Bob "The Knife" Gates

The wires and blogs are buzzing with discussions on SecDef Bob Gates’ press briefing yesterday. It is certainly a substantial change from the usual business, but this announcement – as many of Obama’s proposals seem to be – appears to be more of a compromise rather than a clean break with the past, with many key points leaked early to ready people for the final announcement. Overall, I say it's an overall loss for the Air Force, a modest gain for the Navy, break even for the Army, and (suspiciously) no mention of Marine Corps programs. Let’s take a look at what he said:

With regards to troops and families:

• Fully fund troop increases for Army/Marine Corps and stop reductions in Air Force/Navy (the $11 billion increase is over a five-year budget period, I assume)
• Increase medical R&D spending by $400 million
• Increase military health care spending by $300 million
• Increase family support funding by $200 million

Yes, people are expensive, but they need to be a top priority, especially after these wars. I am not sure at all, though, that the medical R&D spending is either well-spent or adequate – it depends on what they are spending. Health care spending, yeah, a little plus-up, but again, let’s make sure we oversee its execution. We don’t need any more Walter Reed scandals.

Immediate procurement efforts:

• Spending $2 billion for Intel, Surveillance, and Recon (ISR) assets – more Predators, more turbo-props, more enhancements
• Helicopter capability gets a $500 million plus-up for maintenance and training, in particular
• Efforts to assist foreign military forces get a $500 million plus-up
• Increases for special op capabilities, in particular air transport and “Littoral Combat Ships"
• More Joint High Speed Vessels
• Capping the number of Army Brigade Combat Teams while continuing troop increases as per plan

No big surprises here, and no big funding changes (relatively speaking). This is a modest plus-up for Gates’ favorite topics, ISR and special ops, all good things. I had no idea what the Joint High Speed Vessel program was. I do like the idea of ensuring that not all additional Army troops are going to the BCTs – need some good people in the schools and institutions within the United States.

The announcement about modernization programs has a few surprises:

• Air Force gets 16 more F-35 planes but no more F-22 planes, while the Navy gets 31 FA-18s
• Retiring 250 Air Force fighters before they completely rust through and fall out of the sky
• Adding $700 million to missile defense (THAAD and SM-3s). plus $200 million for six more Aegis ships
• More cyber experts for DOD - if they can be coaxed away from record industry salaries
• Air Force Tanker contract back on, but no long range bomber and no more C-17s
• Replacement program for Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, and more nuclear modernization efforts to come in future studies
• Reducing the Navy’s carriers to 10 by 2040. Why not say “in the 22nd century?” It would be as plausible

And finally the really interesting parts for last:

• Converting 11,000 contractors to govvie status and adding 9000 acquisition professionals by 2015 – ambitious, but threatens the contractors’ “Lead System Integrator” work
• Hire as many as 13,000 new govvies to replace contractors in FY10 and up to 30,000 new govvies by 2015 – yes, this will solve all our problems in DOD (eyes roll)
• Terminate the VH-71 presidential helicopter (YEAH Baby!!!)
• Terminate the Air Force CSAR-X helicopter program - guess what, it's not a unique AF mission
• Terminate the Army’s TSAT program, but buy existing satellites
• Focus missile defense efforts on “rogue state and theater missile threats” rather than on national defense - okay, again half a reform effort
• Cancel the Airborne Laser (ABL) second prototype but keep playing with the first one - again, questionable judgment here
• Buy the Navy some new destroyers
• “Significantly restructure the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program” and cancel the vehicle component of the program

Important thing to note, the Obama administration IS NOT reducing the budget or threatening our future military capabilities. This is a pruning, a reorientation, if you will. This is an ambitious undertaking, but it only meekly cracks open the military services’ acquisition programs without drastically overhauling it. Maybe that’s the point – push for some easy wins that will grant them the image of reforms without threatening congressional interests in specific programs. It’s going to be an interesting year ahead… Good luck, SecDef Gates. You’re going to need it.

Comments

[James]

The Marines lose out because he's stopped the next LPD "for reassessment." That's technically a Navy program, but the Marines' rarely-used amphibious capability is their raison d'etre. Moreover, the San Antonio-class is specifically designed to operate the Osprey. It's a shot across the bow of the Marines but it doesn't really hit home in the same way that canceling the FCS and F-22 does. They still have lots of amphibious ships; the LHAs are still a go; the LPD program is only delayed, not killed. I would have liked to see him kill their homonculus assault vehicle.

Buried in the details is the proposal to concentrate all the DDG-1000s at Bath so that Ingalls can restart production of the DDG-51s. Seems logical, right? But read this:

"Even if these arrangements work out, the DDG-1000 program would end with the third ship and the DDG-51 would continue to be built in both yards."

"If our efforts with industry are unsuccessful," noted the Secretary, "the department will likely build only a single prototype DDG-1000 at Bath and then review our options for restarting production of the DDG-51. If the department is left to pursue this alternative, it would unfortunately reduce our overall procurement of ships and cut workload in both shipyards."

In other words, Gates is cutting the legs out from under the Zumwalt Lobby by putting all the work in a single Northeastern yard, giving the Southern Congressional delegations no reason to support the program. And if they don't play along he's threatening to kill the Zumwalt entirely and give Bath some of the DDG-51 work he's promised to Ingalls. Thus does he turn the contractors and Congressional delegations against each other. Ju Do move, smack-smack!

[Mauibrad]

Re: JHSV, check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZFRpLB0Lig