The Army, unhappy that the House Armed Services Committee plans to cut $200 mil­lion from its top mod­ern­iza­tion pro­gram, plans a June 11 assault on the House side of the Capitol using ele­ments of its Future Combat System. Relax! Its a joke.

But the Army really does want to show the Hill just how effec­tive FCS can be and how much it is begin­ning to pro­duce capa­bil­i­ties sol­diers use in Iraq now or in the near future. And it does plan a June 11 demon­stra­tion on the Hill.

Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Armys deputy chief of staff for pro­grams, spoke Thursday after­noon with reporters and one of his first points was that the Army does have a vision when it comes to FCS. I asked Gen. Speakes how the Army is answer­ing the HASC, which made a fairly com­pelling argu­ment. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-​​Hawaii), chair­man of the House Armed Service air­land sub­com­mit­tee, said he cut 5.5 per­cent of pro­gram fund­ing to reduce con­cur­rency of net­work and manned ground vehi­cle devel­op­ment and reduce pro­gram man­age­ment costs. On top of that, the sub­com­mit­tee shifted $33 mil­lion from long-​​term por­tions of the pro­gram to near-​​term ele­ments that have a chance of being fielded by 2011. Abercrombie made it clear that tech­ni­cal rea­sons wer­ent the only jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the reduc­tion. FCS, he said, con­tin­ues to oper­ate in vio­la­tion of many major Department of Defense acqui­si­tion poli­cies, includ­ing the basic and long-​​standing pol­icy requir­ing full and ade­quate test­ing of equip­ment before pro­duc­tion begins. If that sounds to you like the Democratic com­plaints about the Missile Defense Agencys approach to acqui­si­tion, you win a Kewpie doll.

Gen. Speakes very respect­fully offered this jus­ti­fi­ca­tion when I asked him how the Army is answer­ing the House crit­i­cisms: This is an inte­grated pro­gram. You cant break it apart and still deliver the capa­bil­i­ties. Also, Speakes said the ser­vice plans to show law­mak­ers just how much FCS is influ­enc­ing the fight, cit­ing the FRAG kit 5 armor used on Humvees, which he said is the pre­cur­sor for FCS armor. The first ver­sion of the cru­cial FCS net­work, progress on which has been crit­i­cized by the Government Accountability Office in recent reports, is being tested at Fort Bliss. Most of all, Speakes said, the pres­sure in on us to deliver and to make the capa­bil­i­ties we are talk­ing about and make them real. We think we are answer­ing that test.

Speakes approach on all this may have been influ­enced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-​​NJ), rank­ing mem­ber of the air­land sub­com­mit­tee. In a recent blog about FCS, Saxton said the Army needs to spend less time try­ing to save the FCS pro­gram; and more time explain­ing how sol­diers want and need the capa­bil­i­ties that FCS brings to the fight.

Speakes also addressed the chal­lenge in Defense Secretary Robert Gatess May 13 speech in Colorado, when he said the mil­i­tary must beware of plan­ning to fight the next war and find itself unready for the cur­rent one.

He said that FCS, which he saw in action at Fort Bliss, must con­tinue to demon­strate its value for the types of irreg­u­lar chal­lenges we will face, as well as for full-​​spectrum war­fare. Speakes said FCS will be able to go any­where and han­dle any fight. It is, for exam­ple, being mod­i­fied to bet­ter cope with the threat from IEDs, he said.

Well see whether the House Democrats and Gates buy in. Reminder the Senate Armed Services Committee fully funded the admin­is­tra­tions $3.6 bil­lion request for FCS.

– Colin Clark