Editor's Foreword

and network kits for the HMMWV. While the budget
proposals speeded the deployment of FCS spinouts
to BCTs, much of the rest of the programme is
transitioning to a BCT modernisation strategy, with
Chiarelli keen to ensure that the FCS programme’s
network developments in particular are fielded.
While the FCS ground-vehicle programme was cut,
MRAPs have continued to arrive in large numbers
in Afghanistan. In October 2009, the M-ATV, a mineresistant
all-terrain vehicle designed for operations
in southern Afghanistan, arrived in Kandahar.
According to the army, the M-ATV weighs around
25,000lbs (11,000kg), compared to the original
MRAPs at around 60,000lbs (27,000kg). Gates has
reiterated that he is committed to the army’s groundvehicle
modernisation programme, ‘but it has to be
done in a way that reflects the lessons we’ve learned
in the last few years about war in the 21st century,
and that incorporates the [DoD’s] nearly $30billion
investment in MRAPs’.
The Military Balance 2009 (p. 16) also highlighted
some of the debates under way over US Air Force
modernisation programmes. The decision to end
production of the F-22 and C-17 gained much
attention, but the budget also proposed increasing
procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, with
Gates saying in April that the US would purchase
513 F-35s over the five-year defence plan, with
an eventual total of 2,443. The planned fielding of
such a large number of advanced fighters led Gates
to cast doubt on what some critics perceived as a
looming fighter gap after the US retires some 230
aircraft as part of its modernisation programme.
These aircraft, together with legacy platforms and
growing numbers of UAVs, will, according to Gates,
‘preserve American tactical air supremacy far into
the future’. But there remains attention within the
DoD (as noted above) on the possibility, raised by
Gates in 2008, of employing larger fleets of lowercost,
lower-tech aircraft in situations where the
US has air dominance. The MC-12 Liberty, a multimission
turboprop containing advanced capacities
for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
(ISR) duties and deployed to Iraq in June 2009,
is perhaps a case in point and, according to a mid
September speech by Gates, the air force is ‘considering
bringing online a fleet of light fighters and
cargo aircraft – inexpensive, rugged platforms that
can also be used to build local capacity in lift, reconnaissance,
and close air support missions, and are
also usable and affordable by local partners’. In the
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same speech, he announced that source-selection
authority was returning to the air force for the KC-X
tanker (see The Military Balance 2009, p. 16), meaning
that, while the procurement process for this aircraft
has restarted, the air force will have to maintain
its existing, and ageing, KC-135 fleet. Meanwhile,
Global Strike Command, announced in October
2008, was activated in early August. Headquartered
at Barksdale air base, the new command combines
the air force’s bombers and intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) under a single commander. 20th
Air Force, with the ICBMs, came under the new
command in December 2009, with the 8th Air Force
(and the bombers) due to follow in April 2010.The
new command was due to reach initial operating
capacity in early August 2010.
The budget proposals to restrict the US Navy’s
DDG-1000 programme to three ships gained much
attention, though the rising costs of the platform and
dwindling projected buy were perhaps as responsible
as questions over the future strategic value
of the platform. The QDR will likely address some
of the strategic assumptions underpinning naval
programmes and employment strategies and will
consist, in the words of Secretary of the Navy Ray
Mabus, of ‘a major examination of our strategy, [and]
how we design and deploy our forces’ – this coming
two years after the navy released A Cooperative
Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. Mabus also said
that the navy will prepare for irregular warfare and
hybrid campaigns as well as maintain conventionalwarfare
capacities. But Gates started the process,
and indicated some of his preferences, with the
DDG-1000 decision, the move to keep the DDG-51
programme (with its known costs and proven capabilities),
accelerating LCS purchases, delaying the
navy’s CG-X cruiser programme, and delaying
amphibious-ship and sea-basing programmes. In
the latter two cases the objective behind delaying
the programmes was to revisit overall requirements.
Future threats were also a major factor behind the
establishment of Fleet Cyber Command in October
2009. To be operated by a reconstituted 10th Fleet, this
command will be a subordinate unit of the new US
Cyber Command, announced by Gates in June, and
which will itself report to US Strategic Command.
Cyber Command is intended to better coordinate
defence of the DoD’s vast range of military networks
(15,000 networks administered by 90,000 personnel;
7 million computers and IT devices used by about
3m employees).
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