Is this Thoughtful Leadership? — The US Air Force Position on A-10s and F-35s

© 2015 Peter Free

 

20 April 2015

 

 

Sometimes, we indict ourselves with displays of cluelessness

 

When we unreflectively keep pedaling these avenues of arguable moron-i-tude, others correctly question our ability to lead.

 

For example, the United States Air Force has been trying to dump the A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) for some time. Evidently, the savings would help offset overruns on its costly and error-filled pursuit of the still essentially inoperable F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

 

 

Critics of Air Force logic pointed out that . . .

 

The still mythical F-35 is too fast and flies too high to be an as effective as the tank and infantry killing-machine Thunderbolt is.

 

And the Air Force Establishment’s point about preserving only dual purpose aircraft is (the critics say) beside the point, given the close air support nature of combat in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

 

Indeed, the Establishment’s passion for axing the A-10 appears to have gone over the top. Major General James Prost (then second in Air Combat Command) had to be chastised for allegedly intimating to A-10-supporting subordinates that their efforts to retain it constituted arguable treason.

 

The General’s enthusiasm probably got the best him. We all speak too passionately sometimes.

 

 

While all this was going on, Reality was puncturing the Air Force Establishment’s case with rather large holes

 

The Obama Administration sent A-10s back to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, supposedly to counter Russian Federation President Putin’s aggressiveness in Ukraine.

 

Would the Commander in Chief send a uselessly obsolete weapon back to a potential battle theater in a show of force?

 

Probably not.

 

Even more laughably (this month), the lusted after F-35 took another hit on its unoperational nose. The Department of Defense’s Director of Operational Test and Evalution released a report documenting the F-35’s current uselessness.

 

In plainer language than the DoD used, the Government Accountability Office had this to say:

 

 

GAO’s ongoing work on the F-35—Joint Strike Fighter—program shows that the program has continued to experience development and testing discoveries over the past year, largely due to a structural failure on the F-35B durability test aircraft, an engine failure, and more test point growth due to software challenges than expected.

 

In addition, the F-35 engine reliability is not improving as expected and will take additional time and resources to achieve reliability goals. With flight testing of more complex software and advanced capabilities still ahead, additional technical discoveries during testing and subsequent design changes are likely.

 

Increasing production while concurrently developing and testing creates risk and could result in additional cost growth and schedule delays.

 

The aircraft contractor delivered 36 aircraft as planned in 2014; however, none of these were delivered with warfighting capabilities.

To execute its current procurement plan, the F-35 program will need to request and obtain, on average, $12.4 billion annually in acquisition funds for more than two decades.

 

It is unlikely DOD will be able to sustain such a high level of annual funding and if required funding levels are not reached, the program’s procurement plan may not be affordable.

 

© 2015 Government Accountability Office, GAO-15-429T — F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Observations on Program Progress, GAO.gov (14 April 2015) (extracts) (PDF here)

 

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) — a citizen group that objects to egregiously unsupportable excesses of military spending and wastage — pointed out that the GAO’s figures do not include the anticipated $30 billion annual cost of operating the plane.

 

 

That’s not all

 

According to the GAO, even Lockheed Martin has implied doubts about its ability to reliably manufacture the aircraft:

 

 

Lockheed Martin reports that less than 40 percent of its critical manufacturing processes are considered in statistical control which means that for those processes it can consistently produce parts within quality tolerances and standards.

 

Statistical control is a measure of manufacturing maturity. The best practice standard is to have 100 percent of the critical manufacturing processes in control by the start of low-rate initial production, which began in 2011 for the F-35 program.

 

According to Lockheed Martin officials, only 54 percent of its F-35 critical manufacturing processes will provide enough data to measure statistical control. As a result, they do not expect to achieve 100 percent.

 

© 2015 Government Accountability Office,  F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Assessment Needed to Address Affordability Challenges, GAO.gov (April 2015) (at page 20) (paragraph split)

 

 

In sum

 

On the one hand, we have the Air Force trying to get rid of a proven weapon that its own Commander in Chief thought reliable and intimidating enough to counter Russian pushback against previous NATO encirclement.

 

On the other, we have the Air Force trying to push an F-35 platform that will never do the A-10’s job and, at present, cannot even do any air combat job with reasonable reliability.

 

 

Military strategy is about dealing with current and intelligently foreseeable future Reality — not about idle wish-fulfillment

 

I can understand Air Force leadership’s legitimate concern with staying technologically ahead of conceivable foes. But that is not the sole issue.

 

Strategically, one needs to deal with battles currently in progress and likely to remain so. Lose those, and there will perhaps not be a future to be concerned about.

 

This, incidentally, is why the Soviet Union continued to produce its arguably less than perfect T-34 tanks during the Battle of Stalingrad, rather than copying the Third Reich in its attempt to produce the world’s “best” and deadlier Tiger I and II tanks. The Soviets turned out the T-34s in huge quantities and replaced those that were blown up on the battle field. The Nazis produced a few Tigers and could not fix (much less replace) them, when they broke.

 

Guess who won that world-changing confrontation? The crappier weapon.

 

 

Then there is the Air Force’s responsibility to provide effective “close air” support to Army and Marine infantry

 

It irritates me when senior airmen and women froth incessantly over new toys at the expense of those that effectively and unglamorously carry out close air support.

 

Wars are ultimately won on the ground. Air and naval forces make this eventually possible, but they do not own or complete the process. Without infantry, nobody wins the intended benefit of most wars.

 

 

Consider these still operating facts

 

The last decades of American imperialism have all involved trying to defeat poorly equipped opponents on the ground.

 

So what does the Air Force now apparently want to do? Center its mission on (a) building an aircraft that, so far, has been both a very expensive dream — and (b) is designed to engage exactly which foe?

 

 

The moral? — Effective leadership requires rationally balanced perspective on competing priorities

 

Instead, we seem to be consistently inept at tackling most aspects of intelligent strategy development.

 

This mess is a good example of what Professor Michael Glennon addressed in his book, National Security and Double Government (2015). The idea there being that Establishment bureaucracy is so entrenched — and so necessary to personal advancement — that no one has the ability or courage to stand up and put a stop to nonsensical programs and endeavors.