A New Day for Defense Under George?

Hobsons Choice: (oed) a choice of taking the thing offered or nothing. Allegory: A choice between two or more options that may not be solutions to the original problem.

Suffice it to say that the new George W. Bush administration has some thorny problems before it; the entire strategic direction of the USA is now at it's disposal, and having indicated that they wished to alter the position on a number of defense initiatives, they are now faced with the question of what they really want to do. This is where the rubber hits the road, as they say.

The issues they have posed include:

• Missile Defense
• Retrenchment of forces and appropriate use
• Technology: Deploy or leap-frog

Missile Defense

The statement prior to the election was that the US needed a better defense system, deployed more broadly and being capable of defending against larger threats. The Clinton administrations National Missile Defense program, itself an inheritance, didn't seem to be up to the task as outline by George W Bush. Infact, the statements were categorized as meaning that the ABM treaty should be considered obsolete. The Russians, Chinese, and Europeans have been quite vociferous in their condemnation of Mr. Bush & his new administration for being so quick to disassemble a pillar of the arms control infrastructure that has helped maintain the nuclear peace for the past 40 years.

Having come to power though, we are seeing a very different line on what the future might hold. Gone is the concept of rapid deployment of an expansive defense system, replaced by a far more pragmatic view of a system that may well be centered on NMD with accelerated efforts to get the Navy's Upper Tier missiles working and installed on Aegis class vessels. Why the change of heart?

This being my opinion, the change in direction from pre-election rhetoric to in power conservatism, is based on the reality that changing the basic requirements of the NMD system would lead to an incredible delay in deployment, for any level of system. Clinton's NMD while small and of limited effectiveness is now seen as being deployable in a 10 year timetable. The increased emphasis on the Navy's role in missile defense is aligned to the feeling that to support US troops overseas only a Navy solution provides flexibility and the coverage to protect a deloyed fleet, army and airforce. The other aspect I suspect is that the reality of a $1.6Billion tax cut made the deployment of a system as expensive as the enhanced NMD program looked like it was going to get, to be untenable, there is simply insufficient money in the kitty.

A limited NMD like system with Navy deployed theater defense systems may also, arguably, be within the rules of the ABM treaty, if not entirely in the spirit of it. This will allow President Bush to push the big jump to the full realization of Mr. Reagan's Star Wars program to some later President, one more willing to fritter political capital on the international arena.

Retrenchment of forces and appropriate use

One tenet of the pre-election jingoism was that the US needs to redefine its role in the world and cease the fire-fighting that the armed services have been tasked with over the last 10 years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two enemies face the US today: boredom and chaos.

In sending the US forces to every corner of the world, President Clinton cause a certain strain on the military. There were many occasions when the Pentagon was acting more like Federal Express than directing a fighting force. Every week a new emergency, every week a new destination. One week the transports are required to supply food and blankets to some disaster stricken location, the next week the intelligence forces are sent to some other corner to cover a nations efforts to threaten an ally, or partially friendly country. The workload has been high, moral has been low.

Mr. Bush suggested that a re-prioritization of the role the US military plays in conflicts and in other activities was needed, and that pulling the forces back to the safety of home would be needed.

As a new President, we have yet to see what Mr. Bush wishes to do, but there are a lot of items on his plate that he can play with. In Iraq there is the persistent issue of Saddam; in Japan there is the antagonism shown by some Japanese to the US bases, particularly Okinawa (and not helped by Sub's sinking Japanese school kids in trawlers); in Bosnia there is a large, exposed force in a difficult political position. The termination of the Iraqi problem, the closure of Japanese bases and the reduction of forces in Bosnia and other corners of the world, would certainly reduce the risk to US families, bringing home men and women that have had a harried life the last 8 or 9 years.

The problem then becomes: if you have an army doing nothing, what is it's purpose? Why do we need it? Additionally, large parts of the armed services sitting on US soil with nothing more dangerous to do than peel potatoes, would serve no one any good, not least the personnel that serve as potato peelers. Retrenchment may appear to be a politically good idea in the short term, but in the medium and long term it becomes far less clear, potentially leading to situations with few flexible options (lack of bases, few on site experts, inexperience in deploying the elements of war).

We will likely see changes to just how many missions some elements of the armed services are sent on, but the intelligence forces may end up being even more hard pressed because eternal vigilance is not a game piece that can be turned off and then back on at will.

Technology: Deploy or leap-frog

The Pentagon has a number of extremely expensive programs underway at present (V-22, F-22, JSF, NMD, THAAD, Navy Upper Tier, new Sub's, aircraft carriers, Patriot PAC-3, a raft of guided munitions projects, UCAV's, Global Hawk, etc, etc, etc). Some of these have been referred to as possibly inappropriate to the needs perceived by the new administration. There has been talk that to leap-frog a generation of technology may prove useful in this time of relative peace, more useful than paying for the construction of a weapons generation based on technology that is only a little ahead of anyone else.

The impact of this is currently unknown, but it is felt that Rumsfeld is a canny practitioner of Pentagon politics and may make the Joint Chiefs take a long hard look at what they really want to spend their money on. Rumsfeld initiated, then worked hard to get the early F-22 project going (at the time, the ATF project, with YF-22 and YF-23). His current position has not been made public, but the F-22 may get a good bit of support. The same cannot be said for the JSF. This is a severely compromised project, though with the potential of building 3000 - 5000 aircraft, its cost structure will no doubt come under intense scrutiny.

Projects like the V-22 could easily become a footnote in history books; it's expensive, extremely hairy technologically, and falling from grace with every crash - UH-60's would probably fit most usage scenarios much more cheaply, though a bigger helo is required.

As the Department of Defense better understands what it wants to at a strategic level, it will likely alter the mix of weapons currently under development. Some areas that will almost certainly get a good look at are:

• UCAV's and Unmanned reconnaissance
• Electronic counter measures
• The Navy
• Stand-off attack munitions
• Space

As emphasis shifts to a platform in which no American soldiers' life should be threatened, there will necessarily be more work in UCAV's and assets that allow for unmanned ingress to hot areas. Much of this will have to make use of stealth, as a retracted US will be even more unsavory to many foreign governments, many of whom take a dim view to the US spying on them.

Existing platforms, in all the services, will need more and better counter measures. Some will be electronic, some will be passive or active weapons (ie, laser self protection systems for helicopters and slower transports to defend against Infra-Red weapons). This may bring about additional orders for the F-22 (as an updated Wild Weasel, an EF-22?).

The Navy will have to address new concerns as it becomes the primary expression of US power abroad, its defense against against rogue attacks (like the USS Cole) or more organized threats (like Exocets and other widely held Anti- shipping systems) will have to be beefed up, as will its ability to act as a theatre missile defense force - it would not be good losing an Aegis boat that launches the missile interceptors to an old diesel sub - particularly as operations will now be completed in waters far less Blue.

There are a bewildering number of munitions programs underway at anytime (not just this time) these are always to provide a response to a perceived threat. The threat analysis that the Quadrennial defense review will initiate will likely turn over a lot of these programs.

Space, the final frontier! Growing use of space is going to need a new philosophy that delineates how space is to be used, what it is to be used for. This will put a lot of noses out of joint. The Airforce will need vast space resources to operate the unmanned systems that will be needed, yet it stands a chance of losing control of this arena. The threat of Internet attacks seems to turn certain peoples stomachs, it is felt that a space system is at one and the same time, the most vulnerable system to attack, yet the system most likely to provide the means to defeat such attacks.

Leap frogging technology in any of these areas would lead to holes in the defense infrastructure but could promise major advances down the road.

On dimension to a leap frog situation that has important ramifications is that US R&D would thrive, but the manufacturers would be quite hurt. We may yet see a new period of short production runs, providing the services with a 1950's like period of weapons systems in small numbers, yet those systems coming thick and fast (well, relatively soon after each other).

Conclusion

I have to come to a conclusion?

I think that the new administration is obligated to review and change what it sees fit. In my view it should persist with NMD testing and the definition of what the system is to counter. There are certain current programs that need to be re-assessed, but of more importance may be a need to re-assess how new projects are evolved. The consolidation of the US defense industry is at an end, now it needs projects to work on. Projects coming at the rate of 1 every 10 years is probably not good enough to maintain the engineering skills and allow the hoped for leaps in technological competence.

Budget and strategic needs will play a part in shaping the future, we should not expect that to get the forces thought necessary the US public be saddled with more Reagan like debt.