Who’s Minding the Store?: Iraq War’s Top Performing Defense System an Endangered Species

Introduction

Of all the dazzling high technology
systems deployed with U.S. forces in the
war with Iraq, arguably none has
performed with greater effectiveness than
the Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS) aircraft.

The significance of such a statement
is all the more dramatic when one
considers a little appreciated fact: Many
of the higher profile systems — for
example, the Patriot anti-ballistic
missile interceptor (deservedly praised
by President Bush this afternoon in
Massachusetts), owe their success to a
considerable degree to the
behind-the-scenes role played by
America’s premier early warning/command
and control system, the E-3A AWACS. The
following are illustrative examples of
systems or operations benefitting immeasurably
from the AWACS’ continuous, real-time
monitoring of the theater’s air-space and
management of virtually all allied
traffic in it:

• It is difficult to name an aspect
  of the enormously complex
  coalition air offensive
  in which the AWACS has not played
  a central role. Identification
  and tracking of both friendly and
  hostile aircraft and
  “deconfliction” — the
  crucial function of ensuring that
  an attack is efficiently and
  safely orchestrated — are key
  tasks of this system’s airborne
  controllers. In addition, the
  timing, sequencing and location
  of aerial refuelings, upon which
  almost every other air operation
  depends, are routinely managed by
  AWACS.
• It is worth noting that the use
  of two of the “stars”
  of this offensive — the F-117A
  Stealth fighter and the Tomahawk
  cruise missiles, with
  their capabilities for delivering
  ordinance with pinpoint accuracy
  against even the most
  concentrated air defenses — have
  been successfully employed in
  part thanks to AWACS’
  contribution to airspace
  management and deconfliction.

• The extremely difficult, but
  nonetheless politically
  important, task of neutralizing
  Saddam Hussein’s ballistic
  missile force — the so-called
  “Scud-buster” campaign
  — illustrates the AWACS’
  flexibility as a combat platform.
  E-3A crews have proven adept at
  detecting Scud launches and
  vectoring attack aircraft swiftly
  to destroy the
  transporter-erector-launchers. By
  so doing, they have made possible
  a number of the confirmed kills
  against such mobile assets and
  have appreciably limited the
  damage that might otherwise have
  been inflicted.
• As noted above, AWACS have also
  assisted the Patriot air defense
  system’s largely successful
  effort to intercept such missiles
  before they arrive in Tel Aviv
  and Riyadh by providing early
  warning and ballistic trajectory
  information needed to effect
  successful intercepts.

• Air superiority
  operations throughout
  the war have been immeasurably
  enhanced by AWACS’ continuous,
  virtually complete and
  all-weather coverage of enemy
  aircraft movements. Every U.S.
  and allied air-to-air kill (e.g.,
  Saudi Arabia’s two-MiG “Top
  Gun”) received vital
  tactical information from
  airborne controllers aboard E-3s
  from take-off to landing.
• AWACS aircraft have also been
  instrumental in monitoring and,
  where possible, achieving
  interception of Iraqi
  planes fleeing to Iran.
  U.S. information about the
  number, type and capabilities of
  these newly relocated elements of
  the best of Iraqi’s air force has
  to a considerable degree been
  derived from AWACS data.
• Search and rescue
  operations, notably the
  widely reported rescue of a
  downed Navy pilot — which took
  eight hours, multiple aircraft
  and no fewer than four in-flight
  refuelings to effect, have been
  greatly facilitated by AWACS.

In short, the E-3A — based upon an
updated military version of the Boeing
commercial 707 airframe — has been fully
put to the test in the present conflict,
and passed with highest honors. In the
absence of such assets, or in the event
their numbers were reduced through
accidental attrition or enemy action, the
course of the war could be significantly
affected.

JSTARS

Interestingly, another weapon system
based upon the 707 airframe has also
begun to prove its worth in the Gulf war.
The Air Force-Army Joint Surveillance
Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS),
technically still in operational
development, has been deployed to the
theater to assist with the anti-Scud
campaign.

Equipped with sophisticated sensor
suites, the JSTARS has already impressed
battlefield commanders — including
General Schwartzkopf — with its capacity
to provide real-time, data-linked
targeting information to various weapon
systems. This feature has immeasurably
improved the effort to suppress, locate
and destroy mobile targets like the Iraqi
ballistic missile force. It should also
prove of considerable value when and if a
ground campaign gets underway.

Microcosm of Larger Problem
with U.S. Defense Industrial Base

Given the extraordinary performance of
these 707-based systems, it may seem
incredible that the United States
will — in the absence of
urgent, concerted action by the executive
branch, Congress and/or allied nations
— imminently lose the capacity
to manufacture either AWACS or JSTARS
aircraft. Published reports,
including Aviation Week of 28
January 1991, indicate that the Boeing
Company can no longer preserve the 707
production line past 31 March
1991 in the absence of firm
orders for some combination of at least
14 additional AWACS, KE-3 aerial
refueling tankers and/or JSTARS systems
which all employ the 707 airframe.

For Boeing, this is a straight-forward
business decision. The company has, to
its credit, maintained the militarized
707 production line for several years
beyond the point justified strictly by
market considerations. According to Aviation
Week, Boeing invested $10 million in
1990 alone to preserve an E-3A production
capability. No profit-oriented enterprise
can reasonably be expected to expend
private resources indefinitely to
maintain a national asset not properly
valued by the United States and foreign
governments.

Tragically, the U.S.
government is, at the moment, seriously
undervaluing the importance of its
defense industrial base pretty much
across the board. That it
should be doing so at this juncture is
all the more ironic insofar as the
federal government is simultaneously,
desperately seeking to obtain surge
production from manufacturers of
various types of ordinance and military
systems to meet the expected requirements
of the war with Iraq. Even so, its FY1992
budget continues the trend established in
recent years eliminating vital production
capabilities. For example, every
tactical aircraft production line except
the F/A-18 will be terminated by 1995
— long before new lines are established
for follow-on systems.

Put simply, there is a serious
disconnect between the requirements for
military capabilities being validated by
the war with Iraq and the capacity to
meet those requirements supported by the
defense budget (and/or by sales
of U.S.-manufactured military equipment
to American allies). The incipient
loss of the E-3 AWACS production line is
but a particularly worrisome
manifestation of this larger, dangerous
trend.

Having said that, the implications for
U.S. security of losing the capacity to
produce 707-derived aircraft are grave
and symptomatic of those associated with
such a trend: The nation’s capacity to
sustain — to say nothing of replace —
the already over-taxed inventory of AWACS
and 707-based tankers will degrade
sharply. Naturally, there will be no
surge capacity to add to that inventory,
neither will there be a readily available
option for development of a new, longer
range early warning capability within the
next decade.

Moreover, if this production line goes
down, the opportunity to purchase the
new, highly capable JSTARS system could
go by the boards. Finally, glaring
shortfalls in key allied capabilities
will go uncorrected, increasing further
the burden placed on existing American
airborne early warning assets. In this
connection, some American AWACS
have been stripped away from missions
around the world — from the U.S. drug
interdiction program to patrols out of
Okinawa — to meet the enormous
requirements of the Gulf conflict.

Ironically, a termination of the U.S.
capacity to produce AWACS and KE-3
tankers would come as world demand for
such aircraft is likely to grow
substantially. In addition to the United
States, the United Kingdom, France, Saudi
Arabia and NATO all have AWACS in their
inventories which will need at some point
to be enhanced or replaced. In addition,
several other nations would like to
procure E-3As in the near future.

Will the Allies Step into
the Breach?

Until recently, it seemed reasonable
to expect that meeting such allied
airborne warning and command and control
needs would permit preservation of so
vital a national asset as the 707
production line. Specifically, Saudi
Arabia and Japan have formally requested
permission to purchase sufficient
quantities of AWACS and KE-3
tanker/utility aircraft to keep the line
open.

For its part, the Government of Saudi
Arabia has asked that no fewer than eleven
707 airframes (four AWACS and seven
tankers) be included as part of Phase II
of the Saudi arms package. In January
1991, however, the Bush Administration
elected to defer submission of this phase
of the Saudi arms sale pending resolution
of the conflict with Iraq.

While it is very likely — all other
things being equal — that the Saudis
will chose to proceed with this purchase
in order to eliminate serious shortfalls
in the kingdom’s air self-defense
capabilities, they will only be able
to do so if the production line remains
open. It would be a bitter irony,
indeed, if an order that might otherwise
go a long way toward sustaining the AWACS
production line were to come just a few
months after the option for such
a sale is foreclosed.

The only other hope for the survival
of this national asset — in the absence
of a justifiable, but unanticipated, U.S.
purchase of substantial numbers of JSTARS
or AWACS — would arise if the Government
of Japan at the eleventh hour agrees to
fulfill its decade-old commitment to
defend its airspace and sea-lanes out to
1000 nautical miles. Defense experts on
both sides of the Pacific believe that
the minimum quantities of aircraft
required to provide the comprehensive
surveillance and tracking coverage
required by such a commitment would be between
nine and twelve AWACS and in excess of
twenty tankers.

Regrettably, the Japanese have
committed to purchase only four AWACS and
no aerial refueling tankers in the next
five-year Medium-Term Defense Plan. In an
11 February 1991 article in the New
York Times entitled “Japan
Pressed to Buy More U.S. AWACS
Jets,” a spokesman for Japan’s
embassy in Washington was quoted as
saying: “We can’t increase our
defense capabilities at once to
cover everything. I don’t think we have
enough money to buy more [AWACS and
tankers].” (Emphasis added.)

This extraordinary statement perfectly
captures Tokyo’s attitude toward this
major burden-sharing issue. After ten
years of Japanese foot-dragging and
obfuscation, it is cheeky
— to say the least — that an official
of the Government of Japan would
characterize American expectations as an
unreasonable demand that Japan live up to
its word “all at once.” As for
the notion that Tokyo is unable to afford
the multi-billion dollar procurement of
off-the-shelf U.S. aircraft, it is being
greeted with open ridicule on Capitol
Hill.

In fact, members of Congress have
become justifiably indignant over Japan’s
palpable breach of faith on its regional
defense commitment. This sentiment has
been exacerbated by the urgent demands
placed on U.S. defense capabilities and
expenditures by the war with Iraq.
Japanese tenacity in refusing to pay more
than lip-service to their responsibility
for the 1000-mile mission has galvanized
the convictions of many legislators that
the United States is unnecessarily
shouldering others’ defense burdens.

These growing sentiments, combined
with alarm over the imminent demise of
the 707 production line, prompted a group
of senior figures in the House of
Representatives — led by Representative
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) — to introduce
legislation on 6 February 1991 (H.Res.
67) calling on the Bush Administration to
initiate immediate negotiations with
Tokyo. Such negotiations would be
intended to lead to the purchase of
additional AWACS and tankers by Japan and
the prompt fulfillment of its 1000-mile
mission commitment.

Such legislation has been deemed
necessary because the executive
branch has, to date, apparently failed
to convey to the Japanese the importance
the United States attaches to Tokyo’s
performance on these points. To the
contrary, on countless occasions
senior U.S. officials in the White House
and State and Defense Departments have
simply chosen not to press their
interlocutors from Japan to change course
— the adverse consequences for America’s
security interests, industrial base and
balance of trade, notwithstanding.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on
the positive effect the sale of a
properly sized Japanese AWACS and KE-3
procurement would have on the
U.S.-Japanese trade account. What is at
stake is nothing less than a $5-7 billion
sale of off-the-shelf American products,
equivalent to roughly ten percent of the
present bilateral trade deficit.

In light of what is at stake, the
American government’s apparent, rather
cavalier attitude toward the permanent
termination of the AWACS production line
is truly extraordinary. Even so, the
simple truth of the matter is that members
of the Bush Administration have yet to
take forceful actions that would induce
Tokyo, either for reasons of national
self-interest or as a contribution to
collective security, to reconsider its
wholly inadequate performance on the
1000-mile mission.

Time for Corrective Action

The Center for Security Policy
believes that far too much is riding on
an accelerated purchase of E-3 AWACS and
tankers by Japan for the United States to
just accept Tokyo’s excuses and sustained
inaction. Accordingly, it joins with Rep.
Schumer and a growing number of Members
of Congress in calling on the Bush
Administration to initiate an urgent
effort with Tokyo over the next six weeks
(prior to Boeing’s 31 March go/no go
decision on the production line) to
fulfill Japan’s security obligations with
announcement of a commitment to procure
at least fourteen 707 airframes.

Should the executive branch choose not
to mount such an effort immediately,
Congress would be well advised to
initiate formal hearings into the
strategic and trade implications of this
development. Such hearings would provide
an opportunity for the legislature to
establish with whom responsibility lies
for the attendant damage to U.S. national
and economic security interests. If
conducted promptly, these hearings might
also serve as a catalyst for remedial
steps — such as interim foreign customer
funding — that would prevent the
national capability represented by the
707 production line from being sacrificed
unnecessarily.