Gary Schmitt Of Men and Materiel, The Crisis in Defense Spending (2007)

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It is no coincidence that all of the big shortfalls in the moderniza-
tion plan involve aircraft. After buying an average of 262 airframes
per year during the 1970s and 80s, Air Force purchases plummeted
to 60 per year in the 90s, and look likely to average only 84 per year
in the current decade.30 As a result, every category of airframe in the
Air Force arsenal fighters, bombers, transports, tankers, electronic
aircraft are exhibiting signs of advanced age. This pattern was so
pronounced by the beginning of the new millennium that many
observers assumed the Bush administration would greatly increase
funding for aircraft modernization. But changing threats and intellec-
tual fashions have conspired to prevent such an increase, and the
stage is now set for a prolonged erosion in Air Force capabilities. To
put it succinctly, spacecraft and communications networks have faced
little difficulty in winning funding during the current decade, but
manned aircraft have not gotten the money they needed.
Secretary Rumsfeld and his key advisers were right to question
whether the joint force should modernize Cold War weapons plat-
forms, given changes in the threat and the emergence of new tech-
nologies. But they have failed to advance a coherent alternative to
service modernization agendas, and some of their program-specific
initiatives to terminate high-priority programs like F-22 are fiscally
and operationally irresponsible. Whatever the virtues of wireless
AGE AND INDIFFERENCE ERODE U.S. AIR POWER 79
networking and joint cooperation may be, the simple reality is that
U.S. air power arguably the single biggest advantage U.S. forces
have on the battlefield is declining. The only way to reverse this
trend is to buy more planes, and to buy them fast before some unno-
ticed defect in aging tankers or transports compromises the capacity
of the joint force to win wars.
Although the Air Force follows the practice of sister services in
producing an annual compendium of unfunded priorities,31 it has
not generated a rigorous analysis of the full funding requirements
necessary to sustain all facets of air power to midcentury. The reason
it has not is that such an assessment would inevitably call into ques-
tion the priorities of senior policymakers, while providing legislators
with an agenda of program initiatives at odds with administration
goals. But with barely two years left in office, the priorities of the Bush
administration will soon be replaced anyway, so it is useful to under-
stand what Air Force leaders truly think they would need to sustain
core competencies in the future.
Discussions with various experts inside and outside the service
suggest that the shortfall in Air Force investment accounts during the
period 2008 13 is roughly $10 billion annually. About $3 billion per
year would be needed to fund a more robust modernization effort in
the air superiority area, although some of this increase could be
recovered later if an additional buy of 200 F-22 fighters enabled the
service to cut 600 F-35s out of its Joint Strike Fighter buy (cumula-
tive costs would increase in the near term due to the different stages
at which the programs now stand in the acquisition cycle). Another
$3 billion, roughly, would be needed each year in the global mobility
area to sustain existing airlift production lines, while still making an
early start on tanker modernization. The remaining monies would be
distributed across the information dominance, global awareness, and
global strike areas to revitalize electronic warfare, airborne surveil-
lance, and long-range bomber fleets.
Additional budget authority of $10 billion annually would
amount to an 18 percent increase above Air Force funding for
research, development, and procurement in 2006 (not counting
supplemental appropriations and hidden accounts for classified
80 OF MEN AND MATERIEL
intelligence activities). It would add 2 3 percent to the Defense
Department s projected budgets through the end of the decade,
which the administration currently sees stabilizing at about $450 bil-
lion per year (in 2006 constant dollars) after 2008.32 While all the
assumptions surrounding these calculations are likely to change, the
added amount would not represent a big additional burden, espe-
cially when compared with the fiscal consequences of failing to pre-
vail in future wars. The impact of additional investment outlays could
be ameliorated if Congress allowed the Air Force to retire aircraft it
says it no longer needs, shut down superfluous bases, reduce head-
count in specialties not expected to experience high demand, and
contract out for noncore services. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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