UK Libya Lessons Observed & Sea-based ISR

From Think Defense , a discussion of UK lessons from Libya and a detailed run down of some possible solutions to fill the gaps: two things the UK effort lacked was organic shipboard unmanned ISR and precision land attack. We've discussed the US shortages of those assets here and several times previously. As acquisition choices are made on platforms such as the F-35C versus say the Sea Avenger or other strike-capable ISR aircraft, it would be wise to heed these observations as well as our own recent combat experiences in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We cannot kill what we can't find, and scouting in modern warfare -- IW and otherwise --is about finding discrete targets that are positioned in a way to exacerbate collateral damage and use our ROE against us. The global instantaneous news cycle permits little leeway from this truth. Targets hiding in plain sight in urban environments or among fishing fleets are now the norm as are those that do not otherwise seem as they appear (decoys and military units disguised as civilian platforms). High value targets in future asymmetric fights against state or non-state actors are as likely to be key individuals or civilian looking maritime collection platforms as they are tank divisions and enemy capital ships.

The way to overcome these challenges is through persistent stare intelligence -- and fast moving TACAIR just doesn't provide it. The foregoing isn't intended to come across as as an anti-CVN position. It is however, an indictment of the acquisition of new sea-based TACAIR for the mid-to-long term.

As we've noted before, these sorts of capabilities enable even smaller ships to participate in a larger fight by extending the range of sensors and an ability to engage what they find. As the author notes:

The need to extend the reach of surface vessels, I carefully avoid the use of the term major combatant because vessels lower down the flightiness ladder can equally benefit, with both ISTAR and attack capabilities is obvious.

We could still deliver improved land attack capabilities without an investment in maritime UAV’s because target identification and guidance can come from other ‘platforms’ but the availability of an organic UAV would greatly enhance the ability of a frigate or destroyer without requiring others or relying on a manned helicopter where it might be difficult to deploy.

The past decade of combat has created an insatiable demand for persistent ISR by our ground commanders. In a war at sea scenario, the demand for these platforms will be equal, if not greater due to the vast distances involved. We should err on the side of acquiring as many of these scouting platforms as we can afford, even if it means trade-offs such as buying fewer BMD platforms and more smaller, cheaper ships to house the UAVs, or eliminating other high ticket programs such as the F-35C.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

H/T Lee

Foreign Entanglements Episode II, and Airpower

A couple of quick notes. First, episode 2 of Foreign Entanglements is up; this episode feature Matthew Duss of the Center for American Progress against Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of FPI: Not much maritime content, but certainly some national security talk. In the near future I hope that have a more maritime-themed episode. Second, my WPR column last week was yet another unhinged screed against airpower. Check it out.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The details of the FY13 budget are beginning to drift out, and it seems that the much ballyhooed "pivot" to Asia--and by inference, to Naval and Aerospace power--is more heat than light.  As I discussed on last week's Midrats internet radio show, there are two ways to demonstrate budget emphasis.  One is to spend more on something, and the other is to spend less, but have the magnitude of the cut be less than other priorities, creating an "emphasis by subtraction".  This is what it appears to have occurred in the FY13 budget. 

News reports and Pentagon statements indicate that the Navy will retire 7 cruisers and 2 LSD's early, while cutting its shipbuilding totals 28% from the FY12 estimate for 2013-2017 (57 ships) to 41 ships in the same period with this budget.  Retiring assets early from a Fleet already stressed to meet its commitments, and then eating your shipbuilding "seed corn",  strike me as odd ways to demonstrate an emphasis on Seapower.  I've talked to some in the Navy who suggest that under the new plan, we'll be able to field as many ships in 2020 as we do now, which is put forward as evidence of great progress and victories within the Pentagon bureaucracy. How this reconciles with the fact that the Fleet we have NOW does not meet the needs of the COCOMS--let alone the Fleet some project to be necessary to underwrite East Asian security in the face of Chinese expansion and modernization--evades me. 

For navalists, the current Republican Presidential primary has included several references to Fleet size, some of which have had issue taken with them in the press (NOTE:  I am actively supporting Mitt Romney for President).  In this one, Walter Pincus seizes upon what he believes is a lack of detail among the candidates when discussing the Fleet.  His suggestion that Romney's use of "9 ships is a year out of date" (to summarize yearly shipbuilding levels) ignores the basic fact that in the last year in which we have complete information (FY11), the Navy procured only 9 ships.  He then goes on to point to an erroneous figure of 55 ships over the next five years (the number in the FY12 budget was 57), while hedging his criticism by saying "...the fiscal 2013 budget due shortly could change things....".  Indeed it has, again, by dramatically cutting the number of ships to be built, by retiring useful ships early, and by deferring the acquisition of critical submarines.  This again--in a strategy emphasizing an immense maritime theater and the Seapower and Aerospace power necessary to dominate it. 

Clearly, the number of hulls as a measure of Naval power ain't what it used to be.  However, the suggestion that networks and precision guided munitions make hull counts unimportant points again to the basic physics problem that Naval planners have faced since the Phoenicians--a ship can only be in one place at a time.  Quantity does have a quality all its own, and as I've advocated many times on this site, networks and PGM's are of incalculable value when the Navy is fighting; however they are less important when the Navy is doing what it does the vast majority of the time--deterring and assuring.  We are sliding into the trap of sizing our Navy to fight and win wars only, de-emphasizing the critical role of what Tom Barnett has termed "system maintenance".  The more we move toward a force designed ONLY to fight wars, the more likely such a Fleet will be to become a magnificent anachronism--powerful, networked, and top-notch--but operating largely in the Virginia Capes and San Diego opareas. 

Bryan McGrath

Costa Concordia Reconstruction

For those interested in the seamanship aspects of the Costa Concordia disaster, this may be interesting:

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

Narration by John Konrad, CEO gCaptain.com and USCG Licensed Master Mariner Unlimited.

McGrath Guest on MIDRATS Internet Radio Show

While most of you were watching the Pats/Ravens game last evening, Sal and Eagle1 were kind enough to have me on their Internet Radio Show "Midrats" for the full hour.  We cover a lot of ground here, and I hope you find the dialogue useful.


Bryan McGrath

DOT&E; FY2011 Annual Report

The DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report (PDF) is out, and I noted that Wired is focused on the LCS report (PDF). The reason the Wired article on LCS reads like it's reaching for straws to find news in the LCS report is because the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report on LCS lacks new information. The DOT&E report basically details exactly what ADM Pandolfe told everyone at Surface Navy Association conference - in January of last year (in 2011). Hard to get worked up about issues openly discussed over a year ago.

What I did find interesting about the report is that the report heavily focuses on the MIW module problems, but only one aspect of the module - the airborne pieces expected to be used on the MH-60R helicopter (AN/AQS-20A and ALMDS). Does that mean the rest of the MIW module is doing well? I don't know what the absence of concerns for the SUW and ASW modules means either. Does that mean the program components of those modules aren't mature enough to evaluate, or does it mean they don't have any concerns right now with those components? I don't know.

About the only thing I learned in the LCS DOT&E report is that DOT&E is still actively sounding the bell on the survivability issues of LCS, and the Navy is still not ready to discuss that issue about LCS with anyone. Everything else in the DOT&E report reads like first in class ship stuff. I still think Austal should have seen the corrosion issue coming, and I don't like that there has already been a crack in LCS1, but these are issues where Navy folks involved appear comfortable with the corrections made to address those issues.

While LCS is likely to get lots of attention early (the program is the Navy's attention whore these days), there really isn't much in the DOT&E report on LCS that was new, and certainly nothing worth getting worked up about.

If you want to see what a truly damning report in the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Review looks like, check out LPD-17 (PDF). The report uses several hundred words to detail how the class is "assessed as capable of conducting amphibious operations in a benign environment, but not operationally effective, suitable, or survivable in a hostile environment due to significant reliability deficiencies on major systems affecting communications, propulsion, and self defense."

LCS has nothing even remotely close to damning as that assessment.

Another Dutch Sub To Horn Of Africa

In 2010 the Dutch deployed a submarine to the Horn Of Africa after a request from NATO. And while most newspapers focused on the lack of Dutch surface vessels around the Horn of Africa, after HNLMS Zuiderkruis left for retirement (the next surface vessel to go is HNLMS Van Amstel),  there is a Dutch vessel in the area: HNLMS Dolfijn, join operation Ocean Shield.

In 2010 the Dutch sub was 4 months away from her homeport, this time the sub will stay for 8 months. After 4 months the Dutch will rotate crews.

This means the Dutch should have 3 vessels in the area in May: HNLMS Dolfijn, HNLMS Van Amstel and HNLMS Tromp.

And while the sub will gather important information, it is general a very boring operation for the crew. Lying a couple of miles from the Somali cost, watching through a periscope, for days on is more like a police stake out and not as exciting as trying to sneak past enemy warships.

Highlight for the crew the last time a Dutch sub was off the Somali coast was seeing a vessel leave for the sea, after which HMS Montrose sent a Lynx to stop the suspected pirates.

And the information gathered is important in two ways: for operation Ocean Shield and EU Navfor on one side, and for the Dutch on the other.
It is important for the Dutch, because they can trade their intelligence with others who have intelligence they want. In 2010 they did an intellegence exchange with the USA. The USA got intelligence on Somalia, we got intelligence on Afghanistan.

And only recently the Dutch and Germans formed a Joint Investigation Team to tackle the problem of piracy in the HoA.

The old saying is still true: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Dutch VPD vs. Somali Pirates

Yesterday  around 6.00 CET pirates in a fishing vessel attacked the MV Flintstone  93NM north east of the island of Socotra.
The pirates in their dhow where seen coming and the crew of the Flintstone went into hid in a special compartment of the ship. Meanwhile the Dutch Vessel Protection Detachment, consisting of marines, prepared for the arrival of the skiff that came from the dhow, that was being used as a mother ship.

At first the VPD fired flares at the coming ship, in which they could see several weapons including a RPG. When this RPG was aimed at the Flintstone the marines answered with direct fire, forcing the skiff to return to the dhow.

What I don't understand is the choice of the pirates to attack the MV Flinstone. Their intelligence must be lacking.

After the report of the Wijkerslooth Commission, the Dutch decided to make 50 VPDs available to protect vulnerable, Dutch owned, vessels.
And they sometimes announce names of ships which will have a VPD on board. And yes, from 2 weeks ago: the Flintstone will have a VPD on board.

SOPA

If you don't know, you need to start learning about it. This is one law that I strongly believe Congress will screw up in a big way, and I'm not going to sit quietly like I did with the Patriot Act. I'm almost convinced that only people who have indifference or contempt for American ideals like liberty and freedom would support this law.



Go to Wikipedia today, you will be given information how to contact your political leaders. Speak out, before you are silenced.

Update from PLAN land

Every year, Chinese shipyards around the country stops working around Chinese New Year. Since Chinese New Year is less than a week away, we got some last minute photos from the Chinese shipyards.

First of all, we see the first two 056 class ships from HuDong shipyard. Now, there is also 056 under construction in HP shipyard, but these ones are more prominent and seem to be further along. There is still a debate on why PLAN even needs these ships, but that's a discussion for another day.



Secondly, we the work on 054As at HP shipyard continues to be extremely fast paced. The fifth ship (548) came back for work in HP shipyard.

The 7th one was launched a while ago.

The 8th one is amazingly far along considering the 6th 054A at HD shipyard just got launched a short while ago.


Finally, we got some new and interesting photos out of JN shipyard.
It looks like the 5th 052C just got launched very recently. The 3rd one has made a return to the shipyard after all the sea trials. I thought it was already commissioned. The next 3 photos show them from different angles. The 3rd one is definitely joining the navy soon. The 4th one has quite a bit to go before being ready to conduct sea trials. The 5th one looks to be slightly less finished than the 3rd and 4th one when they were launched. My feeling is that it was launched at this point because they needed the spaces in the dry dock halls for new ships.



We see below two new ships going into the dry docks and they appear to be the 6th and 7th 052C. I'm not sure if both of them will be 052C, because the rumour is that 7th ship would be in the 052D series.


So, there is a lot of activity going on in the Chinese shipyard. The work will probably stop a month, so we won't have much to see for a while.

Introducing Foreign Entanglements

The Powers That Be over at Bloggingheads have decided to hand Matt Duss and myself the keys to a new, weekly foreign policy show which we've decided to call Foreign Entanglements. Announcement and discussion here:
 
This is a very interesting opportunity, and Matt and I hope to make the most of it by continuing to include many of the contributors who have long been involved in Bloggingheads, as well as new contributors who speak on different subjects and to different interests. Feedback regarding potential contributors (or favorite past contributors) is very welcome. For my own part, I hope to have more conversations with folks like those who appear on this and other defense policy blogs.  We'll see how it all works out.

America's New Asiatic Fleet

Professor James Holmes has a piece online today in which he calls himself a "reluctant convert" to the idea of stationing LCS's in Singapore and according to Holmes, perhaps in the Philippines.  Here's a key thought from Holmes:  "The LCS, then, may be the right ship for the Southeast Asian theater while drawing the venom from Chinese rhetoric. In some ways, an LCS squadron would constitute a throwback to the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, which anchored the US presence in Asia until crushed by Japan early in World War II. The Asiatic Fleet was a light force, not a battle fleet. Its chief purpose was diplomacy."  I think Dr. Holmes' conversion is a good thing, and the strategic thinking behind it should be more closely examined.

Holmes points to remarks made by the new OPNAV Director of Surface Warfare (N86), RADM Thomas  Rowden at the recent Surface Navy Symposium (Galrahn cited his speech here), which included the line “aggressively fielding the LCS fleet in order to meet our vital war-fighting gaps and forward-deploy additional American flags on LCS halyards.”  What both Holmes and Rowden are pointing to is that in the great game of "assurance", numbers matter, and what are friends and allies in the South China Sea need from us right now is assurance.  Assurance that our fiscal problems aren't going to cause us to look irredeemably inward, leaving them to make unsavory choices about whether to strike security bargains with the Chinese or to arm up themselves, and assurance that their sovereignty--including their rights in disputed areas--will not be subject to a Chinese fait accompli. 

Rowden's got it right--flags on halyards make a difference.  It should be our aim to present the extended Chinese maritime fleet with the reality of seeing American flags flying from naval ships wherever they find themselves throughout the South China Sea littoral.  Forward deploying LCS is a great first step, one enabled by the innovative crewing scheme under consideration for their employment.  But LCS is just a first step.

The Navy should begin to consider the design of a fleet of fast patrol boats, our own Houbei's if you will.  These would be fast, lightly armored but well armed patrol boats, networked, equipped with integrated topside guns and an over the horizon surface to surface missile capability.  These boats would be built in numbers, and offered IMMEDIATELY for export to partners throughout the region. Crewed rotationally like LCS, these boats could operate in composite squadrons alongside partner nations manning the same platforms--bringing interoperability to its most basic level.  In essence--a new Asiatic Fleet.

Why would we do this?   Flags on halyards.  Our friends and allies would be more aware than ever of our light but persistent presence, as would those who might seek to disturb the peace.  These are clearly not envisioned as "war winning" vessels.  They are conceived of as "war avoiding" vessels.  Their presence--and the promise they represent of more powerful force over the horizon adds a deterrent component to their assurance role. 

But please note that I did not say we should "build" these vessels; just design them for now--perhaps begin to offer them for export.  But not for us, at least not yet.  Not in this environment.  As long as the Navy force structure is likely to take a hit and shipbuilding is likely to decline, we cannot afford to build ships of this nature.  But we should be ready to.  We should be ready to when either the economy improves and additional resources flow to defense, or if the defense budget does eventually become "imbalanced" in other than superficial ways, devoting a higher share of resources to shipbuilding.  The Asiatic Fleet was a good idea then, and it is a good idea now.

Bryan McGrath

Boondoggle

This article from blog friend Eric Palmer on F-16.net last week has been picking up some traction, with a story picked up in The Telegraph yesterday, and even on the CNN blog. Apparently Lockheed Martin forgot to design the tailhook on the F-35C correctly, and the aircraft cannot land on aircraft carriers. From Eric Palmer's original article:

a November 2011 U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) quick-look report relating to engineering challenges arising from what is being called “concurrency issues” revealed that all eight run-in/rolling tests undertaken at NAS Lakehurst in August 2011 to see if the F-35C CV JSF could catch a wire with the tail hook have failed.

The report also mentions that the tail hook on the F-35C CV JSF is attached improperly to the aircraft. The distance from the hook to the main landing gear is so short that it is unlikely the aircraft will catch the landing wires on a ship's deck. This graphic from the review explains part of the problem. It illustrates the distance between the main landing gear and the tail hook of previous warplanes qualified to operate from aircraft carriers and compares these distances with that found on the F-35C CV JSF. In this regard, the report refers to the F-35C CV JSF as “an outlier”.

An industry expert who is a graduate Flight Test Engineer (FTE) of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), Peter Goon, stated that, "Given the limited amount of suitable structure at the back end of the JSF variants, due primarily to the commonality that was being sought between the three variant designs and the fact that the STOVL F-35B JSF is the baseline design, there was always going to be high risk associated with meeting the carrier suitability requirements."

The F-35C program no longer makes any sense at all to me. The extra cost of the F-35C over the F-18 Superbug all drive towards capabilities in the strike role; specifically stealth and range. Considering the strike role for naval aircraft is in decline over other alternatives (like submarine and surface launched cruise missiles), I can no longer support the Navy down the F-35C road. I still believe the F-35B is important, but I have no idea if the Marine Corps can afford it.

There are many reasons why the US Navy needs credible fixed-wing manned aircraft, but the strike role appears to be the primary reason for fixed-wing aircraft the naval aviation community is focused on, when in fact fleet defense, early warning, electronic warfare, and battlespace information dominance (among many others) is where fixed wing naval aviation is required. Is the JSF a good interceptor? Maybe, and maybe that is the reason to buy a few, but certainly F-35C is not an optimal intercept fighter and I have serious questions if the F-35C cost difference represents a meaningful value advantage in capability for intercept relative to the Superbug.

I have read a lot of procrastination following SNA regarding the challenges facing the Navy and some have even severely elevated the importance of certain shipbuilding programs like LCS to the level that it's success or failure will somehow make or break the the surface force. That sounds like some ignorant hot air and nonsense to me, because the future of the surface force depends on the high end capabilities, not LCS. The LCS program is no longer discussed publicly with any attempt towards objectivity in perspective - by the Navy, by LCS supporters, or by the LCS critics.

So here is some perspective for why I think the LCS criticism is a complete distraction from serious challenges facing the Navy today. The program of record that is killing the US Navy budget and - in my opinion, causing severe damage to the future of US naval aviation - is the Joint Strike Fighter program. For even bigger context, keep in mind the cost growth of just the first Ford class aircraft carrier is already greater than the cost growth of the entire Littoral Combat Ship program to date. Some have suggested LCS is too big to fail. What utter nonsense; in context of the Navy's budget, LCS really is too small to matter.

The JSF is the program apparently too big to fail, at least in the mind of some, and all evidence suggests failure is the rule rather than the exception. Lockheed Martin has made a mess of JSF, and there is no evidence things are getting better despite the actions taken to date regarding program management and leadership. I believe the Ford class still makes sense with or without JSF, and even if some roles of naval aviation are in decline relative to alternative methods for conducting those roles, but the naval aviation community does not appear to believe that. How the JSF has survived this long is a mystery to me, but in my opinion, it is past time for the naval aviation community to evolve past F-35C.

A Potential Plan B for Seabasing

This is a very interesting read. Based on everything I am hearing from Bold Alligator, this might be a better option today than just 2 weeks ago.

Spring 2012

Spring semester 2012 at the Patterson School is upon us. My Defense Statecraft syllabus more or less done, my Airpower syllabus pretty much done,  podcasts up and running, the blog could use an update, but you go into battle with the website you have, not the website you want et al.  Twenty students in the former course, seven in latter. Ready to close with the enemy...

Small Steps

An interesting comment about LCS from SNA reported by DoD Buzz.

Starting with LCS 5, the Milwaukee, the design for the class is “done, locked and stable,” said Lockheed’s VP for ships, Joe North. So the design changes that plagued the Freedom as it was being built should theoretically be a thing of the past. “From 5 on … these ships are cookie cutter,” North said. Lockheed hopes the shipyard in Marinette, Wisc., should be able to get into a rhythm and just start cranking them out, increasing the company’s margin with each saved dollar and each day less than the ship before.

If this turns out to be true, the blue and gold crews and officers of USS Freedom (LCS 1) deserve a lot of credit. It would also explain, for example, why all the COs from LCS 1 to date are getting promoted and assigned a major command. Indeed, one of the fastest ways to move up as a SWO right now appears to be via LCS. Less competition? Absolutely, but still worth noting as as LCS continues to be the Navy's least popular surface ship program.

If you read the DoD Buzz article, you'll also note how many moving parts there are to the entire LCS program. In many ways, LCS is an example how not to run a major shipbuilding program, because the prime contractor is - apparently - not really a prime contractor at all, or at least doesn't appear to carry any of the risk one would expect a prime contractor to assume in a major program. That tells me that even as the risk is reduced in one aspect of the LCS program, the LCS program itself still carries very high risk until all the parts of stable.

The New Tone, or an Admiral Off Pitch?

DoDBuzz has a great deal of coverage from SNA this week. I'm hoping, like last year, they put the videos up for all of us to see. SNA is always interesting to me, because in the past we have been able to evaluate point in time for many issues related to surface warfare.

My impression so far is that the same can be said of SNA this year. While the first day focused primarily of professional issues specific to the SWO community, stuff I find interesting but also find myself hardly qualified to discuss, the rest of the week has also produced some interesting content.

I thought Phil Ewing did a great job with this article on Tuesday, because he made sure to highlight these very interesting and damn near unique (for an Admiral) comments.

Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, the Navy’s brand-new boss of requirements for surface warfare, said one of its most important abilities was to show “American flags on halyards” atop Navy warships...

“That means aggressively fielding the LCS fleet in order to meet our vital war-fighting gaps and forward-deploy additional American flags on LCS halyards,” Rowden said. “We must we must bring LCS into the fleet. We must control cost and build them in numbers.”

Not only could LCSes compose as much as half of the future surface force, making the program critical based on numbers alone, the smaller ships’ value in alliances only raises the stakes, Rowden said.

“LCS will be ships with which our partners will be comfortable operating … We have a number of ships that are simply overwhelming to friends and potential friends,” - as in, the blue water Cold War-era fleet. “LCS allows us the flexibility to begin working with friends, partner nations and potential friends on their terms - in the end, their terms must be considered if we’re to work with them...”

“There’ll always be a requirement for ships suited to intense phases,” he said - as in, full-scale war. “But we must have ships that can be adapted as the future transitions into the present.”

Whoa, did a SWO with a star at SNA really just talk up the importance of small naval warships in the US Navy? My first guess is this guy spent a lot of time in 7th Fleet, and not 2nd or 3rd Fleet. A peek at his resume reveals that assumption is true.

While this may or may not be a good argument for LCS, it is clearly a valid and very strong strategic argument for the utility of smaller naval vessels. While the strategic value of large warships is often highlighted in the context of warfighting capability, what is often missed is the strategic value of smaller vessels in the context of developing partnerships that are both strong can capable should the warfighting moment ever come. The comments by Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden strike me as the first time in a very long time an Admiral with solid SWO credentials has made a Navy force structure argument in favor of smaller warships.

Admiral Greenert's Navy is clearly different than Admiral Roughead's Navy. Time will tell if this is a new tone for force structure discussions by Navy leaders in public, or simply an Admiral who went off pitch and will inadvertently now become the black sheep of the choir. In the Roughead Navy, this guy would be labeled a black sheep, and would be accused of not being a 'team' player.

A 2012 DoD Definition of Redundancy

Happy New Year! I am not up on current events, so expect my posting over the next very many days to be of stuff that is not always fresh (as in current events), but fresh as in something I finally read. With a hat tip to Pete Speer for emailing me this article, lets start the 2012 conversation already!

So I'm reading this article by Bill Sweetman and Paul McLeary from Aviation Week dated Jan 6, 2012, and it starts off informative enough, but I have highlighted for the audience in bold where the discussion becomes something that is really enlightening, I think...

“We have run out of money, so now we must think,” remarked U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Philip Breedlove during a presentation on the emerging Air/Sea Battle concept in July. It’s becoming a common saying. The military is not in its current predicament by accident. Poor performance—programs years or decades behind schedule, costing too much to acquire and costing far too much to operate—has helped drive almost every military in the world to make pious sounds about “doing more with less” while doing exactly the opposite.

For the first time in a decade, the Pentagon is going to have to budget, rather than just spend. This not only means some programs will have to be removed from the procurement ledger, but new weapons programs will have to cap development—and perhaps more importantly, sustainment costs—significantly.

At the Credit Suisse/Aviation Week 2011 Aerospace and Defense Conference in New York in December, Shay Assad, the Pentagon’s director of defense pricing and acquisition policy, tried to assuage some fears defense contractors have vocalized about their potential profits now that the Pentagon is going on a diet. Assad said the Pentagon is making an effort to use the promise of profitability “to motivate contractors to reduce their cost structures.” To track this effort the Defense Contract Management Agency is adding more than 350 experts in cost estimating: If costs can be more accurately predicted up front, everyone will enter an agreement with the same realistic expectations.

Wow! Where the hell is the pride in ones work? WHAT THE *^%*! That folks, is an issue of military integrity, and it highlights that the Pentagon is unable to do this work effectively themselves. Why? I think civilian and uniform leadership needs to answer that question, and I for one would love to hear the answer.

So the Pentagon apparently can't do this part of their job, but no worries, they will now go hire 350 private sector experts. The DoD might as well have hung a huge banner outside their building that reads...

"We suck at our jobs, so we're hiring others to do it for us!"

And yes, this is a military integrity issue. Why can't you do your job effectively? What prevents you from doing your job accurately? Did you or did you not get trained to do you job... at taxpayers expense? 350 private sector experts, all of which will be 100K+ jobs if they are actually "experts", means we need to spend at least $35 million to hire private sector experts to do the jobs of public sector employees that apparently can't do the jobs they were hired and trained to do. It's 2012, and money is tight. The nation can no longer afford ineffective civilian and military leadership doing contracting for the Defense Department.

This is, unquestionably, a leadership issue and one that raises serious questions about the integrity of the military. Accountability? Prove it. Based on everything in testimony and media reporting lately, the entire concept of 'accounting' in any context fled the DoD long ago.

....

By the way.... hey Bill, Paul, why the picture of the DDG-1000 with the article? Looks like an editorial mistake to me, because you highlighted a picture of one of the few good programs while discussing the problems other programs are having. Not cool boys, you guys are much smarter than that, unless the cheap shot at the Navy was intentional.

Piracy, Iran, and CS-21

Thoughts on the recent USN rescue of Iranian fishermen:

To be sure, this version of the rescue represents public relations spin, but soft power often amounts to framing narrative for the purposes of public relations. The Iranians’ claim that Iran frees pirate hostages all the time without the same degree of fanfarerepresents an implicit acknowledgement of the success of the hostage rescue in this regard. The Iranians surely also understand that the logic of positive-sum seapower -- that the entire world benefits from freedom of the seas -- contrasts sharply with their own threats to close the Straits of Hormuz in the event of an expanded oil embargo and their warning to the United States not to deploy another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. It can also be applied antagonistically to any Iranian attempt to follow through on those threats. Pirates are the original hostis humani generis, but states that threaten maritime freedom, especially when maritime freedom has been construed in terms of common rights and common good, can also become “enemies of humankind.” 

In short, the rescue illustrates the way in which CS-21 provides an internationalist vocabulary for the pursuit of national ends. The U.S. desire to contain and confront Iran may or may not be wise, but one of the purposes of a strategic document is to provide civilian leaders with sufficiently flexible policy tools to pursue national ends. In this case, the internationalist focus of CS-21 does not constrain U.S. action, but rather reframes it in terms much more palatable to regional allies and competitors. CS-21 plays a similar role in the South China Sea, placing U.S. national ends squarely on the same side as an internationalist vision of free navigation and exploration. From the point of view of the U.S. desire to tighten the screws on Iran, the rescue could not have come at a better time.

Where Does the Money Go?

In my summary of the new Defense Strategy below, I raise the issue of using the Defense Budget like "...an ATM" to fund political priorities and reward friends.  What do I mean by that?  Take a look at this story, detailing the Navy's decision to use a "Project Labor Agreement" (PLA) in the construction of an explosives handling pier at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.

Some interesting sections from the story: 

"The Navy has agreed to use workers from Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council and Northwest Regional Council of the National Construction Alliance II on the $715 million, four-year project."

 "The trades council contacted the area's federal delegation — Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Reps. Norm Dicks and Jay Inslee — who wrote to the Navy supporting a PLA, Whetham said. Four trade council officials and seven from the Navy met in November to explore the benefits and arrived at cost savings and skilled labor."

" PLAs typically require that employees hired for the project be referred through union halls, that nonunion workers pay union dues while on the project and that the contractor follow union rules on pensions, work conditions and resolving disputes."

It is difficult to conceive of these requirements not driving up total cost.  And it appears that public sector unions are not the only beneficiaries of Administration largess. 


Bryan McGrath

On The New Direction In Defense

“It’s so big [the defense budget] that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.”    -President Obama, July 6, 2024

Yesterday's announcement at the Pentagon of the President's new Defense Strategy is everything he said it was.  It is a new direction.  It does represent an "inflection point".  The "tide of war" is receding.  It is proper to focus on Asia, and it is advisable to return ground force levels to pre-9-11 levels.  The President's approach is logical, coherent, and straightforward---all the way from B to Z.  It's the A to B leap that I don't accept.

What do I mean by the "A to B" leap?  Well, in order for the President's approach to be thoroughly logical, one must accept that our nation's defense should undergo budget cuts in an era of fiscal austerity, that a function of the federal government mandated in the Constitution must somehow be diminished in order to fund myriad federal programs of dubious worth.  Put another way, under the President's approach--when as the budget axe falls, defense is FIRST in line (tied with all other discretionary outlays) rather than last in line--where I believe it should be.  I have seen some in the blogosphere--including some people I agree with on most issues--claim that Congress--and especially Congressional Republicans--are complicit in these cuts, as they were party to the Budget Control Act.  There is logic and merit in this argument, but the simple truth of the atmosphere on the Hill last year was that divided government drove compromises--and in this case, gutting the defense budget to pay for domestic priorities was job #1 for many Democrats in Congress--the wind behind the President's sails. 

People much smarter than I have already opined on the jot and tittle of the strategy, so I will make only a few points.  I will admit to my biases up front, as I am not a political supporter of the President, and I am a center-right blogger at The Conservative Wahoo.  Here are a few summary thoughts.

 

• Not driven by strategy.  While I greatly respect the work of the Joint Chiefs and senior civil servants at the Pentagon in responding to the President’s mandate, the plain truth is they started their deliberations $487B in the hole, which represented the budget hit the President insisted upon in last year’s Budget Control Act.  That was a political decision on the part of a President who uses the Defense Budget like an ATM to fund misguided political priorities like Solyndra and paybacks to his cronies in public sector unions. 
• Questionable Geo-strategy.  While the President believes we can “assume more risk” in Europe by cutting back our commitments there, he ignores potential tinder boxes all along Europe’s southern and eastern flanks.  Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria—much of the Mediterranean littoral is governed (or under-governed) by questionable and hostile regimes.  Additionally, our steadfast ally in the region—Israel—is increasingly surrounded by regimes newly dedicated to its instability, even as we cut back both our military and our naval presence in the region.
• Proof in the Pudding.  What we heard yesterday were pleasant words about shifts in priorities and a new security environment.  What remains to be seen is what this means in budgetary terms, what real choices were made.  When the FY13 budget is released after the State of the Union address, will we  find a strategy of “Prioritization by Reduction”?—that is, while the whole gets smaller, parts of it get smaller slower than others—which can then be claimed as “shifts in priorities” and “hard strategic choices”?  I predict that this budget will leave us with a smaller force, capable of doing fewer things, in fewer places, and less well.
• Asian Focus.  The President quite rightly speaks of a shift in emphasis to the Pacific, what does he mean by that?  Does it mean he will increase our shipbuilding budget?  Does it mean we will grow the Navy?  Does it mean we will fully fund maintenance and modernization accounts?  Or does it mean that we will play a strategic shell-game, pushing smaller, less capable ships forward to supplement a fleet already on the ragged edge of readiness, while "protecting the industrial base" by relying on the construction of those same smaller and less capable ships?  Or will it be some combination of the above?  Again, we won't know these answers until the budget pops after the State of the Union.  

Again--if you believe that Defense should be a domestic bill-payer, than this approach makes a lot of sense.  If you believe otherwise, than it is hard to be supportive of this approach.

Bryan McGrath

Triangle Trade

This week's Over the Horizon column suggests that the Russian arms industry is in for some long term trouble:

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s military-industrial complex sustained the massive Soviet military institution, which regularly gobbled up 15-25 percent of the nation’s GDP. In an odd and unexpected twist to the end of the Cold War, the Russian arms industry has turned to sustaining itself by arming a pair of Asian giants: Arms exports to China and India have proven lucrative for Russia -- and have even had a synergistic and competitive quality. The unease each country has felt due to the other increasing its military capability has led to higher revenues for Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms exporter. For the post-Cold War Russian arms industry, this trade has represented a boon, helping to replace lost customers in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Russian military itself. However, this situation is almost certainly unsustainable in the long run, as both China and India appear to be outgrowing their dependence on the Russian military-industrial complex. This will spell trouble for Russia, which has had great difficulty developing exports based on anything other than arms or energy.