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Critical U.S. Defense Capabilities At Risk

Jul 10, 2009



Aviation Week & Space Technology editorial

It is hard to believe that the world’s largest aerospace manufacturing base, serving the world’s largest aerospace marketplace, could be struggling to maintain its industrial capability in areas critical to U.S. national security. But it’s true, and it’s getting worse. Most troubling is that the erosion is most advanced in those areas of technological superiority that have historically underpinned U.S. defense strategy.

Recently, we have reported on the industrial-base challenges facing key sectors from solid-rocket motors to military rotorcraft. What we found is that many of the capabilities that have made the U.S. the predominant military force in the world are the very ones that are fragile.

Critics would argue the industrial base does not need coddling because contractors are making huge profits. But a financially healthy industry is not necessarily a technologically robust one. The U.S. must be able to arm its forces for today’s wars, but the surge in demand for the basics of warfare should not come at the expense of crucial specialized industrial capabilities.

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his Fiscal 2010 budget outline in April, he noted the decisions were made without taking into account industrial base implications. That may have been the right thing to do when trying to rebalance the budget and flush away outmoded thinking. But it is not the right thing to do when it comes to the Quadrennial Defense Review and shaping U.S. defense priorities for years to come. What value is a defense strategy without the industrial base to deliver the capabilities required?

And setting aside industrial base considerations does not mean the issue goes away; it means the policy is unspoken and incoherent. Traditionally, the Pentagon has given the individual services considerable leeway in how they handle the industrial implications of their procurement decisions. This results in some radically different approaches. The Navy continues to buy small numbers of Tridents to keep the submarine-launched ballistic missile base warm. The Air Force, on the other hand, has nothing in its ICBM plans after the Minuteman III propulsion replacement program ends. Similarly, the Navy keeps buying F/A-18s, while the Air Force has cut its connection to the fourth-generation fighter base. As for the Army, it keeps buying helicopters designed decades ago while the industry teeters on the edge of losing its capability to develop new military rotorcraft.

The Pentagon occasionally has acquiesced to preserve an industrial capability when competing producers were struggling to stay in business. Allowing Boeing and Lockheed Martin to combine expendable launch vehicle businesses was one.

The Pentagon has also shown it can act when needed to protect vital capabilities—for example, by starting work on a replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. Nothing smacks of outmoded Cold War force structure like big boomers, but without a new program there might be no designers left to craft a new strategic submarine when it is needed most, years from now.

Other capabilities are at similar cusps, but it is not clear the Defense Dept. will act in time to preserve them. The U.S. is building fifth-generation fighters, but are they enough to sustain its lead in low-observable technology as a next-generation bomber slips further into the future? Will the Pentagon choose to allow its stealth design expertise to erode, and the airborne leg of the nuclear triad to shrivel?

Gates is right to attack programs where requirements creep and cost growth becomes indefensible. Some programs should be killed, but that discipline must not be twisted to taint what should be a strategic approach to the industrial base. Pentagon leaders have long said their buying power is focused not on programs, but on capabilities. Protecting industrial capability is not the same as propping up foundering programs. Once a highly specialized capability has atrophied, it is difficult and time-consuming to reconstitute it. You can’t just go to Silicon Valley and hire away specialists in radar-absorbing materials; there aren’t any there.

Mention preserving the defense industrial base and critics hear government subsidies. But this is not about preserving jobs or pork barrel stimulus. It’s about holding on to critical design skills and manufacturing capacity on which the U.S. built its security.

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