The Requirements of Convenience

If I was writing a review of Admiral Roughead, I would point out that the man was held hostage publicly by the shipbuilding issues related to large surface combatants for most of his term to date. I don't know what happened with the commissioning of the PCU Truxtun, but the quality of the news articles generated from that event from Roughead were excellent. That was, without question, his best public engagement of his term to date.

Of his clear successes, his manipulation in the House and the Senate has been masterfully done, and he has effectively played a 'get out of jail free card' on Capitol Hill to get his vision into the budget despite enormous pressures against change.

When I read appeals to Congress in editorials from critics of Gates, or Roughead, I almost find it comical these days. Where is the evidence that either the House or the Senate can do anything other than be a door mat to these folks right now? Gates has more power in Washington right now than any Senator or Congressman, and no one in the mainstream media is willing to challenge anything he says or decides.

In many ways, this is the fault of both the House and the Senate, because they have been giving inches only to see the DoD take miles. Now, with the release of the FY 2010 budget, the Navy believes that a 6% budget increase in the DoD budget during a time of hack & slash defense funding means they are above the law. This is the response when asked where the 30-year shipbuilding plan was in regards to the budget.

"It would be inappropriate" to submit the plan before the 2009 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), Rear Adm. John Blake, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, told reporters at the Pentagon during a press briefing May 7. Blake explained that the QDR would set requirements for the fleet and an updated plan would be submitted next year.

Also absent was a 30-year aviation plan, which Congress last year mandated for the first time. The requirement for both plans to be submitted on an annual basis is included under Title X of the U.S. Code.

This is a bold answer, because suggesting it is "inappropriate" from the point of view of the Navy to be asked to obey the law is very bold. Seriously, has this been thought out? I wasn't aware that the Navy gets to pick and choose which laws are "appropriate" or not, but it is entirely possible the Senate and House are too weak to do anything about it. I've been thinking a lot lately about the criticisms being leveled at Gates, and the Navy, and I think there is a new culture in the DoD I am not sure I think is a good thing for the long term strategic interests of the United States. I also think the culture in Congress is starting to resemble the Bush era Republican Congress, and I know that isn't a good thing for US strategic interests.

Look, Gates has proven to be a stabilizing factor in the DoD for a nation at war, but we should be careful not to allow that to imply everything he does is covered in gold. Where did the number 187 come from in regards to the F-22? Everyone knows it didn't come from any Air Force study, so where exactly did it come from? Where does the requirement for more DDG-51s come from? We know when the change was made last July there was no analysis suggesting a requirement, so where do these enormously expensive and strategic decisions originate? We are watching several billion dollar decisions (contrary to existing requirements planning) get pulled out of someones rear end absent any requirements planning process, and shoved in the face of the American people like rose scented flowers.

And nobody elected seems to care.

Was the requirements planning process that produced higher numbers of F-22s, or never produced more DDG-51s, or even produced the DDG-1000 and LCS in the first place broken? If so, where is the call to evaluate the requirements planning process? Why are some of the requirements (like LCS) good while other requirements (like DDG-1000) bad? Who is the judge, jury, and executioner of the requirements of the United States Armed Forces? Oh, Secretary of Defense Gates must be.

If the requirements planning process isn't broken, then why has that requirements planning process been replaced by "gut feelings" and "hunches" by the Secretary of Defense? Of coarse the requirements planning process is broken, how else does the Navy develop a 14,500 ton battleship for the littorals that can avoid missiles due to stealth in an environment most likely to see war waged with guns at visual range, while developing a barely armed, hardly manned fast ferry as a solution for littoral warfare, which is a manpower intensive environment consisting of populated spaces on the sea.

The Navy says the decision to truncate the DDG-1000 and go with the DDG-51 is a cost neutral decision because they intend to spend the same amount of money, but there is no supporting analysis ANYWHERE that says the Navy has a requirement for more DDG-51s. Don't tell me the problem is fleet numbers, because fleet numbers hasn't been a priority for the Navy in the last 16 years and a 8 ship FY 2010 budget is hardly the way ahead to a 300+ ship fleet... hell 8 annually won't get you to 250 ships!

Select leaders in the DoD are picking and choosing which contractors are going to be uncompetitively rewarded several dozen billion dollars with these unjustified, unsupported, undocumented defense budget decisions that carry strategic significance, and the lack of oversight or even capacity for getting answers to questions from the Senate and House is remarkable. Gates stabilizes operations in Iraq following an enormous disaster led by Rumsfeld, and is thus given a free reign to decide without any analysis, and before a QDR, enormous strategic decisions that will shape our armed forces in the future?

Unfortunately, the intelligent reporters who usually have the clout and knowledge to ask questions like Tom Ricks are cheerleading the changes, ignoring the lack of analysis for reasons unstated. Why? It doesn't make sense to me why the lack of requirements planning would be better than a requirements planning process for integrating counterinsurgency, low intensity warfare, and hybrid warfare into the military services. By following Gates lead, I see the movement associated with COIN, irregular warfare, and hybrid warfare being built on a foundation of sand. This isn't good. I for one will debate in favor of low intensity challenges in the maritime domain on a foundation of requirements based on the conditions and environment of the present and emerging future capabilities of adversaries, because I think long term strategic defense planning for future challenges must be founded on something more solid than a hunch if it is going to have value to the nations strategic goals.

Why is a Navy 30-year shipbuilding plan or a 30-year aviation plan important for FY 2010? Because without them as of right now, we have no idea what the QDR will change. The 2010 QDR has been set up as the most important intellectual and analytical study of the armed forces since the end of the cold war, a potential blank slate to start from scratch in every military service, and yet, without existing plans for comparison the "fix" could already be in for several dozen billion dollars worth of DoD procurement and nobody would know it.

I mean come on, wouldn't it be an 'amazing coincidence' if the exact same DDG-51 plan VADM McCullough pulled out of his hat in the House last July happens to match exactly what the QDR will recommend? What amazing foresight! Can he pick my lottery ticket numbers too?

The decisions being mandated from the Secretary of Defense has set up an environment where debate for the QDR is shaped for an outcome already decided. The proposed cuts to both the Army and Air Force represent a great example where the military has predetermined the QDR direction prior to the analysis. Don't tell me irregular warfare is being given a seat at the table when the Secretary of Defense predetermines the analysis of air superiority and ground combat for the Air Force and Army respectfully. I'm not against cutting the F-22 or FCS, and I am 100% in favor of giving the irregular warfare folks a seat at the table, but decisions should be based on what the legitimate analysis says, but the legitimate analysis of the QDR hasn't been produced yet.

We know expansion of the AEGIS BMD is already predetermined, which again suggests that the requirements planning process may indeed be broken. Why is the Navy promoting AEGIS BMD based on ballistic missile threats to our ships in Congress when the new anti-ship ballistic missile capability being developed by China cannot be stopped by the Lockheed Martin AEGIS BMD capability of the DDG-51. Oh, you didn't know the DDG-51 not only can't, but will never be able to meet that threat? The Navy knows this, so does Lockheed Martin, and so do the people pushing the DDG-51 for BMD purposes. Why do you think John Young is making a big deal out of the DDG-1000? The answer is because John Young knows the Navy needs the power generation of the DDG-1000 in order to meet emerging threats to BMD, the DDG-51 simply can't cut it.

Why should the Navy mention those details though, the Navy is ignoring the law while the Secretary of Defense has left the impression with serious observers that a predetermined direction of the QDR is the way ahead. Less information is more, because less information means less room for debate, and doesn't allow room for more tough questions from Congress.

Expect parochial, regional centric questions from the Senate and House this week as the budget hearings begin. If you want to watch for something interesting, count the number of unpredictable tough questions from the Democrat House freshman. My guess is the Navy has already predicted every question the House and Senate folks will ask, and the more interesting news will be what gets reported based on what is not said, and not asked by Congress, thus not offered by the Navy.

Bottom line, one is going to have a difficult time finding change. Despite the rhetoric otherwise, there is very little difference between the way Rumsfeld shoved his ideas down the throat of the DoD and the way Gate's does it. A lot of people celebrated Rumsfeld in the beginning as well, because not enough people asked tough questions. History is repeating itself.

Nothing much has changed in the DoD, and the only thing that will be changing anytime soon will be Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Maybe I will be proven wrong, but I have seen nothing from the House or Senate the last few months that suggests the Obama administration, under Gates, is going to see any serious oversight to the changes being shoved on the DoD. Gates is doing as he should, what the administration wants done. Roughead is doing what he should, what Gates wants. The House and the Senate, well, the evidence suggests they are doing what Obama wants too. In the end, while the QDR is being touted as a wide ranging debate for competing ideas, the evidence reveals a perception that the decisions have already been made, and the QDR will be the means by which to frame a narrative to the direction already determind.