Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

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218 • Long in Coming, the Acquisition Train Wreck is Hereprogram to enter LRIP until the program has demonstrated that the problems havebeen solved satisfactorily. Otherwise, we will continue to deliver large numbers ofsystems over several years of LRIP prior to the completion of the statutorily requiredInitial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E), as was the case with the MV-22and F-22 aircraft programs. Similarly, programs that have failed to meet either theireffectiveness or suitability requirements in IOT&E should not be accorded a greenflag to enter full production.In summary, more informed management attention and discipline at the front-endof the process and due consideration of independent assessments of cost scheduleand performance throughout the development and testing of new systems should goa long way to solving many of the problems plaguing defense acquisition. There’snothing new here – time and again major defense management reviews have come tothe same conclusions. It’s high time decision-makers took these findings seriously,most of which are embedded in existing directives and instructions that govern theoverall budget development and acquisition processes, and made them an integralpart of their program review and decision process.Endnotes1 “Defense Power Games,” Defense and the National Interest, November 27, 2007, http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/military-in-society/defense-power-games2 Inside the Pentagon, DOD Tells Military to assume Zero Real Growth in FY-10 Budget, March 20,2008.3 Congressional Budget Office, The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Detailed Updatefor Fiscal Year 2008.4 Government Accountability Office Report, GAO-08-467SP, Defense Acquisitions, Assessments ofSelected Weapon Programs, March 2008.5 Valerie Reed and Jessica Guiney, “Future Combat System: Is It Worth It?” Center for Defense Information,May 30, 2008, http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/FCS.pdf6 “Military May Face $100B In Repairs,” USA Today, June 26, 2008.7 Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., “The Bills Come Due,” National Journal, March 15, 2008.8 Government Accountability Office Report GAO-08-388, Joint Strike Fighter, Recent Decisions byDOD Add to Program Risks, March 2008.9 Defense Science Board Report on Developmental Test and Evaluation, May 2008.10 Statement by Franklin C. Spinney before the House Subcommittee on National Security, VeteransAffairs and International Relations.
CHAPTER 11understand, then contain America’sOut-of-Control Defense BudgetWinslow T. WheelerThe foregoing chapters have described how America’s armed forces are manned andequipped to fight, at best, enemies that do not now exist and may never again inthe foreseeable future. I say “at best” because there is much evidence, cited here andelsewhere, that the hugely expensive and extraordinarily complex programs that thePentagon and Congress describe as vital for national defense are not even good ideasto fight the Second Generation Warfare which U.S. armed forces would seem bestsuited to conduct. Indeed, for Third Generation Warfare, which many in our armedforces seem very interested to talk about but which their leadership mostly does notseem to comprehend, such systems are little, if any, help. And, in Fourth GenerationWarfare, such programs and policies – and the thinking that goes with them – lenda clear advantage to the enemy and almost guarantee our own defeat.Almost as disturbing is the condition of the defense budget. Our problems areredoubled: it is not that the defense budget adequately supports our irrelevant, evencounterproductive forces. For that to be the case would be a significant improvement.Instead, to promote armed forces that fight the wrong type of war in the wrong places– liberals, moderates and conservatives in the Pentagon, Congress, think tanks andthe White House have over time constructed an edifice that makes our forces smaller,older and less ready to fight, all at dramatically increasing cost. And, we have doneso with a system that, quite literally, does not know – or apparently care – what itis doing.Do You Know What Your Defense Budget Is?Each year, when the new defense budget is released, the media discusses it with greatprecision – always careful to cite it to at least the first decimal. The vast majority ofthose ostensibly precise newspaper articles have the numbers quite wrong – not justto the right of the decimal point; they are often off by tens of billions of dollars, andby some measures, they are off by hundreds of billions. Their reportage on George W.Bush’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2009 (FY 09) was no exception.On Feb. 4, 2008, the Department of Defense (DOD) briefed the press on the new2009 defense budget, citing its total, $515.4 billion. President Bush’s Office of Managementand Budget (OMB) released the same budget on the same day, citing it to be$518.3 billion. That’s a $2.9 billion difference. OMB was accurate; the Pentagon “forgot”to include some permanent appropriations (also called “entitlements” or “mandatory”
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AMERICA’SDEFENSE MELTDOWN★ ★
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America’sDefenseMeltdownpentagon
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Bruce I. Gudmundsson served in the
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James P. Stevenson is the former ed
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table of contentsPrefaceExecutive S
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PrefaceThe mere notion of a “melt
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Preface• xieffective national sec
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executive summaryChapter Summaries
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Executive Summary • xvThe militar
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Executive Summary• xviiRecommenda
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Executive Summary• xixobjectives
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Executive Summary • xxiThe chapte
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Executive Summary• xxiii• Analy
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2 • Introduction & Historic Overv
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10 • Introduction & Historic Over
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CHAPTER 2SHATTERING ILLUSIONSA Nati
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28 • Shattering Illusions: A Nati
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54 • Leading the Human Dimensions
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CHAPTER 4MANEUVER FORCESThe Army an
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82 • Maneuver Forces: The Army an
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100 • A Traveler’s Perspective
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CHAPTER 6the navyWilliam S. LindTo
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120 • The Navy- signaling - would
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122 • The NavyAt the same time, t
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124 • The Navyforce: first, to de
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126 • The Navywarfare usually wor
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128 • The NavyEndnotes1 Andrew Go
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130 • Reversing the Decay of Amer
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