ARTICLE

March 2003

BRAC ‘05 Threatens Government’s Technology Base

by Sandra I. Erwin

The plan to consolidate U.S. military laboratories and testing facilities in a 2005 round of base closures must take into account the government’s needs for in-house technical skills in key weapon systems, said former employees of the Navy’s China Lake research and development center.

The so-called Western Defense Group—made up of retired government workers—has for years been lobbying lawmakers and defense officials to protect the government’s human resources and technical capabilities to develop, test and upgrade weapons. With a new round of base closures now looming, the group members increasingly are worried that, in the quest for efficiency, the Defense Department may give up specialized niche research, testing and system-integration centers that, once lost, cannot be reconstituted.

“We are seriously concerned about the ‘05 BRAC,” said Frank Knemeyer, a member of the Western Defense Group. “The outcome will be crucial to the future of China Lake and the Western Defense Complex,” made up of military test ranges and labs throughout California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona.

“My real concern is that BRAC will force the consolidation of various in-house RDT&E resources, but with no provision on how to organize and or manage them within the services,” he said. “Consolidation is absolutely necessary, but care must be taken to preserve the essential critical in-house capabilities.”

The erosion of the government’s in-house research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) capabilities cannot be blamed only on BRAC, Knemeyer said. “Recent acquisition practices have tended to rely upon industry to provide these capabilities. Results have been mixed at best. A high percentage of weapon systems have failed to pass operational evaluation.” Nonetheless, he said, “The need remains for a strong partnership between industry and in-house laboratories.”

Past BRAC actions, further, have resulted in an unfair redistribution of RDT&E work, in order to favor those organizations represented by more influential politicians, he added.

“By restructuring a ‘command’ so that a favored location is in command of a less favored but needed facility is one example ... such as placing California-based Edwards Air Force Base under control of Eglin AFB in Florida ...or by placing China Lake under the Naval Air Systems Command, which relocated to Patuxent River, Md., thus giving the Pax River a higher position for retention.”

The government-owned labs and test ranges at China Lake and Edwards often compete for military work against those located at Indian Head (Md.) and Eglin.

The services “often see in-house RDT&E facilities as ‘non-responsive’ to their immediate needs and, therefore, as candidates for closure or realignment,” Knemeyer said. “Past BRACs have focused on ‘military worth’ in contrast to ‘national defense needs’”.

Though the BRAC process is designed to eliminate political interference, somehow it still creeps in, he said. “BRAC decisions should establish certain facilities as national assets, rather than service assets,” Knemeyer said. “As such, they should be controlled by Defense Department civilian managers to ensure close coordination among those facilities and to eliminate the two-or-three year rotating military commanders. ... a practice that destroys both continuity of purpose and corporate memory.”

In general, he said, “the BRAC process was a brilliant solution to the problem of getting presidential and congressional approval for achieving serious cutbacks in the military base infrastructure.” However, “there is much room for improvement.”

Congressional pressures have influenced BRAC decisions to an extent, he noted. “While it would be naive to assume that a system can be developed completely free from politics or service game playing, there are areas where it’s possible to make significant improvements.”

Knemeyer praised Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s insistence that the 2005 BRAC focus on joint service use of facilities. He also is optimistic that the next BRAC will address one issue that was “glossed over” in the past—encroachment. “Civilian and commercial encroachment of military reservations is one of the biggest headaches experienced by base commanders today,” Knemeyer said. “That problem can only get worse,” as a result of residential and commercial growth and airline traffic.

The Defense Department also needs to improve its methods for estimating the cost of realigning a base, he said. In BRAC ‘95, for example, a “losing” base often provided the cost estimate for moving its functions to another base. Not surprisingly, costs were enormously inflated. In BRAC 2005, “both gaining and losing bases should provide transfer cost estimates to be reviewed by an independent third party.”

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