Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

166 • Reversing the Decay of American Air Power82 Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen, War over Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press,2002), 14.83 Bacevich and Cohen, Kosovo, p. 26.84 Master Sgt. Andrew Gates, “A-10s Rescue Ambushed OEF Ground Forces,” Army News Service,August 18, 2004.85 Current flyaway cost is just above $180 million per aircraft. The cost cited here is based oninternal memoranda circulated by the former secretary of the Air Force in advocating the additionalaircraft.86 The current total program unit cost of the F-35 is $180 million, each; given the early stage ofthe current program, that cost is likely to climb dramatically. This unit cost, even as a so-called“flyaway” cost is a very likely understatement.87 The right-hand column cost of $251 billion over 20 years or so is consistent with the current U.S.Air Force yearly aircraft procurement of about $12 billion and is also consistent with internalOSD estimates published by the media. For example, see “Cutback On F-35 In 2008 Rejected,”by Tony Capaccio, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 4, 2007. That article stated, “The Pentagonestimates that it will spend about $231 billion over the next 20 years buying aircraft.”88 Not just the F-22 and F-35 but apparently all U.S. combat aircraft of the future will include bothstealth and radar. The radar of the F-22 and the F-35 incorporates spread spectrum techniques.These spread the electronic energy of the radar’s pulses over a very wide band of frequencies toconfound the enemy’s ability to detect or intercept the signal. The energy is intended to appearas low level, undecipherable white noise on a standard passive receiver, or “fuzzbuster.” Over 30years ago, Dr. Thomas Amlie commented on this radar technology. At the time, Dr. Amlie washead of the Navy’s China Lake test and development facility and a world-class expert on radar.His point was that such a radar would be of great expense and size and would emit a signalthat was 1 million to 10 million times greater than real-world background noise. It would berelatively simple to develop a passive receiver or fuzzbuster device to detect these radar spreadspectrum emissions at least four times further away than the radar’s own maximum range.Dr. Amlie wrote that trying to hide the radar’s immense signal would be similar to trying tocamouflage an elephant in the living room by painting its toenails red. The only thing that haschanged since his statement is that lots of cell phone and wireless computer devices now usespread spectrum techniques, so it is vastly easier to build a spread spectrum passive receivertoday. For further discussion, see James Stevenson, The Pentagon Paradox (Annapolis, MD: U.S.Naval Institute Press, 1993), 367.