‘New Democrat’ Watch #6: Will V-22’s Foes Be Able To Kill This Dual-Use Asset on Clinton’s Watch?

(Washington, D.C.): On 29 April 1993, the Center for Security Policy served notice that the Bush Administration-hatched "dual-track" scheme to delay, weaken and ultimately kill the V-22 Osprey — a program President Clinton has repeatedly endorsed — is still in train five-months into the Clinton Administration. At risk is more than just realizing a return on the Pentagon’s $3 billion investment in tilt-rotor technology (which permits the Osprey to take-off and land like a helicopter then convert to fly at the speed and ranges of conventional turbo-prop aircraft). The nation’s ability to reap potentially enormous benefits in civil applications of this remarkable technology would also be jeopardized.

‘Breaking the Code’

In the face of the support expressed for the Osprey over the past year by Bill Clinton and the tenacious backing the V-22 program enjoys on Capitol Hill, opponents of this system have pursued an arcane but potentially effective strategy for achieving their objective. As noted in a recent Center paper⁽²⁾, hold-overs from the Cheney Defense Department are determined to terminate the V-22 program by proceeding with a "dual-track" approach designed to deny it the economies of scale that can only be achieved if the system is utilized as it has been designed to be — namely for multiple missions by several services.

This holdover strategy was much in evidence in the course of actions taken earlier this month by the Defense Department’s Joint Requirements Operational Council (or JROC). The JROC was created in response to the Goldwater-Nichols Act to review military needs and increase "jointness" by "ensuring interoperability, reducing parallel and duplicate development efforts and promoting economies of scale"⁽³⁾ in DoD acquisition programs. Ironically, thanks to the machinations of the JROC’s chairman — Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. David Jeremiah — the upshot of a 10 June meeting of the Council was to dismember the joint basis for the V-22 program and to sacrifice potential economies of scale.

Such an outcome was preordained when Adm. Jeremiah decided that this JROC meeting would not consider a joint approach to satisfying the Special Operations Command’s requirements for an "advanced multi-mission vertical lift aircraft." The special forces regard the lack of a suitable system to perform long-range infiltration/exfiltration operations to be their highest priority. The Jeremiah decision effectively foreclosed the V-22 option in favor of a unique, mission-specific airplane.

The Osprey took another hit when Adm. Jeremiah chose to ignore the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps endorsements at the 10 June meeting of the Special Operations Command’s desire to "[to] restor[e] the V-22 as a joint program which will have the capability of satisfying the Navy’s combat search and rescue requirements, the Marine Corps’ medium-lift requirements and our Special Operations Forces requirements for speed and range"⁽⁴⁾. Even the Army, which cited budgetary constraints in declining to pursue the V-22 for its own missions, did not oppose the other services’ efforts to reestablish a joint basis for the Osprey.

Bureaucratic Mau-Mau

Notwithstanding this strong show of support at the JROC, Adm. Jeremiah reported in a 14 June memo to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition that the Council had, in effect, acted with extreme prejudice on the idea of restoring the V-22 as a joint program. The Jeremiah memo does so in several ways: by formally circumscribing the Osprey’s original multi-service operational requirement so that is valid only for the Marine mission; by returning the Special Operations Command to square one (a "Mission Needs Statement") after it had already progressed to the next step (an "Operational Requirement Document"); by requiring additional "Cost and Operational Effectiveness Analyses" to be performed prior to any further decisions leading to procurement of an aircraft for the special forces; and by postponing consideration of the "joint potential" of those forces’ airlift requirement.

While such actions may seem inscrutable to the uninitiated, their cumulative effect is not: If allowed to stand, they would have the effect of validating the Bush Administration’s "dual-track" strategy for the V-22. Put simply, the opportunity for joint acquisition of a largely common aircraft would be eliminated, adding substantially and unnecessarily to the costs and the time required to field urgently needed airlift assets. The end result will be to constrain the United States’ ability to perform a variety of vital missions and/or to jeopardize the lives of service personnel assigned to execute them.

‘Over to You, Dr. Deutch’

Fortunately, on 30 June, the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) chaired by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition John Deutch is scheduled to conduct a V-22 program review. His office has advised Adm. Jeremiah and other participants that he wants "to address Marine Corps and Special Operations Forces requirements, program status, alternative approaches for satisfying the requirements and technical and programmatic issues associated with program execution."

In light of the personal interest candidate and President Clinton has expressed in the V-22, it is inconceivable that a serious review by his Administration of the facts in each of these areas will allow the wasteful Bush-era game-playing with this program to continue. Dr. Deutch has it in his authority to do what Departmental regulations, cost-considerations, military effectiveness, thorough exploitation of investments in dual-use technology and common sense dictate: Restore the V-22 to joint program status and move out smartly on the earliest possible deployment of this aircraft by the U.S. military.

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1. "New Democrat" Watch is a series of Decision Briefs designed to illuminate important security policy decisions pending before the Clinton Administration. These decisions will do much to determine the compatibility of Clinton policies with the U.S. national interest. They will also provide objective measures of the President’s follow-through on his commitment to abandon the left-wing, "Old Democrat" behavior that has afflicted and undermined his presidency thus far.

2. See The Right Way to Respond to the "Too-Many-Air-Forces" Criticism: Keep the V-22 Multi-Service and Multi-Mission, (No. 93-D 35, 29 April 1993).

3. From the charter of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, MCM-76-92, dated 19 May 1992.

4. From congressional correspondence by the then-Conunander-in-Chief of Special Operations Command, General Carl Stiner, dated 30 March 1993.