President Obama's big thinkers fussed from February 2009 to January 2010 over what to put in this year's sweeping, congressionally mandated review of future defense strategy that would justify what the Pentagon was doing and might do in the future if Congress voted it enough money.
The formal name of this kabuki dance that bureaucrats perform every four years is Quadrennial Defense Review or QDR. The QDR is one of those documents that government insiders argue about endlessly to make sure they do not say anything offensive, provocative, informative or even interesting. Few outsiders read the QDR, if they have heard of it at all.
The House Armed Services Committee recently did hold a quickie hearing on this year's 105-page QDR during which Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., gave the Pentagon's chief author, policy director Michelle Flournoy, a brush of a kiss while ranking member Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon of California gave her a bit of a slap.
Said congressional veteran Skelton: "Overall I find the 2010 QDR to be a solid product and superior to the last several iterations that we've had ... Still, the way the QDR seems to treat the force-sizing construct is to advocate for a force that is capable of being all things to all contingencies."
"It's tough to determine what the priority is, what the most likely risk we face may be, and what may be the most dangerous," McKeon said. "It seems that the QDR makes no significant changes to major pieces of our current force."
Complained McKeon: "This QDR provides a force structure for the years we're in today when the purpose of the review is exactly the opposite: to prepare for the likely conflicts of tomorrow. One must ask what's new here? If this is really a vision for the defense program for the next 20 years, as the statute requires, then why does the QDR lay out a force structure for the next five years, not to mention one that looks a lot like today's force? The QDR is supposed to shape the department for 2029, not describe the Pentagon in 2009."
Flournoy answered in typical diplo-speak: "Our efforts in this QDR really have evolved around the imperative to reaffirm our commitment to the health of America's all-volunteer force, to rebalance our program and capabilities to fight both the wars that we're in today and also prepare for future contingencies and to reform how and what we buy."
"Rebalance" is the euphemism Defense Secretary Robert Gates uses to try to persuade Congress to cancel some of the clunkers he does not want to keep buying, like the Boeing C-17 transport, to free up money to buy the here-and-now smaller weapons to help our troops fight back the bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for Flournoy's words about changing the way the Pentagon chooses and buys weapons, Gates is but the latest in a long line of defense executives to promise reform. Last year he had all he could do to convince Congress to stop buying F-22 fighters which cost $350 million a copy and don't help win the war against terrorism. Gates will find the reform hill even steeper this election year as lawmakers balk at killing any weapon, however unnecessary, that provides jobs back home.
I spent months in 1997 going behind the scenes at the Pentagon and Congress to find out about all the wheeling and dealing that went into the writing of the QDR that year. "I had high hopes for the QDR," Gen. Ronald Fogleman, former Air Force Chief of Staff, told me. "In my view, for the QDR to be a success there was going to have to be some fairly significant realignment among the [armed] services."
But Fogleman said his hopes for meaningful reform were dashed when the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, sent a two-star general to Fogleman's office to deliver this message: "The chairman would like to have the QDR turn out to be as close to the status quo as we can make this thing work. His message is: 'We don't need any Billy Mitchells,'" the general said, referring to Army Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell, who revolutionized the use of air power by demonstrating in 1923 how bombers could sink Navy warships.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote this assessment of the 2010 QDR: "From my perspective the QDR takes positive steps to support the Department's efforts to rebalance the force and reform processes. It provides needed focus on improving stability and defending our vital interests in the Middle East and South Asia as well as continuing to be good stewards of the health of the force and balancing global strategic risk."
But Shalikashvili's mind-set about preserving the status quo still dominates the thinking in today's Pentagon. So, despite some promises of change around the edges in this newest QDR, I see the 2010 report headed for the Pentagon's huge mausoleum of unread or unheeded documents which didn't make a significant difference.
This site is designed for use by researchers, educators, and students who seek access to its 2000+ military policy articles for research and/or educational purposes. Provided on a not-for-profit basis per 'fair use' rules.
09 March 2010
08 March 2010
Get Serious About Reform
Budget Challenges Will Force Hard Choices.
Carl Conetta and Charles Knight. Defense News, 21 February 2010.
During the past decade, the U.S. Defense Department has enjoyed a rise in its budget unprecedented since the Korean War. With President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget request, it is up nearly 100 percent in real terms from its post-Cold War low. But few observers believe that this level of spending can continue in light of the mounting national debt. So it is wise to think now about options for savings.
A way to begin is to ask, what has driven budgets so high? Obviously, the wars are part of the answer. But they account for only 20 percent of today's expenditures. And they are the least likely targets for economizing.
It is more fruitful to reflect on the shortcomings in past efforts at defense reform. Can we do it better? It is also worth thinking about the practice of force modernization during the post-Cold War period, which has been distinctly undisciplined.
The end of the Cold War presented a unique opportunity - as well as a manifest need - for the structural reform of our defense posture. The force reductions of the 1990s necessarily risked decreased efficiency, due to the loss of economies of scale affecting support activities and equipment acquisition. The standard solution to such problems is to restructure as one gets smaller, matching reductions in size with a reduction in complexity - a practice the DoD did not, for the most part, follow.
Although smaller, DoD and the services have largely retained or even increased their complexity. For instance, there are today 50 major commands either one step above or below the service level - not much different from during the Cold War.
In our recent study of budget trends, we identify a dozen areas where significant changes had been proposed in the 1990s. These involved service roles and missions, consolidation of various support and training functions, and recentering budget and acquisition planning at the joint level.
In addition, the need to reform DoD's acquisition, logistics and financial management systems has been evident for a long, long time. However, only two reform initiatives - competitive sourcing and military base closures - were pursued far enough to yield significant annual savings, and these have not amounted to more than 4 percent of the defense budget.
There also was hope in the mid-1990s that a "revolution in military affairs" might lead to new efficiencies. We would reap more bang for the buck by means of increased battlefield awareness, improved logistics, increased capacities for standoff precision attack, and the networking of units within and across services.
In some areas, such as precision attack, capability has dramatically increased. Theater logistics also have improved. But nowhere has the revolution in information technology led to manifest and substantial savings. Rather than supplant-ing legacy capabilities and platforms, the new technology has mostly just supplemented them.
In prospect, the evolution of net-centric warfare might reduce the need for redundant capabilities. But progress toward the services sharing a common nervous system has been slow and mostly involved special operations units and precision ground attack. Generally, net-centric capabilities exist as an anemic overlay to traditional service-centric structures and assets.
DoD and the services have faced little pressure to economize or transform during the past decade. This is also evident in equipment acquisition.
We can discern three distinct acquisition trends at work in recent decades. First, there are legacy programs that came forward from the Cold War period with considerable institutional momentum. Second, there are programs reflecting the revolutionary potential of new information technologies. Finally, there are adaptive programs, such as the recent mass purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, that correspond to new mission requirements.
In an ideal world, the imperative to adapt to new missions and circumstances would draw on the revolutionary potential of new technologies to rewrite or supplant legacy programs. But this has not happened.
Too much of the $2.5 trillion in modernization funding since 1990 perpetuated the status quo circa 1990. Transformational acquisition was mostly restricted to producing supplements, such as Predator drones, to the legacy arsenal. And adaptive acquisition was largely delayed until field experiences forced a flurry of ad hoc efforts beginning six years ago.
The Pentagon's central authorities have done too little, too late to compel the integration of modernization efforts along adaptive lines. Legacy, transformational and adaptive modernization have lurched forward together, but poorly integrated and competing for resources. And yet, even though modernization spending now surpasses that of the Reagan era, no one is happy with the result.
For 10 years, Congress and the White House have been permissive when it comes to defense spending; this has undercut any impetus for reform and prioritization. Obama's decision to further boost the defense budget suggests that this dysfunction will persist for a while, but this, too, is a bubble that will burst. Preparing for that eventuality means revisiting options for structural reform and getting clearer on our strategic priorities.
By Carl Conetta, right, and Charles Knight, co-directors of the Project on Defense Alternatives. Their recent study is titled "An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in U.S. Defense Spending."
Carl Conetta and Charles Knight. Defense News, 21 February 2010.
During the past decade, the U.S. Defense Department has enjoyed a rise in its budget unprecedented since the Korean War. With President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget request, it is up nearly 100 percent in real terms from its post-Cold War low. But few observers believe that this level of spending can continue in light of the mounting national debt. So it is wise to think now about options for savings.
A way to begin is to ask, what has driven budgets so high? Obviously, the wars are part of the answer. But they account for only 20 percent of today's expenditures. And they are the least likely targets for economizing.
It is more fruitful to reflect on the shortcomings in past efforts at defense reform. Can we do it better? It is also worth thinking about the practice of force modernization during the post-Cold War period, which has been distinctly undisciplined.
The end of the Cold War presented a unique opportunity - as well as a manifest need - for the structural reform of our defense posture. The force reductions of the 1990s necessarily risked decreased efficiency, due to the loss of economies of scale affecting support activities and equipment acquisition. The standard solution to such problems is to restructure as one gets smaller, matching reductions in size with a reduction in complexity - a practice the DoD did not, for the most part, follow.
Although smaller, DoD and the services have largely retained or even increased their complexity. For instance, there are today 50 major commands either one step above or below the service level - not much different from during the Cold War.
In our recent study of budget trends, we identify a dozen areas where significant changes had been proposed in the 1990s. These involved service roles and missions, consolidation of various support and training functions, and recentering budget and acquisition planning at the joint level.
In addition, the need to reform DoD's acquisition, logistics and financial management systems has been evident for a long, long time. However, only two reform initiatives - competitive sourcing and military base closures - were pursued far enough to yield significant annual savings, and these have not amounted to more than 4 percent of the defense budget.
There also was hope in the mid-1990s that a "revolution in military affairs" might lead to new efficiencies. We would reap more bang for the buck by means of increased battlefield awareness, improved logistics, increased capacities for standoff precision attack, and the networking of units within and across services.
In some areas, such as precision attack, capability has dramatically increased. Theater logistics also have improved. But nowhere has the revolution in information technology led to manifest and substantial savings. Rather than supplant-ing legacy capabilities and platforms, the new technology has mostly just supplemented them.
In prospect, the evolution of net-centric warfare might reduce the need for redundant capabilities. But progress toward the services sharing a common nervous system has been slow and mostly involved special operations units and precision ground attack. Generally, net-centric capabilities exist as an anemic overlay to traditional service-centric structures and assets.
DoD and the services have faced little pressure to economize or transform during the past decade. This is also evident in equipment acquisition.
We can discern three distinct acquisition trends at work in recent decades. First, there are legacy programs that came forward from the Cold War period with considerable institutional momentum. Second, there are programs reflecting the revolutionary potential of new information technologies. Finally, there are adaptive programs, such as the recent mass purchase of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, that correspond to new mission requirements.
In an ideal world, the imperative to adapt to new missions and circumstances would draw on the revolutionary potential of new technologies to rewrite or supplant legacy programs. But this has not happened.
Too much of the $2.5 trillion in modernization funding since 1990 perpetuated the status quo circa 1990. Transformational acquisition was mostly restricted to producing supplements, such as Predator drones, to the legacy arsenal. And adaptive acquisition was largely delayed until field experiences forced a flurry of ad hoc efforts beginning six years ago.
The Pentagon's central authorities have done too little, too late to compel the integration of modernization efforts along adaptive lines. Legacy, transformational and adaptive modernization have lurched forward together, but poorly integrated and competing for resources. And yet, even though modernization spending now surpasses that of the Reagan era, no one is happy with the result.
For 10 years, Congress and the White House have been permissive when it comes to defense spending; this has undercut any impetus for reform and prioritization. Obama's decision to further boost the defense budget suggests that this dysfunction will persist for a while, but this, too, is a bubble that will burst. Preparing for that eventuality means revisiting options for structural reform and getting clearer on our strategic priorities.
By Carl Conetta, right, and Charles Knight, co-directors of the Project on Defense Alternatives. Their recent study is titled "An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in U.S. Defense Spending."
06 March 2010
Exclusive: Lynn Advances Major Management Reforms To Boost Civilian Control Of The Military
Inside Defense
March 4, 2010 -- Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn is proposing a set of sweeping management reforms aimed at significantly increasing civilian control of the military services by giving the defense secretary more leverage in determining which weapon systems to develop and buy -- prerogatives now largely the domain of the service chiefs.
Central to this previously unreported effort is a proposal to immediately launch a new “front-end assessment” process, a major analytic effort that would permit the defense secretary to issue explicit guidance as soon as May on specific programs he wants cut, modified or boosted in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2012 to 2017 spending plan. If adopted, such guidance would come seven to eight months earlier than when the defense secretary normally weighs in on service investment matters.
Lynn, according to Pentagon officials, as soon as this week is due to seek Gates’ blessing for these management reforms, which also include the creation of a new senior corporate deliberative body called the Planning and Resources Board. The new approach would require very early in the planning process new capability areas assessments to set the agenda each year for which part of the Defense Department's investment portfolio to scrutinize.
“Some of the stuff we're talking about, if they did it, would make for significant changes,” said one source familiar with the proposal. “And the department doesn't take to change that readily.”
Indeed, Defense Department officials said the Pentagon bureaucracy has weathered some intense organizational and process overhauls in recent months -- including a major restructuring of the policy shop and ongoing efforts to implement last year's weapons acquisition reform law. These officials question the military’s ability to absorb another round of major changes.
Still, what Lynn is advancing is a reform that civilian leaders have long sought. In 2004, Pete Aldridge, a former Pentagon acquisition executive, issued a report calling for sweeping changes to DOD's requirements and acquisition process. Aldridge diagnosed a problem that Lynn's proposals are designed to address.
“The resourcing function focuses senior leadership effort on fixing problems at the end of the process, rather than being involved early in the planning process,” Aldridge wrote.
Pentagon officials say the window to affect the next six-year investment plan is getting smaller with each passing week. In January, the services began work on their program objective memoranda (POMs), proposals due to be submitted this summer to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Time is of the essence,” said one source who noted that Lynn had hoped to have new management reform recommendations in place to influence the FY-11 program review last fall. “That got overtaken by events. If you're trying to interdict the [FY-12/17 POM] process, you've got to move fairly rapidly now because the services will start to [move] along their own direction in the absence of guidance otherwise. Those things get harder and harder to turn around as you go downstream.”
Lynn wants to make adjustments to the process in order to “apply secretarial leverage early, rather than reactively at the end of the annual cycle,” according to a Pentagon source familiar with the concept.
One thing Lynn is looking to reform is a portion of the planning, programming and budgeting system introduced decades ago by Charles Hitch, the Pentagon's comptroller in the 1960s under Defense Secretary Robert McNamera. The PPBS system, which has been modified over the last four decades, was created to allow senior Pentagon leaders to make decisions based on explicit national interest criteria, not compromises between the military services; simultaneously consider needs and costs; pick and chose from among explicit, balanced and feasible alternatives; and develop a multiyear financial plan that projects the consequences of current decisions into the future.
One source familiar with Lynn's proposed reforms said that an overarching objective “is to go back to some first principles” associated with the establishment of the PPBS process, which was predicated on increasing civilian control of the military departments.
Lynn's proposed management reforms were drawn up by Robert Soule, a defense expert at the Institute for Defense Analyses (DefenseAlert, June 3). Soule was the Pentagon's director of program analysis and evaluation from 1998 to 2001; at that time PA&E – now called the office of cost assessment and program evaluation -- reported to Lynn, who was the Pentagon comptroller.
On Dec. 11, 2009, Soule formally presented his recommendations to the Deputy's Advisory Working Group, chaired by Lynn. Pentagon officials say Lynn largely accepted the management reforms, particularly the recommendation to move quickly to affect the FY-12 to FY-17 POM process.
Accordingly, Lynn would like Gates to immediately direct six “front-end assessments,” each of which would examine a wide capability area that cuts across service and agency lines. The goal is to begin this spring -- rather than in November and December -- to influence the shape of the military services' fiscal year 2012 to 2017 investment plans.
The proposed reforms could allow the Pentagon's top two officials to make “some major decisions early in each annual cycle” in order to produce “a realistic and agile defense program that balances immediate, mid-term and far-term user needs,” according to a source familiar with the effort.
In particular, Pentagon sources say, Lynn wants these assessments to look at “cross-cutting trades” that traditionally have been the most difficult types of moves for civilian leaders to impose on the services because they involve reducing capabilities and moving key missions to other services.
The services have eyed these candidate front-end assessments warily, unsure of whether to nominate areas that include the capabilities that are most important to them or to advance lower priorities, according to service officials.
Sources in recent weeks said that no formal list of capabilities has yet been advanced for consideration, but that notional capabilities discussed include rotorcraft survivability and availability; how to deal with loose nuclear weapons; ground force structure and modernization; cyber operations; communications vulnerability; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; personnel support for irregular warfare and stability operations; strategic nuclear forces and ballistic missile defense; electronic warfare; maritime support to irregular warfare; brigade combat teams; special operations forces; and general purpose forces roles and responsibilities.
The proposed enhancements Lynn has endorsed would include five sets of changes, according to sources. First would be the creation of the Planning and Resources Board, utilizing a construct that bears resemblance to how the White House National Security Council is organized. The PRB would have a high-level “principles” group chaired by the defense secretary and including the highest rung of civilian and uniformed leaders. In various configurations, it would replace current committees including the Large Group, the Extended Large Group, the Senior Level Review Group, the Defense Senior Leaders Conference and the Deputy's Advisory Working Group.
The reforms also would establish a number of new activities earlier in the PPBS cycle. Between December and January, the PRB would perform wide-ranging capability area assessments that would be used to nominate issues for front-end assessments.
Those assessments, which would be conducted during the first few months of the calendar year, would be “major analytical efforts” to address issues the defense secretary and deputy secretary want examined. Also during the spring, the secretary would issue program directives rendering decisions on front-end assessments that the services must incorporate into their future year defense plans. Those program directives would be reinforced by fiscal guidance issued to the services.
Next, the defense secretary would issue planning guidance that would subsume the Guidance for the Development of the Force and be integrated with the Guidance for the Employment of the Force, according to sources. This guidance would be updated annually, with major overhauls in years when the Pentagon completes a congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review.
The guidance also would “establish an expectation that the [future years defense plan] is a realistic, fully funded plan that will be executed, with maximum program stability, rather than a database that is recreated annually,” according to a source. -- Jason Sherman
342010_march4b
March 4, 2010 -- Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn is proposing a set of sweeping management reforms aimed at significantly increasing civilian control of the military services by giving the defense secretary more leverage in determining which weapon systems to develop and buy -- prerogatives now largely the domain of the service chiefs.
Central to this previously unreported effort is a proposal to immediately launch a new “front-end assessment” process, a major analytic effort that would permit the defense secretary to issue explicit guidance as soon as May on specific programs he wants cut, modified or boosted in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2012 to 2017 spending plan. If adopted, such guidance would come seven to eight months earlier than when the defense secretary normally weighs in on service investment matters.
Lynn, according to Pentagon officials, as soon as this week is due to seek Gates’ blessing for these management reforms, which also include the creation of a new senior corporate deliberative body called the Planning and Resources Board. The new approach would require very early in the planning process new capability areas assessments to set the agenda each year for which part of the Defense Department's investment portfolio to scrutinize.
“Some of the stuff we're talking about, if they did it, would make for significant changes,” said one source familiar with the proposal. “And the department doesn't take to change that readily.”
Indeed, Defense Department officials said the Pentagon bureaucracy has weathered some intense organizational and process overhauls in recent months -- including a major restructuring of the policy shop and ongoing efforts to implement last year's weapons acquisition reform law. These officials question the military’s ability to absorb another round of major changes.
Still, what Lynn is advancing is a reform that civilian leaders have long sought. In 2004, Pete Aldridge, a former Pentagon acquisition executive, issued a report calling for sweeping changes to DOD's requirements and acquisition process. Aldridge diagnosed a problem that Lynn's proposals are designed to address.
“The resourcing function focuses senior leadership effort on fixing problems at the end of the process, rather than being involved early in the planning process,” Aldridge wrote.
Pentagon officials say the window to affect the next six-year investment plan is getting smaller with each passing week. In January, the services began work on their program objective memoranda (POMs), proposals due to be submitted this summer to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Time is of the essence,” said one source who noted that Lynn had hoped to have new management reform recommendations in place to influence the FY-11 program review last fall. “That got overtaken by events. If you're trying to interdict the [FY-12/17 POM] process, you've got to move fairly rapidly now because the services will start to [move] along their own direction in the absence of guidance otherwise. Those things get harder and harder to turn around as you go downstream.”
Lynn wants to make adjustments to the process in order to “apply secretarial leverage early, rather than reactively at the end of the annual cycle,” according to a Pentagon source familiar with the concept.
One thing Lynn is looking to reform is a portion of the planning, programming and budgeting system introduced decades ago by Charles Hitch, the Pentagon's comptroller in the 1960s under Defense Secretary Robert McNamera. The PPBS system, which has been modified over the last four decades, was created to allow senior Pentagon leaders to make decisions based on explicit national interest criteria, not compromises between the military services; simultaneously consider needs and costs; pick and chose from among explicit, balanced and feasible alternatives; and develop a multiyear financial plan that projects the consequences of current decisions into the future.
One source familiar with Lynn's proposed reforms said that an overarching objective “is to go back to some first principles” associated with the establishment of the PPBS process, which was predicated on increasing civilian control of the military departments.
Lynn's proposed management reforms were drawn up by Robert Soule, a defense expert at the Institute for Defense Analyses (DefenseAlert, June 3). Soule was the Pentagon's director of program analysis and evaluation from 1998 to 2001; at that time PA&E – now called the office of cost assessment and program evaluation -- reported to Lynn, who was the Pentagon comptroller.
On Dec. 11, 2009, Soule formally presented his recommendations to the Deputy's Advisory Working Group, chaired by Lynn. Pentagon officials say Lynn largely accepted the management reforms, particularly the recommendation to move quickly to affect the FY-12 to FY-17 POM process.
Accordingly, Lynn would like Gates to immediately direct six “front-end assessments,” each of which would examine a wide capability area that cuts across service and agency lines. The goal is to begin this spring -- rather than in November and December -- to influence the shape of the military services' fiscal year 2012 to 2017 investment plans.
The proposed reforms could allow the Pentagon's top two officials to make “some major decisions early in each annual cycle” in order to produce “a realistic and agile defense program that balances immediate, mid-term and far-term user needs,” according to a source familiar with the effort.
In particular, Pentagon sources say, Lynn wants these assessments to look at “cross-cutting trades” that traditionally have been the most difficult types of moves for civilian leaders to impose on the services because they involve reducing capabilities and moving key missions to other services.
The services have eyed these candidate front-end assessments warily, unsure of whether to nominate areas that include the capabilities that are most important to them or to advance lower priorities, according to service officials.
Sources in recent weeks said that no formal list of capabilities has yet been advanced for consideration, but that notional capabilities discussed include rotorcraft survivability and availability; how to deal with loose nuclear weapons; ground force structure and modernization; cyber operations; communications vulnerability; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; personnel support for irregular warfare and stability operations; strategic nuclear forces and ballistic missile defense; electronic warfare; maritime support to irregular warfare; brigade combat teams; special operations forces; and general purpose forces roles and responsibilities.
The proposed enhancements Lynn has endorsed would include five sets of changes, according to sources. First would be the creation of the Planning and Resources Board, utilizing a construct that bears resemblance to how the White House National Security Council is organized. The PRB would have a high-level “principles” group chaired by the defense secretary and including the highest rung of civilian and uniformed leaders. In various configurations, it would replace current committees including the Large Group, the Extended Large Group, the Senior Level Review Group, the Defense Senior Leaders Conference and the Deputy's Advisory Working Group.
The reforms also would establish a number of new activities earlier in the PPBS cycle. Between December and January, the PRB would perform wide-ranging capability area assessments that would be used to nominate issues for front-end assessments.
Those assessments, which would be conducted during the first few months of the calendar year, would be “major analytical efforts” to address issues the defense secretary and deputy secretary want examined. Also during the spring, the secretary would issue program directives rendering decisions on front-end assessments that the services must incorporate into their future year defense plans. Those program directives would be reinforced by fiscal guidance issued to the services.
Next, the defense secretary would issue planning guidance that would subsume the Guidance for the Development of the Force and be integrated with the Guidance for the Employment of the Force, according to sources. This guidance would be updated annually, with major overhauls in years when the Pentagon completes a congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review.
The guidance also would “establish an expectation that the [future years defense plan] is a realistic, fully funded plan that will be executed, with maximum program stability, rather than a database that is recreated annually,” according to a source. -- Jason Sherman
342010_march4b
Pentagon To Weigh 'Affordability' Implications of JSF's Expected Cost Breach
Inside Defense
March 4, 2010 -- Expecting the Joint Strike Fighter Program to breach a critical cost threshold, defense officials are moving to examine the program's "affordability," as required by a new defense acquisition law, a Pentagon official told InsideDefense.com.
“We expect that there will be a Nunn-McCurdy” breach, said Matthew Schaffer, the deputy director for conventional forces in the cost assessment and program evaluation office, referring to the law prescribing what constitutes a significant cost overrun in major defense programs. “There are already efforts under way in the department to go through the full Nunn-McCurdy certification process,” he said March 3 following a speech at an industry conference in Arlington, VA, sponsored by the Precision Strike Association.
InsideDefense.com first reported that high-level Pentagon officials were warning as early as last October that the F-35 program would “likely breach” the most serious Nunn-McCurdy threshold (DefenseAlert, Oct. 29, 2009).
The 2009 Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act added new requirements to that certification process, which serves to argue before Congress that the continuation of a program is necessary for national security and that corrective action is being taken.
The legislation requires Defense Department leaders to compare the cost of completing the program without modifying its military requirements and the cost of continuing it with “reasonable” requirements modifications. The assessment also must include a cost estimate for a “reasonable alternative system or capability,” and it must discuss the “need to reduce funding for other programs” as a result of the cost breach, according to the legislation.
At CAPE, “We very much focus on alternatives,” Schaffer said. “I think another part that we will also look at is the affordability question -- that's also part of the acquisition reform act, and that's part of the certification process.”
“I think the Congress' question fundamentally is, 'What do we need to give up in order to afford the restructured program?'” he said.
Following a restructuring of the JSF program, for which defense leaders requested nearly $11 billion in the base defense budget request for fiscal year 2011, Pentagon officials “don't expect to see any additional resources” from Congress for the aircraft, Schaffer said.
Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, who also spoke at the conference, echoed that sentiment. But, Hale said, “I wouldn't raise my right hand and swear” there will be no future cost growth because some uncertainty remains about the cost estimate underlying DOD's funding projections.
Still, should officials encounter unanticipated cost growth in the future, DOD would have to make do with existing money, which would mean buying fewer aircraft. “I don't see us getting a lot of added funding,” Hale said. He noted divergent projections between DOD and prime contractor Lockheed Martin about how many planes the military would get for the money budgeted, saying DOD's estimate is more conservative. -- Sebastian Sprenger
March 4, 2010 -- Expecting the Joint Strike Fighter Program to breach a critical cost threshold, defense officials are moving to examine the program's "affordability," as required by a new defense acquisition law, a Pentagon official told InsideDefense.com.
“We expect that there will be a Nunn-McCurdy” breach, said Matthew Schaffer, the deputy director for conventional forces in the cost assessment and program evaluation office, referring to the law prescribing what constitutes a significant cost overrun in major defense programs. “There are already efforts under way in the department to go through the full Nunn-McCurdy certification process,” he said March 3 following a speech at an industry conference in Arlington, VA, sponsored by the Precision Strike Association.
InsideDefense.com first reported that high-level Pentagon officials were warning as early as last October that the F-35 program would “likely breach” the most serious Nunn-McCurdy threshold (DefenseAlert, Oct. 29, 2009).
The 2009 Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act added new requirements to that certification process, which serves to argue before Congress that the continuation of a program is necessary for national security and that corrective action is being taken.
The legislation requires Defense Department leaders to compare the cost of completing the program without modifying its military requirements and the cost of continuing it with “reasonable” requirements modifications. The assessment also must include a cost estimate for a “reasonable alternative system or capability,” and it must discuss the “need to reduce funding for other programs” as a result of the cost breach, according to the legislation.
At CAPE, “We very much focus on alternatives,” Schaffer said. “I think another part that we will also look at is the affordability question -- that's also part of the acquisition reform act, and that's part of the certification process.”
“I think the Congress' question fundamentally is, 'What do we need to give up in order to afford the restructured program?'” he said.
Following a restructuring of the JSF program, for which defense leaders requested nearly $11 billion in the base defense budget request for fiscal year 2011, Pentagon officials “don't expect to see any additional resources” from Congress for the aircraft, Schaffer said.
Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, who also spoke at the conference, echoed that sentiment. But, Hale said, “I wouldn't raise my right hand and swear” there will be no future cost growth because some uncertainty remains about the cost estimate underlying DOD's funding projections.
Still, should officials encounter unanticipated cost growth in the future, DOD would have to make do with existing money, which would mean buying fewer aircraft. “I don't see us getting a lot of added funding,” Hale said. He noted divergent projections between DOD and prime contractor Lockheed Martin about how many planes the military would get for the money budgeted, saying DOD's estimate is more conservative. -- Sebastian Sprenger
Pentagon, With Help From Three Contractors, Launches Broad Long-Range Strike Study
Inside Defense
March 4, 2010 -- Defense Department leaders this week began in earnest an effort to hammer out a plan to modernize its bomber force, an effort that will be supported by three outside contractors, according to two Pentagon officials.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for the study in December as a follow-up to an assessment of potential long-range strike capabilities conducted last year in support of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
On March 1, Ashton Carter, the Pentagon acquisition executive, chaired the kick-off senior-level working group that will guide the yearlong study. The goal is to determine what combination of joint persistent surveillance, electronic warfare and precision-attack capabilities -- launched from either penetrating or stand-off aircraft -- will best suit U.S. operations for the next three decades.
“This is a big, big undertaking,” said a Pentagon official involved in the effort.
Sources familiar with it said the study would match the effectiveness of different capability mixes against various scenarios to refine recommendations on how to proceed. A key near-term goal, these sources said, is to provide by June recommendations that could influence the fiscal years 2012 to 2017 Pentagon program blueprint.
The working group includes leaders from the Pentagon's policy shop, the office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation and the Joint Staff as well as other key stakeholders in a future bomber program, such as representatives from the Air Force, the Navy, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Pacific Command.
The Defense Department has hired three contractors to do some of the heavy lifting for the study, Pentagon officials said. They are the RAND Corp., the Institute for Defense Analyses and Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
The Defense Department has a lot of recent experience examining how to modernize its long-range bomber fleet, Pentagon sources said.
While previous studies have focused on what a future bomber might be capable of in terms of range, payload and speed, the current undertaking is widening the aperture and asking a broader set of questions, said one Pentagon official.
“This study is looking at what kind of different bombers might we have and how do those interrelate with electronic warfare and air- and sea-launched standoff weapons and persistent surveillance. If you bring it all together, what is the best portfolio for meeting operational requirements,” said the official. “It is not looking narrowly at the bomber, but the bomber in a context of a family of systems or a system of systems.”
Last month, the Pentagon published its new blueprint for the future -- the Quadrennial Defense Review-- that called for the military to expand upon future long-range strike capabilities.
“Enhanced long-range strike capabilities are one means of countering growing threats to forward-deployed forces and bases and ensuring U.S. power-projection capabilities,” the QDR states.
The review also mentions related efforts under way. The Navy, according to the QDR, is exploring options for expanding the capacity of future Virginia-class submarines to conduct long-range strike as well as to commence field experiments with naval unmanned aerial system prototypes.
The Air Force also is considering options for adding survivable, long-range surveillance and strike aircraft to its fleet as part of an incremental bomber modernization plan, according to the QDR report. -- Jason Sherman
March 4, 2010 -- Defense Department leaders this week began in earnest an effort to hammer out a plan to modernize its bomber force, an effort that will be supported by three outside contractors, according to two Pentagon officials.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for the study in December as a follow-up to an assessment of potential long-range strike capabilities conducted last year in support of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
On March 1, Ashton Carter, the Pentagon acquisition executive, chaired the kick-off senior-level working group that will guide the yearlong study. The goal is to determine what combination of joint persistent surveillance, electronic warfare and precision-attack capabilities -- launched from either penetrating or stand-off aircraft -- will best suit U.S. operations for the next three decades.
“This is a big, big undertaking,” said a Pentagon official involved in the effort.
Sources familiar with it said the study would match the effectiveness of different capability mixes against various scenarios to refine recommendations on how to proceed. A key near-term goal, these sources said, is to provide by June recommendations that could influence the fiscal years 2012 to 2017 Pentagon program blueprint.
The working group includes leaders from the Pentagon's policy shop, the office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation and the Joint Staff as well as other key stakeholders in a future bomber program, such as representatives from the Air Force, the Navy, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Pacific Command.
The Defense Department has hired three contractors to do some of the heavy lifting for the study, Pentagon officials said. They are the RAND Corp., the Institute for Defense Analyses and Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
The Defense Department has a lot of recent experience examining how to modernize its long-range bomber fleet, Pentagon sources said.
While previous studies have focused on what a future bomber might be capable of in terms of range, payload and speed, the current undertaking is widening the aperture and asking a broader set of questions, said one Pentagon official.
“This study is looking at what kind of different bombers might we have and how do those interrelate with electronic warfare and air- and sea-launched standoff weapons and persistent surveillance. If you bring it all together, what is the best portfolio for meeting operational requirements,” said the official. “It is not looking narrowly at the bomber, but the bomber in a context of a family of systems or a system of systems.”
Last month, the Pentagon published its new blueprint for the future -- the Quadrennial Defense Review-- that called for the military to expand upon future long-range strike capabilities.
“Enhanced long-range strike capabilities are one means of countering growing threats to forward-deployed forces and bases and ensuring U.S. power-projection capabilities,” the QDR states.
The review also mentions related efforts under way. The Navy, according to the QDR, is exploring options for expanding the capacity of future Virginia-class submarines to conduct long-range strike as well as to commence field experiments with naval unmanned aerial system prototypes.
The Air Force also is considering options for adding survivable, long-range surveillance and strike aircraft to its fleet as part of an incremental bomber modernization plan, according to the QDR report. -- Jason Sherman
03 March 2010
It's George Wallace's GOP Now
It's George Wallace's GOP Now
Like Wallace and his supporters 40 years ago, today's conservative populists are long on anger and short on coherence.
Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010
by Jonathan Rauch, national Journal
The history of the modern Republican Party in one sentence: Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller got into an argument and George Wallace won.
OK, footnotes are required. The most important is that racism, a central factor in Wallace's career, is marginal in today's Republican Party. In fact, if there is anything Republicans like about President Obama, it is the racial breakthrough that his election represents. Nothing in this article implies that the GOP is a racist party.
But there was much more to George Corley Wallace than race. We too easily forget, today, what a formidable figure he cut in his heyday. His four-term career as governor of Alabama spanned a quarter-century. In 1968, he launched one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in American history, winning 13 percent of the popular vote. In 1972, this time running as a Democrat, he won five primaries and was on a roll when a would-be assassin's bullet knocked him out of the race.
"To dismiss George Wallace as a racist or a demagogue is to seriously underestimate his allure," said the National Observer in 1968. "His appeal is broader, far broader, than racism, and his themes too vital to be contained within mere demagoguery." Wallace drew a map for Republicans' subsequent inroads into the South and blue-collar America, and he pioneered legitimate issues to which establishment politicians paid too little attention: easy money, dysfunctional welfare programs, perverse crime policies.
What Wallace did not do was frame a coherent program or governing philosophy. His agenda was "this strange conglomeration," says Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian and biographer of Wallace. "I don't expect politicians to be running a seminar, but there's an absolute incoherence about the thing that is more a cry of angst than a program."
Wallace's national appeal came neither from the racial backlash he exploited nor from his program, such as it was. "It was a deep sense of grievance," Carter says -- a feeling that elites "are not only screwing you over but at the same time they're laughing at you, they're looking down their noses at you."
Fast-forward to the present. The hottest ticket in the Republican Party is Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee. In a recent column, George Will compared her insurgent libertarianism to that of Goldwater's, which electrified the Right in 1964. Fair enough. But Goldwater served for 30 years as a respected insider in Washington's most exclusive club, the U.S. Senate; he was never interested in cultural and social issues; resentment and rage were alien to him. Palin's style and appeal are closer to Wallace's.
Palin: "Voters are sending a message." Wallace: "Send them a message!"
Palin: "The soul of this movement is the people, everyday Americans, who grow our food and run our small businesses, who teach our kids and fight our wars.... The elitists who denounce this movement, they just don't want to hear the message." Wallace: "They've looked down their noses at the average man on the street too long. They've looked [down] at the bus driver, the truck driver, the beautician, the fireman, the policeman, and the steelworker...."
Palin: "We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern." Wallace: "We have a professor -- I'm not talking about all professors, but here's an issue in the campaign -- we got these pseudo-theoreticians, and these pseudo-social engineers.... They want to tell you how to do."
Palin: "What does he [Obama] actually seek to accomplish...? The answer is to make government bigger; take more of your money; give you more orders from Washington." Wallace: "They say, 'We've gotta write a guideline. We've gotta tell you when to get up in the morning. We've gotta tell you when to go to bed at night.' "
Wallace was not a libertarian. In Alabama, he expanded the state government and built the junior college system. He never presented a program to shrink the government in Washington. That never stopped him from attacking Big Government, at least on the federal level. He called for "freedom from unwarranted, unwise, and unwanted intrusion and oppression by the federal government" and said, "I think that what they ought to do is cut down on federal spending." But he never put his money where his mouth was.
The cash value of Republican libertarianism has been similarly low. Ronald Reagan didn't reduce federal spending or try very hard; George W. Bush was a big spender; beginning in 1999, before Bush came to office, the Republican Congress sought to spend its way to a permanent majority. Today's "tea partiers" and Palin fans are angry about that, but try asking them for their plan to change it.
In February, Palin criticized Obama's proposed freeze on most domestic discretionary spending (about a sixth of the budget) as "certainly not enough," which it certainly isn't. "We need to go further," she told the Tea Party Nation convocation this month: "Cut spending, don't just simply slow down a spending spree." And she offered... what? To just simply slow down a spending spree: "Kill the plans for the second stimulus." This, she allowed cheerfully, is also "not going to be enough," but she said that her proposed non-increase, unlike Obama's proposed non-increase, would be "a good way to start and to show that we're serious about getting our financial house in order."
Actually, it shows that, like Wallace and his supporters 40 years ago, today's conservative populists are long on anger and short on coherence. For Wallace, small-government rhetoric was a trope, not a workable agenda. The same is true of his Republican heirs today, who insist that spending cuts alone, without tax increases, will restore fiscal balance but who have not proposed anywhere near enough spending cuts, primarily because they can't.
Someone who at least tried is Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, who recently unveiled a new edition of what he calls a "Road Map for America's Future." Its willingness to reform entitlement programs is laudable. But it keeps taxes at 19 percent of gross domestic product while raising (repeat: raising) federal spending from 21.6 percent of GDP in 2012 to more than 24 percent in the 2030s. It balances the budget, all right -- in 2063.
Even so, its spending cuts are political nonstarters. The House Republican leadership "distanced the party from the road map almost as soon as it was released," writes the Cato Institute's Gene Healy, who points out that Republicans' recent rush to position themselves as defenders of Medicare makes it "pretty clear that the GOP isn't serious about reducing spending."
It does seem serious about pandering to cultural resentment. Speaking to a conservative conference in February, Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota and a possible 2012 Republican presidential contender, denounced "elites" who "hang out at... Chablis-drinking, Brie-eating parties in San Francisco" and who look down on conservatives as "bumpkins." The only substantial difference from Wallace's resentful rhetoric is that Wallace did it much better ("They've called us rednecks.... Well, we're going to show, there sure are a lot of rednecks in this country!"). When Pawlenty called on the crowd to "take a nine iron and smash the window out of Big Government in this country," you knew you were deep into Wallace territory.
I am not saying that today's Republicans are a bunch of Wallace clones. Or that everything Wallace did or said was wrong, or that Republicans should shun all of his themes just because he used them. I am saying three things.
First, with the important exception of race, not one of Wallace's central themes, from his bristling nationalism and his court-bashing to his anti-intellectualism and his aggressive provincialism, would seem out of place at any major Republican gathering today.
Second, and again leaving race aside, any Republican politician who publicly renounced the Wallace playbook would be finished as a national leader.
Third, by becoming George Wallace's party, the GOP is abandoning rather than embracing conservatism, and it is thereby mortgaging both its integrity and its political future. Wallaceism was not sufficiently mainstream or coherent to sustain a national party in 1968, and the same is true today.
Conservatism is wary of extremism and rage and anti-intellectualism, of demagoguery and incoherent revolutionary rhetoric. Wallace was a right-wing populist, not a conservative. The rise of his brand of pseudo-conservatism in Republican circles should alarm anyone who cares about the genuine article.
Like Wallace and his supporters 40 years ago, today's conservative populists are long on anger and short on coherence.
Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010
by Jonathan Rauch, national Journal
The history of the modern Republican Party in one sentence: Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller got into an argument and George Wallace won.
OK, footnotes are required. The most important is that racism, a central factor in Wallace's career, is marginal in today's Republican Party. In fact, if there is anything Republicans like about President Obama, it is the racial breakthrough that his election represents. Nothing in this article implies that the GOP is a racist party.
But there was much more to George Corley Wallace than race. We too easily forget, today, what a formidable figure he cut in his heyday. His four-term career as governor of Alabama spanned a quarter-century. In 1968, he launched one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in American history, winning 13 percent of the popular vote. In 1972, this time running as a Democrat, he won five primaries and was on a roll when a would-be assassin's bullet knocked him out of the race.
"To dismiss George Wallace as a racist or a demagogue is to seriously underestimate his allure," said the National Observer in 1968. "His appeal is broader, far broader, than racism, and his themes too vital to be contained within mere demagoguery." Wallace drew a map for Republicans' subsequent inroads into the South and blue-collar America, and he pioneered legitimate issues to which establishment politicians paid too little attention: easy money, dysfunctional welfare programs, perverse crime policies.
What Wallace did not do was frame a coherent program or governing philosophy. His agenda was "this strange conglomeration," says Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian and biographer of Wallace. "I don't expect politicians to be running a seminar, but there's an absolute incoherence about the thing that is more a cry of angst than a program."
Wallace's national appeal came neither from the racial backlash he exploited nor from his program, such as it was. "It was a deep sense of grievance," Carter says -- a feeling that elites "are not only screwing you over but at the same time they're laughing at you, they're looking down their noses at you."
Fast-forward to the present. The hottest ticket in the Republican Party is Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee. In a recent column, George Will compared her insurgent libertarianism to that of Goldwater's, which electrified the Right in 1964. Fair enough. But Goldwater served for 30 years as a respected insider in Washington's most exclusive club, the U.S. Senate; he was never interested in cultural and social issues; resentment and rage were alien to him. Palin's style and appeal are closer to Wallace's.
Palin: "Voters are sending a message." Wallace: "Send them a message!"
Palin: "The soul of this movement is the people, everyday Americans, who grow our food and run our small businesses, who teach our kids and fight our wars.... The elitists who denounce this movement, they just don't want to hear the message." Wallace: "They've looked down their noses at the average man on the street too long. They've looked [down] at the bus driver, the truck driver, the beautician, the fireman, the policeman, and the steelworker...."
Palin: "We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern." Wallace: "We have a professor -- I'm not talking about all professors, but here's an issue in the campaign -- we got these pseudo-theoreticians, and these pseudo-social engineers.... They want to tell you how to do."
Palin: "What does he [Obama] actually seek to accomplish...? The answer is to make government bigger; take more of your money; give you more orders from Washington." Wallace: "They say, 'We've gotta write a guideline. We've gotta tell you when to get up in the morning. We've gotta tell you when to go to bed at night.' "
Wallace was not a libertarian. In Alabama, he expanded the state government and built the junior college system. He never presented a program to shrink the government in Washington. That never stopped him from attacking Big Government, at least on the federal level. He called for "freedom from unwarranted, unwise, and unwanted intrusion and oppression by the federal government" and said, "I think that what they ought to do is cut down on federal spending." But he never put his money where his mouth was.
The cash value of Republican libertarianism has been similarly low. Ronald Reagan didn't reduce federal spending or try very hard; George W. Bush was a big spender; beginning in 1999, before Bush came to office, the Republican Congress sought to spend its way to a permanent majority. Today's "tea partiers" and Palin fans are angry about that, but try asking them for their plan to change it.
In February, Palin criticized Obama's proposed freeze on most domestic discretionary spending (about a sixth of the budget) as "certainly not enough," which it certainly isn't. "We need to go further," she told the Tea Party Nation convocation this month: "Cut spending, don't just simply slow down a spending spree." And she offered... what? To just simply slow down a spending spree: "Kill the plans for the second stimulus." This, she allowed cheerfully, is also "not going to be enough," but she said that her proposed non-increase, unlike Obama's proposed non-increase, would be "a good way to start and to show that we're serious about getting our financial house in order."
Actually, it shows that, like Wallace and his supporters 40 years ago, today's conservative populists are long on anger and short on coherence. For Wallace, small-government rhetoric was a trope, not a workable agenda. The same is true of his Republican heirs today, who insist that spending cuts alone, without tax increases, will restore fiscal balance but who have not proposed anywhere near enough spending cuts, primarily because they can't.
Someone who at least tried is Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, who recently unveiled a new edition of what he calls a "Road Map for America's Future." Its willingness to reform entitlement programs is laudable. But it keeps taxes at 19 percent of gross domestic product while raising (repeat: raising) federal spending from 21.6 percent of GDP in 2012 to more than 24 percent in the 2030s. It balances the budget, all right -- in 2063.
Even so, its spending cuts are political nonstarters. The House Republican leadership "distanced the party from the road map almost as soon as it was released," writes the Cato Institute's Gene Healy, who points out that Republicans' recent rush to position themselves as defenders of Medicare makes it "pretty clear that the GOP isn't serious about reducing spending."
It does seem serious about pandering to cultural resentment. Speaking to a conservative conference in February, Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota and a possible 2012 Republican presidential contender, denounced "elites" who "hang out at... Chablis-drinking, Brie-eating parties in San Francisco" and who look down on conservatives as "bumpkins." The only substantial difference from Wallace's resentful rhetoric is that Wallace did it much better ("They've called us rednecks.... Well, we're going to show, there sure are a lot of rednecks in this country!"). When Pawlenty called on the crowd to "take a nine iron and smash the window out of Big Government in this country," you knew you were deep into Wallace territory.
I am not saying that today's Republicans are a bunch of Wallace clones. Or that everything Wallace did or said was wrong, or that Republicans should shun all of his themes just because he used them. I am saying three things.
First, with the important exception of race, not one of Wallace's central themes, from his bristling nationalism and his court-bashing to his anti-intellectualism and his aggressive provincialism, would seem out of place at any major Republican gathering today.
Second, and again leaving race aside, any Republican politician who publicly renounced the Wallace playbook would be finished as a national leader.
Third, by becoming George Wallace's party, the GOP is abandoning rather than embracing conservatism, and it is thereby mortgaging both its integrity and its political future. Wallaceism was not sufficiently mainstream or coherent to sustain a national party in 1968, and the same is true today.
Conservatism is wary of extremism and rage and anti-intellectualism, of demagoguery and incoherent revolutionary rhetoric. Wallace was a right-wing populist, not a conservative. The rise of his brand of pseudo-conservatism in Republican circles should alarm anyone who cares about the genuine article.
02 March 2010
CNO: Navy Faces 100-Aircraft Fighter Gap, Will Deliberate Issue In POM-12
Inside Defense
Feb. 25, 2010 -- The Navy is projecting a peak department-wide strike fighter shortfall of 100 aircraft, a lower figure than earlier estimates due to mitigation measures such as the purchase of more Super Hornets and the use of attrition aircraft, but service officials noted the number is "fluid" and could change.
“I believe we have done some very good work in using attrition aircraft and transitioning squadrons,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said today during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Right now, we sit and we look at what we're going to have in the future, it's about a 100-aircraft [fighter gap].”
Roughead said officials “are going to have to look at the life extension of some of our earlier [F/A-]18A-Ds, and that's where our focus will be” in the upcoming deliberations of the fiscal year 2012 program objective memorandum (POM-12). The POM-12 process will build a six-year investment plan with baseline costs for FY-12 to FY-17, plus expected costs for overseas contingency operations (OCO) in FY-12.
As recently as last year, the Navy had been looking at a fighter shortfall of up to 243 aircraft for both the Navy and Marine Corps in the middle of next decade as legacy Hornets are retired and the follow-on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter comes online.
In the proposed FY-11 defense budget unveiled earlier this month, the Navy increased the number of Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers the service plans to purchase over the future years defense plan to 124, keeping the production line open through FY-13, which will further help mitigate the gap, according to officials.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told reporters after today’s hearing that the 100-aircraft figure is a “moving number,” and there is no set year on when the shortfall is expected to peak.
“The reason that I'm not giving just an absolute direct answer here is that we have been taking mitigation actions,” he said.
Roughead and Mabus emphasized that much will depend on developing a business case for extending the lives of aging legacy Hornets and determining which aircraft can be extended, something the service is assessing right now. The Navy is also conducting high-flight-hour inspections of the newer Super Hornets and determining their life expectancy, Mabus said.
“As we look at these things and take some of these actions, the numbers at the end change and the years change, and so it's really going to be an issue for POM-12 in terms of what other actions we need to take or what other actions will be recommended,” he said. -- Dan Taylor
Feb. 25, 2010 -- The Navy is projecting a peak department-wide strike fighter shortfall of 100 aircraft, a lower figure than earlier estimates due to mitigation measures such as the purchase of more Super Hornets and the use of attrition aircraft, but service officials noted the number is "fluid" and could change.
“I believe we have done some very good work in using attrition aircraft and transitioning squadrons,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said today during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Right now, we sit and we look at what we're going to have in the future, it's about a 100-aircraft [fighter gap].”
Roughead said officials “are going to have to look at the life extension of some of our earlier [F/A-]18A-Ds, and that's where our focus will be” in the upcoming deliberations of the fiscal year 2012 program objective memorandum (POM-12). The POM-12 process will build a six-year investment plan with baseline costs for FY-12 to FY-17, plus expected costs for overseas contingency operations (OCO) in FY-12.
As recently as last year, the Navy had been looking at a fighter shortfall of up to 243 aircraft for both the Navy and Marine Corps in the middle of next decade as legacy Hornets are retired and the follow-on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter comes online.
In the proposed FY-11 defense budget unveiled earlier this month, the Navy increased the number of Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers the service plans to purchase over the future years defense plan to 124, keeping the production line open through FY-13, which will further help mitigate the gap, according to officials.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told reporters after today’s hearing that the 100-aircraft figure is a “moving number,” and there is no set year on when the shortfall is expected to peak.
“The reason that I'm not giving just an absolute direct answer here is that we have been taking mitigation actions,” he said.
Roughead and Mabus emphasized that much will depend on developing a business case for extending the lives of aging legacy Hornets and determining which aircraft can be extended, something the service is assessing right now. The Navy is also conducting high-flight-hour inspections of the newer Super Hornets and determining their life expectancy, Mabus said.
“As we look at these things and take some of these actions, the numbers at the end change and the years change, and so it's really going to be an issue for POM-12 in terms of what other actions we need to take or what other actions will be recommended,” he said. -- Dan Taylor