The main problem with the system, as Gary and I see it, is that the people who set requirements are not the same people paying the bill. So the service chiefs say, for example, “I need to have the ability to defend against North Korean ballistic missiles.” And then they go out to industry and start working on alternatives, and 15 years later it comes back to the service chiefs with a price tag attached. And the service chiefs might not be willing to pay anywhere near in that neighborhood to have that particular capability, or they might have been willing to pay twice as much if they could have it in half the time. But the process as it exists now allows the addition of requirements, and because major programs take such a very long time in development, you get things added on in the meantime that drive up the cost and stretch out the time line. So what we’re recommending is putting accountability back into the system, so that the person who says, “I want this, and I’ll pay this much for it,” has the ability to do both of those things, because they currently can only do one and not the other.

Congress, for obvious reasons – “It’s built in my district, and I’m worried about jobs right now” – is, for example, compelling the Air Force to buy airplanes the Air Force doesn’t want. But they won’t let the Air Force buy the airplanes they do want, or they won’t let them shift activities between the reserves and the active force. So Congress very often stands in the way of effective defense management.

An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator conducts a touch and go landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). The aircraft, nicknamed Salty Dog 501, made its debut aboard George H.W. Bush with seven touch and go landings. Schake argues that the U.S. should hasten the introduction of unmanned systems to replace manned ones. U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman by Alan Radecki

 

It seems like every year the defense budget proposal and the authorization include acquisition reforms, or what are called acquisition reforms. But nothing ever seems to change. What’s wrong with those proposals?

The first answer is that it’s hard. The system is unwieldy. I really like the way [Sen.] John McCain describes it: It’s not the military-industrial complex, but the military-congressional-industrial complex. Congress, for obvious reasons – “It’s built in my district, and I’m worried about jobs right now” – is, for example, compelling the Air Force to buy airplanes the Air Force doesn’t want. But they won’t let the Air Force buy the airplanes they do want, or they won’t let them shift activities between the reserves and the active force. So Congress very often stands in the way of effective defense management.

But it’s also true that the Pentagon very often doesn’t make its case well either, because they don’t believe it themselves and they want Congress to continue to be able to add to the number of planes in the inventory, or because they will propose cutting things they know Congress won’t let them cut, knowing it will be added back on later in the process. So everybody is guilty.

 

You and the admiral mention that the defense budget is often inflated by the application of high-tech platforms – or of more complicated and expensive platforms – to problems that can be solved more simply and inexpensively. As an example, you mentioned a missile defense-capable ship responding to piracy off the Horn of Africa. Are there other examples that stand out?

Oh, sure. For example, despite the haste at which unmanned platforms are coming into the inventory – and not just air platforms; we already have robots searching for IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and other things – we are still buying manned platforms, which are much more expensive to operate. We are, in my judgment, probably 10 years away from the end of manned fixed-wing aviation as a central component of military operations. And yet we are buying not one, but two major fighter platforms that are going to be in the inventory for 50 years. That’s a much more expensive way to do the jobs that need to be done. They don’t need to be done by manned fixed-wing aviation now.

 

Many of the military’s leaders – including Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – have predicted publicly a decrease in manned fixed-wing aviation. Why doesn’t there seem to be any movement?

Again, I think it’s about leadership. The Defense Policy Board, the Defense Business Board, the Packard Commission – every well-meaning think tank around town – has a defense acquisition reform plan. If you put any one of them into practice, the system would function better and less expensively than the current system. You could practically just blindfold yourself and pick one off the wall, and it would do better than the present system.