The QDR and strategic mobility

It has become fashionable of late, among elected officials and pundits, to describe the United States military as "broken" and "over-stretched." While such characterizations can be discounted as hyperbole, there is no denying the fact that the American military is currently deployed in an unprecedented number of countries, carrying out an ever more diverse set of combat and peacekeeping operations. 

If the armed forces are to remain capable of performing successfully the multitude of missions levied upon them by our leaders, they must have – among other things – a dependable and sufficient airlift capacity. For the most part, America’s fleet of C-17s and aging C-5 cargo planes has held up relatively well, even as they labor to support demanding combat operations over exceedingly long distances. While logistical problems did appear in both the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts, American ingenuity and professionalism have, thus far, prevented the shortfall in airlift capacity from becoming an obstacle to successful combat operations.

If several recent, seriously flawed Pentagon decisions are not challenged, however, our armed forces could soon lose the critical mobility that affords them such an advantage on today’s battlefields and the new – and possibly quite different – global ones of tomorrow.

Mobility is Everything

To underscore the importance of reliable airborne transport to today’s military, one need look no further than the Pentagon’s new Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Produced by the Department of Defense every four years, the QDR outlines the threats America currently faces and the optimal solutions for defending against them in the future. The 2006 edition deems our most dangerous enemies as amorphous, confounding the military conventions of the past by utilizing asymmetrical warfare in regions as troubled as they are disparate. In order to meet this new challenge, America’s military is rapidly attempting to shift its focus from Cold-War era conventional wars to the War for the Free World’s rapidly developing contingencies.

It would thus seem perfectly reasonable that, with the Pentagon’s emphasis on increased flexibility, one could expect the national security establishment and its overseers in the executive and legislative branches to be particularly attentive to the condition of America’s airlift fleet. After all, the very foundation of the future military force rests on the limited number of planes able to carry vehicles and equipment, such as the Army’s Future Combat Systems.

Regrettably, several of the QDR-driven decisions would actually hamper, rather than enhance, strategic mobility. The cause for this disastrous oversight is the flawed Department of Defense Mobility Capability Study (MCS) that was preliminarily briefed to members of Congress in December 2005. That study suggested that the military’s growing transport needs could be adequately met by completing the current order of C-17 cargo planes – which stands at 180 – while refurbishing older C-5 aircraft. Thus, since the military would no longer require any new C-17s, the one active American manufacturing line that is capable of building wide body military transport plane would be allowed to go dormant – possibly forever.

Unfortunately, the authors of the MCS underestimated the mobility requirements and inadequately appreciated the inherent risk of closing the C-17 production line. Their assumption that the C-5 modernization effort is a suitable counterbalance to the loss of C-17 production capability is far too optimistic, as the C-5 modernization will not be completed until after 2020. This delay can only serve to exacerbate the condition of America’s C-5 fleet, which has recently been plagued by malfunctions including many that render multiple aircraft unfit for flight.

What is more, the MCS insistence that an air fleet of 180 C-17s would be sufficient is at odds with official Air Force statements made just a year earlier, when a force of 222 planes was deemed the lowest force level advisable. The Center for Security Policy is unaware of any strategic developments in the intervening period that would justify having a smaller fleet of C-17s – and many that argue for a larger one.

Under the QDR approach, America’s capability to replace its older transport aircraft would fall into disrepair just as the C-5 modernization effort would reach its most uncertain phase. This disconnect recently attracted the attention of the Defense Science Board, a group of outside experts who advise the Pentagon on strategic and technical matters. Their report, released last year, criticized such an arrangement and recommended that more C-17s be built and that its production line be maintained, lest the C-5 fleet deteriorate any further.

Even the QDR recognized, at least implicitly, the risks associated with the Mobility Capability Study’s recommendations. Accordingly, a QDR decision was made that, upon termination of C-17 production at 180 aircraft that, "…C-17 tooling will be moved to an off-site storage to preserve the option of procuring additional C-17s."

While this might seem a reasonable course of action, a recent Department of Commerce study on C-17 termination contradicts the QDR’s underlying cost savings assumptions. The Department of Commerce study estimates the cost of a C-17 production termination and tooling storage to be $1.26 billion. The cost of reopening the line is estimated to be a whopping $3.2 billion, for a combined cost of $4.46 billion. By contrast, the Air Force could procure all 42 of the additional C-17s it needs for approximately $2.6 billion more, or a total of $7.1 billion.

In short, the QDR airlift decisions are neither sound strategically nor a wise use of the taxpayer’s resources.

The Bottom Line

While some in the military continue to insist that the authors of MCS only took strategic realities into consideration, it is clear that financial constraints played a major part in the paring down of the transport fleet. Budgeters, anxious to cut short-term costs, reportedly gave up on finding the funds to buy additional C-17s, deciding instead on a treacherous path of cut corners, hedged risks and greater future costs.

Fortunately, the Air Force has recently revisited this decision and now reflects Airlift Capability Upgrades – i.e., the further purchase of 7 additional C-17s – as its Number One unfunded priority in the FY 2007 defense budget.

In addition, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), Gen. Norman Schwartz, joined Air Force officials in voicing strong support for the purchase of at least 20 more C-17s in 2 March testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

With national security policy unalterably attached to the principles of rapid deployment and the distant projection of power, the idea that our military can make due with less airlift and still complete its missions is unsustainable. If our leaders truly believe in the defense transformation they so often espouse in public, let them prove it by ensuring that our nation’s airlift fleet has the numbers of modern aircraft to assure the needed world-wide operational flexibility and capability, and the funding required to provide them.