July 8, 2009 -- The Joint Strike Fighter program is one of a number of U.S. military platforms at risk of becoming a "wasting asset" -- obsolete in future conflicts, according to an influential Pentagon adviser who believes such programs should immediately be cut to increase investments in long-range unmanned strike aircraft, laser weapons and micro- and nanosatellites.
Andrew Krepinevich, the president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, was recently recruited by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to serve on the Defense Policy Board. In an essay published in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, he argues that the “military foundations of the United States' global dominance are eroding.”
The U.S. military's ability to project forces around the world and operate at will in international seas, air space, outer space and cyberspace will increasingly be challenged by the proliferation of precision weapons, Krepinevich argues, a shift that raises questions about the wisdom of major planned investments.
“The military plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on several thousand short-range strike aircraft that must operate from forward land bases or [aircraft] carriers, both of which are increasingly vulnerable,” he argues, though he does not explicitly name the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a $300 billion program to buy 2,456 fighters for the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy.
“These programs should be scaled back in favor of greater investment in longer-range systems, such as a next-generation bomber and the Navy's long-range unmanned strike system,” Krepinevich argues.
The Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a $15.8 billion effort to field 593 amphibious combat vehicles, will be forced by the proliferation of cruise and ballistic missiles to deploy from ships much further from shore than originally envisioned, he says. And, once on shore, the EFV will be vulnerable to roadside bombs, he argues.
“The system should be canceled,” Krepinevich writes of the EFV. “It simply makes no sense to spend so many defense dollars on new systems that are essentially wasting assets before they even reach the field.”
The Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request, which included changes to more than 50 weapon system modernization accounts -- including terminations and program restructurings -- took “initial positive steps” toward “reducing the military's emphasis on capabilities whose value will likely diminish greatly in the future,” he argues.
Krepinevich's essay comes as Gates is overseeing a sweeping assessment of the U.S. military -- the Quadrennial Defense Review -- through which he and other Pentagon leaders will decide how to adjust the blueprint for Pentagon investments and organizations to rebalance U.S. military forces to deal with a wider array of national security challenges.
Krepinevich's writings have already influenced the QDR.
Gates, through a spokesman, credited Krepinevich's book “7 Deadly Scenarios” -- a volume published in January that describes a series of challenges against which U.S. forces have limited tools -- as the catalyst behind the establishment of a QDR “Red Team” to prepare an alternative assessment and ensure the Pentagon does not fall victim to “bureaucratic group think” (DefenseAlert, May 13).
Krepinevich's observation that the military will have difficulty dominating the global commons tracks with a theme that senior Pentagon leaders say the QDR must address.
Pentagon policy chief Michèle Flournoy, in an essay published this month in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine, argues that the QDR must prepare for a world in which U.S. forces will increasingly be challenged by adversaries in international waters, airspace, outer space and cyberspace (DefenseAlert, July 2).
Krepinevich notes that no military in history “has ever enjoyed a perpetual monopoly on any capability.”
“To a significant extent, the U.S. military's wasting assets are the direct consequence of the unavoidable loss of its near-monopoly on guided weapons,” he writes in Foreign Affairs. “This monopoly simply cannot be regained.”
Given this reality, there is “a compelling need to develop new ways of creating military advantage in the face of contemporary geopolitical and technology trends,” Krepinevich states. “That means taking a hard look at military spending and planning and investing in certain areas of potential advantage while divesting from other assets.”
He cites modernization programs in China and Iran that are designed to offset U.S. naval capabilities, as well as the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel, where irregular forces employed high-tech weapons to great effect against Israeli forces.
“Today, despite growing evidence that a wide array of U.S. military capabilities are depreciating in value, many remain reluctant to engage in the hard thinking necessary for anticipatory transformation -- preparing for emerging challenges by identifying new capabilities to offset or replace those that are progressively wasting,” Krepinevich writes.
“There are important strategic choices that the United States must make,” he concludes. “To avoid those choices now is simply to allow the United States' rivals to make them instead.”
As part of the Pentagon's ongoing review, Gates is examining the necessity -- and relevance to future threats -- of nearly every major weapon system. This includes how much tactical airpower is required -- specifically, whether the Defense Department can afford to buy all 2,456 Joint Strike Fighters.
Another key area for review is an assessment of how much forcible-entry capability the military requires, which translates to a close look at the need for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle as well as the total number of amphibious assault ships the Marine Corps needs, Pentagon officials say. -- Jason Sherman
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