Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ reshuffle of the Pentagon’s $1.7 trillion weapons portfolio contained no major surprises. He had frequently voiced frustration about an “imbalance” in defense spending and a procurement system that operates in isolation from the “real requirements” of troops in the field.
“This is nothing new. I’ve been talking about this for 18 months,” Gates said in an April 7 interview on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”
Gates’ move to cancel a handful of big-ticket programs in order to fund immediate needs for the current wars will face tough resistance on Capitol Hill. But battling politicians’ parochial interests may be relatively easy compared to the far more formidable challenge of changing the memes that have ruled the Pentagon for decades.
Nine years of massive budget increases have helped hide fundamental flaws in a military procurement system that was designed to defeat Cold War threats. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan exposed these weaknesses over the past several years. In the months following the invasion of Iraq, it became clear that troops didn’t have enough armor, trucks and other essential gear while the Army continued to pour billions of dollars into a Future Combat Systems that the service dubbed its “top modernization priority.” The Army eventually acquired the necessary gear for the war, but at a time of flat budgets, troops at war take precedence over FCS. Gates ordered the Army to dismantle the program.
There also has been a well-documented shortage of cargo and passenger helicopters in war zones. “Everywhere I go I hear about the need for more helicopters,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. Nevertheless, the military services kept budgeting billions of dollars for next-generation aircraft that were not intended to fill those gaps. The Air Force was asked to give up its prized combat search-and-rescue helicopter and a new strategic bomber. Gates is now seeking to reallocate funds to acquire more transport and refueling aircraft for special operations forces and to train more helicopter pilots and maintenance crews.
Another significant gap in military capabilities has been ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) equipment to help U.S. forces hunt insurgents. This prompted Gates to create an ad hoc acquisition cell at the Pentagon to push more Predators and other ISR systems quickly to war zones. A similar effort was launched to acquire armored mine-resistant trucks that were desperately needed to protect troops.
Something is intrinsically wrong when a secretary of defense has to circumvent his own department’s acquisition apparatus in order to rapidly obtain the equipment that troops require. In this context, Gates’ budget overhaul should not have blindsided anyone — even members of Congress who profess their love for troops as long as no programs from their districts get cut.
For Gates, this is evidently more than just a budget drill.
“Our struggles to put the defense bureaucracies on a war footing these past few years have revealed underlying flaws in the priorities, cultural preferences, and reward structures of America’s defense establishment — a set of institutions largely arranged to prepare for conflicts against other modern armies, navies, and air forces,” Gates said. “Programs to directly support, protect, and care for the man or woman at the front have been developed ad hoc and funded outside the base budget.”
To put it simply, he said, “Until recently there has not been an institutional home in the Defense Department for today’s war fighter.”
The budget realignments recommended by Gates are being labeled as choices between irregular and conventional weapons. But that is an “artificial debate” that masks the real reasons why things must change, Gates said. In the 2010 budget, even if all of Gates’ proposals are passed by Congress, most of the money still goes to conventional weapons — about 10 percent for irregular warfare, about 50 percent for traditional, strategic and conventional conflict, and about 40 percent for dual-purpose capabilities.
Gates makes a compelling case that the driving force behind the 2010 budget proposal is the desire to give troops better tools to confront today’s enemies. Why should that be controversial?
U.S. forces have to face a “spectrum of conflict,” Gates said. Troops must fight insurgents armed with AK-47s who may be backed by more sophisticated forces equipped with ballistic missiles.
These “hybrid” scenarios require U.S. troops to employ both irregular and conventional tactics and equipment.
The point is not to spark infighting between fiefdoms at the Pentagon but rather to reshape the system so that troops can get what they need faster, and “so that we don’t have go outside the Pentagon bureaucracy every time there’s a need for the war fighter that has to be met in a relatively short period,” Gates said.
There is broad agreement — from government, industry analysts and outside experts — on the need for acquisition and contracting reform in the Defense Department. “There have been enough studies, enough hand-wringing, enough rhetoric,” said Gates. Now is the time for action, and this is only the beginning.
