Over the North Atlantic in 1991, several rare meteorological
events occurred simultaneously combining, as Sebastian Junger
wrote, into “The Perfect Storm” of massive destructive power. Next
January a series of bad congressional actions — and some awful
Pentagon decisions on weapon systems — may combine with the
deteriorating outlook for the defense industry to create a perfect
storm for the Pentagon. If that storm hits, it will have an
enormously destructive effect on America’s ability to defend itself
for a generation.
Last year’s “Budget Control Act” — which was intended to give
Obama political cover on our bizarre federal debt at least through
the election — also set up a sure-to-fail mechanism (the so-called
“supercommittee”) to cut spending under the threat of budget
sequestration equally divided between defense (to motivate
Republican compromise) and domestic programs (except entitlements,
giving Democrats reason enough to not do so). The “supercommittee”
failed to agree on cuts because the Dems, foreseeably, didn’t want
to cut anything and insisted on raising taxes.
The result is that “budget sequestration” will be imposed in
January unless Congress changes the law and Obama signs the fix.
The “sequestration” — a limitation of future spending — may
amount to $600 billion in defense cuts over the next decade in
addition to the $400 billion in defense cuts Obama has already
imposed. Congress hasn’t moved to fix the problem and, in November
of last year, Obama threatened repeatedly to veto any attempt to
block defense sequestration.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
that the automatic cuts from sequestration could cause the U.S. to
lose its status as a global power. He reversed himself after what
we must assume was a frantic scolding from his bosses. But his
bosses are doing no better.
In February, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress,
“There is not a hell of a lot of planning I can do,” because
sequestration makes automatic and equally distributed cuts across
DoD accounts, using a “meat-axe” approach.
Both said Obama’s military strategy could not be carried out if
sequestration was in effect.
Sequestration is timed to combine with some of the Defense
Department’s worst decisions in recent history on which weapon
systems to buy and when. Most or all of these decisions flow from
former defense secretary Robert Gates’s condemnation of what he
called “next war-itis.” Believing that we’d never have to fight
another conventional war, Gates derided the idea that our defense
systems should include the most advanced technologies. But Gates’s
wrongheadedness is the same thinking that led us — in World War II
and other conflicts — to trying to fight the next war with the
weapons of the last one, or the one before.
Gates, under Bush and then Obama, led the way to some of the
worst decisions on weapon systems in living memory.
Two examples suffice. Gates — with the acquiescence first of
Bush and then Obama — terminated the F-22 air superiority fighter
at 187 aircraft. The original Air Force requirement was for 750.
Instead, the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter” was chosen as the basket
into which all the Air Force, Navy, and Marine eggs would be
stacked.
The last time we tried to do this was in the late 1960s. The
aircraft was the F-111. And although it did some things well, the
F-111 couldn’t do most of what it was intended to do and ended up
as a white elephant in the Air Force museum.
The F-35 is a predictable mess because some of the bad decisions
made during the F-111 program were repeated in it by people who
should know better. As Frank Kendall, acting chief of Pentagon
acquisition, said, “Putting the F-35 into production years before
the first test flight was acquisition malpractice.” The production
before testing is known in the trade as “concurrent development,”
and the history of Pentagon weapon-system buying is littered with
the rubble of concurrent development programs.
It’s not just that the F-35’s price has grown so much so fast:
it’s the fact that no one can say — after a decade of concurrent
development — when the aircraft can be deployed or what it will
really cost. Allies who had contracted to buy F-35’s, such as
Canada, are now re-thinking that decision.
The last F-22 will roll off the production line this month. The
“Silent Eagle” version of the F-15, a good gap-filler between the
40-year old F-15s and F-16s and the F-22, isn’t being built.
Another great example is the DDG-1000 “Zumwalt” class stealthy
destroyer. Being built on budget and on (or ahead) of schedule, the
program was terminated at three ships. Insisting on the
cancellation, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead
decided to go back to building the old DDG-51, with some
modifications. The “new” DDG-51 will be extensively redesigned,
lengthened, and incorporate some new (to the DDG-51) weapons.
But, of course, the “new” DDG-51 will be billions more expensive
than the DDG-1000, will take many more years to build, and — most
importantly — will be far less capable in combat. It’s as stealthy
as a Carnival Cruise ship. There are other examples, including the
massively idiotic Littoral Combat Ship (on which more billions are
being spent), which isn’t capable of surviving in a modern combat
environment and can’t do one of its primary missions —
minesweeping — because its many electronic systems are prone to
failure.
Sequestration and bad decisions on weapons are almost enough for
a perfect storm. The one remaining ingredient is the business
environment for defense companies, which is getting worse by the
minute.
We now have the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Companies can’t sacrifice business viability and profits for the
public good. And they have to plan for sequestration even if Leon
Panetta can’t. Which means that they are — right now — planning
decreased production, investment, and hiring. And implementing
those plans won’t be delayed until Congress, the Pentagon, and
Obama sort things out.
Major defense contractors spend billions on independent research
and development when the defense market supports it by buying new
technologies. Those IR&D expenditures shrink when the market
doesn’t support it, and our resulting technological advantage in
war — which won the Cold War and several hot wars since —
disappears. Government labs and research facilities just don’t have
the capability to produce this sort of research, as their track
record proves.
Sequestration — as Panetta said — will indiscriminately cut
weapon-system spending across every program. It will mean contracts
will be breached by the government, programs will be further
reduced or cancelled, factories will be closed, and thousands of
jobs will be lost. What neither Congress nor the White House seems
to remember — and the past experience is deep and painful — is
that government contracts frequently cost more to terminate than to
complete. Contractors are entitled, by contract and law, to
termination costs. Lawyers delight in them because they often are
awarded after years of litigation. But the government gets nothing
for them. No ships, no aircraft, no rifles for the infantry. Just a
bill to pay.
That bill will not just be dollars. It will also be paid in a
general reduction in our ability to defend ourselves, our interests
abroad, and our allies. Without planning for defense, using the
matrix of future threats our forces are expected to deter or defeat
as a baseline, no one can say how bad that reduction of our
defenses will be.
At a recent Air Force Association symposium, the commander of
Air Combat Command, Gen. Gilmary Hostage, said, “… at some point, I
run out of things to cut. I can only give up so much capacity to
gain capability before dwindling inventories make even the best
quality less dominant.” He added, “… to remain… capable, we cannot
maintain the status quo and try to do more with less. That will
just lead us down the path to a hollow force.”
Just so. Obama’s build-down, sequestration, a bad business
environment, and a long string of awful decisions on weapon systems
in the pipeline will accomplish what no enemy could: the
transformation of our military into a paper tiger.
Thus the Perfect Pentagon Storm. Sequestration is coming in
January, but the coming storm’s massive power is already being felt
throughout the defense community.
