# Stratfor Article US Defense Budget



## tomahawk6 (10 Apr 2009)

PART 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPOSED 2010 U.S. DEFENSE BUDGET 

Summary

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his department's proposed 2010 defense budget on April 6. One of the prevailing shifts, though not unexpected, was cuts to high-end, long-term weapons development programs. This is a conscious redirection by Gates of defense dollars to efforts that are more relevant to the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presently, the United States dominates the realm of conventional military force. That dominance, however, does not maintain itself, and Gates' proposals will have implications that last well beyond his tenure.

Editor's Note: This is the first part of a four-part report on the U.S. military's 2010 defense budget. 


Analysis


U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' proposed changes to his department's 2010 budget announced on April 6 clearly -- and expectedly -- favored weapon systems with near-term and more direct applicability to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Gates put it: "It is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk -- or, in effect, to 'run up the score' in a capability where the United States is already dominant -- is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in, and improve capabilities in areas where we are underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk I will not take."

Gates' point is that in many areas of conventional and near-peer military conflict (such as air superiority, or 'blue water' -- open ocean -- naval capability), the U.S. military already enjoys a healthy lead, and defense dollars are better spent in areas where such dominance is not nearly so well established. These range from cyberwarfare (where the Pentagon hopes to triple the number of cyberwarfare specialists it trains annually to 240 by 2011) to providing more unmanned aerial vehicles and helicopter pilots for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and beyond.

Some of the major cuts include: 

The Airborne Laser, an advanced ballistic missile defense concept that would use directed energy to bring down ballistic missiles in the boost phase. Gates' proposal would cancel the second airframe and downgrade the existing one to a research and development program.

End production of the Air Force's F-22 "Raptor" air superiority fighter at the scheduled 187 airframes. Supporters (including some in the Air Force) wanted many more.

No funding for the Air Force's next-generation bomber program -- which, even if it was uncharacteristically on schedule, would not produce a flying prototype until 2018. (Currently, over half of the United States' long-range strike aircraft are B-52s built in the 1950s and 60s.)

Delay the Navy's next-generation cruiser and slow the build cycle for aircraft carriers by one year. 

Completely revamp the Army's comprehensive Future Combat Systems (FCS) program (read: likely gutted). With undeniable flaws in program structure and execution, FCS has been a common whipping boy due to cost overruns and delays. If Gates has his way, the useful and reasonably mature parts of the program will be spun out to the Army, with the more ambitious parts -- like a new family of armored vehicles -- being canceled completely.

Not all long-term programs are being cut. Work will begin on the next-generation ballistic missile submarine, for example. But Gates is attempting to re-balance the focus of the Pentagon and how its resources are allocated. This includes shifting money to manpower -- growing and better sustaining the ground combat forces -- expanding unmanned aerial vehicle resources and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets critical to the current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan and more helicopter pilots and special forces personnel that are in such short supply -- just to name a few. They will certainly improve matters operationally as they take effect, but do not address the underlying geopolitical issues of either the Iraq or the Afghan campaign (which cannot be addressed solely through military force).

One of the most important aspects of this shift is how they contrast to the goals of Gate's predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. For all his practical failings as a defense secretary, Rumsfeld was attempting to implement a vision of the Office of Net Assessment, a small shop within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, headed by Andrew Marshall. Marshall is a long-range thinker appointed to the post under the Nixon administration and still holds the position today.

Marshall envisioned taking advantage of the peace and prosperity of the 1990s to skip ahead a generation. By canceling Cold War programs and focusing heavily on far-ranging technologies for the future, the hope was to leap ahead and put the United States a full generation -- or even two -- ahead of any potential adversary in weapons development.

Rumsfeld continued with this focus after the 9/11 attacks, which left him increasingly open to criticism about his handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Partly in reaction to this, Gates is pushing aside long-range concerns about more remote and unknown potential threats in favor of refocusing the department on the here and now.

And while that is a welcome shift to many at the Pentagon, the details of how the balance is ultimately struck remains key. STRATFOR ultimately considers state-to-state, near-peer conflict to be an enduring reality of the international system. At the moment, the United States has plenty of breathing room in terms of its dominance in conventional military capabilities. But that dominance does not maintain itself, and the proposals Gates has made will have implications long after his tenure.

Next: The 2010 defense budget and ballistic missile defense.

Copyright 2009 Stratfor.

PART 2: THE 2010 U.S. DEFENSE BUDGET AND BMD

Summary
When U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his department's proposed 2010 defense budget on April 6, one of the changes -- not unexpected -- was a realignment of funding for ballistic missile defense (BMD). Gates wants to focus on more mature BMD technologies that can deal with missile launches from "rogue" countries like Iran and North Korea.

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a four-part special report on the U.S. defense budget for 2010.

Analysis
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Among U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' proposed changes to the 2010 U.S. defense budget, announced on April 6, were a series of increases and cuts in ballistic missile defense (BMD) programs. Taken as a whole, these adjustments mark a significant shift in the nature of BMD deployment, including an overall cut of $1.4 billion from the Missile Defense Agency. These cuts are consistent with President Barack Obama's platform of being committed to "proven, cost-effective" BMD, and are being touted as enabling the programs to focus on the threat of missile launches from "rogue" countries like Iran and North Korea.

BMD is essentially a defensive weapons system designed to intercept ballistic missiles. Ballistic missile interception can theoretically be done at three periods of the missile's flight: in the terminal phase (as it descends towards the earth), in midcourse, and in the boost phase (right after launch). Current technology permits the interception at the midcourse and terminal phases, but boost-phase interception has proved to be much more difficult, mainly because of the extremely short period of time it allows to detect, acquire and track the missile and plot an intercept before it enters the later phases of flight (more about this below).

In laying out Gates' funding priorities, the budget favors the more mature technologies of terminal-phase and midcourse interception, which are either already fielded or in the process of being fielded. But this comes at the cost of boost-phase and other more ambitious technological development programs -- including space-based assets -- which would require longer-term funding and support before tangible results could be achieved.

For Gates, these more long-range programs have been pushed forward too aggressively, before the technology could mature. They are more high-risk by nature and, for Gates, an inefficient and an inappropriate allocation of funds given the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there are technical reasons for these choices, Gates has more in mind than just a sheet of specifications and test results.


There are four mature BMD systems that are operational or in the process of being made operational: Aegis/Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD). 

The Aegis/SM-3 system is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles during parts of the ascent and descent phases. This system has already been deployed on 18 American guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, and two Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces warships and is operationally proven (though as an anti-satellite weapon rather than a BMD interceptor). The Aegis/SM-3 has been one of the most successful BMD programs in the U.S. inventory, and Gates' proposal would increase funding for the SM-3 program and upgrade an additional six warships with the system (double the three announced earlier this year for the Atlantic fleet). 

The THAAD system is mobile (designed to be deployed anywhere in the world) and is capable of intercepting a ballistic missile in its final midcourse descent and in its terminal phase, both inside and outside the atmosphere. The first THAAD battery -- Alpha Battery of the 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment at Fort Bliss in Texas -- was activated last year and is in the process of being fully equipped. Meanwhile, testing continues at the Pacific Missile Range in Hawaii (a test there in March marked the system's latest success). After poor test performance in the 1990s, the program restarted testing in 2005 and has shown marked improvement. It is now considered technologically mature. 

Lockheed Martin
A THAAD launcher

The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system is a terminal-phase intercept system that was operationally deployed and successfully used in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system is also currently operational at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and is slated for deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, although deployment of the system is encumbered by the requirement for fixed facilities, including concrete silos.

Gates curtailed funding for additional GMD interceptors in Alaska but made no comment on the much more politically complicated issue of deploying them to Europe. With his 2010 budget, of course, Gates has entered into a domestic battle with Congress over the future shape and orientation of the entire Department of Defense, not just BMD. Although part of that reorientation, the European GMD effort will be decided in the context of larger negotiations with Russia and policy choices made by the Obama Cabinet as a whole.

But taken as a whole (and even without a GMD deployment in Europe), this combination of technologies offers a tiered BMD capability in the later phases of ballistic flight. It is this sort of layered, overlapping combination of capabilities that is considered necessary to provide a truly reliable BMD shield. In addition, for the most part, these are the programs on which other countries like Japan and Israel have been cooperating with the United States.

The impetus for pursuing boost-phase intercept capability is by no means gone, however. Midcourse and terminal phase interceptions are fraught with their own challenges, including the possibility of having to deal with decoys in the latter part of the midcourse phase and multiple independently targetable or maneuverable re-entry vehicles. Additionally, debris from a successful intercept in the terminal phase may still hit the area being targeted by those who launched the missile.

Thus, it remains desirable for the Pentagon to seek technology that will push the intercept point closer to the time and place of launch, if not on the actual territory of the country launching the missile. The boost phase is when a missile is the slowest it will be in its trajectory and the most visible because of the plume of its engines and their unmistakable infrared signature of the plume of its engines). Also, if the missile is intercepted in this phase, the debris falls far from the intended target. 

As alluded to earlier, however, intercepting a missile during its boost phase is extremely difficult. At most, the boost phase lasts only a few minutes, and terrestrial-based interceptors also need time to boost to altitude as well (acceleration is a key design consideration). Additionally, interceptors and sensors must be based relatively close to the area from which the missile is launched, so their positioning is highly dependent on the accessibility of territory or waters nearby. 

U.S. Air Force

The problem of reaction speed in the boost phase is so challenging that it has been one of the principal drivers for directed energy weapons -- lasers -- dating all the way back to the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative. In its latest incarnation, the Airborne Laser (ABL) has only now -- after a quarter century of experimentation -- begun to show potential for operational utility. In Gates' 2010 budget, however, funding for a second ABL airframe was cut and the program was reduced to more of a long-term research and development effort. 

These technical challenges will still be explored, but if Gates has his way, operational fielding of a boost-phase interceptor will be delayed -- perhaps significantly -- and some programs previously under consideration may never see the light of day as a weapons system. After all, if the concern is the current "rogue" threat from North Korea and Iran, then the ballistic missiles targeted would be highly vulnerable to air strikes while still on the launch pad.


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## tomahawk6 (10 Apr 2009)

In a larger sense, Gates does not see the more advanced challenges of BMD as near-term problems. They are all desirable capabilities in the long run, but Gates has made his tenure about choices and priorities. His funding proposals for BMD reflect choices to field only mature programs while taking $1.4 billion from the Missile Defense Agency budget to put toward the current fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is a fight that Gates considers not only the current one but also the kind in which American forces will be engaged in the foreseeable future. 

Next: The 2010 defense budget and the fighter mix

Copyright 2009 Stratfor.

PART 3: THE U.S. 2010 DEFENSE BUDGET AND THE FIGHTER MIX

Summary
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his department's proposed 2010 defense budget April 6. Part of Gates' focus for his entire tenure has been on reorienting the Pentagon more toward the wars it is currently fighting, with less focus on long-term threats that may or may not emerge (which he calls "next-war-itis." One of the poster children for next-war-itis has been the F-22 "Raptor," of which Gates does not intend to buy any more, despite opposition from inside and outside the Pentagon.

Editor's Note: This is the third part of a four-part special report on the U.S. defense budget for 2010.

Analysis
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As part of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' proposed 2010 budget for the department, he plans to stop purchasing F-22 "Raptor" air superiority fighters and shift the Air Force's money for fifth-generation tactical fighters entirely over to the F-35 "Lightning II" Joint Strike Fighter. Though this choice will face opposition from Congress (which ultimately allocates funds), if successful, it has long-term implications for the United States and its allies.

The F-22 is a purpose-built air dominance fighter designed to take and maintain control of the skies from very capable adversaries -- keeping the skies clear so that the rest of the military can do its work. It was also the first operational fifth-generation fighter jet (meaning that it incorporates stealth characteristics, advanced avionics and other integrated features that will characterize fighter jet design for the coming decades).

Gates has criticized the F-22 since he became secretary of defense. The F-22 -- expensive at an average fly-away cost of more than $150 million per airframe and completely inapplicable to the lower end of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is the embodiment of what Gates seeks to change about the Pentagon. If his proposed budget makes it through Congress (where it faces opposition), the F-22 production line will begin to shut down in the next two years, effectively ending the program at 187 airframes.


At the same time, he is accelerating procurement of the only other fifth-generation tactical fighter in the works -- the F-35 "Lightning II" Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 was designed from the ground up to be a multi-role fighter, and has the capability to conduct close air support and other missions relevant to the current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan -- even if its expensive, high-end stealth characteristics are unnecessary in those roles. 

The accelerated investment in the F-35 -- though the plane is still in operational testing -- would fund 30 airframes in 2010, twice the number funded in 2009. This acceleration could well have an effect on the bottom line, driving down the fly-away cost per airframe closer to the objective of around $80 million sooner than originally scheduled. This is critical for Gates. In comparison to the F-22, the F-35 is touted as the "affordable" alternative for a fifth-generation fighter capability – or at least, that is the hope.

That affordability, combined with the closure of the F-22 line, will make the F-35 production line the only fifth-generation tactical fighter production line in the world -- and the only option for the foreseeable future for NATO and other U.S. allies seeking a fifth-generation fighter capability that they cannot afford to design and build on their own.

This has two major implications.

Lockheed-Martin via Getty Images
An early artists' rendering of the F-35

First, as STRATFOR has noted before, the multi-role nature of the F-35 means that the design necessarily entails compromises in any one mission area. But for the Pentagon, this multi-role functionality is a key parameter for weapons procurement going forward. Specifically, for instance, it is thought to be less capable – probably significantly so -- in the air dominance role. And with F-22s being capped at 187 (there are currently more than 500 older F-15s in this role), the long-term, high-end capability regarding air superiority -- though the U.S. remains well ahead of any potential competitor -- would become more limited. (STRATFOR has also noted the long-range trend away from manned fighter combat.)

Second, the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin are on the verge of consolidating the fifth-generation fighter fleet not only for the U.S. military, but for many of its allies. There are eight international partners already in various stages of commitment to the F-35 program and more are likely to join if the program proceeds apace. If all goes as Lockheed Martin hopes, the F-35 is poised to one day be as common a sight at NATO air bases as the F-16 is today. As the aircraft becomes more widely fielded, NATO's multinational fighter fleet will have a new degree of integrated, high-end strike capability at its fingertips.

But with a new generation of integration with avionics, sensors and electronic warfare capabilities, it will also be more difficult for allies to make their own domestic alterations to their airframes (many, like Israel, prefer to do this). Instead, the United States -- which will be at the leading edge of defining and orchestrating software updates and incremental upgrades -- may have a new degree of influence on the status and capabilities of its allies' combat aircraft.

In short, if the change is pushed through, Gates will have ended years of debate about the mix of fifth-generation aircraft in the Air Force's fleet – and his successors will live with the consequences, whatever they may be.

Next: The 2010 Defense Budget and The Future of the Fleet

Copyright 2009 Stratfor.

PART 4: THE 2010 U.S. DEFENSE BUDGET AND THE FUTURE OF THE FLEET

Summary
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his department's proposed 2010 defense budget on April 6. His additions and cuts from the budget included a series of decisions on the focus of shipbuilding in the years ahead. Gates has emphasized the U.S. Navy's long-recognized need to improve its mission and functionality in the littoral regions of the world. As a result, Gates is pushing the acceleration of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program -- ships that have a multi-mission functionality and are particularly attractive to the current Pentagon leadership. Overall, the shifts will help define the shape of the future U.S. surface combatant fleet.

Analysis
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Among the proposed changes to the Pentagon's 2010 budget that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates laid out April 6 was a series of significant decisions that will affect U.S. shipbuilding and the shape of the surface fleet in the years ahead.

If there was a theme to these changes, it was prioritizing the littoral, near-shore environment over the 'blue water' -- the open ocean -- and proven, affordable ship designs over ambitious, new and long-term designs. The shifts include:

Slowing the rate at which an aircraft carrier is built by one year, to five years. This build cycle will ultimately reduce the size of the U.S. carrier fleet from 11 to a still-impressive 10.

Delaying the next-generation guided missile cruiser, a long-range program to replace a mainstay of the blue-water fleet.

Pushing forward with the already-planned truncation of the enormously over budget and delayed DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, which will be limited to three very expensive hulls or less -- effectively making the ships technology demonstrators.

Restarting Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) guided missile destroyer production. Widely considered one of the most capable and successful warship designs in the world today, the last units are still being completed.

Accelerating the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, which consists of two designs (the Pentagon has yet to select one) intended to employ interchangeable "mission modules," so that one hull can support a variety of missions -- from anti-submarine warfare to hunting mines or supporting special forces. These smaller, faster, more agile ships, as their name implies, will often be used closer to shore, freeing larger, more expensive ships designed to operate in the blue water from the potentially treacherous near-shore environment.

The first three are consistent with Gates' priorities for the Pentagon as a whole. Some of the high-end technology for the next-generation Ford-class aircraft carrier is already creating concerns about the program's timeline, and though the aircraft carrier continues to be a critical element of U.S. power projection, it is difficult to overstate the extent to which America already has utter dominance in carrier-based aviation.

The DDG-1000 is, in part, now acting as a technology demonstrator for the next-generation cruiser. Both are high-end, expensive warships expanding American naval capability largely in areas where the U.S. already enjoys a considerable lead. Delaying or slowing the next-generation cruiser program does not kill research and development, but it shifts resources and attention to more immediate needs -- ones that address the slowly emerging refocus of the U.S. Navy.

The United States remains the undisputed dominant power in the world's oceans, and while potential regional competitors from China to India to Russia are enhancing their own naval capability and working on systems to counter or at least lessen the U.S. lead, the U.S. Navy still remains the dominant force in the blue-water realm. The department has long recognized the need to push into the littorals and better function there, though many of its initiatives -- like LCS and what ultimately became the DDG-1000, faltered.

The proposed defense budget would put the department's money back into LCS and the Arleigh Burke restart. Not only are the additional Arleigh Burke hulls attractive because they are upgradeable to ballistic missile defense capability capable of addressing the new anti-ship ballistic missile threat from China, but the fabrication process is now highly refined (with some 60 hulls) and the ships have a multi-mission functionality that is particularly attractive to the current Pentagon leadership.

Photo by U.S. Navy courtesy of Lockheed-Martin
The USS Freedom (LCS-1)

But the more important shift in terms of the shape of the fleet is the LCS. By accelerating acquisition in 2010, Gates is clearly committing to the program. LCS promises to expand the Navy's global presence -- with more ships in more places -- as LCS will be one tool in allowing more dispersed operations. (The LCS program is expected to eventually entail 55 hulls.) Indeed, such lower-tier efforts like expanding international cooperation on maritime security could see further improvements in the overall security of the environment.

The LCS is also one of the first ships designed from the start to integrate unmanned systems into its operations, from unmanned helicopters to unmanned surface and underwater vessels, designed to carry out reconnaissance and assist in operations at sea -- providing new types of functionality for the Navy in much the same way that unmanned aerial vehicles have revolutionized intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. 


Overall, the shifts in priorities will hardly endanger U.S. naval dominance in the near-term. But naval dominance is of absolutely fundamental importance for American geographic and geopolitical security. And as STRATFOR has noted in this series, such dominance does not maintain itself. Though they will not be a threat tomorrow, countries like China are seeking to expand their sphere of influence on the high seas, and the world's oceans are too valuable for too many countries to think that the current American lead -- even in blue water -- cannot be eroded.

Copyright 2009 Stratfor.


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## tomahawk6 (17 Jun 2009)

Congress in a late night deal agreed to make a down payment for another 12 F-22's.Gates wont be too happy but the workers will be pleased to have work.


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