Capabilities of Potential Adversaries Are A Capable Force Potential adversaries have not demonstrated the commitment to logistics support and training that the U.S. military considers necessary to achieve the best performance possible from the equipment available. The advanced age of the equipment currently in the inventories of these nations increases support requirements, and chronic shortages of spare parts lower their expected effectiveness. Many of the more modern systems are likely to be highly complex and difficult to maintain. Generally, the sophistication and intensity of training that potential adversaries provide their operators is considered well below U.S. standards. Furthermore, most of these countries have no experience training against an opponent like the United States. Another factor affecting the capabilities of potential adversaries is their military doctrine. No matter how effective their weapons may be, the centralized command and control that most potential adversaries exercise over the operations of their military forces further affects the effective and efficient use of the forces. Conclusions Although potential adversaries possess capabilities that constitute a threat Chapter 4 Air Power Modernization Programs Are Not Based on Joint Assessments DOD's plans for modernizing its air power forces call for spending several hundred billion dollars on new air power programs to further enhance U.S capabilities that are already formidable. These programs, which are likely to be a significant challenge to pay for, are proceeding even though DOD has not sufficiently assessed joint mission requirements. Without such assessments, the Secretary of Defense does not have the information needed to accurately assess the need for and priority of planned modernization programs. A definitive answer as to the necessity of planned investments is not possible without knowing how aggregate service capabilities meet joint war-fighting requirements. However, our past GAO work and information developed on our mission reviews suggest that some planned investments may not be worth the costs. For some programs, the payoff in added mission capability-considering the investment required and the limited needed capability added-is not clearly substantial, as required by the National Military Strategy. For others, the security environment and/or assumptions under which the programs were justified have changed. In other cases, there are viable and less costly alternatives to planned investments. Planned Investments Each military service has major acquisition programs to modernize its combat air power forces. Many of them were initiated to counter a global Soviet threat. These programs include not only combat aircraft but also programs to acquire long-range missiles to strike land targets; advanced weapons combat aircraft can use; theater missile defense forces; surveillance and reconnaissance assets; and command, control, and communications systems. Appendix III summarizes the costs of DOD'S major combat air power acquisition programs. If these programs proceed as planned, their total program costs, including allowances for inflation, are estimated to exceed $300 billion, about $60 billion of which has already been spent. Not included in these totals is the cost of the Joint Strike Fighter, the program that is likely to be the most costly of all. DOD has only published initial research, development, test and evaluation cost data on this program, which is projected to provide about 2,978 advanced joint strike-fighter aircraft for the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps beginning in the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a total acquisition cost, based on DOD's goals for the program, of $165 billion in 1997 dollars. Air Power Modernization Programs Are Not The largest segment of DOD's planned air power investments reflects the plan to replace aging fighter and attack aircraft. With the large defense buildup of the 1980s and the changed national security environment of the 1990s, in recent years DOD has significantly cut back on the procurement of such aircraft. These aircraft, which include the F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18C/Ds for which production lines remain open, are highly capable aircraft. Nevertheless, DOD plans to replace them with more advanced and costly systems, but not necessarily on a one-for-one basis. The costs to replace the older model aircraft with new ones are projected to be quite substantial in the next decade. In fact, DOD estimates that it will spend about as much to procure combat aircraft in the next decade as it spent during the 1980s force buildup, even with the figures adjusted for inflation. DOD'S force modernization plans are based on several assumptions. First, DOD assumes that the defense budget top line will stop its decline in fiscal year 1997 and begin to rise and that funding for procurement will increase to $60.1 billion in fiscal year 2001. Second, DOD assumes it will achieve significant savings through base closures and other infrastructure reductions and “outsourcing” many support activities. Additionally, DOD assumes that savings will be realized from overhauling the defense acquisition system. There are reasons to be skeptical about the practicality of modernizing U.S. air power under these assumptions. An annual $60 billion procurement appropriation in fiscal year 2001 would be over 40 percent higher than that in the fiscal year 1997 budget. In each of its last three future years defense programs, DOD has postponed planned increases in its procurement budget request. As for infrastructure savings, our review of DOD's 1996-2001 Future Years Defense Program identified only negligible net savings accruing over the program's 6 years.1 Acquisition reform savings may also prove to be elusive. For example, although DOD expects to accrue substantial savings by reforming contract management and oversight requirements, we reported in April 1996 that initial results of such reforms indicate such savings may be minimal.2 In testimony before Congress in June 1996, senior DOD officials reported that military service and OSD officials reviewed the affordability of the three largest combat aircraft programs-the F-18E/F, F-22, and Joint Strike Fighter. According to the testimony, these officials determined that the overall planned investment in these programs was within historical 'Defense Infrastructure: Budget Estimates for 1996-2001 Offer Little Savings for Modernization (GAO/NSIAD-96-131, Apr. 1996). 2Acquisition Reform: Efforts to Reduce the Cost to Manage and Oversee DOD Contracts (GAO/NSIAD-96-106, Apr. 1996). Air Power Modernization Programs Are Not DOD Has Planned norms and affordable within service priorities. Neither the Chairman of DOD makes decisions on the affordability of its modernization plans in an environment that encourages the "selling" of programs, along with undue optimism, parochialism, and other compromises of good judgment. Once DOD initiates major acquisition programs, such as the F-22, F/A-18E/F, and the Joint Strike Fighter, it has historically made a nearly irrevocable commitment to the program, unless the program experiences a catastrophe. Once begun, programs develop constituencies in the services, OSD, industry, the user community, and Congress-constituencies that give a momentum to programs and make their termination an option rarely considered by DOD. DOD has done little analysis to establish joint mission area requirements for some specific combat air power missions or to plan the aggregate capabilities needed by each of the services to meet those requirements. Studies that may provide such information on several key air power missions have been initiated but were not completed at the end of our review. Without such analyses, decisions on the need for new weapon systems, major modifications, and added capabilities evolve from a requirements generation process that encourages each service to maintain its own view of how its own capabilities should be enhanced to meet warfighting needs. In its May 1995 report, the Commission on Roles and Missions of the 3Modernizing Tactical Aircraft, Statement of Cindy Williams, Assistant Director, National Security Division, Congressional Budget Office, before the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development and the Subcommittee on Military Procurement, Committee on National Security, House of Representatives, June 27, 1996. Air Power Modernization Programs Are Not found, that “each Service is fully engaged in trying to deliver to the CINCS what the Service views as the best possible set of its specific capabilities-without taking into account the similar capabilities provided by the other Services." The analyses used to generate weapon system requirements for new acquisition programs are most often narrowly focused. They do not fully consider whether the capabilities of the other services to perform a given mission mitigate the need for a new acquisition or major modification. Significant limitations in study methodologies and the use of questionable assumptions that can result in overstated requirements are apparent in three DOD studies examining requirements for bombers in conventional conflicts. None of the studies, for example, assessed whether fighters or long-range missiles could accomplish the mission more cost-effectively than bombers. One of the studies, done by the Air Force and used by it to estimate and justify bomber requirements, assumed that only bombers would be available to strike time-critical targets during the first 5 days of a major regional conflict. This assumption seems to conflict with DOD planning guidance, which assumes that Air Force and Navy combat aircraft would arrive early enough in theater to attack targets at the outset of a major regional conflict. Under DOD's requirements generation system, DOD components (principally the military services) are responsible for documenting deficiencies in current capabilities and opportunities to provide new capabilities in mission needs statements. If the potential material solution could result in a major defense acquisition program, the JROC is responsible for review and validation of the need. Validated needs statements are to be reviewed by the Defense Acquisition Board, which is responsible for identifying possible material alternatives and authorizing concept studies, if necessary. OSD's Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation is responsible for reviewing any analyses of alternatives for meeting the validated need. While DOD has decision support systems, such as the requirements generation system and the planning, programming, and budgeting system, to assist the senior officials in making critical decisions, reviews like those done by the JROC and by OSD staff do not have the benefit of information on joint mission requirements and the aggregate capabilities of the services to 'An acquisition program that is not a highly sensitive program and that is estimated to require research, development, test, and evaluation expenditures of more than $355 million (in fiscal year 1996 constant dollars) or procurement expenditures of more than $2.135 billion (in fiscal year 1996 constant dollars). |