A new Burke Chair report entitled America’s Self-Destroying Air Power – Becoming Your Own Peer Threat examines the impact of a crisis in aircraft procurement on tactical, strategic, and enabling capabilities of US air power. It draws on recent government and other reports to describe the problems in US aircraft procurement and their impact on US air power and the challenges the next administration will face in force planning and budgeting. The report is available on the CSIS web site at: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/081001_aircraft_modernstudy.pdf
The problems described in this report must be kept in context. Every service has, to some extent, mortgaged its future by failing to contain equipment costs, and by trading existing equipment and force elements for developing new systems that it may never be able to procure in the numbers planned.
The Department of Defense has failed to contain procurement costs and the next Administration faces a future where it must either raise the defense budget or make grim trade-offs by cutting, delaying, or reducing the cost of key programs. US aircraft procurements are no exception. The problems are so severe that the US risks becoming its own peer threat to US airpower.
Almost every major aircraft development program is in sufficient trouble to raise serious questions about the ability to maintain and modernize the overall fleet of US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft. The Afghan conflict and Iraq War have increased wear on an already aging fleet. Replacements are stuck in a morass of procurement and development problems, cost explosions, and rifts within the Department of Defense.
The F-22 has almost tripled in unit cost, and comes at roughly $200 million apiece. Meanwhile, the planned procurement quantity has been reduced from 750 to 183. The F-35 may face a similar fate, and may not be ready in time to replace aging legacy fighters, tearing a fighter gap in Air Force and Navy inventories. Similar issues affect the modernization of US bombers. The B-2B program escalated in cost by a factor of at least 300 percent, and was reduced to roughly one fifth of its original force goal. Finally, a program to replace the almost 50-year old air refueling tanker is stuck in a political tug of war caused by the Air Force’s mismanagement of the program. Meanwhile, maintenance costs to keep the legacy fleet operational are increasing rapidly.
These problems are compounded by the fact that there now are fewer program alternatives if any key aircraft program runs into trouble. They are also compounded by the systematic underestimation of technology risk, growth in performance requirements, the use of failed methods of cost analysis, and the pressure to “sell” programs by understating cost and risk. All have combined to push air modernization to the crisis point. Current plans for aircraft modernization are not affordable unless major increases occur in US defense spending or aircraft costs are sharply reduced, deliveries are delayed years longer than planned, or funding shifts to lower cost variants or upgrades of older types.
This analysis is a working draft, following two previous reports:
Your feedback and input is greatly appreciated and can be directed to Anthony H. Cordesman at acordesman@gmail.com and to Hans Ulrich Kaeser in care of Adam Mausner at amausner@csis.org.
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