Don’t Let the F-22 Fall Victim to a Defense ‘Train Wreck’

(Washington, D.C.): When the House Appropriations Committee voted
last week to defer
production of the Air Force’s next generation fighter plane, the F-22, the image that came to
mind was that of the cartoon character Pogo who once famously declared, “We have met the
enemy and it is us.” Unless the Republican-led Congress comes to grips with the central reality
of the defense budget — namely, that its present and projected funding levels are woefully
inadequate to meet America’s future security needs — the GOP will become fully implicated in
the Clinton Administration’s hollowing-out of the U.S. military.

The F-22: America’s Qualitative Edge

To be sure, critics of the F-22 cast this fight in narrower terms. They claim that an aircraft
with
its characteristics — low-observability (“stealth”), supersonic cruise capability (that is, the ability
to fly at supersonic speeds without having to utilize afterburners that consume huge quantities of
fuel) and sophisticated avionics and weapon systems — is no longer needed to dominate the skies.
They contend that, with the decline in the technical skills and productivity of the former Soviet
military-industrial complex, the United States can safely make do with far less sophisticated and
expensive warplanes.

Unfortunately, as the war in Kosovo reminds us, threats to U.S. pilots can come from the
ground
as well as the air. We owe it to those asked to fight the Nation’s future wars to ensure
that
they are given platforms for doing so that are as immune as possible to the continuing
improvements being made by potential adversaries in both air-to-air and terrestrial anti-aircraft
weapons. As one retired Air Force general recently put it, “We don’t want a fair fight.
We want to win decisively.”

Bait and Switch

Another source of the flak the F-22 is taking arises from the perennial temptation to forego a
near-term defense expenditure in favor of an outlay that is farther off. In recent years,
Democratic critics of the Pentagon have made an art form of this gambit, promising to support
the next program as long as the present one is terminated, only to oppose its successor when its
turn comes. Even normally responsible Republicans are susceptible to this siren’s song when, as
has been the case with the F-22, the estimated production costs have inexorably grown as the
various technical challenges associated with this extraordinary plane’s development have been
overcome.

The alternative some prefer is to skip the F-22 and procure instead another promising aircraft
called the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), now in the early stages of development. Estimates of the
multi-service, multi-mission, multi-mode JSF’s ultimate price tag and performance
characteristics, however, are currently as soft as the F-22’s used to be. If anything, the
JSF may
cost more than the F-22 when the former reaches the latter’s level of programmatic
maturity.

Others favor a two-step procurement strategy, involving the purchase first of up-to-date
versions
of the F-15 and F-16 as a stop-gap awaiting the maturing of the JSF, which would then be
purchased in quantity when it becomes available. Producing modernized F-15s and
-16s is
probably a good idea under all circumstances, but it would be a mistake to kill the F-22
(which would be the practical effect of the proposed delay in production) to pay for it.

The Coming ‘DoD Train Wreck’

The painful truth is that the problem is far larger than the fate of the F-22, or even
that of the
Pentagon’s aviation account more generally. This reality is evident in the fact that
House
appropriators found lots of areas into which to reallocate the roughly $1.5 billion sought by the
Clinton Administration for the purpose of producing the first six F-22s.

An impressive analysis conducted by Dr. Dan Goure of the Center for Strategic and
International
Studies and Jeffrey Ranney, a strategic planner at the defense consulting firm MSTI, quantifies
this problem. According to these highly respected experts, there is a $376 billion deficit
in the
funding needed over the next five years to meet the Clinton Pentagon’s own modernization
goals as defined in its latest blueprint, the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
In fact, the
Goure-Ranney study, entitled “Averting the Coming Department of Defense Train Wreck,”
suggests that the procurement shortfall in Fiscal Year 2000 alone is $71
billion. If the QDR
projections prove unduly optimistic, moreover, even that staggering amount would actually
be
understated.

What’s to be Done?

The good news is that the procurement “gap” — and similar, although less acute,
shortfalls
in the research and development, operations and maintenance and personnel pay accounts
— would essentially disappear if the United States were willing for the foreseeable future to
allocate 4% of its Gross Domestic Product to defense, rather than today’s less than 3%.
Such
a proportion of GDP is well below the more than 5-6.7% that President Reagan dedicated during
the 1980s to rebuilding our military after its last hollowing-out. And this percentage is a small
fraction of the allocations the Nation made to national security earlier on, notably during
John F.
Kennedy’s administration.

The bad news is that, despite the surging U.S. economy and the attendant increase in tax
revenues, Republicans in Congress find themselves opposing the sorts of defense spending
increases that are clearly required if the American military is to be able to preserve its decisive
qualitative edge via modernization of its inventory, without further reducing an already
overstretched force structure and/or the global commitments it is being asked to fulfill. It’s not
that most Republicans are averse to additional funding for the armed forces. Rather, they fear
that — were they to rupture the “caps” on Pentagon accounts agreed to in the 1997 budget deal
with President Clinton — it would be impossible to maintain the constraints that deal imposed on
the growth of spending on popular domestic programs.

The Bottom Line

As the F-22 episode makes clear, however, unless there is relief from the Pentagon
caps, there
is a defense “train wreck” coming. Military leaders know this to be true, as do their
more
responsible civilian counterparts. The so-called “bow-wave” of deferred procurement, like
compounded interest, is intensifying daily. The attendant risks of an inadequate defense posture
are increasing concomitantly.

If the present Congress does not come to grips with this reality — not by cutting needed
defense
modernization programs, but by adding the funds necessary to buy them and to
cover other
Pentagon shortfalls –– the next President will face an even more dangerous deficit in our
national security capabilities. and an even more daunting price tag for correcting it.
And the
Republicans will lose one of their most important planks in their campaign for renewed
control of the legislative branch, namely their ability to understand our vital national
security interests and their willingness to provide the resources needed to safeguard them.