By Robert Newton
Perhaps it’s long overdue, but the U.S. is taking into account the cost of defense like we’ve not seen in more than a generation. Beyond former Defense Secretary Gates’ “efficiency initiatives” of 2010/11, the Pentagon now faces challenges bigger than simply cancelling conferences and travel; it must begin ripping into the figurative muscle of military manpower and readiness and craft strategies that match the new force posture.
The reality of sequestration also threatens force structure and undermines recapitalization and modernization programs. It appears everything is on the table as the services strive to meet their projected budgets. Last month, the Navy requested and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta approved the withdrawal of one aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf, removing one of our foremost forces from the region. This withdrawal is certainly not due to a new sense of peace and stability in the Persian Gulf. Unrest in North Africa and an escalation of hostilities in Syria, saber rattling in Egypt, and the ever present Iranian antagonism indicate the threat of broader conflict is growing.
The trends seem alarming particularly when considering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s recent escalation of their civil war included the use of ballistic missiles against his opponents. The presence of ballistic missiles alone represents one of the most terrorizing threats to population centers and now with a demonstrated will to use them, Assad presents a real and present risk of broadening the conflict.
Compounding the calculus are the potential acts of desperation that the Assad regime may face and its ability to launch conventional or chemical weapons into Turkey or other neighboring countries.
While there remains a debate on the significance of Syria’s use of SCUD missiles, the U.S. response was swift and telling. Amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the broader drawdown in the U.S. military, the Obama administration appears to be showing the kinder-gentler U.S. posture abroad that some have been looking for. The Administration’s actions also appear to represent a paradigm shift in how the United States can manage or contain global conflicts in this era of deep cuts in defense spending and reductions in manpower and readiness.
To contain the Syrian conflict, NATO called on three of its members -- the U.S., Germany and The Netherlands -- to deploy their Patriot Missile and Air Defense Systems to Turkey, under the alliance’s command. Not for the first time either; this is, in fact, the third time Turkey has called on the alliance’s Patriot assets in the face of a threat to its borders.
This action leverages one of the U.S. Army’s most successful international programs. In fact it may be a first -- that a single U.S. system is strategically deployed by multiple countries in response to a major regional threat.
Patriot seems to be the right system at the right time. This air & missile defense system may also foreshadow both the relevant strategic challenges facing U.S. and allied forces, and valuable qualities in a weapon system that will enable us to conquer the current budget challenges while retaining necessary military capabilities.
For those of us with Pentagon and defense acquisition experience, the programmatic fight begins long before a system or its operators hit the battlefield. The right capabilities must be developed years in advance of deployment, and then procured in sufficient quantity to meet the threat. Military observers will remember the Patriot’s performance in Desert Storm. But since then it has appreciably evolved far beyond its original air defense capabilities to now include a proven anti-missile capability. The path to the current Patriot force has not been without its bumps – no weapons system is developed or improved without growing pains – but Patriot’s modular design and open architecture enabled forward looking development and capability growth.
No less importantly – perhaps more so in the context of current defense spending – Patriot underwent its evolution not by solely burdening the U.S. taxpayer, but by leveraging a growing international community. Much like the U.S. Air Force F-16 program yielded greater quantity discounts through competition and earning its way into foreign air forces, the Army leveraged a steadily expanding community of Patriot partners to procure systems more economically while continually enhancing system performance and technology. The resulting global Patriot force now includes 11 other nations, allowing the cost burden for improving the system to be spread across the partners.
But having and deploying a system is only half the requirement. The biggest driver to readiness is the operating and sustainment (O&S) costs. Typically, war planners and congressional appropriators must be prepared for O&S costs which routinely exceed the costs for procurement. There are, however, exceptions to this rule-of-thumb and one is Patriot where the O&S costs are actually less than the procurement cost. Continuous improvement of the system and deft resolution of obsolescence issues increased the system’s reliability, eased maintenance, and steadily reduced operations costs. Manpower costs (to include training) were similarly improved and refined, demonstrating the value of a mature system.
Again, like the F-16 program, this evolutionary path was driven in part by international competition. This makes such systems unique among similar systems worldwide. In spite of the large number of missile systems available on the global market, none of the systems produced in Russia, China, France, or elsewhere matches Patriot in terms of taxpayer value. The deal new partners bring is a broader sharing of O&S and sustaining engineering costs. The result is the taxpayer pays only a fraction of the program’s sustaining engineering. Similarly, the other major O&S cost element is the missile itself, which has a 15-year shelf life. Program innovations and part of the offset program associated with the foreign sales include regional missile recertification and system of repair facilities. These depots further reduce costs by reducing transportation requirements and distributing the financial burden across the nations that use Patriot.
A recent National Research Council white paper on ballistic missile defense highlighted the importance of O&S costs to air and missile defense systems. The report not only reflected the maturity of the Patriot program but showed O&S costs for the full US Patriot force to be well under a billion dollars annually.
Compounding the program’s direct value and low O&S burden are the Patriot’s international partner’s capacities and the potential for more. No doubt this latest mission for Patriot will yield additional lessons and opportunities for the program to improve. However, the strategic lessons for the Pentagon and our allies are just as profound. The U.S. is now compelled by fiscal realities to pull back many forward deployed assets, which are saddled with high operating costs while it instead deploys and promotes its allies’ procurement of more affordable and interoperable defense systems.
Concurrent with the reduced deployment risks and costs is the fact that American taxpayers do not solely shoulder the burden of paying for the Patriot system and the containment that it fosters. With foreign military sales of such defensive systems available to our allies – straight off-the-shelf – this strategy may also signal the necessity and the opportunity for our allies to ante up and contribute more to their own defense.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Be it a better mouse trap or a newly crafted strategic policy built in an era of deep and painful cuts in military spending, the budget necessities facing all Americans demand a level of frugality not seen during the lifetimes of many of those now in uniform. Granted, not all Pentagon programs provide the sort of defensive containment needed as a substitute for the forward deployment American assets but seeking them out is a good place to start. Reducing the high cost of forward deployment in an effort to maintain a smaller more capable force’s readiness is the bitter reality of the Pentagon’s latest battle.
Robert Newton is a former Pentagon acquisitions officer and retired Air Force pilot.
