NSN Daily Update: Rejecting F-22, Senate Embraces a 21st Century Defense Strategy 7/22/09

For years, progressives have advocated shedding the legacy of the Cold War and in favor of a more balanced strategic direction capable of engaging in the full spectrum of operations from conventional wars to irregular conflicts. This made the fight over the F-22 more than just a dispute about a plane. It was about whether the Pentagon would be able to institutionalize the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and move past the Cold War – and whether the new progressive majority could turn one of its central defense policy planks into reality. Hastened by the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama and Secretary Gates, with the support of much of the military, have initiated a strategic shift that breaks with the approaches of the past.

Yet there were serious doubts about whether Congress would support the Obama-Gates vision, preventing the Pentagon from shifting resources from eliminating irrelevant antiquated systems designed for a bygone era. Yesterday the Senate, with a bipartisan vote to strip funding for the F-22, demonstrated that they were supportive of this new effort and took a huge step in shedding the legacy of the Cold War. What makes this such a big victory is less that the White House “won” than that the Senate – Republicans and Democrats – has now backed the strategic shift advanced by progressives for years and aggressively advocated by the Obama administration.

On the vote over F-22 funding the Senate faced a stark choice: continue business as usual or move in the new strategic direction put forth by Obama and Gates. Prior to the vote, Secretary Gates explained the choice confronting the Senate at the Economic Club of Chicago, “We stand at a crossroads. We simply cannot risk continuing down the same path – where our spending and program priorities are increasingly divorced from the very real threats of today and the growing ones of tomorrow.” He went on to say that “The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity – whether for more F-22s or anything else – is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable.” The F-22 is a Cold War relic that does not address the challenges America faces today. As Defense expert Larry Korb explains, “The F-22 is the most capable air-to-air fighter in the Air Force inventory. Yet it has only limited air-to-ground attack capabilities, which makes it unsuitable for today's counter-insurgency operations. In fact, the F-22 has never been used in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It was designed to fight next-generation Soviet fighters that never materialized, and, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has noted, it is nearly useless for irregular warfare.” The strategic vision laid out by Gates won over Senators as, The Washington Post reports, “[t]he Senate voted Tuesday to kill the nation's premier fighter-jet program, embracing by a 58 to 40 margin the argument of President Obama and his top military advisers that more F-22s are not needed for the nation's defense and would be a costly drag on the Pentagon's budget in an era of small wars and counterinsurgency efforts.” [Washington Post, 7/22/09. Larry Korb and Krisila Benson, 7/9/09. Department of Defense, 7/16/09. Slate, 7/21/09. Politico, 7/21/09]

Defying observers’ pessimism and a deeply entrenched opposition, Obama administration – together with Senators Levin and McCain – prevailed on vote critical to implementing their defense strategy. When President Obama and Secretary Gates unveiled their defense budget, Washington observers lauded their efforts to move in a new progressive direction, but were skeptical that the spending plan would survive. Earlier this month, the Washington Post noted that the program had been called “cancellation-proof.” “Its troubles have been detailed in dozens of Government Accountability Office reports and Pentagon audits. But Pierre Sprey, a key designer in the 1970s and 1980s of the F-16 and A-10 warplanes, said that from the beginning, the Air Force designed it to be ‘too big to fail, that is, to be cancellation-proof.’ Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states, and Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane -- said that by the time skeptics ‘could point out the failed tests, the combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already defending their subcontractors’ revenues,” reported the Post. After Gates unveiled the defense budget, Nick Baumann with Mother Jones recalled the fight to preserve the V-22 Osprey, arguing that despite Gates’ intentions, “You can bet that Lockheed Martin will try to ensure the F-22 enjoys a similar resurrection.” Defense budget expert Gordon Adams wrote in March that “Congress will try to put back in what he (Gates) takes out.” [Washington Post, 7/10/09. Mother Jones, 4/06/09. Gordon Adams, 3/17/09]

Yet the Obama administration and key allies in Congress from both parties were able to overcome this skepticism. President Obama threatened to veto the Defense Authorization bill if money for the F-22 was included. Secretary Gates mounted a non-stop effort to persuade congress to maintain the integrity of the defense spending plan by leaving out funding for the F-22. In an appearance this weekend, Gates said: “[t]he time has come to draw a line and take a stand against the business-as-usual approach to national defense. We must all fulfill our obligation to the American people to ensure that our country remains safe and strong. Just as our men and women in uniform are doing their duty to this end, we in Washington must now do ours.” According to Senator Carl Levin (D – MI), both Gates and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called key stakeholders in the Senate to make their case. The New York Times also reported that the the President’s efforts “received crucial support from his Republican rival in last year’s presidential election, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who co-sponsored an amendment with Mr. Levin to remove the $1.75 billion from the bill.” [Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 7/16/09. NY Times, 7/22/09]

Defense budget brings American military strategy into the 21st century, while addressing the critical needs of today’s conflicts. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon, defense experts, the defense industry, as well as political leaders, had been slow to shift out of the Cold War mindset that had dominated strategic planning for the previous 40 years. During the Bush administration, Secretary Rumsfeld oversaw a massive expansion in the defense budget. But these resources were not focused on the challenges we were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan or the irregular challenges we were likely to confront in this new century. They were instead directed at implementing Rumsfeld’s vision of “transformation” that was centered on building high-tech conventional weaponry directed at confronting a future peer-competitor similar to the Soviet Union. While the technology was state of the art, the strategic vision for many of these systems was rooted in the 20th century. As a result, troops were sent to battle without body armor, drove vehicles that lacked suitable armor, and were not provided training relevant to the challenges they were facing. It is critical that the U.S. military be able to confront both today’s conflicts, and tomorrow’s emerging challenges.

The defense budget devised by President Obama and Secretary Gates allows the Pentagon to do both. For example, the plan dramatically increases production of the more cost effective and versatile F-35 – the Pentagon planning to purchase 2,400 of them. The F-35 will be used by three branches of the military – the Air Force, Navy, and Marines – as well as by many of our allies. Additionally, despite claims from the Wall Street Journal that cutting the F-22 signaled a new peace dividend, in fact the money that would have been used for the F-22 will now pay for a temporary increase in the size of the Army, which Secretary Gates called “an important and necessary step to ensure that we continue to properly support the needs of our commanders in the field while providing relief for our current force and their families.” 13 retired generals and admirals, representing the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, described the vision contained in the Administration’s defense budget: “[t]he threats against America have undergone a monumental shift, as dangers emanating from traditional Cold War adversaries have given way to challenges from terrorism and other transnational entities. While we must always remain vigilant against the many large-scale conventional challenges that still persist to this day, we must also ensure our military strategy reflects the realities of the 21st century. And it is essential our defense budget matches this new reality.” Gates explained the shift this way: an “underlying theme in the budget recommendations is the need to think about future conflicts in a different way, to recognize that the black-and-white distinction between conventional war and irregular war is an outdated model. In reality, the future is and will be more complex, where all conflict will range along a broad spectrum of operations and lethality, where even near-peer competitors will use irregular or asymmetric tactics, and non-state actors may have weapons of mass destruction or sophisticated missiles.” [NY Times, 7/22/09. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, via Small Wars Journal, 7/20/09. National Security Network, 6/10/09. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 4/16/09.]

What We’re Reading

Bombings in Iraq killed 19 and wounded 80 in a series of attacks Tuesday. Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki is making his first visit to the White House.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly defied the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by refusing to dump his selection for vice president, Rahim Mashaei. Hard-liners oppose Mashaei for insisting that Iranians have no quarrel with Israelis, and because he was spotted watching women dance in Turkey, which Islamic fundamentalists consider a crime.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is ready to extend an “umbrella of defense” over its Gulf allies if Iran develops a nuclear program. She also expressed concern about North Korea’s ties to the secretive dictatorship in Myanmar.

Pakistan is objecting to the U.S.’s plans to expand combat operations in Afghanistan, arguing that fighting the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan will force militants into Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Waziristan region of Pakistan is proving a tough battle for Pakistani forces.

Israel announced plans to remove 23 “illegal outposts” from the West Bank in a course of a single day, in response to US pressure to remove settlements built since March 2001.

Doing business in China is proving to be good for U.S. companies, as the country’s stimulus package sparks demand for everything from computers to construction equipment.

Vice President Joe Biden assured Ukrainian President Victor Yushenko that the U.S. will continue to support Kiev’s efforts to join NATO and other Western organizations.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili urged the U.S. to sell his country advanced defensive weapons, asserting that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may otherwise try to start another war.

Nigerian militants released six crew members they seized from an oil tanker nearly three weeks ago.

The U.N. said it will require a record $4.8 billion in aid this year to address humanitarian crises, including conflicts in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Palestinian territories, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

The first human trials of swine flu vaccine began in Australia.

Human rights group Amnesty International accused Saudi Arabia of using its anti-terrorism program as a façade for a “sustained assault on human rights.”

According to a report released Wednesday, the federal government is vulnerable to cyber-attacks from hackers, criminals, terrorists and foreign governments unless it boosts its cyber-security expertise.

Commentary of the Day

Paul Cruickshank observes that the U.K. has lowered its official terrorist threat level to its lowest level since the 7/7 bombings, and wonders if it’s time for the U.S. to do the same.

The NY Times urges Congress to close loopholes in the Waxman-Markey climate change bill.

Liya Kebede calls on U.N. members to focus on improving global maternal health.

Fred Kaplan calls the vote to end production of the F-22 a “substantial step” towards scaling back the influence of defense contractors on the U.S. military budget.

David Bromwich writes that “serial war” has become an America way of life.