Why is the Navy promoting AEGIS BMD based on ballistic missile threats to our ships in Congress when the new anti-ship ballistic missile capability being developed by China cannot be stopped by the Lockheed Martin AEGIS BMD capability of the DDG-51. Oh, you didn't know the DDG-51 not only can't, but will never be able to meet that threat? The Navy knows this, so does Lockheed Martin, and so do the people pushing the DDG-51 for BMD purposes.Why, indeed.
Galrahn makes some very good points in his post (and in his blog). But it is going to take a president with huge reservoirs of political capital in order to fix the procurement system. In every military service, the people who grew up doing project management have learned to play the politicians like a cheap guitar. They know that they need to salt parts of each program in different congressional districts in order to maximize political support for their pet programs. The contractors also play this game, playing to each congressman and senator about how many constituent jobs will be lost if the project to make the G-22 WhizBang is cut back or canceled.
I don't see it changing anytime soon. The military procurement system is inherently inefficient, tied up in parochialism and bureaucracy and corrupt at its core. Inefficiency is why it took the Air Force over 20 years to bring the F-22 from "let's build this thing" to delivery to operational squadrons (and the same thing is true for the Marines' V-22). Inefficiency and bureaucratic inertia are why our soldiers were wearing inferior body armor for several years into Bush's Wars. Parochialism and bureaucratic inertia rules, with "not invented here" being spoken more like "if it were a good idea, we'd have thought of it."
Corruption is why it is almost impossible to kill any procurement program, even if the gizmo doesn't work or barely works or sort of works for triple the original projected cost. Corruption is why the DoD continues to buy things it doesn't need or want. Corruption is why contractors low-ball bids and then rape the Treasury by vastly overpricing change orders and spare parts. Our elected officials are complicit in all this, for besides the jobs issue, they get a lot of contributions from contractors and the companies doing business with them.
Secretary Gates may be able to fire a general now and then, but it is hard to see how the procurement system can ever be fixed. Too many people have a reason to obstruct any serious reform.
Miss Fit:
ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction to the quoted passage (stating that the Burke's could "never" meet the ASBM threat, was, "Why not?" so I went to the linked post and read:
"...the Navy needs the power generation of the DDG-1000 in order to meet emerging threats to BMD, the DDG-51 simply can't cut it."
Now, I am a mechanical-type guy from way back and don't really believe in electricity. But this implies to me that the effective detection and prosecution of ASBM threats (probably including decoys) requires radars with more radiated energy than can be squeezed out of the DDG-51's powerplants. Ergo, we need an Electric Ship like DDG-1000.
But...doesn't this assume that the DDG will need to meet the threat in independent operation? Why would that be a requirement? Couldn't you either install an AEGIS-on-Steroids radar on the CV or cobble together a radar auxiliary escort. (Maybe take an old non-VLS Tico, strip out half the magazines, install a couple of extra LM-2500's with boo-koo SSTG capacity and upgrade the radars?) Then the escorting DDG-51's become just the shooters with fire control handled over the net. Problem solved, no?