Well, Pentagon chief Robert Gates finally unveiled the 2010 top line budget with a few nips and tucks here, a smidgen of add ons there, but at the end of the day, entirely predictable and verging on DOA on Capitol Hill.
I loved his line “it is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk or, in effect, to run up the score in a capability where the United States is already dominant is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in, and improve capabilities in areas where we are under invested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk I will not take.”
I agree with this wholeheartedly, but I will say, it’s dangerous to not take seriously prospective threats and deny potential adversaries a “fair fight” — even if it’s a really unfair fight.
2010 SecDef Budget Statement
During the Q&A session, Gates deep sixed HAC-D Chairman John Murtha’s idea of a split tanker buy, setting up a big fight on Capitol Hill and he stopped the F-22 buy at 187, sure to draw the ire of powerful lawmakers from Georgia and other Raptor states.
Lawmakers had a hard time applauding Gates’ plan, with both Murtha and Skelton saying basically “it’s a nice first step, Mr. Secretary, but we’re the ones who appropriate here.
I think the CSAR-X decision makes sense, but I worry that it will severely delay a new bird for rescuers. Gates said he wanted a joint solution, but in the end, CSAR is usually joint, even if it resides in the Air Force.
I’m cool with the missile defense numbers — I like ABL as a technology demonstrator and a test bed for spinoffs and I can see where he’s coming from on FCS…I just worry that as the Army is faced with the decision to buy new versions of the Bradley and M1 and other armored vehicles in the future, it will wind up being more expensive than if it were part of a single program — even one as troubled at FCS is now.
And he couldn’t help taking a swipe at the Army on it either:
We will retain and accelerate the initial increment of the program to spin out technology enhancements to all combat brigades. However, I have concluded that there are significant unanswered questions concerning the FCS vehicle design strategy. I am also concerned that, despite some adjustments, the FCS vehicles where lower weight, higher fuel efficiency, and greater informational awareness are expected to compensate for less armor do not adequately reflect the lessons of counterinsurgency and close quarters combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’ve always said that FCS makes for a great R&D program that can spin off into the current force and press the technological limits to better inform decisions when it’s time to build replacement vehicles, so as long as this happens, I think we’ll be in good shape. But you just wait until Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) gets his hands on the authorization bill and fights for his prized NLOS-C system. Gates’ reform attempt could face death by 1,000 cuts.
I’m not as smart on the DDG-1000 vs. DDG-51 vs. LCS vs. whatever the heck naval ship system…smarter people on this site can try and help me understand the best way to go on that one. Seems to me, though, that our Navy might be a tad small and a tad vulnerable and superiority of the seas has stood powerful nations in better stead than superiority of the air. But I’m agnostic.
It also surprises me he canned the “Presidential Helo” program, though you gotta bet the Sikorsky folks in Connecticut are jumping for joy on that one.
We’ll have a bunch more coverage here and at DoD Buzz on this as the service-specific budgets roll out and the R-1s and P-1s become available. We’ll do a document dump here when they do and continue with interviews and analysis. Our boy Winslow Wheeler says it’s more of the same:
For the defense Departments broken acquisition system, the Secretarys endorsement of the Levin McCain procurement reform bill (now watered down at the Defense Departments urging) means that business as usual is very alive and well. There will be some new bottles for some very old wine, but the bitterness of the taste will still be around as we rush to build untested aircraft (e.g. F-35), endorse problematic, unaffordable ship designs (e.g. LCS), and spend generously to defend against less, not more likely, threats (e.g. missile defense).
For one set of decisions, even if they are unspectacular, Secretary Gates deserves much good credit. He made people his first priority. Hopefully, that was not just rhetorical. The emphasis he put on medical research, caring for the wounded, and family support are all to be greatly commended. I fear, however, that Congress will do little more on this prime issue than simply throw money as it has in the past.
But let’s hear from you guys…what did you think?
– Christian
With regards to the Navy:
LCS is garbage.
Gates wants to do away with the DDG-1000 in lieu of more DDG-51s. I am all for that. In reality the DDG-51s are the culmination of lessons learned on the CG-47s and casualties received in battle during the 80s. I love these boats and we should be building at least 2 a year. These boats were stationed off of North Korea this past weekend.
I also read on Colin’s blog that we are going down to 10 carriers I believe. I don’t think we can go below 12, but we will learn our lesson on that one. Just wait until Gates wants a carrier to respond immediately.
DC2
SECDEF Gates has been telegraphing these changes for quite some time. He set the goal for Raptors at 187 quite some time ago. Gates has also been a critic of FCS and missile defense programs for a while too. In fact, he’s been pretty hard on just about every program that doesn’t contribute to winning our current wars in any meaningful way.
Watch, though, as the conservatives come out and accuse Obama of treason, corruption, selling the country’s future out, just plain being a big ol’ meanie over this.
I really appluad Sec Gates and his vision for DoD spending but alas, now the Congressional Representatives will be sure to put the interests of the Services far behind the interests of their Congressional district constitutents.
Bring home the bacon and forget what our men in women in uniform really need!
What a shame.…
Soonergrunt,
It took 22 minutes by my count.
Now comes the real fight Congressmen and Senators trying to save there friends big ticket items at the expense of the real defense of American President Esenhouwer said it best look out for the Military Industrial Comples(ie. Congress) if we really look at our military today we buy too little weapons what we need is better and more affordable weapons not items that are not tested nor functional in the real world. Maybe we should take a page out of the Russina arms industry, Build a system and then modify it to meet our needs. Sometimes you can’t buy a Rolls Royce with a beer budget. Hopefully we will get somethings changed but i don’t think so? What do you think
As regards his desire to “not run up the score”?
Fool!
“Find the enemy and shoot him down; anything else is nonsense.” — Capt. Baron Von Richthofen
And much of his decision-making is just that — nonsense. Perhaps his need for funds for growing the human fighting force relates more to this:
H.R. 1388: Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act
How many kids can you get for a couple mil these days, anyway?
DDG-1000 was a concept too expensive (almost as much as a small aircraft carrier) to make sense, no matter how great. Using aircraft carriers to provide fire support for Marines sounds horribly wasteful costwise, until you think about doing the same thing with a Zumwalt.
It is less obvious that we need more DDG-51s. Mostly, the DDG-51 is used to escort aircraft carriers, and we will have fewer of those. But, we could make a smaller, more focused ship for that purpose, perhaps nuclear powered so that they wouldn’t defeat the logistical purpose of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Finding a job for maritime nuclear power plant engineers would also reduce the need to keep the Virginia going simply to be a jobs/skill preservation program as opposed to as a way to meet the defense needs of the country.
As a cruise missile delivery device, aircraft and submarines both make more sense.
The need for a multi-mission, blue sea destroyer that acts autonomously doesn’t seem to be particularly great, and we have a lot of DDG-51s in the fleet as it is now.
Cruisers and destroyers currently serve almost identical missions with similar equipment and we have a great many of them in the fleet as it is, yet they are highly vulnerable to submarine/missile attack is training exercises, intelligence reports and incidents with foreign submarines are to be believed.
I don’t see any cohesive direction in this budget. It seems demoralizing more than anything else.
As another poster said: “Maybe we should take a page out of the Russina arms industry, Build a system and then modify it to meet our needs.“
My personal thoughts on that (others will definitely disagree) is that the LCS is a great base for such a systems approach. Also, we *need* two fighter programs combined with advanced unmanned aerial systems so all our eggs are not in one basket in such a critical area. The JSF, with its major weak point of a single engine, had better be damn cheap so we can churn them out cheaply, but it does have the possibility of being a flexible platform. The F-22 is like a finely honed sword of Damascus steel, razor sharp and extremely deadly. And now with the limited production run, maybe too expensive and rare to use… a collectors item rather than an aircraft you take risks with and push to its limits. There had better be something else being kept secret to justify the Raptor cut.
One final thing. We really should be investing in game-changing technologies that could obsolete the militaries of both our small and big enemies. On the large side, things like cost-effective orbital weapons platforms. And on the small side, urban warfare technologies.
Boomer replacment?
Glade hes cutting the DDG 1k to just 1 dont see why theres a question of starting up the ddg51 line unless theres some idea of a new destroyer/crusier design.
Missile defense i think like someone said in another forum should be moved to naval assets sence there mobile. and can draw from existing platforms like aegis.
F22 erm kinda figured theyd go to around 210 224 or so but ok damn thing is just to freakin much no matter how much it rocks.
FCS long overdue though i hope they dont just throw out all that we’ve learned especialy on NLOS. btw what about stryker aquission?
Tactical aircraft?.…are they talkin about replacing A-10s with f35s? if they are there frickin morons and worse.
Anyways thats just a little of my veiws…
I‘m English and we suffer from the same problem ie massive waste by the military procurement staff . Re the F22 and JSF all I know from a frontline RAF officer is that the Russians and Chinese would be blown out the sky by the RAF never mind the USAF with F22‘s . He said the F22 and JSF are twenty years ahead of current russian/chinese avionics .
Superior tactics / avionics / missiles / radar and training mean the USAF will rule the skies for at least the next thirty years .
So I agree with Gates focus a little more on the guys on the ground taking casualties and doing the real fighting .
Remember the Russians and chinese will never want to fight a large conventional war against the USA as they know they would be out of the game in days , instead they will use as many asymmetric options as they can fathom .
Posted by: ohwilleke at April 6, 2009 05:35 PM
Um ok as for LCS hate it way to expensive for a ship to hunt down pirates.
I think a wiser idea would be to design a new cheap (reletively speakin of course) frigate class that has the duty of sub hunting/patrol/anti piracy.
From now on make all destroyer crusiers etc large long range ships nucleur powered.
BMD a must obviously for a antiair/BMD crusier what have you.
Forget about stealth crusier destoyers etc.
An institution like the War Department (oops) needs someone at the top who gives it a cohesive direction by making well grounded and well communicated choices. Too many free flowing dollars leads to an exponentially rising loss of focus on results.
In this respect, Secretary Gates delivers more often than he fails, I think. I am most relieved by his common sense approach to giving the army tools that won’t be broken too easily.
I do wish that the F-22 weren’t cancelled, it seems to me that a powerful enemy successfully deterred is like hundreds of billions in the kitty.
Looking for a superweapon is wishing for the easy way out, we need processes, institutions, and fighting forces that adapt and can do things the hard, sensible, and methodical way, while being knowledgeable enough to know when an opportunity presents itself, be it tactical, strategic, technological, or just plain smart.
obama believes American Power is the problem and seeks to limit our capabilities.
That is, obama is attempting to redirect military programs which would otherwise maintain the USA superpower global power projection capability
(F-22, FCS, CSGs, etc) to constabulary capabilities, read European
military, which are no threat to rising powers. Combine this with the directed atrophying of serious ABM technologies, (MKV, ABL, GBI) with his
rhetoric directed to unilateral nuclear disarmament, test band treaty and
new arm limit agreements with Russia and what other conclusion can be drawn?
The Bush administration had already planned to terminate the F-22 this year, so that is no cut. Obama plans to spend more than Bush, so where are the cuts? The F-22 does not have the ground attack systems like the F-15s, that is a future unfunded mod plan. They’ve known the ABL doesn’t work years, so its no suprise they finally ended it. The new Navy destroyers have proven less capable than the old ones, so even the Admirals want that program ended. Of course the failed V-22 lives on, even though its performance is less than half of what was promised. When you read its specs, those were goals that were never met. More at G2mil on that disaster. These cuts are merely a pin prick of what needs to be done.
I’m glad they’re thinking about dialing back missile defense. It doesn’t work, and counter measures will always be effective.
Posted by: cvn at April 6, 2009 08:32 PM
You know what scares me is that accually makes alot of sense.
Hopefully lawmakers will take this recommendation as an oppurtunity to push for new legacy aircraft to bridge the fighter gap.
SecDef Gates is just leveraging his role as the Administration’s token outsider to accomplish pretty much what he wanted to do anyway. Its an Win-Win for Team Obama and Gates. They get to ptretend to care about defense (a la Clinton and Cohen), and he gets to have the last word against those in the earlier administration who modulated his poorer instincts.
The only really large disappointment I found was is the punt on Long Range Strike, and the rationale offered: so pathetic and sad.
It seems that one recurring theme in these threads, that occurs far too often , is that someone will advocate some magic bullet, like increased use of cruise missiles, instead of buying this or that weapon system. Such advocacy clearly indicates 1) A complete lack of knowledge of magic bullet costs and 2) an almost child-like faith in their effectiveness-unsupported by experience.
Good Night all
Carrier build rate reduced to 1 every 5 years. This means we will have 10 carriers by 2040.
re: F-22
Russia has 300 mig-29s of which one third was just grounded,su-27s are probably in the same situation. Nuff’ said.
Anyway, retiring 250 fighters to buy 30 is way to destroy air force. Re-open F-16/F-18 production if can’t afford F-35 @ 50/year at least.
re: presidential helo
costliest helo per piece, ever! S-70 derivative for Mr.Obama is enough.
re: LCS and DDGs:
LCS is crap, and so is Zumwalt. More Burkes makes sense, but cheap, off-the shelf frigate of MEKO standard would be best. And SLEP the Perrys!
The FCS program was critcised from day one but it fundamental aim was to streamline the Army to operate with less units/soldiers & for at a lower cost, something that would be kindof useful during these times huh?!
It makes economic sense to use vehicles less then 20 ton than a Bradley or Abrams that have expensive logistical upkeeps + are gas guzzlers.
Not only that but with enrollments into the army set to decline even further, an offensive force armed with vehicles that are designed to operate with less men or unmanned is kindof benificial, no?
Not only that it produced force multipliers + game changers in the NLOS-LS system. Not only for defence/holding the high ground (burried int he ground thanks to bull dozers; extremely hard to find with satelites or over the horizon radar) but also as a extremely cheap replacement for the aircraft carrier. Meaning, using the Netfires as floating buoys in the ocean as a barracade to a country, dropped/inserted by whatever, (Transport planes, B52, Hell even pushed off the side of a coast guard ship). These self contained missiles in a box then effectively blockade a nation for hostile forces leaving a country but can also strike on land inside their nation, maybe the missiles could be modified for anti air aswell.
loosing an NLOS LS means nothing, loosing an aircraft carrier is a shock to national prestige not to mention a loss of billions of dollars, theres only 12 too. Do the math a blockade of 100 NLOS LS buoys which are dispensible or one Aircraft carrier to do the same thing, one is Extremely cheaper.
Why would such a program be cut that is a representation of the economic times we are in. Seems the programs fault was being ahead of its times.
LCS is a piece of crap. Instead, why not making some cheap a$$ thing like some WWII-style destroyer (like the Fletcher) with modern technology? It should be massively cheap and dozens could be built. Or just buy a foreign design like the Visby corvette and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
I just hate to see how simple programs go severely overbudget, the American military industrial complex should learn some lessons from Russia (more from old USSR though) in certain aspects. Overdesigning, overbudgeting, overcomplex, overeverything. Not to say that we are falling in some of the same errors of Nazi Germany: why re-designing a very proven, simple, cheap and excellent tank like the T-34 and turning it into some expensive, complex, unproven and unreliable machine like the early Panthers? Some things need to be simple and cheap: the president helo, the tanker or the LCS are clear examples of simple projects gone mad. I think there are other projects like the F22 or the carriers that deserve more right to be complex and overbudget, as they are gamechangers and there are no alternatives to them
Just a few points.
1) There are a lot of crazy people here. Obama isn’t a traitor, he just doesn’t agree with you on (many many) issues. That’s okay, because I don’t think I’d agree with you either.
2) Yes, we should learn from Russia. We should learn to not do things like fuggin’ Russia does. That’s like a rich man driving down the road in his Mercedes, looking out at the homeless guy on the street, and saying “Hey, he doesn’t have to worry about the stock market. I should learn from him.“
3) We need a balance between having enough stuff and having the best stuff. We need to have the best in case we go to war against another nation, to guarantee victory. And we need enough stuff to last. We need stuff not just to win the war, but to secure the peace, without breaking the bank. Whether Gates’ plan is the appropriate balance, we’ll never agree. But a balance must be struck.
To me, the F-22 is proven and it works. Its cost is finally in line with other top tier fighters. Quitting on it now is like buying a girl a bunch of drinks and then stopping just as she’s starting to take off her bra.
The DDX is a waste. As vast a chasm as exists between our air capability and an opponent’s, an even greater one exists between our naval might and an opponent’s. The DDX is a technology demonstrator, and its cost has ballooned to make its labor-saving technologies no longer economical. I think it’s time to pull the plug on that experiment and use lessons learned on future designs. As cool as a nuclear powered railgun would be, that’s still a ways from deployment.
FCS is in the same boat. The NLOS cannon is the only one that actually works. Let’s cut our losses and build the one, but let’s not pretend that any of the other vehicles were anywhere near complete. Let’s cancel it and begin work on real replacement vehicles for the Abrams and the Bradley.
Missile defense can and does work. To pretend that it can never be successful is to bury your head in the sand. Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s any pressing need for it right now. But let’s continue development of things like the ABL and continue research and tests on missile interceptors. Russia obviously has concerns that missile defense is a threat to them, otherwise they wouldn’t have their panties in such a wad over it.
Seems a pretty good compromise. The Pres. helo program was ridiculous, FCS needed a kick in the pants. Never quite understood the ddg1000. Aren’t these ‘boats’ really all about the systems they contain? Big proven DDG-51s with the latest hardware are surely enough.
Not convinced on the f-22 however. Don’t forget, this decision will shape the US AF many decades from now. Sure upgraded f-16 & f-15 are still capable aircraft. Same in 2030? 2040? What is the path of the Chinese AF?
Just noticed the advertisement for the BAE “Valanx,” sure to be part of the bid for light armored vehicles. It is hard to recommend BAE for anything after their recent record of bribes, criminal action, and providing whores for Saudis:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld