Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Two sets of facts that provide a helpful juxtaposition in understanding the national security priorities of the Obama Administration:
First, retired Rear Admiral Terence E. McKnight, writing about President Obama's proposed cuts to the military budget in a report from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (links to a PDF):
The Navy will not have the forces to protect the high seas as in years past. With a strategy to move forces to the Asia-Pacific region and the requirements for Burke-class AEGIS destroyers on station for missile defense, some major mission areas will have to be reduced. The Navy will no longer be able to project power in such regions as the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or possibly the Middle East.
The current Chief of Naval Operations has asked his planners to dust off the old “sea swap” program to see if keeping ships on station and rotating the crews rather than returning to home port to keep platforms on station [will work]. In the past, this program had very little success with surface ships.
No matter what doctrine is implemented in the future, there will simply not be enough ships to cover the current commitments.
Then this, from Fox News:
Some Republicans have said the Navy should spend its limited resources on building new ships instead of developing fuel alternatives.
The Navy, Department of Energy and Agriculture Department are spending $510 million to jump start commercial development of the advanced alternative fuels industry.
The U.S. Military: useful insofar as it can be an arm of domestic policy. I'm sure the mullahs fear the day when the algae-driven "Great Green Fleet" (I am not making this up) comes to town.
If there's not a Republican presidential candidate who can make a campaign issue out of a president whose naval strategy is "more algae, fewer ships," we may deserve to lose this one.
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Apr '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
"More algae, fewer ships" is going on my bumper today.
Mar '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Let's be honest though. Part of the reason the Navy is having fewer ships is they can't seem to build them without going over budget severely. And what we are building is not only hyper-expensive, but also pretty weaksauce, weaponry-wise.
Take the Littoral Combat Ship from your picture there... it's basically a lightweight, aluminum constructed, lightly armed Coast Guard Cutter. At the cost of a destroyer. Meanwhile, the new Ford Class carriers are spiraling to 15 billion dollars apiece, and the "cheap" Joint Strike Fighter now costs as much as the F-22.
We simply can't keep doing that kind of stuff if we want a fleet.
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 6:20pmDec '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Troy,
The Monroe Doctrine = Don't mess with us on the North American Continent.
The Obama Doctrine = I make grand speechs with glittering generalities. Then I waffle around and do nothing. As far as the Military all I know is that it competes with my phoney baloney domestic waste ridden spending. Of course, I try to steal as much as I can from the Military budget.
Hope this helps,
Jim
May '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
All the service branches have been doing ridiculous political stunts with biofuels.1 2
The irony is that the tests waste a large fraction of the available supply of such fuels for no reason.
There will always be enough conventional fuels to give the military priority. Furthermore, it's not like we are testing for compatibility with fuels the military will forage for when abroad. It might make sense to verify that our vehicles can burn 75 octane Kreplachistani gasoline. but it's not like our guys are going to run into stocks of biodiesel in the field.
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 6:29pmSep '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Ummm. Nukes, anyone? The nuke Navy has not been pushed nearly hard enough to develop cheaper reactor plants while keeping the superb reliability that they're known for. A SECNAV-level effort on that front would have a much better chance of success than trying to develop a commercial bio-fuels infrastructure to support our fleet.
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
You won't get any argument from me about the absurdities of our contracting processes and how much waste is contained therein. But I suspect we agree that the proper response is a root and branch overhaul of procurement rather than the Obama approach of throwing up our hands and actively shrinking the military's capacity to be effective abroad.
Douglas: Let's be honest though. Part of the reason the Navy is having fewer ships is they can't seem to build them without going over budget severely. And what we are building is not only hyper-expensive, but also pretty weaksauce, weaponry-wise.
Take the Littoral Combat Ship from your picture there... it's basically a lightweight, aluminum constructed, lightly armed Coast Guard Cutter. At the cost of a destroyer. Meanwhile, the new Ford Class carriers are spiraling to 15 billion dollars apiece, and the "cheap" Joint Strike Fighter now costs as much as the F-22.
We simply can't keep doing that kind of stuff if we want a fleet. · 20 minutes ago
Edited 15 minutes ago
May '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Is part of that due to cutting back on the numbers of ships or aircraft ordered compared with the original plans ? The development costs then have to be spread over a smaller number of planes, pushing up the unit cost. That said, if anyone can find an example of any military procurement programme coming in under budget I'd be interested to hear about it !
Britain also has a Navy which is nowhere near large enough.
Just one example, the number of Type 45 Destroyers was cut to 6 from the original plan to have 12, and I doubt that the world is now only half as dangerous as it was when they first decided on 12.
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
It's worse than it looks. The navy was forced to restart construction of Arleigh Burke class destroyers because the replacement became far to expensive to build in any quantity.
I blame graft. I note that the contractor built a huge scale model of that failed design, just for test purposes. I figure huge sums were billed to the government for this, which never should have happened in an era with powerful computers.
This is a pattern that happens again and again- the taxpayers contract for a weapon system, which then takes years longer than expected, and costs vastly, incredibly more. Often- as in the DDG-1000 program I mentioned above- the cost is so much that the program gets cancelled.
After vast sums are given to the contractor, for essentially nothing.
Corruption, this is- and if the US wants to maintain a navy and an air force it needs to be stopped.
Mar '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
I'm all in favor of research into algae-generated fuels (we have algae to thank for our being here in the first place). It's uneconomical at present, but should be perfected by the time we run out of fossil fuels in a few hundred years, though by then we will probably have a hydrogen-based energy economy.
Mr Obama is, as usual, a few hundred years ahead of us, and possibly on a different planet - it must be very frustrating for him.
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 6:55pmApr '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Douglas: Let's be honest though. Part of the reason the Navy is having fewer ships is they can't seem to build them without going over budget severely. And what we are building is not only hyper-expensive, but also pretty weaksauce, weaponry-wise.
Take the Littoral Combat Ship from your picture there... it's basically a lightweight, aluminum constructed, lightly armed Coast Guard Cutter. At the cost of a destroyer. Meanwhile, the new Ford Class carriers are spiraling to 15 billion dollars apiece, and the "cheap" Joint Strike Fighter now costs as much as the F-22.
We simply can't keep doing that kind of stuff if we want a fleet. · 29 minutes ago
Edited 24 minutes ago
The burden of building our weapons domestically. These are manufacturing jobs used to prop up the fading blue collar class. But, one of the reasons that our military purchases cost so much is because the government refuses to haggle with the defense industry over the price.
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Valiuth
The burden of building our weapons domestically. These are manufacturing jobs used to prop up the fading blue collar class. But, one of the reasons that our military purchases cost so much is because the government refuses to haggle with the defense industry over the price.
Of course. Let's outsource building our weapons to Russia and China.
What could go wrong?
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Tom Roberts
Is part of that due to cutting back on the numbers of ships or aircraft ordered compared with the original plans ? The development costs then have to be spread over a smaller number of planes, pushing up the unit cost.
What comes first? The vast price increase- or the cutback in the number of items to be procured?
I'm sure technology development costs play a big part in cost overruns. But I suspect this is as much an excuse to squeeze more money out of taxpayers as it is a necessary cost.
Choices are involved in this after all. I recently read that for the planned class of ballistic missile submarines the builder has discovered a need to build models to test the design. Cha-ching. I figure the contractor has concluded that they are leaving money on the table by not building models.
The original USN ballistic missile submarines were- by the way- built by chopping Skipjack class attack boats in half and adding a section of hull to carry the missile tubes.
This was done in a few months, without any sort of full scale model, computer aided design, or vast bottomless cost overrun.
Jun '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Xennady
Of course. Let's outsource building our weapons to Russia and China.
What could go wrong? · 22 minutes ago
Don't we already buy the electronics for our weapon systems from China?
May '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Someone else can elaborate, but it appears that government accounting is very odd with much confusion over average and marginal cost.
For example, the R&D costs are already paid. Marginal cost for each additional thing is $10 million. We could buy 500 for $5 billion. However, government accounting apportions some of those already paid R&D costs to the yet bought stuff. This leads to all sorts of wierdness.
If R&D cost $10 billion and you already bought 500, the government will say the cost of the next 500 is $10 billion. Somebody then comes along and proposes to spend $5 billion to develop a newer cheaper thing that would have a marginal cost of only $8 million for a total cost of only $9 billion. A sane person would say you wasted $4 billion, but the government claims a savings of $1 billion.
Similarly, once the government starts cutting back on procurement, average costs go up. If the government starts by cutting from a projected 1000 to only 500, then they say the cost per unit went up from $20 million to $30 million, they scream "overrun" and shut the program altogether.
Jun '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
As long as congress view weapons procurement as a jobs program rather than tools for defending the United States, we will have cost overruns. They really couldn't care less whether a weapon system fails or not provided the money pours in to their constituents.
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Robert E. Lee
Don't we already buy the electronics for our weapon systems from China?
That's what I've read- and I've also read plenty of stories about back-doors built into the electronics by the Chinese to allow them to disable the weapons if ever turned against them.
I hope the US government is competent enough to prevent that, but considering its overall record I have my doubts.
Apr '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Wrote a piece on the "Great Green Fleet" and its hypocrisy a few days ago at http://alpipkin.com/blog/?p=1617.
One thing no one mentions is that all these wonderful biofuels do not contain the energy that is in fossil fuels, and absolutely nowhere near the energy of nuclear fuel.
I say let's get real green and use wind power! Just picture a great fleet of sailing ship ... ohh ... that's right. We've already done that.
May '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Every department in the DoD thinks cuts to its own spending are unreasonable. Welcome to bureaucracy.
Aug '10
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
Troy,
Another reason for the cost overruns is that DoD is unable to rely on regular funding for programs. This program uncertaintity results in procurement that starts and stops annually in an unpredictable fashion. Once a program gets cancelled in this fashion the procurement process resets when the need for the program rears its head a few years down the road. Furthermore, the 'Peace Dividend' of the 90's equated to a procurement holiday, the effects of which we are still dealing with.
Maybe if Harry Reid's Senate could get off their backsides and pass a budget we could restore some sembalance of a reliable funding stream.
Edited on March 14, 2012 at 10:00pmApr '11
Re: Obama's Defense Policy, Defined
There is no market for high end weapons so there is no way to judge the true value of any of these weapon systems. The companies that make them can't sell the weapons to other Nations, and the US will not buy weapon systems made abroad. The only way to control costs is to set very tight demands on the companies that make our weapons for us, and you need government managers that work with results driven purchasing.
Now you have unlimited money chasing every general's personal dream. The formula should be a fixed budget with a demand for certain capabilities. The government should say we want 100 F-16 and will pay 3 billion for them. Who can make these planes for us? I'm sure you will find some company that is willing to meet the contract assuming you offer a remotely competitive price per unit.