War, the military, COIN and stuff

99 Problems...

“It’s about the budget,” Army Aviation Task Force director Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Mundt told the audience during the “Future Developments Panel” at this week’s Army Aviation Association meeting when discussing aircraft development programs.

With two very expensive shooting wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s an obvious—and undeniable—tension in the military between funding troops in the field while still pouring money into research and development back home to ensure that new systems are developed and tested. And during the panel discussion between Maj. Gen. Virgil L. Packett, Maj. Gen. James R. Myles, Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Mundt, Col. Richard Stockhausen, DARPA’s Don Woodbury and PEO Aviation’s Paul Bogosian, this problem came up again and again. 

“How can you look at the future and the modernization of the force while you’re still trying to fight the war today?” Gen. Mundt asked, before answering his own question with, well, another question: “How can you not do that?” You’ve constantly got to be thinking about modernization.”

Read the rest at Defense Technology International's ARES blog.

Priceless?

The pricetag for the American policy of paying Iraqis to guard their own neighborhoods—from themselves—just keeps going up.

According to a recent news report, the Stryker units I kicked around with just northwest of
Baghdad back in January and February

employs more than 9,000 "Sons of Iraq," or armed militiamen, to help keep the peace, a commander said.

That translates to U.S. payments of at least $2.7 million a month.

Now for the $2.7 million a month question: With no political reconciliation on the horizon between the warring Iraqi factions, and increasing violence in the Shia areas, how long can we keep paying the tab to keep the Sunnis quiet?

Srtykers on the Ground

When I went to Iraq this past January, it wasn’t only to report on the “awakening”/Concerned Local Citizens/Sons of Iraq movement--take your pick as to what you want to call them--I also requested to be embedded with Stryker units, so I could see how the new-ish Stryker vehicles were performing in combat situations, and what the soldiers thought of them.

I hadn't seen any stories that looked at how effective the vehicles were in combat, so I figured that I'd go out there and poke around myself.

Turns out, the Joes love ‘em. I have the story (Nextbooks file!) of the Army's success in fielding the fast, highly maneuverable, and best of all, relatively comfortable, vehicles in this month’s issue of Defense Technology International magazine.

FCS takes it on the chin

Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office uncorked its sixth annual "Assessments of Selected Weapons Programs"  (PDF!) report, which rates the progress and cost of various major weapons programs, and it isn’t pretty. The GAO found that of the 72 weapons programs it put under the microscope, “none of them had proceeded through system development meeting the best practices standards for mature technologies, stable design, or mature production processes by critical junctures of the program, each of which are essential for achieving planned cost, schedule, and performance outcomes.”

Ouch. 

In total, 95 weapons systems have exceeded their budgets by a whopping $295 billion, the report found, and are scheduled to be delivered an average of 21 months late, five months longer than in 2000. This comes despite the fact that the Pentagon has doubled the amount of cash it is spending on these new systems, jumping from $790 billion in 2000 to $1.6 trillion last year. What’s more, overall procurement costs came in 26 percent above original estimates.

And what, you ask, of everyone’s favorite “system of systems,” the Future Combat System? The GAO doesn’t pull any punches.

 

Read the rest at the ARES blog.