THE U.S. MILITARY WANTS THE V-22 OSPREY: WILL THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION GO ALONG?

Senior military officers at the Pentagon yesterday gave a clear "thumbs up" to fielding the remarkable tilt-rotor aircraft, the V-22 Osprey. The Osprey is capable of taking off and landing like a helicopter but can fly far faster than any helicopter can — and therefore capable of fully meeting the Marine Corp’s urgent "medium-lift" mission requirements for rapid movement of combat personnel and equipment.

Step One: The JROC Speaks

The occasion was a meeting of the Defense Department’s Joint Requirement Oversight Council (JROC), the organization charged with defining the real needs involved in operational missions like the Marine’s medium-lift task and specifying what it takes to meet those needs. Its members decided that two key performance parameters would need to be met by future aircraft if the Marine Corps’ medium-lift requirements are to be satisfied: (1) Aircraft speed would need to reach a minimum of 240 knots and an optimal capability of 275 knots — speeds unattainable by present or prospective helicopter technology. And (2) the aircraft must be self-deployable worldwide. These two requirements can only be met by the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft.

The JROC decision confirms the Center for Security Policy’s longstanding view that the Osprey’s unique capabilities are vitally needed by the U.S. military — not just by the Marine Corps (which has taken the lead in developing this revolutionary aircraft), but by every service for a variety of applications. Importantly, it comes as two important studies have been completed that address the technical risk and cost-effectiveness of this program. The first was the subject of an Independent Risk Assessment Team led Jim Marr, a respected professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the second, the subject of a formal, independent Cost and Operational Effectiveness Study performed by BDM Corporation. Both of these long-awaited studies emphatically validate the V-22.

The Next Step: The DAB

The action now moves to the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB), the senior Pentagon group charged with making key development and procurement decisions for the Department. The DAB is scheduled finally to hold a critical — and oft-postponed — review of the V-22 program shortly after Labor Day. The momentum imparted to the Osprey from this week’s developments should ensure a favorable decision by the DAB, clearing the way for the systems’ ultimate deployment.

It is, therefore, ominous that — coincident with yesterday’s meeting of the JROC — Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch sent a memorandum to all members of the Defense Resources Board or DRB (the top-level mechanism charged with developing the Pentagon’s budget). It directed each of the armed services to prepare "program options" that would terminate their highest priority programs. The Navy is asked to present an option "that cancels the V-22 and replaces it with a helicopter alternative."

In other words, taking a leaf out of the pages of the Bush-Cheney effort to kill the V-22 — a campaign properly denounced by Candidate Bill Clinton — the senior leadership of the Clinton-Perry Defense Department appears inclined to leave the Marine’s critical "medium lift" requirement unfulfilled. Such an outcome seems all the more likely since Secretary Deutch appears to be directing the Navy (the service which has the unwanted responsibility of paying for the Marine Corps’ budget) to offer up either the V-22 or one of its own crown jewels: funding for modernization of its surface fleet (i.e., the DDG-51 destroyer) and undersea forces (i.e., the New Attack Submarine).

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy believes that the military’s requirements clearly dictate that the upcoming DAB and DRB decisions on the V-22 must conform to the strong endorsement it received from the Joint Requirement Oversight Council yesterday. But they should do so only in part because of the important contribution tilt-rotor technology will make to the national security. No less important is the contribution that this technology will make to the Nation’s economic security and competitiveness as it revolutionizes civil aerospace and a wide variety of related commercial applications at home and abroad.

As the attached column by Center Director Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. (which was published in yesterday’s Washington Times) makes clear, the impending decisions on the future of the V-22 are too important to be left — not to the generals (who have it right) — but to their civilian masters in the Pentagon (who appear not to). If the Clinton administration actually means any of the things it has been paying lip service to over the past two years (e.g., the importance of converting defense technologies to civilian applications; the need to encourage the use of "best commercial practices" and other techniques to streamline the acquisition and production of defense equipment; investing in activities that will enhance American competitiveness and exports; and upgrading the nation’s infrastructure while minimizing associated expenditures and environmental impacts), it must demonstrate it by ensuring that the V-22 Osprey, a program that exemplifies these goals, is endorsed, fully funded and brought to fruition.