Peace dividend on wings of the Osprey

Today, in a conference room in the bowels of the Pentagon, senior representatives of the nation’s uniformed military will meet to decide what would, on its face, appear to be one of the more esoteric defense issues of our time: the required speed at which the Marines Corps’ future "medium lift" aircraft must be able to move personnel and equipment. To the uninitiated, this deliberation might appear approximately as consequential as the rarified ecclesiastical debates of the Middle Ages over the angel-packing capacity of the heads of pins.

In fact, the results of today’s session of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) may prove to be among the more momentous governmental decisions in recent memory. If, as expected, the participating senior officers -led by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Owens — agree that the Marines require an aircraft capable of flying faster than helicopters to perform this "medium lift" mission, it is likely that the Pentagon will proceed with the procurement of the V-22 Osprey. The Osprey, readers of this space will recall, is a remarkable "tilt-rotor" airplane, capable of taking off and landing vertically but able to rotate its turboprop engines in flight so as to fly like a conventional aircraft.

If, in turn, the Marines are allowed to begin a substantial purchase of V-22s, other branches of the military are certain to follow suit. The first in line would likely be the Special Operations forces who appreciate the immense benefits of such a revolutionary technology for its demanding unconventional warfare missions. Dozens of other applications have been mapped out for U.S. and foreign military users ranging from peacekeeping support, emergency and disaster relief, search and rescue, medical evacuation, drug interdiction and other post-Cold War priority missions.

The far more dramatic upshot of the JROC decision, however, will be the multiplied benefit to the nation of this military procurement. Civilian uses for the V-22 technology are limited only by the imagination. They include the potential for greatly expanding commercial airline service in this country and overseas without the necessity of major infrastructure investments (for example, long runways and costly airport complexes); executive aircraft; nonmilitary emergency and disaster-related functions; express package service; etc.

By official estimates, the potential market for these civil derivatives of the Marine’s tilt-rotor technology could involve sales of thousands of aircraft at home and abroad. Filling this market would go some way toward consolidating the worldwide pre-eminence of the American aerospace industry and enhancing the United States’ competitive position more generally.

Congress has long appreciated the wider defense and civilian benefits that would arise once the military validated the Osprey’s state-of-the-art tilt-rotor technology and created the production base and economies of scale crucial to successful commercial marketing. Broad-based bipartisan support on both sides of Capitol Hill kept the Marine Corps’ V-22 program alive for four years despite assiduous efforts by the Bush administration to kill it off. (Indeed, there were times when "the Phoenix" seemed a better moniker than the Osprey for this aircraft!)

When campaigning for the presidency, Candidate Bill Clinton properly took Mr. Bush to task for his shortsightedness in trying to abort a promising American technology nearing fruition thanks to a decadelong, multibillion-dollar investment. Since coming to office, moreover, the Clinton administration has enunciated a number of policies that have only strengthened the case for the V-22. These include: stressing converting defense technologies to civilian applications; utilizing civilian technologies (like that used to manufacture the Boeing 777) to enhance military capabilities; encouraging the use of "best commercial practices" and other techniques to streamline the acquisition and production of defense equipment (a subset of the push to "reinvent government"); investing in activities that will enhance American competitiveness and exports; engaging in government partnership with industry as part of a new approach to technology policy; and upgrading the nation’s infrastructure while minimizing associated expenditures and environmental impacts.

The Osprey program actually represents a template for putting such concepts into practice. Perhaps such considerations prompted Vice President Al Gore to write on Aug. 1, "I support the V-22 because of its tilt-rotor technology, its dual use as a military and commercial aircraft and its potential value as a major export product for the American aerospace industry." Such a commitment at the highest levels presumably will ensure that the Osprey program enjoys strong support from the civilian Pentagon leadership — assuming, that is, that its Defense Acquisition Board and budgeting process are able to act in the months ahead on a JROC-approved requirement conducive to a Marine Corps purchase of the V-22.

Fortunately, the case for deciding that the Marines should be able to move their troops and gear where needed as quickly and as safely as possible — a task for which the Osprey is ideally suited — is self-evident. It does not depend upon arguments of larger Pentagon and/or national interests. The fact that those other interests will also be powerfully advanced by the Marine Corps’ innovativeness is gravy. You might even call it a "peace dividend."

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.