s. Anything we have needs to go on C-17s.”
In its fiscal year 2010 budget, the Army has allotted $100 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding to launch the modernization effort, according to budget documents. The money is designated for “Manned Ground Vehicle,” which the Army official confirmed is for the ground combat vehicle development effort.
According to FY-10 budget documents, the funding reflects “preliminary analysis” and “adjustments may occur which could potentially change planned accomplishments [and] funding requirements.”
“The funding is based on an independent assessment made by [OSD’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group] and [Program Analysis and Evaluation],” the budget justification documents state. “Currently the requirements are being defined for this new combat vehicle program. Preliminary analysis suggest[s] a contract award in the 3rd quarter FY10 to begin the development of the [infantry carrier vehicle] (Bradley replacement).”
Casey told reporters last week that the new ground combat vehicle “needs to be a fighting vehicle, not a troop carrier.
“Whether it’s just one vehicle or whether it’s a family of vehicles, we don’t know yet,” Casey continued. “After Labor Day, we expect to have something.”
The Army’s review is also set to examine the spin-outs planned for the FCS components as well as potential ways to adapt existing vehicles, such as the Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Stryker and the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, to work with FCS, the source said.
In particular, the service will send both MRAPs and Strykers to Ft. Bliss, TX, home of the Army Evaluation Task Force, for network integration, according to Casey (see related story).
Casey told reporters last week that the Army is faced with balancing its new effort with the needs of existing vehicles.
“So you can imagine what we’re wrestling with,” he said. “You’ve got to keep the tanks and the Bradleys modernized, but at the same time, we’re going to try to bring on replacement vehicles, so we’re trying to get the right balance.”
Almost $1.1 billion is included in the FY-10 budget under “FCS System of Systems Engineer and Program Management,” which the source said will include the costs of networking analysis to consider ways to adapt existing equipment.
After last week’s hearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters that the “network is key” to the new ground combat vehicle initiative.
“The network remains fundamental,” he said.
The $368.5 million set aside for manned ground vehicles and the $58.2 million designated for the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon in the Army’s RDT&E budget are placeholders intended to represent potential termination liability costs, which have yet to be negotiated, ITA reported last week.
The Army source said the contract renegotiation poses an opportunity for the service to potentially move more of the program management to the service and away from contractors. Both Gates and John Young, the former DOD acquisition chief, have criticized the terms of the contract. During a roundtable last month, Young said the fee was not focused enough on objective results, while Gates during the Senate hearing called the contract “all messed up.”
“Ninety percent of the . . . performance fee . . . is guaranteed at a critical design review,” Gates added at the hearing. “So there’s little performance incentive left for the rest of the program, including prototyping and so on.”
As analysis continues, the Army is also seeking to formally recognize the changes in the FCS program. An acquisition decision memorandum terminating the vehicle component of FCS is expected this week, the source said, following the completion of last week’s system-of-systems preliminary design review.
“When that is over, we, with the Department of Defense, will issue an acquisition decision memorandum that will halt the Future Combat Systems program as we know it today,” Casey said during last week’s hearing. “We will then work with the contractor to split out the manned ground vehicle from the other systems, in an attempt to do that in a way that does not slow the development and the fielding of the spin-outs.” -- Marjorie Censer and Kate Brannen
The source tells Inside the Army the plan, due to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and being prepared by the Army office for programs (G-8) and Training and Doctrine Command, is part of the service’s effort to adapt its modernization strategy to reflect Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ termination of the manned ground vehicle component of the FCS program.
The Army official tells ITA that the service’s sweeping review is being coordinated with the Quadrennial Defense Review now under way.
The analysis is set to certainly address the ground combat vehicle effort, the initiative to find a new vehicle to replace the MGV family. During a May 14 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said the work is now the service’s “highest priority, and I totally support it.”
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee last week that he would like to see the new vehicle fielded in five to seven years. That tight deadline means the service will likely have to rely on existing technology, he told reporters after the hearing.
Casey stressed that the service is starting with a blank page and “will work to include both lessons from the current fight and what we’ve learned from technology and build a better vehicle.”
The Army official tells ITA that the new ground combat vehicle will prioritize survivability, meaning some mobility and transportability requirements may be eased. The survivability requirement could result in a tracked vehicle, the source said.
Speaking to reporters after testifying May 14 before the House Armed Services Committee, Casey said the vehicle must “have a range of capabilities.
“Survivability certainly will be a very important factor, but -- as within all these vehicles -- we have to weigh survivability, mobility, speed, everything,” he continued.
Both Casey and the Army source said the service -- in weighing off-the-shelf technology -- will be open to considering foreign-made vehicles. Additionally, Casey told reporters on Capitol Hill last week that the Army is “going to want to put these on C-17s. Anything we have needs to go on C-17s.”
In its fiscal year 2010 budget, the Army has allotted $100 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding to launch the modernization effort, according to budget documents. The money is designated for “Manned Ground Vehicle,” which the Army official confirmed is for the ground combat vehicle development effort.
According to FY-10 budget documents, the funding reflects “preliminary analysis” and “adjustments may occur which could potentially change planned accomplishments [and] funding requirements.”
“The funding is based on an independent assessment made by [OSD’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group] and [Program Analysis and Evaluation],” the budget justification documents state. “Currently the requirements are being defined for this new combat vehicle program. Preliminary analysis suggest[s] a contract award in the 3rd quarter FY10 to begin the development of the [infantry carrier vehicle] (Bradley replacement).”
Casey told reporters last week that the new ground combat vehicle “needs to be a fighting vehicle, not a troop carrier.
“Whether it’s just one vehicle or whether it’s a family of vehicles, we don’t know yet,” Casey continued. “After Labor Day, we expect to have something.”
The Army’s review is also set to examine the spin-outs planned for the FCS components as well as potential ways to adapt existing vehicles, such as the Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Stryker and the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, to work with FCS, the source said.
In particular, the service will send both MRAPs and Strykers to Ft. Bliss, TX, home of the Army Evaluation Task Force, for network integration, according to Casey (see related story).
Casey told reporters last week that the Army is faced with balancing its new effort with the needs of existing vehicles.
“So you can imagine what we’re wrestling with,” he said. “You’ve got to keep the tanks and the Bradleys modernized, but at the same time, we’re going to try to bring on replacement vehicles, so we’re trying to get the right balance.”
Almost $1.1 billion is included in the FY-10 budget under “FCS System of Systems Engineer and Program Management,” which the source said will include the costs of networking analysis to consider ways to adapt existing equipment.
After last week’s hearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters that the “network is key” to the new ground combat vehicle initiative.
“The network remains fundamental,” he said.
The $368.5 million set aside for manned ground vehicles and the $58.2 million designated for the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon in the Army’s RDT&E budget are placeholders intended to represent potential termination liability costs, which have yet to be negotiated, ITA reported last week.
The Army source said the contract renegotiation poses an opportunity for the service to potentially move more of the program management to the service and away from contractors. Both Gates and John Young, the former DOD acquisition chief, have criticized the terms of the contract. During a roundtable last month, Young said the fee was not focused enough on objective results, while Gates during the Senate hearing called the contract “all messed up.”
“Ninety percent of the . . . performance fee . . . is guaranteed at a critical design review,” Gates added at the hearing. “So there’s little performance incentive left for the rest of the program, including prototyping and so on.”
As analysis continues, the Army is also seeking to formally recognize the changes in the FCS program. An acquisition decision memorandum terminating the vehicle component of FCS is expected this week, the source said, following the completion of last week’s system-of-systems preliminary design review.
“When that is over, we, with the Department of Defense, will issue an acquisition decision memorandum that will halt the Future Combat Systems program as we know it today,” Casey said during last week’s hearing. “We will then work with the contractor to split out the manned ground vehicle from the other systems, in an attempt to do that in a way that does not slow the development and the fielding of the spin-outs.” -- Marjorie Censer and Kate Brannen
STANLEY DOWNPLAYS CALL TO INVEST 4 PERCENT OF GDP ON DEFENSE
Admiral against spending ‘extra dollars’
Vice Adm. Stephen Stanley, the Joint Staff’s director of force structure, resources and assessment (J-8), this week downplayed the call by some inside the Pentagon and out to spend 4 percent of gross domestic product on national defense.
Historically, the United States has been able to fund defense at about 4 percent of GDP, including during the Vietnam war, the Reagan administration’s arms buildup and the first Gulf war, Stanley said during a May 11 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association luncheon in Washington.
“So we can afford that requirement,” Stanley told the audience. “Now, should we fund at that level? Well, my perspective is no. I don’t want us to spend one extra dollar on defense. I want to spend every dollar on defense that’s required. So if we’re able to afford the nation’s defense at 3, 3.5 percent, that’s all we should spend, from my perspective.”
Although Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen often says “it’s got to be 4 percent,” he uses these statements as “a way to start the dialogue,” including what the nation can afford, Stanley explained.
This year, discussion of the 4 percent rule emerged again.
In February, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced a joint resolution supporting a base defense budget that at a minimum matches 4 percent of gross domestic product. It was referred to the armed services committees.
“This legislation serves the national interest, first and foremost, because it will allocate the resources necessary to protect the United States,” argued the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, James Carafano and Mackenzie Eaglen at the time. “Adopting the spending guideline proposed by this resolution and crafting annual defense budgets to implement its goals would be the most efficacious means to not only sustain but revitalize the military America needs.”
Even during an economic slowdown, the U.S. economy can afford to devote no less than 4 percent of GDP to the core defense program, the foundation analysts asserted. The proposed level of defense spending is achievable and sustainable, they argued.
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation also weighed in on the debate earlier this year, noting Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican Sen. John McCain (AZ), Mullen, conservative security analysts and several members of Congress have endorsed the 4 percent proposal.
“First and foremost, it is worth pointing out that when including war funding, the United States already devotes well over 4 percent of GDP to defense,” the center said in a statement. “Advocates of the 4 percent plan conveniently omit war costs from their calculations, as if spending on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan somehow does not count as defense. Moreover, the United States spends significantly more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, for defense today than it has at any time since World War II.”
In fiscal year 2009, the United States spent $513 billion, or 3.4 percent of GDP, according to the center’s calculations. Adding in war costs, the country spent $687 billion, or 4.6 percent of GDP, on defense, the center noted. -- Fawzia Sheikh
Vice Adm. Stephen Stanley, the Joint Staff’s director of force structure, resources and assessment (J-8), this week downplayed the call by some inside the Pentagon and out to spend 4 percent of gross domestic product on national defense.
Historically, the United States has been able to fund defense at about 4 percent of GDP, including during the Vietnam war, the Reagan administration’s arms buildup and the first Gulf war, Stanley said during a May 11 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association luncheon in Washington.
“So we can afford that requirement,” Stanley told the audience. “Now, should we fund at that level? Well, my perspective is no. I don’t want us to spend one extra dollar on defense. I want to spend every dollar on defense that’s required. So if we’re able to afford the nation’s defense at 3, 3.5 percent, that’s all we should spend, from my perspective.”
Although Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen often says “it’s got to be 4 percent,” he uses these statements as “a way to start the dialogue,” including what the nation can afford, Stanley explained.
This year, discussion of the 4 percent rule emerged again.
In February, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) introduced a joint resolution supporting a base defense budget that at a minimum matches 4 percent of gross domestic product. It was referred to the armed services committees.
“This legislation serves the national interest, first and foremost, because it will allocate the resources necessary to protect the United States,” argued the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, James Carafano and Mackenzie Eaglen at the time. “Adopting the spending guideline proposed by this resolution and crafting annual defense budgets to implement its goals would be the most efficacious means to not only sustain but revitalize the military America needs.”
Even during an economic slowdown, the U.S. economy can afford to devote no less than 4 percent of GDP to the core defense program, the foundation analysts asserted. The proposed level of defense spending is achievable and sustainable, they argued.
The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation also weighed in on the debate earlier this year, noting Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican Sen. John McCain (AZ), Mullen, conservative security analysts and several members of Congress have endorsed the 4 percent proposal.
“First and foremost, it is worth pointing out that when including war funding, the United States already devotes well over 4 percent of GDP to defense,” the center said in a statement. “Advocates of the 4 percent plan conveniently omit war costs from their calculations, as if spending on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan somehow does not count as defense. Moreover, the United States spends significantly more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, for defense today than it has at any time since World War II.”
In fiscal year 2009, the United States spent $513 billion, or 3.4 percent of GDP, according to the center’s calculations. Adding in war costs, the country spent $687 billion, or 4.6 percent of GDP, on defense, the center noted. -- Fawzia Sheikh
16 May 2009
DOD INJECTS NEW SCENARIOS INTO QDR PROCESS TO TACKLE HYBRID WAR
In a bid to ensure hybrid, complex threats like those tied to Afghanistan inform the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon has injected a second set of defense planning scenarios into the mix -- but with the fast-tracked QDR slated to climax this summer, some officials see little time to refine the new “red team” scenarios.
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he created the red team to review not only the defense planning scenarios but also the QDR as a whole.
“I not only think that having a red team for the QDR is a good idea, I’ve already moved in that direction,” said Gates. “And the person who will lead the red team is the same person who led the red team for the last QDR and that’s Dr. Andy Marshall.”
Marshall, the head of the Pentagon’s net assessment office, will be assisted by Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, who Gates described as one of the military’s most “creative and thoughtful” minds. The team will also include outside experts, Gates said.
“I’ve actually got them red teaming both the scenarios and the QDR itself so that we’re not prisoners of bureaucratic group-think of people who have done this work forever,” said Gates.
Mattis called for the outside review of the classified, country-specific defense planning scenarios (DPS) in a March 11 memo to Gates that proposed “anchor points” for institutionalizing irregular warfare. Gates has cited “complex hybrid warfare” in the context of rebalancing the Pentagon’s budget to address the full spectrum of threats. At the Army War College last month, he noted this will be the first QDR to fully incorporate many lessons learned on the battlefield these last few years “about what mix of hybrid tactics future adversaries, both state and non-state actors, are likely to pursue.” But how QDR officials will grapple with hybrid warfare while planning for future missions is still being determined; the scenarios will be key.
The external “red team” review would ensure the “refinement” of defense planning scenarios if they are “too simplistic, or lacking in IW or hybrid aspects, or otherwise insufficient,” according to Mattis’ memo, a copy of which was reviewed by Inside the Pentagon. He suggested the outside team report directly to Gates or Pentagon policy chief Michèle Flournoy. The red team, he wrote, should be “directed to consider adding the Afghan Campaign as a stand-alone DPS -- it appears we will fight it for years, why not discipline the Department to include it in our DPS?”
The Joint Staff defines a DPS as a depiction of a threat to international security, a corresponding mission for U.S. military forces and a strategic-level concept of operation for carrying out that mission. Typically, a single set of scenarios approved by the defense secretary serves as a standard by which senior defense officials can measure the sufficiency of the defense program. That set of scenarios is supposed to ensure consistency for DOD studies, war games and experiments. But the dawn of the red team effort has left some Pentagon officials wondering which scenarios will inform the QDR.
It could be the QDR would draw on both sets of scenarios, which might “tell you different things,” one service official speculated. Without question the first set will be more detailed, but the second set could provide some insights, the official added. A defense official noted the alternative scenarios might not be given as much weight as the other set of more detailed scenarios, which could be a source of tension down the road.
The service official added there is some general concern in the Pentagon about the red team scenarios, not the least of which is practicality. How much work can be done on the new scenarios in the next month and a half or so, before the QDR starts producing recommendations in August, is unclear, the official said. Given the “tremendous” investment of time and manpower required to develop scenarios and the finite amount of time available, the official said, one concern is mistakes could be made, while another is that some might ask, “Why not my idea?” Still, there is not active angst over the red team effort, the official added.
Mattis was the instigator for the red team effort, the defense official said, and the Joint Staff jumped on board because the QDR team did not want to use the joint capability areas contained in the 2008 Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review. The Army then jumped on board because there was a concern that the current scenarios did not include a major combat operation option, the official said, noting Iraq and Afghanistan are part of the assessment, but the Army wanted another scenario for a large-scale ground invasion of another country.
Two things are going on, the official said: A desire to use the joint operational concepts and conceptual work developed through JFCOM and a desire to use alternative scenarios to justify sizing for a major combat operation.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Martin Downie declined to comment on whether the Army had voiced concerns to the Office of the Secretary of Defense about the original DPS set being light on ground scenarios.
InsideDefense.com reported earlier this year that the QDR would mull missions like U.S.-led stability and reconstruction operations, steady-state demands, major conflicts against state adversaries and defense of the homeland and civil support. U.S.-led stability and reconstruction operations mulled would include Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as North Korea in the event of regime collapse and Pakistan in the event the Pakistani government lost control of its nuclear weapons. Potential major conflicts eyed would involve China (a crisis over Taiwan), Russia (coercion of Baltic states) and Iran (with nuclear weapons).
But these are potential missions, not the classified scenarios, another service official said. The Army prefers a North Korea-, Iran-, Nigeria- or Pakistan-type scenario that could be non-warlike but would require boots on the ground, the official added.
In his memo to Gates, Mattis outlined several other steps to institutionalize irregular warfare in DOD, including establishing a national center for small unit excellence to ensure IW superiority; directing the Defense Intelligence Agency to produce an annual, unclassified update on the IW/hybrid threat; offering to run an IW/hyrbid war game for the State Department and other agencies, using the professional military education program as a strategic asset; directing officials to fix shortfalls with high-demand, low-density forces identified by JFCOM; and directing a fully resourced effort to immediately develop first-class simulators for IW training. -- Christopher J. Castelli
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he created the red team to review not only the defense planning scenarios but also the QDR as a whole.
“I not only think that having a red team for the QDR is a good idea, I’ve already moved in that direction,” said Gates. “And the person who will lead the red team is the same person who led the red team for the last QDR and that’s Dr. Andy Marshall.”
Marshall, the head of the Pentagon’s net assessment office, will be assisted by Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, who Gates described as one of the military’s most “creative and thoughtful” minds. The team will also include outside experts, Gates said.
“I’ve actually got them red teaming both the scenarios and the QDR itself so that we’re not prisoners of bureaucratic group-think of people who have done this work forever,” said Gates.
Mattis called for the outside review of the classified, country-specific defense planning scenarios (DPS) in a March 11 memo to Gates that proposed “anchor points” for institutionalizing irregular warfare. Gates has cited “complex hybrid warfare” in the context of rebalancing the Pentagon’s budget to address the full spectrum of threats. At the Army War College last month, he noted this will be the first QDR to fully incorporate many lessons learned on the battlefield these last few years “about what mix of hybrid tactics future adversaries, both state and non-state actors, are likely to pursue.” But how QDR officials will grapple with hybrid warfare while planning for future missions is still being determined; the scenarios will be key.
The external “red team” review would ensure the “refinement” of defense planning scenarios if they are “too simplistic, or lacking in IW or hybrid aspects, or otherwise insufficient,” according to Mattis’ memo, a copy of which was reviewed by Inside the Pentagon. He suggested the outside team report directly to Gates or Pentagon policy chief Michèle Flournoy. The red team, he wrote, should be “directed to consider adding the Afghan Campaign as a stand-alone DPS -- it appears we will fight it for years, why not discipline the Department to include it in our DPS?”
The Joint Staff defines a DPS as a depiction of a threat to international security, a corresponding mission for U.S. military forces and a strategic-level concept of operation for carrying out that mission. Typically, a single set of scenarios approved by the defense secretary serves as a standard by which senior defense officials can measure the sufficiency of the defense program. That set of scenarios is supposed to ensure consistency for DOD studies, war games and experiments. But the dawn of the red team effort has left some Pentagon officials wondering which scenarios will inform the QDR.
It could be the QDR would draw on both sets of scenarios, which might “tell you different things,” one service official speculated. Without question the first set will be more detailed, but the second set could provide some insights, the official added. A defense official noted the alternative scenarios might not be given as much weight as the other set of more detailed scenarios, which could be a source of tension down the road.
The service official added there is some general concern in the Pentagon about the red team scenarios, not the least of which is practicality. How much work can be done on the new scenarios in the next month and a half or so, before the QDR starts producing recommendations in August, is unclear, the official said. Given the “tremendous” investment of time and manpower required to develop scenarios and the finite amount of time available, the official said, one concern is mistakes could be made, while another is that some might ask, “Why not my idea?” Still, there is not active angst over the red team effort, the official added.
Mattis was the instigator for the red team effort, the defense official said, and the Joint Staff jumped on board because the QDR team did not want to use the joint capability areas contained in the 2008 Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review. The Army then jumped on board because there was a concern that the current scenarios did not include a major combat operation option, the official said, noting Iraq and Afghanistan are part of the assessment, but the Army wanted another scenario for a large-scale ground invasion of another country.
Two things are going on, the official said: A desire to use the joint operational concepts and conceptual work developed through JFCOM and a desire to use alternative scenarios to justify sizing for a major combat operation.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Martin Downie declined to comment on whether the Army had voiced concerns to the Office of the Secretary of Defense about the original DPS set being light on ground scenarios.
InsideDefense.com reported earlier this year that the QDR would mull missions like U.S.-led stability and reconstruction operations, steady-state demands, major conflicts against state adversaries and defense of the homeland and civil support. U.S.-led stability and reconstruction operations mulled would include Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as North Korea in the event of regime collapse and Pakistan in the event the Pakistani government lost control of its nuclear weapons. Potential major conflicts eyed would involve China (a crisis over Taiwan), Russia (coercion of Baltic states) and Iran (with nuclear weapons).
But these are potential missions, not the classified scenarios, another service official said. The Army prefers a North Korea-, Iran-, Nigeria- or Pakistan-type scenario that could be non-warlike but would require boots on the ground, the official added.
In his memo to Gates, Mattis outlined several other steps to institutionalize irregular warfare in DOD, including establishing a national center for small unit excellence to ensure IW superiority; directing the Defense Intelligence Agency to produce an annual, unclassified update on the IW/hybrid threat; offering to run an IW/hyrbid war game for the State Department and other agencies, using the professional military education program as a strategic asset; directing officials to fix shortfalls with high-demand, low-density forces identified by JFCOM; and directing a fully resourced effort to immediately develop first-class simulators for IW training. -- Christopher J. Castelli
07 May 2009
QDR seeks to identify ‘vectors’. THREATS, CHALLENGES REQUIRE NEW WAYS TO DO MISSIONS
New threats and challenges will force the Pentagon and industry to invent new ways to accomplish military missions, a process that will start but not end with the Quadrennial Defense Review, according to David Ochmanek, a defense official with a key role in the assessment.
“As the new threats and challenges mature and play out, I think it’s not an overstatement to say the U.S. defense establishment will be pressed to define wholly new concepts of operation for accomplishing their missions,” he said. That job will not be completed by the end of the summer, when the QDR starts feeding into the fiscal year 2011 budget process, according to Ochmanek.
However, he added, it is the Defense Department’s responsibility to identify “robust vectors” along which the force should move confidently in the right direction toward supporting whatever new concepts are needed to meet future challenges. “And I think that’s exactly the task we’re focused on,” he said.
Ochmanek, who spoke May 4 at a conference sponsored by Jane’s, noted Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called for a balanced force to meet the full range of challenges ahead.
Among the challenges are high-end “anti-access” threats from countries that might aim to impede and perhaps prevent America from deploying combat power to their theater, he said. Ochmanek did not name any countries when making this point, though in Washington such references are often seen as allusions to China. He cited theater-ballistic missiles that can threaten land bases and aircraft carriers, “double-digit” mobile surface-to-air missiles, numerical superiority in sophisticated fourth-generation fighters and advanced weapons designed to counter space and naval assets. According to the Air Force, the “double-digit” phrase refers to the two-digit designator in the NATO reporting name for Russian-designed mobile SAM systems made by Russia and China.
“It is easy to be complacent about our so-called conventional or traditional military suite of capabilities based on our performance against adversaries such as Iraq and Serbia, but that doesn’t carry forward into the security environment that we see in the future,” he said. “We see a dynamic threat environment in which U.S. forces have to work pretty hard to sustain the level of superiority they need to fight in an adversary’s backyard.”
Gates expects and demands that this QDR be strategy driven, meaning that the decisions that are put up for consideration for the leadership must be identified, assessed and taken in the context of a clear understanding of what the nation expects the military to do in the emerging security environment and what challenges are arising, Ochmanek said.
The importance of engagement and a “recognition that we live in an interdependent world” in which the United
States cannot be expected to secure its interests unilaterally will be at the center of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, he predicted.
The QDR, like any force-planning exercise, is about ensuring the future military has the capabilities that officials anticipate will be needed to carry out important missions, he said.
“The post-post Cold War world” will be less comfortable to American interests and defense planning, he said, noting potential foes know not to challenge America with conventional military capability. The Pentagon must address irregular threats on one hand and “high-end adversary state threats” on the other, he said.
U.S. officials must be mindful of the diffusion of technology to lower and lower levels of organization, he said.
Coping over the long term means knowing about places where threats could be gestating, preventing non-state actors from harming American interests, he said. To address high-end threats, America must combat nuclear proliferation, continue efforts to re-energize the six-party talks with North Korea and dissuade Iran from going down the nuclear path, he added.
“But over time I think the prudent planner would, recognizing the importance of preparing for the possibility that important regional adversaries like these two and perhaps like others could acquire a modest number of nuclear weapons,” he said. “And it’s important to understand how that event will shape the behavior of these states. In the past states that have acquired nuclear weapons if they are what we might call non-status-quo states have tended to be more assertive about their interests in their region.” This was the case with Pakistan, he added.
A regional power with nuclear weapons might feel emboldened to start testing the tolerance of the United States and the world, he said. It also might be more difficult to deter a nuclear-armed regional adversary from threatening or actually escalating in the context of a conflict with America if that adversary had no other cards to play, he said. U.S. officials must be mindful that very weakness of such an adversary’s conventional military might make it more likely for such a country to “resort early on” to the nuclear card if in a conflict with America, he said. North Korea cannot simply be viewed as a lesser version of the deterrent relationship that America had and successfully managed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he said. -- Christopher J. Castelli
PENTAGON-25-18-7
“As the new threats and challenges mature and play out, I think it’s not an overstatement to say the U.S. defense establishment will be pressed to define wholly new concepts of operation for accomplishing their missions,” he said. That job will not be completed by the end of the summer, when the QDR starts feeding into the fiscal year 2011 budget process, according to Ochmanek.
However, he added, it is the Defense Department’s responsibility to identify “robust vectors” along which the force should move confidently in the right direction toward supporting whatever new concepts are needed to meet future challenges. “And I think that’s exactly the task we’re focused on,” he said.
Ochmanek, who spoke May 4 at a conference sponsored by Jane’s, noted Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called for a balanced force to meet the full range of challenges ahead.
Among the challenges are high-end “anti-access” threats from countries that might aim to impede and perhaps prevent America from deploying combat power to their theater, he said. Ochmanek did not name any countries when making this point, though in Washington such references are often seen as allusions to China. He cited theater-ballistic missiles that can threaten land bases and aircraft carriers, “double-digit” mobile surface-to-air missiles, numerical superiority in sophisticated fourth-generation fighters and advanced weapons designed to counter space and naval assets. According to the Air Force, the “double-digit” phrase refers to the two-digit designator in the NATO reporting name for Russian-designed mobile SAM systems made by Russia and China.
“It is easy to be complacent about our so-called conventional or traditional military suite of capabilities based on our performance against adversaries such as Iraq and Serbia, but that doesn’t carry forward into the security environment that we see in the future,” he said. “We see a dynamic threat environment in which U.S. forces have to work pretty hard to sustain the level of superiority they need to fight in an adversary’s backyard.”
Gates expects and demands that this QDR be strategy driven, meaning that the decisions that are put up for consideration for the leadership must be identified, assessed and taken in the context of a clear understanding of what the nation expects the military to do in the emerging security environment and what challenges are arising, Ochmanek said.
The importance of engagement and a “recognition that we live in an interdependent world” in which the United
States cannot be expected to secure its interests unilaterally will be at the center of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, he predicted.
The QDR, like any force-planning exercise, is about ensuring the future military has the capabilities that officials anticipate will be needed to carry out important missions, he said.
“The post-post Cold War world” will be less comfortable to American interests and defense planning, he said, noting potential foes know not to challenge America with conventional military capability. The Pentagon must address irregular threats on one hand and “high-end adversary state threats” on the other, he said.
U.S. officials must be mindful of the diffusion of technology to lower and lower levels of organization, he said.
Coping over the long term means knowing about places where threats could be gestating, preventing non-state actors from harming American interests, he said. To address high-end threats, America must combat nuclear proliferation, continue efforts to re-energize the six-party talks with North Korea and dissuade Iran from going down the nuclear path, he added.
“But over time I think the prudent planner would, recognizing the importance of preparing for the possibility that important regional adversaries like these two and perhaps like others could acquire a modest number of nuclear weapons,” he said. “And it’s important to understand how that event will shape the behavior of these states. In the past states that have acquired nuclear weapons if they are what we might call non-status-quo states have tended to be more assertive about their interests in their region.” This was the case with Pakistan, he added.
A regional power with nuclear weapons might feel emboldened to start testing the tolerance of the United States and the world, he said. It also might be more difficult to deter a nuclear-armed regional adversary from threatening or actually escalating in the context of a conflict with America if that adversary had no other cards to play, he said. U.S. officials must be mindful that very weakness of such an adversary’s conventional military might make it more likely for such a country to “resort early on” to the nuclear card if in a conflict with America, he said. North Korea cannot simply be viewed as a lesser version of the deterrent relationship that America had and successfully managed with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he said. -- Christopher J. Castelli
PENTAGON-25-18-7
Exclusive: Gates Delivers New Pentagon Acquisition Reform Plan to White House
May 6, 2006 -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has presented the White House with a new plan to reform the military's weapons acquisition enterprise, identifying 25 initiatives aimed at eliminating cost and schedule delays from the requirements generation and procurement process and marking the start of what may be his most ambitious undertaking yet as Pentagon chief.
The new plan is outlined in a previously unreported 10-page report Gates sent the White House on April 6, along with his recommendations for the fiscal year 2010 budget. His goal, he writes, is to create a more nimble system that develops weapons based on proven technologies and predictable costs -- and only when the total price tag is “in alignment with the value of the capability produced.”
“The document addresses the initiatives we have successfully institutionalized, as well as future opportunities for reform,” Gates wrote in the Aug. 6 memo to James Jones, President Obama's national security adviser. InsideDefense.com reviewed a copy of the memo and the plan.
The plan outlines efforts to bolster the acquisition workforce; apply new practices to improve the development of weapon programs already in the pipeline; and adopt new policies to ensure that future programs deliver on promised capability, cost and schedule.
Significantly, Gates intends to carry forward and expand efforts begun during the Bush administration to give combatant commanders more influence in shaping the investment decisions of the military services, a domain heretofore largely controlled by the service chiefs.
The plan also marks the first explicit embrace by the Obama administration of capability portfolio management, which gives select combatant commanders teamed with civilian leaders unprecedented influence over a wide range of capabilities -- including some new weapons systems -- that the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps develop.
This endorsement of capability portfolio management comes as the Pentagon begins the Quadrennial Defense Review, a sweeping assessment of the military designed to produce a new investment plan that signals the growing influence of operational commanders in steering decisions on how to spend tens of billions of dollars on new weapons.
The goal behind capability portfolio management is the facilitation of cross-service assessments of weapon systems and force structure that permit DOD leaders to better balance strategic risks and make capability trade-offs among the services.
“DOD has created a capability portfolio management system through which portfolio managers can de-conflict systems in being, in development, and proposed,” Gates’ plan states. “This de-confliction can lead to identification of duplication and appropriate prioritization of gap-filling solutions and more efficient use of increasingly constrained resources.”
While drawing up the Pentagon's six-year investment plan last year, the Defense Department directed the services -- in the classified Guidance for the Development of the Force (GDF) -- to consider where programs might be cut within one of the nine capability areas that span the entire military enterprise.
“The first issuance of the GDF focused on within-portfolio trades, but more must be done,” Gates’ plan states. “In the future, the department must balance within and across capability portfolios to better align to budget constraints and warfighing needs, based on warfighter capability prioritization. Further, the department must consider 'make or buy' decisions -- development and production of systems or the purchase of services that provide the needed capabilities.”
Another significant component of the plan advanced by Gates calls for assigning a single service the responsibility for providing a particular capability. This is aimed at ensuring two or more branches of the armed forces are not developing separate weapon systems to counter the same threat.
The Defense Department “may have to invest more in the future-oriented program of one service and less in that of another service -- particularly when both programs were conceived with the same threat in mind,” states the plan. The Pentagon will continue a pilot concept -- “joint task assignment” -- that aims to “clearly establish responsibility for emerging tasks -- operational and force development and identify the resources to support those tasks up-front before resources” are executed, it continues.
On April 7, Gates told reporters he believes programs owned by different services that provide commanders very similar capabilities will be prime candidates for termination in the next round of adjustments to the Pentagon's investment plans (DefenseAlert, April 7).
The collection of initiatives in the plan he advanced a day earlier are aimed at addressing “the full range of issues” associated with acquisition and requirements reform, as well as with process, organization, behavior and workforce -- subjects that have been the focus of numerous blue-ribbon panels and legislative provisions over the past few decades, as Gates notes.
“Notwithstanding the management changes that have been implemented over time, there continue to be system issues that challenge the department's efforts to reform these processes,” the plan states. “Important among these is that acquisition and budget priorities often change from defense secretary to defense secretary, administration to administration, and Congress to Congress -- making a stable long-term procurement strategy on which we can accurately base budget costs difficult, if not impossible.”
Still, the plan says the Pentagon is “committed” to improvements that will “deliver the needed capability at acceptable performance levels and rates and to be better stewards of the taxpayer's dollar.”
Addressing the acquisition workforce, the plan cites “strong agreement that DOD must act now to recruit, hire, develop retain and sustain” a new pool of procurement experts, noting that the “target size” of a larger workforce “has not been determined.”
This expansion of the acquisition corps will allow for the Pentagon to implement another component of the plan: paring back DOD’s reliance on private contractors. “This will allow DOD to better address inherently governmental functions and ensure DOD has appropriate oversight of all contracting and acquisition activities,” it states.
The plan also includes a number of initiatives designed to address the root causes of program instability, including immature technology, inadequate cost estimates and unstable requirements.
Among these is the objective to improve communications with the Pentagon's main weapons suppliers and to align profitability with performance. “The department is moving away from time and materiel and award-fee contracting and instead is emphasizing the use of objective incentives tied to delivered performance, be it technical, schedule or cost,” states the plan. “The intent is to create an environment where the contractor is rewarded for meeting contract requirements but is not rewarded for performance failure.”
The plan says that difficulties with the weapons acquisition system and requirements-generation process “will not be resolved in the short term” and “require constant vigilance and priority treatment by Department leadership over an extended period.” -- Jason Sherman
562009_may6a
The new plan is outlined in a previously unreported 10-page report Gates sent the White House on April 6, along with his recommendations for the fiscal year 2010 budget. His goal, he writes, is to create a more nimble system that develops weapons based on proven technologies and predictable costs -- and only when the total price tag is “in alignment with the value of the capability produced.”
“The document addresses the initiatives we have successfully institutionalized, as well as future opportunities for reform,” Gates wrote in the Aug. 6 memo to James Jones, President Obama's national security adviser. InsideDefense.com reviewed a copy of the memo and the plan.
The plan outlines efforts to bolster the acquisition workforce; apply new practices to improve the development of weapon programs already in the pipeline; and adopt new policies to ensure that future programs deliver on promised capability, cost and schedule.
Significantly, Gates intends to carry forward and expand efforts begun during the Bush administration to give combatant commanders more influence in shaping the investment decisions of the military services, a domain heretofore largely controlled by the service chiefs.
The plan also marks the first explicit embrace by the Obama administration of capability portfolio management, which gives select combatant commanders teamed with civilian leaders unprecedented influence over a wide range of capabilities -- including some new weapons systems -- that the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps develop.
This endorsement of capability portfolio management comes as the Pentagon begins the Quadrennial Defense Review, a sweeping assessment of the military designed to produce a new investment plan that signals the growing influence of operational commanders in steering decisions on how to spend tens of billions of dollars on new weapons.
The goal behind capability portfolio management is the facilitation of cross-service assessments of weapon systems and force structure that permit DOD leaders to better balance strategic risks and make capability trade-offs among the services.
“DOD has created a capability portfolio management system through which portfolio managers can de-conflict systems in being, in development, and proposed,” Gates’ plan states. “This de-confliction can lead to identification of duplication and appropriate prioritization of gap-filling solutions and more efficient use of increasingly constrained resources.”
While drawing up the Pentagon's six-year investment plan last year, the Defense Department directed the services -- in the classified Guidance for the Development of the Force (GDF) -- to consider where programs might be cut within one of the nine capability areas that span the entire military enterprise.
“The first issuance of the GDF focused on within-portfolio trades, but more must be done,” Gates’ plan states. “In the future, the department must balance within and across capability portfolios to better align to budget constraints and warfighing needs, based on warfighter capability prioritization. Further, the department must consider 'make or buy' decisions -- development and production of systems or the purchase of services that provide the needed capabilities.”
Another significant component of the plan advanced by Gates calls for assigning a single service the responsibility for providing a particular capability. This is aimed at ensuring two or more branches of the armed forces are not developing separate weapon systems to counter the same threat.
The Defense Department “may have to invest more in the future-oriented program of one service and less in that of another service -- particularly when both programs were conceived with the same threat in mind,” states the plan. The Pentagon will continue a pilot concept -- “joint task assignment” -- that aims to “clearly establish responsibility for emerging tasks -- operational and force development and identify the resources to support those tasks up-front before resources” are executed, it continues.
On April 7, Gates told reporters he believes programs owned by different services that provide commanders very similar capabilities will be prime candidates for termination in the next round of adjustments to the Pentagon's investment plans (DefenseAlert, April 7).
The collection of initiatives in the plan he advanced a day earlier are aimed at addressing “the full range of issues” associated with acquisition and requirements reform, as well as with process, organization, behavior and workforce -- subjects that have been the focus of numerous blue-ribbon panels and legislative provisions over the past few decades, as Gates notes.
“Notwithstanding the management changes that have been implemented over time, there continue to be system issues that challenge the department's efforts to reform these processes,” the plan states. “Important among these is that acquisition and budget priorities often change from defense secretary to defense secretary, administration to administration, and Congress to Congress -- making a stable long-term procurement strategy on which we can accurately base budget costs difficult, if not impossible.”
Still, the plan says the Pentagon is “committed” to improvements that will “deliver the needed capability at acceptable performance levels and rates and to be better stewards of the taxpayer's dollar.”
Addressing the acquisition workforce, the plan cites “strong agreement that DOD must act now to recruit, hire, develop retain and sustain” a new pool of procurement experts, noting that the “target size” of a larger workforce “has not been determined.”
This expansion of the acquisition corps will allow for the Pentagon to implement another component of the plan: paring back DOD’s reliance on private contractors. “This will allow DOD to better address inherently governmental functions and ensure DOD has appropriate oversight of all contracting and acquisition activities,” it states.
The plan also includes a number of initiatives designed to address the root causes of program instability, including immature technology, inadequate cost estimates and unstable requirements.
Among these is the objective to improve communications with the Pentagon's main weapons suppliers and to align profitability with performance. “The department is moving away from time and materiel and award-fee contracting and instead is emphasizing the use of objective incentives tied to delivered performance, be it technical, schedule or cost,” states the plan. “The intent is to create an environment where the contractor is rewarded for meeting contract requirements but is not rewarded for performance failure.”
The plan says that difficulties with the weapons acquisition system and requirements-generation process “will not be resolved in the short term” and “require constant vigilance and priority treatment by Department leadership over an extended period.” -- Jason Sherman
562009_may6a
Gates Shakes Up 'Unfunded' Budget Ritual, Demands First Look at Service Wish Lists
May 6, 2009 -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has shaken up long-standing budget ritual that permits the service chiefs to present Congress with wish lists not vetted by the Pentagon or the White House.
On April 21, Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, asked the service chiefs and two combatant commanders to prepare lists of high-priority items not funded in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2010 budget request (DefenseAlert, April 22). The top brass have responded to similar requests each year since the practice began in the mid-1990s, asking for as much as $30 billion for aircraft, ships and trucks beyond what was included in the Pentagon's budget request.
Technically, the service chiefs do not request the items on their lists -- they simply identify their top funding priorities in the event Congress sees fit to increase the Pentagon's budget.
This year, however, Gates has asserted his prerogative, as Pentagon chief, to review any unfunded requirements lists the services might prepare before transmitting them to Congress.
“As you are aware, the existing statutory framework provides for members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make recommendations to the Congress 'after first informing the secretary of defense,'” Gates wrote in an April 30 memo to the service chiefs and combatant commanders.
“Accordingly, should you determine that there are FY-10 unfunded requirements that are responsive to the request from Congress, I expect you to first inform me of such a determination so that we can schedule the opportunity for you to brief me on the details,” the defense secretary wrote.
The size of the services' wish lists has grown significantly in recent years, peaking two years ago at $35 billion for FY-08. Last year, the top brass presented unfunded requirements for FY-09 that totaled more than $30 billion. The total for FY-06 was $13.6 billion, while in FY-07 the collective sum grew to $21.8 billion. In 2001, the combined unfunded requirements detailed by the chiefs amounted to just $7.7 billion.
Defense secretaries -- Gates included, during the past two budget requests -- have not previously sought to be involved in reviewing the requirements lists before they are submitted.
This move follows unprecedented steps Gates has taken this spring to impose new discipline on the Pentagon's budgeting process, requiring all involved in the revision of the FY-10 spending request to sign non-disclosure agreements. -- Jason Sherman
On April 21, Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, asked the service chiefs and two combatant commanders to prepare lists of high-priority items not funded in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2010 budget request (DefenseAlert, April 22). The top brass have responded to similar requests each year since the practice began in the mid-1990s, asking for as much as $30 billion for aircraft, ships and trucks beyond what was included in the Pentagon's budget request.
Technically, the service chiefs do not request the items on their lists -- they simply identify their top funding priorities in the event Congress sees fit to increase the Pentagon's budget.
This year, however, Gates has asserted his prerogative, as Pentagon chief, to review any unfunded requirements lists the services might prepare before transmitting them to Congress.
“As you are aware, the existing statutory framework provides for members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make recommendations to the Congress 'after first informing the secretary of defense,'” Gates wrote in an April 30 memo to the service chiefs and combatant commanders.
“Accordingly, should you determine that there are FY-10 unfunded requirements that are responsive to the request from Congress, I expect you to first inform me of such a determination so that we can schedule the opportunity for you to brief me on the details,” the defense secretary wrote.
The size of the services' wish lists has grown significantly in recent years, peaking two years ago at $35 billion for FY-08. Last year, the top brass presented unfunded requirements for FY-09 that totaled more than $30 billion. The total for FY-06 was $13.6 billion, while in FY-07 the collective sum grew to $21.8 billion. In 2001, the combined unfunded requirements detailed by the chiefs amounted to just $7.7 billion.
Defense secretaries -- Gates included, during the past two budget requests -- have not previously sought to be involved in reviewing the requirements lists before they are submitted.
This move follows unprecedented steps Gates has taken this spring to impose new discipline on the Pentagon's budgeting process, requiring all involved in the revision of the FY-10 spending request to sign non-disclosure agreements. -- Jason Sherman
QDR, ARMY MODERNIZATION APPROACH TO ADDRESS LESSONS LEARNED, RESET
Facing a new fiscal environment, the Army is rethinking its modernization approach to reflect an increased focus on cost as well as a need to integrate lessons learned from ongoing operations, according to a senior service official.
The work will be reflected both in the service’s tactical wheeled vehicle strategy -- slated for completion this summer -- as well as in the Quadrennial Defense Review and overall modernization planning, according to Maj. Gen. David Halverson, director of Army force development in the office of the deputy chief of staff for programs (G-8).
Speaking April 29 at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference in McLean, VA, Halverson said it’s “not business as usual” for the Army.
He referenced the April 6 fiscal year 2010 budget announcements made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, noting that “with that fiscal environment, we understand that we’re going to have to do things a little bit differently.”
Procurement dollars, in particular, will be tighter as the Army faces high personnel costs.
“I’m just letting you know from a procurement perspective I’m going to have less money because people are costing me more,” Halverson told the audience.
He laid out a number of questions he says the Army must address, including how much contractor support to use, how many trucks the service needs and the best balance between needs and affordability.
In considering the optimal number of tactical vehicles for the Army, Halverson said the service must look to how it is now using its forces.
“The reality is -- guess what? -- an infantry brigade combat team isn’t fighting as an infantry brigade combat team right now in Afghanistan or Iraq, are they?” he told the audience. “They are motorized, they have a lot more requirements for wheeled vehicles than they ever had before.”
Reset too remains a question area for the Army, particularly whether the service should recapitalize or reset vehicles or simply buy new ones.
“All these questions are good questions that we’re going to wrestle with here -- some in the QDR, some in the whole modernization approach,” Halverson said last week.
More specifically, the Army continues to prepare its long-awaited tactical wheeled vehicle strategy, he said. Though the document has been sent to the defense secretary, Halverson said the Army has now taken it back to Training and Doctrine Command.
The strategy will be finalized as the Army prepares its QDR as well as its next five-year budget plan -- for fiscal years 2011 through 2015, according to Halverson.
“I would like it quicker personally,” he said. “I think it’s going to be sometime this summer.”
Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center at TRADOC, told Inside the Army last year that the TWV strategy would consider the size of the Army’s fleet, and Halverson said last week that recap will be “a vital part” of the strategy.
The document will also consider the service’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle fleet. In his budget announcements early last month, Gates criticized the failure of the Future Combat Systems program to include a role for MRAP.
Halverson last week said “part of our wheeled strategy is how do we integrate them into the formation,” adding that the Army is working with TRADOC on that question.
During the same IDGA conference, Col. Mike Smith, chief of the mounted requirements division of the Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, said the Army and DOD are “at a juncture on MRAP.”
“We’ve bought a bunch of platforms, expended a great deal of funds and because of the rapidity with it, nobody had thought through, ‘OK, what happens when?’” Smith said. “And we don’t have the answer.”
But he noted “there is great discussion going on.”
“Part of the MRAP thing is we’ve got to know what have we got and we’ve got to figure out -- given that our aim point has moved to the left -- do we need a new formation?” Smith continued.
Telling the audience that the service’s “aim point” has moved to the left of major combat operations, Smith stressed that the service will have a future brigade combat team, despite Gates’ decision to cut the vehicle component of the FCS program.
“It may not be the FCS-based formation that people have been kind of dreaming about for the last few years, but it won’t be one of these four,” he said of the existing BCTs, meaning infantry, Stryker, heavy and the armored cavalry regiment. “There’s got to be something new.” -- Marjorie Censer
The work will be reflected both in the service’s tactical wheeled vehicle strategy -- slated for completion this summer -- as well as in the Quadrennial Defense Review and overall modernization planning, according to Maj. Gen. David Halverson, director of Army force development in the office of the deputy chief of staff for programs (G-8).
Speaking April 29 at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement conference in McLean, VA, Halverson said it’s “not business as usual” for the Army.
He referenced the April 6 fiscal year 2010 budget announcements made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, noting that “with that fiscal environment, we understand that we’re going to have to do things a little bit differently.”
Procurement dollars, in particular, will be tighter as the Army faces high personnel costs.
“I’m just letting you know from a procurement perspective I’m going to have less money because people are costing me more,” Halverson told the audience.
He laid out a number of questions he says the Army must address, including how much contractor support to use, how many trucks the service needs and the best balance between needs and affordability.
In considering the optimal number of tactical vehicles for the Army, Halverson said the service must look to how it is now using its forces.
“The reality is -- guess what? -- an infantry brigade combat team isn’t fighting as an infantry brigade combat team right now in Afghanistan or Iraq, are they?” he told the audience. “They are motorized, they have a lot more requirements for wheeled vehicles than they ever had before.”
Reset too remains a question area for the Army, particularly whether the service should recapitalize or reset vehicles or simply buy new ones.
“All these questions are good questions that we’re going to wrestle with here -- some in the QDR, some in the whole modernization approach,” Halverson said last week.
More specifically, the Army continues to prepare its long-awaited tactical wheeled vehicle strategy, he said. Though the document has been sent to the defense secretary, Halverson said the Army has now taken it back to Training and Doctrine Command.
The strategy will be finalized as the Army prepares its QDR as well as its next five-year budget plan -- for fiscal years 2011 through 2015, according to Halverson.
“I would like it quicker personally,” he said. “I think it’s going to be sometime this summer.”
Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center at TRADOC, told Inside the Army last year that the TWV strategy would consider the size of the Army’s fleet, and Halverson said last week that recap will be “a vital part” of the strategy.
The document will also consider the service’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle fleet. In his budget announcements early last month, Gates criticized the failure of the Future Combat Systems program to include a role for MRAP.
Halverson last week said “part of our wheeled strategy is how do we integrate them into the formation,” adding that the Army is working with TRADOC on that question.
During the same IDGA conference, Col. Mike Smith, chief of the mounted requirements division of the Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, said the Army and DOD are “at a juncture on MRAP.”
“We’ve bought a bunch of platforms, expended a great deal of funds and because of the rapidity with it, nobody had thought through, ‘OK, what happens when?’” Smith said. “And we don’t have the answer.”
But he noted “there is great discussion going on.”
“Part of the MRAP thing is we’ve got to know what have we got and we’ve got to figure out -- given that our aim point has moved to the left -- do we need a new formation?” Smith continued.
Telling the audience that the service’s “aim point” has moved to the left of major combat operations, Smith stressed that the service will have a future brigade combat team, despite Gates’ decision to cut the vehicle component of the FCS program.
“It may not be the FCS-based formation that people have been kind of dreaming about for the last few years, but it won’t be one of these four,” he said of the existing BCTs, meaning infantry, Stryker, heavy and the armored cavalry regiment. “There’s got to be something new.” -- Marjorie Censer