Shifts Expected In Upcoming Pentagon Budget
Feb 2, 2009
By Michael Fabey
The Pentagon’s commitment to retaining the capability to fight in two simultaneous conflicts in the growing era of irregular warfare will likely have a major effect in upcoming budget requests — especially for pet programs like F-22s, the Future Combat System (FCS) and the Navy’s DDG-1000 program, according to analyst James McAleese of McAleese & Associates.
“While the DOD is still committed to two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts, [the] evolving force structure construct anticipates that only one of those conflicts will be a platform-intensive major combat operation while the other conflict will be a long-duration-irregular-warfare-campaign,” McAleese said.
Trying to retain the major-combat fighting capability while keeping up the capacity to provide a rotational forward presence needed to battle insurgents is going to put the services at odds with their own internal needs, McAleese said.
The Army will still have to make sure it has enough money to pay operational bills while trying to fund procurement, he said.
The Navy will likely favor its Littoral Combat Ships, DDG-51s/CG-47s and Virginia-class submarines, he said, at the expense of its top shelf surface ships.
The Air Force will have to invest more to fulfill airlift and aerial refueling requirements, he said — probably at the expense of some of its tactical air needs.
The services will have to focus much more on the affordable, McAleese said, which will likely constrain recapitalization.
This is especially true with the Obama administration’s focus on program affordability, including: cost predictability; multimission platforms; compressed development schedule for minimalist platforms; elimination of duplicative programs; and pro-active development of counter insurgency capabilities for hybrid and complex warfare. (See charts pp. 7-8.)
With the new administration’s concern over the Air Force’s shortfall in airlift capacity and the growing need for improved tanker capability, McAleese said, the service is likely to make a greater priority of expanding C-130J production in another multiyear procurement.
At the same time, Congress is likely to put additional C-17 orders in the 2009 supplemental for the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the Obama team could decide to put C-17 into the fiscal 2011 base budget, according to McAleese.
The Air Force, Congress and the Pentagon will like reach a compromise to extend F-22 production through 2010-2012, he said. Also, the service will likely formally concede requirement for a 381 Raptor fleet and agree to accelerate F-35 orders in 2011-13 to create a more affordable and more balanced fleet mix, he said.
The main issue, McAleese said, will be whether the Pentagon provides part or all of the $3.1 billion top line relief to the F-22 production line.
But the Air Force or Congress, he said, also could seek a compromise of $2.5 billion for 16 additional F-22s in the 2009 GWOT request. There are four Raptor orders already expected for the request and the Navy set the precedent with 16 Super Hornet requests in the 2008 GWOT.
Or, he said, the Air Force could self-fund F-22 production through reduction of “overprogrammed” research, development and engineering and specialty-platforms.
The other major military program likely to receive extra scrutiny, McAleese said, would be the Army’s FCS. Expect more earlier FCS “spinout” programs, he said, with more focus on manned ground vehicles.
Click here for many more Aviation Week stories on the 2009 DOD budget.
Photo: Wikipedia
