There’s no system so internally complex that an outsider, with no real experience, can’t fix by waving his magic wand. The New York Times, that noted establishment of military acquisition expertise, is only the latest to take up the challenge:
- End F-22 Production (because we don’t need them in Iraq. Where we’re pulling out. Finally. Not to mention the F-35. Which hasn’t flown yet. And in any case it should be a simple thing to make the F-16 last forever. Because it’s cheap).
- Cancel the DDG-1000 (because the Littoral Combat Ship brings so much more to the table).
- Halt production of Virginia-class subs (because you can’t see them anyway, we don’t need to maintain an industrial base and LA-class boats will last forever).
- Pull the plug on the V-22 Osprey (because even a painted clock is right twice a day).
- Halt the “premature” deployment of missile defense (because we can afford to wait until a perfect system like the F-22 comes along. No, wait…).
- Cut nuclear weapons stores, including those on “hair trigger alert” (because we don’t have access our own archives).
- Trim the Air Force and the Navy in favor of the ground forces (because Iraq and Afghanistan are the the wars to end all wars).
- Stop writing blank checks for DoD (because we have no idea what we’re talking about, nor how hideously complex, rule bound and risk averse the acquisition system actually is).
Honestly, you could pull half a dozen people out of line at the DMV and get a more sensibly written editorial.
Can’t anybody here play this game?
Other voices:
Our man Ward.
Informed dissent, enlightened discourse, and constructive criticism? Very much welcome.
Unqual’d armchair quarterbacking by axe grinders with no real knowledge base? Here’s your sign:
http://www.chrisbyrne.com/images/SmallLiberal.png
“Trim the Air Force and the Navy in favor of the ground forces …”
Be still my beating heart.
Cheers
JMH
Well, like always, it seems those on the left think that cars spawn from dealerships and aircraft and other military gear pop right out of buildings just like in a video game. I’ve heard that if we maintained the full order of F-22s, the per-unit cost would drop pretty dramatically. All the research stuff and tooling has been built. Same goes for the Osprey.
The money and brainsweat has mostly been spent, why not take advantage of it and also keep engineers employed. Looking at how my graduating classes numbers dwindled, we’re in for a brain drain shock.
“I’ve heard that if we maintained the full order of F-22s, the per-unit cost would drop pretty dramatically. ”
Same thing was true of the B-2. Not saying there weren’t and aren’t legitimate reasons for cutting either program, but it would at least be nice to at least acknowledge the true cost issues, as opposed to the pie in the sky bullshit the JSF program office has been feeding everyone regarding their little baby. That program will be the death of TACAIR yet. Committing to buy a metric shit-ton of airframes before flight test is even complete? Brilliant!
The biggest problem with the article is, as Ward says, it’s better to not frame things at all than to frame them poorly. Case in point is their comment about F-16s. I’ve long thought that buying a sizable chunk of the block 50/52+ (or, if we don’t mind some logistic issues, some of the brand spankin’ new block 60s) would be an alternative to the JSF similar to the plans floated to buy more Super Bugs…IF we are willing to assume increased risk. Saying the F-16 can outperform any possible foe is laughably ignorant.
By the way, Bubblehead had an excellent takedown of their assertions regarding the Virginia class here.
Stop writing blank checks for DoD
Well, duh, because if we’re going to just give away money, there are far more efficient methods:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_secrets
guest editorial that follows courtesy of RetRsvMike:
“How to Run a 21st Century Newspaper”
1. STFU about stuff we’re completely clueless about.
2. Dry up and blow away.
You say that like you are surprised.
For several years now, the only uses for the NYT are:
1. Lining the bottom of bird cages
2. Placing under cat litter boxes
3. Placing on top of the garbage in the compacter
4. Keeping homeless people warm in NYC.
N0. 4 is actually the only service to the public.
GEO6
geo6, I must object to that.
I would never be so cruel as to make my bird share a cage with the NYT, or force my cat to have it in her litter box.
You should be ashamed of yourself for advocating such cruelty to animals.
If they want quantity over quality in aircraft, they’re going to have to train a HELL of a lot more pilots. That costs a lot of money too. And though each f22 is roughly four times the price of an f16, it’s worth about ten of them.
Why just bust on the NYT? Don’t we have a body formed almost exclusively of lawyers, who seem to know all, see all, want to control all, yet…they speak like they are on the same editorial board as the place the subject article has come from.
Think about it: They voted to hand out $700B (now have no idea where it’s going), they are pushing to “cool” the world on our backs, despite extraordinary snow storms in places around the country as I type this, pirates roam the seas and they twiddle their thumbs…strike that, they are working on paperwork to take the Bush Administration to trial for war crimes, you know, an entirely useful endeavor.
Term limits: Maybe it’s that time to bring it up again.
(Where’s my copy of Shakespeare?)
Because the NYSlimes wishes for us to follow “Great” Britain’s lead.
Mike Portillo of the Sunday Times describes the logical outcome of that path
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5375770.ece
Liz,
The problem isn’t attrition (in times of peace, war or in between), it’s allocation. If you’ve only a few silver bullets in your belt, you’d best hope the werewolves don’t decide to suddenly gang up on you.
I like how they casually suggest shrinking the Navy and Air Force, and building up our ground forces. It’s the perfect response to the war we’re in right now.
Of course, there’s no chance we’d later find ourselves in a war where we need all the naval and air power we could get. Because the present can usually be smoothly extrapolated into the future with no nasty surprises, right?
I write this as an infantryman who’s damn glad his overhead flank will be secure.
Its ironic how the same media who so opposed increasing the number of ground troops in IRAQ and deny, to this day, that the effort worked to achieve its goals, are so much about increasing ground troops in Afganistan, etc.
That we need a serious analysis, debate, and prioritization of resources for the defense of our country should not be much in doubt. Simplistic dribble from the NYT should not be taken seriously by anyone with any real responsibility to do so. That it might in some quarters is cause for concern.
I just can’t wait for their analysis of, say, the Department of Education’s budget with all the savings I’m sure they will find just ready for the asking….
Having had a DC tour as flag aide to a Systems Command 3 star, one of the things I learned as a nugget LT is that procurement cycles never have and never will dovetail with the current threat-of-the-day, and that “pundits” like the NYT are a pox on humanity. I recommend the NYT writer head over to China and get a gander at their maritime program. They got SSNs, they got SSBNs, they got SLBMs, they want a blue water CV/CVN in the worst way, they’re working on stealth, and they aren’t going away – no matter how many Happy Meal toy kits we buy. I remember a slide from Royal Navy War College on Clausewitz and how the Americans viewed the Theory of War:
1. Bring a lot of kit
2. Kick ASS
3. Go home and bed the ladies (my apologies to the readership belonging to the gentler persuasion)
Hard to do that when you’ve got old equipment with a logistics train that will drown a fish. Our men and women deserve to have the ability to kill the enemy before he has even read his battle orders , and to hit them before they clear the breakwater or get wheels up.
We need sane, rational debate on future strike fighter mix, vertical lift requirements, and littoral versus blue water and why can’t we have both? But whole-sale cancellation in order to “save” has proven to be the costliest of bad decisions.
IMHO.
This is a pretty funny comment coming from a guy trying to write a book who has no literary background and judging from what you’ve shown so far should probably stick to flying.
Merry Christmas to you, too, Bryan. Although your comment wounds me almost inexpressibly.
Ohh, I bet you could express your wound quite nicely, sir.
I do have doubts about the DDG-1000. At least call the fracking thing what it is: a cruiser.
GeoSTI, and Mike: yep, if we bought a lot more F-22s, the per-unit cost would drop. And the budget would explode.
Considering that the Air Force is already pushing logistics in the background (buy fewer cargo and fuel jets to get more Raptors) because they can’t get all the shiny new goodies they want, I doubt they could afford their wish list. Nor would it be a balanced list.
What I find truly ironic is that the Times has stumbled up, and demonstrated the classic “last-war syndrome.”
Is Brian saying that only published authors should publish?
Oh, I think that, judging by the IP address, this is just our old friend Guy Cabot, expressing his feelings of impotent rage and hopeless inferiority. Ever so often he takes me on as a kind of special project.
I think it’s kinda cute.
F-16s? What a waste.
Why not convert the AF to an all PC-9 force? Why spend money on upgraded training when you can fight, attack, and move small (and light) loads with the same planes you train on? Slow? Yah, but really cheap (for an armed recon, cargo, stealth, air dominance fighter, trainer, with joint strike capabilities.)
(NB: some capabilities may be available at reduced levels)
Stop spending letting the GSA allow companies to rip the government off. Case in point spending $1200 on a dell computer though GSA when you can buy the same computer though the retail side for $600 bucks.
Come on guys, you’re mud wrestling with a pig when you take something in The Times seriously. If you havn’t got a parrot, you don’t need the NYT.
Navy Times has you linked sorta:
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_timespiece_122208w/
re “you could pull half a dozen people out of line at the DMV ”
No, not strong enough. 1/2 a dozen people “who work” at DMV…IMO, even DMV workers are more analytical than journalists from the NYTs. Check their stock last 3 years- it’ll bring a smile every time!
b2
Aw, Cap’n,
Even you must admit it takes something over 5.000 sailors and officers to launch less than 100 sircraft from a bird farm that costs well over several billion dollars to build and operate. Would CINPAC or CINCLANT task fast moving aircraft to go against littoral combatants when more serious situations exist?
Just curious.
Those that take the NYT to task for this article are certainly missing the point at best, and at worst are in a continuing state of military-industrial-complex and economic denial.
Regardless of whatever a New York Times editorial recommends, it is just an opinion…. and all know what “opinions are like,” ’cause everybody has one, including those with their personal opinions of the NYT.
But all this misses the far greater and inevitable facts. There are many extraordinary yet exigent hard decisions to be made in defense procurement, plans, programs and operations regardless of what any newspaper editorial proposes. It will happen regardless – painful and drastic cuts out of sheer necessity.
Most everyone now realizes that our country is in a recession, likely to get far worse, and even in great risk of a depression. Our major economic ills are rippling throughout the world, which further exacerbates our own problems.
The days of massive cost overruns, unconscionable cost-plus projects, defense contractors corporate welfare, earmarks, pork, fat, corruption, weapons without a mission, weapons and platforms that don’t work, inappropriate platforms and systems, etc., are all over out of sheer necessity. No longer can we afford the past massive federal deficits, nor the tremendous, off-budget supplementary funding for years of two wars that do not even appear on our broken budgets.
The greatest threat to our national defense lies not with a foreign nation or a group of radicals. (Nor with the NYT for that matter.) It lies within our shores. It is our seriously weakening economy, and our great dependency on foreign governments for products, energy, and most importantly, investment. If foreign nations ever pull out of our economy, we will soon look like Russia, with a rusting fleet and a broken economy.
They have us by the short hairs, and can dictate our future.
We are now on the “backside of the power curve.” Even without those incredibly colossal and continuing bailouts and funding to banks, automakers, etc – even greater than we have spent on Iraq – we could have no longer sustained our massive defense spending – double the rest of the world’s combined.
As a nation, we seriously risk becoming a pauper; no longer able to design, buy, and operate all of the highest-tech toys of the past, regardless of their utility.
The age of American Exceptionalism is rapidly coming to an end. In the past, what made this country great was our insatiable drive for more, better, greater… be it the greatest nation, greatest military, greatest political system, greatest technology, or greatest economy.
Unfortunately, our profligacy has propelled us past the point of diminished returns. In our seemingly never-ending drive for more – on personal, corporate, government, and military levels – we all have way overextended, and will now have to endure a long period of payback and redemption – including the military-industrial-complex.
The Gray Lady may not survive our downturn, and may become only a footnote to history. But I do not worry about her. Nor should you.
Worry about our nation instead.
I definitely wouldn’t champion the NYT piece. However, for me it added a little fuel to what I’ve been thinking lately. Basically ‘what would I do’ for an overall goal for the future Navy. Then, filling in equipment based on that(trying to be somewhat real that $$ aren’t unlimited). Actually one of Eagle1’s posting got the gears turning again. This was the post http://blog.usni.org/?p=273 . Wish I could give a brilliant answer but not an easy task being an ex-Airdale, to ponder small boy and amphib stuff as well. Of course hoovers would be making a return
fliterman says:
“The greatest threat to our national defense lies not with a foreign nation or a group of radicals. (Nor with the NYT for that matter.) It lies within our shores. It is our seriously weakening economy, and our great dependency on foreign governments for products, energy, and most importantly, investment. If foreign nations ever pull out of our economy, we will soon look like Russia, with a rusting fleet and a broken economy.”
When do you leave?
[...] blogger, Neptunus Lex, wrote that he thought the Times didn’t appreciate the complexities involved with solving the [...]
Alas, like the blind pig finding truffles on occasion, Fliterman is correct. Economic strength = Military Strength. The two are completely inseparable. The left has been the main destroyer of our economy, and I’m sure will finish the job in the next 4 years. McCain would have done no different (as he too, is a leftist).
Frankly, our goos well done. Just stick the fork in.
Senior, I realize Mr. F is a bit loco at times, but a small amount of critical thinking would yield a lot of dividends in the long run. When the loon bals are right, they are right, and no amount ad hominem will change the fact. A review of Churchill’s statement about the truth would be in order.