not mentioned in this article is need for more base closings. Of course congress will be against any closings in their districts.
January 11, 2001
Bush's Pledge to Buy New Weapons
Will Force Cuts in Older Programs
By GREG JAFFE and ANNE MARIE SQUEO
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- President-elect George W. Bush has pledged to buy
a new generation of weapons to meet "the threats of the 21st century," but
what he hasn't said is that to pay for it, he will need to make big cuts in
current weapons programs.
Mr. Bush hasn't talked about which programs he will cut, insisting that he
will perform a "bottom-to-top review" of defense spending first.
Wednesday, he met with departing Secretary of Defense William Cohen
and the service chiefs to discuss hot spots around the world. Later in the
day, Mr. Cohen said the Clinton administration's budget would increase
defense spending by $53 billion over the next six years. Despite that
money, Mr. Bush would still have to make substantial cuts to existing
weapons programs.
Some weapons that are likely targets for cuts
or delays are the Joint Strike Fighter, the
Army's Crusader howitzer, the Navy's DD-21
destroyer and the Army's new rapidly
deployable armored brigades.
Mr. Bush's dilemma is a legacy of the Clinton administration's defense
spending, which pumped billions of dollars into spare parts, training and
pay, but postponed purchases of new equipment. The Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan defense think tank here, says
the military must spend at least $85 billion a year to buy everything that is
currently in the pipeline -- a 40% increase over the current $60 billion
procurement budget.
Mr. Bush has said he plans to raise defense spending by only about $5
billion a year. And he has already earmarked a big chunk of that money for
programs that have nothing to do with replacing the military's aging arsenal.
The president-elect said earlier this month he would use about $1 billion a
year for military pay raises. He has pledged, however, to increase the
military's research and development budget by 20% -- in an effort to skip
a generation of military weaponry.
"Truly skipping a generation would have profound implications …
many of them negative for industry," says Steven Grundman, director of
aerospace and defense consulting at Charles River Associates, a
Boston-based firm. And Mr. Bush hasn't even factored in the cost of a
promised robust national missile-defense system, which could siphon tens
of billions of dollars more from the military budget.
Lawmakers who met with Mr. Bush on Monday to discuss defense
matters said that canceling weapons didn't come up. Instead, they talked
about the need for more spending on Navy ships, long-range B-2 bombers
and more cargo planes. Democrats and Republicans, however, agree that
some cuts will be necessary. Mr. Bush "has got a huge money problem on
defense that he's not going to fix by tinkering at the margins. There are
going to have to be some substantial cuts," according to Michael
O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments.
The cuts will likely fall into three categories:
First, the Bush team has promised that a review of the military's three
costly fighter-jet programs -- the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 and the
F18/A-E/F -- would be one of the team's first priorities.
The most vulnerable of the three fighters in production seems to be the
$200 billion Joint Strike Fighter. The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps
would each fly variants of the plane, which would have about 80% of its
parts in common to save hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance
costs.
Those savings, however, come in the long run. Meanwhile, the costs of
developing and building the plane loom large. Support from the services,
with the exception of the Marines, is weak. Navy officials prefer the
F18/A-E/F fighter jet, which is built by Boeing Co. and Northrop
Grumman Corp. It is the least-advanced technologically of the planes, but
the furthest along in production. Air Force officials, who would get 1,700
of the 3,000 strike jets, say their top priority is securing funding for the
costly F-22, produced by Lockheed Martin Corp.
In recent weeks, the Navy and Air Force appear to have begun making
plans in case the JSF is postponed. A recent draft of the Air Force's new
aerial combat doctrine, dubbed Global Reconnaissance Strike, maps out
roles for the Air Force's F-22 and the Northrop-built B-2 bomber, and
even the Navy's F18A-E/F. Notably absent is any mention of the Joint
Strike Fighter.
"The Joint Strike Fighter ends up looking like a plane in search of a
mission," says Loren Thompson, chief executive officer of the Lexington
Institute, a Washington-based, industry-supported think tank.
Meanwhile, both Vice President-elect Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,
Mr. Bush's choice for secretary of defense, have touted the need for the
Air Force's F-22, but its budget will soar in the next five years as the plane
moves into full production, and could prove a tempting source of funds.
The two joined five other former U.S. defense secretaries in persuading
Congress to fund the aircraft's development in 1998.
The second category of weapons likely to be cut are those that can't get to
hot spots in a hurry.
"Effective military power is increasingly defined not by size or mass but by
mobility and swiftness," Mr. Bush said earlier this month. Judged by that
criteria, the Army's Crusader, the world's most powerful and heaviest
mobile howitzer, begins to look like a dinosaur.
The program's saving grace may be its powerful backers in industry and in
Congress. The gun system is being built by United Defense LP, a
subsidiary of Carlyle Group, a Washington-based investment company that
is full of former Republican defense officials, such as former Defense
Secretary Frank Carlucci and James Baker, who was former President
Bush's secretary of state and George W. Bush's point man in the Florida
recounts.
Weapons in Trouble?
Crusader Howitzer
Cost: $11 billion
Contractor: United Defense LP, a unit of the Carlyle Group
DD-21 Destroyer
Cost: $25 billion
Contractor: Undecided (General Dynamics Corp. or Litton
Industries Inc.)
Joint Strike Fighter
Cost: $200 billion over the next three decades
Contractor: Undecided (Lockheed Martin Corp. or Boeing Co.)
Army Interim Armored Brigade
Cost: $8 billion
Contractor: General Dynamics Corp.*
*Contract has been awarded but is currently being contested by United Defense
LP
United Defense also has strong congressional backing. The company put
its Crusader factory near Fort Sill, Okla., an area represented by GOP
Rep. J.C. Watts, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and
GOP Sen. James Inhofe, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
Still, heavyweights in Congress may not be enough to save the overloaded
Crusader. It takes two C-5 military cargo jets to haul the massive gun
anywhere. Army officers say the Crusader could be effective if
permanently deployed in places such as South Korea. But "it seems the
requirement for the system has become irrelevant in this post-Cold War
era," says Donald Hicks, a former Pentagon acquisitions chief under
President Reagan.
Finally, any program that is still in the research and development stages,
underfunded or behind schedule, will have to struggle to justify its
existence. Two likely candidates for cuts are the Army's experimental
medium-weight brigades and the Navy's DD-21 destroyer.
The DD-21 destroyer seems like just the kind of ship that Mr. Bush, who
has preached the need to fund new weapons systems that represent a
major technological leap forward, likely would support. It will carry more
missiles, more accurate and bigger guns, and a smaller crew than any
destroyer in existence. But because no contractor has been selected, it has
few strong backers in industry or Congress.
Similarly, the Army's push to build a rapidly deployable force of
medium-weight armored vehicles and artillery capable of fighting in places
such as Kosovo could face some problems. Mr. Bush, a big backer of
more rapidly deployable forces, likely wouldn't kill the Army's program.
But some industry watchers say he might scale it back to three brigades
from the eight called for in the current plan, or he could simply delay the
program.
A big knock against the program is that even the Army says it needs about
$1 billion a year more to pay for it. There is also grumbling that the Army is
moving too quickly. "The technology [behind the program] just isn't
proven, and that may be the best argument for slowing it down," says Mr.
O'Hanlon.
Write to Greg Jaffe at greg.jaffe@wsj.com and Ann Marie Squeo at
annmarie.squeo@wsj.com |
