Spend some time talking with the Pentagon's new acquisition chief, Ashton Carter, and it quickly becomes clear he is focusing on which weapons the U.S. military should buy and which ones it should not. Asked whether he and other top DoD brass will punish or end programs that are not meeting cost, schedule and performance metrics, Carter replied, "We absolutely have to."
But one also quickly sees the physicist and former Harvard professor is giving equal attention to technology and logistics. "I'm a sucker for logistics," he said. Carter said his top goal is doing whatever he can to support American troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also made clear he wants to work closely with industry. "I am not a believer that the defense industry is the enemy. They are our partners," Carter said. "We can't arm and defend the country without private industry."
A. For one thing, there isn't one thing wrong with the acquisition system. Sometimes we change the requirements as the program goes along. Other times, as with the presidential helicopter, we refuse to change the requirements when they cannot be executed. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said there is no silver bullet for acquisition reform, and that's really true.
That said, we need to change the way we do things both at the beginning of a life of a program, as it progresses and then at the end of a program's life. Most acquisition reform efforts look at the first part. The most recent acquisition reform legislation did so, and very constructively, but there are these other two pieces, as well.
Former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre told me recently, "Don't pay excessive attention to changing processes and boxes; focus on the content of the program, the objective of the program, the health of the program, the technology underlying the program."
My approach to troubled programs is to go at them one-by-one, solve the underlying problems, get them on track. And if they cannot be gotten on track, face the music. If a program is not performing, we need the discipline to end it.
A. The variable we pay the least attention to is time. And time is money. The default way of dealing with a program that is costing too much is to buy it more slowly. The default way of dealing with a program that is not meeting its requirements is to keep working on it until it does. So a five-year program stretches 10 years, and a 10-year program stretches to 15. That costs money. Those stretches don't cost more money per year, and no one feels a cost increase over 15 years. We need more programs with a philosophy of meeting a strict schedule.
A. Secretary Gates has said on many occasions that he has been frustrated that the troops are at war and the building is not, especially AT&L. When he hired me, he made absolutely clear he wanted that to change. It's something he feels personally responsible for.
That means in the current circumstance, providing rapid and responsive acquisition support to the emerging needs of Iraq and Afghanistan, be they armored vehicles, ISR, protection of forward operating bases, protection of rotorcraft, improvement in how we treat the wounded - including injuries that are mental and physical. Those are things we cannot start 10- and 15-year programs of record on. We need to start them soon.
Another aspect is contingency contracting. We're getting a lot better at that. We're working hard to make sure we do a lot better in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq, while still meeting urgent timetables.
A. It's not going to be easy. It's something we're going to have to work very hard to achieve. You don't just go out and hire anybody into these jobs. I am determined we be very careful not to trade out one worker in the acquisition cadre for one person who's not much more skilled. Our focus is on quality much more than quantity. And there should be no confusion that in-sourcing means reducing our reliance on FFRDCs [Federal Funded Research and Development Centers]; we're going to be increasing our reliance on them.
A. I feel industrial base issues are completely legitimate because having the best defense industrial and technology base in the world is not a birthright. It's something we have to earn again and again, and that's particularly true in a globalizing and commercializing world. Where I have difficulty is getting good analysis of what to do to discharge the government's responsibility to make sure it has a good industrial and technology base going forward.
A. It's not about jobs, it's about very rare kinds of skills that are not easily replicated in the commercial world and if allowed to erode would be difficult to rebuild. In the cases of the cancellation of the next-generation bomber and TSAT, I intend to look at the implications of our program moves for these specialized skill sets.
A. We would like to avoid that wherever we can. In some cases, that may not always be possible, in which case you must try to harness competitive juices in other ways. But that option is always a last resort.
A. We need some real growth in the top line in order to carry out our program for the simple reason that within the budget there are portions that grow inexorably and are outside our control: inflation, fuel costs, health care, etc. It's also quite clear that we're not going to enjoy the kind of growth in the defense budget that we enjoyed in the years after Sept. 11, 2001. If you're used to rapid, there's going to be some substantial adjustment. But we're going to need to be more disciplined.
As I review programs, I see some that have been allowed to grow in cost in a way that would not have been allowed in normal times. Those programs would have been disciplined or ended. We are prepared to do just that.
A. Let me make clear, on the [U.S. Air Force] tanker, we are going to go right down the middle. As the secretary has said: free, fair and transparent. International cooperation and security affairs are things President [Barack] Obama cares about very much.
He's made it quite clear that he wants to change the tone and turn the page in security affairs with much of the world. I think that will be reflected in everything he does. As a department, we are always open to the best value we can get for the war fighter and the taxpayer. We have to take that point of view in a globalized, commercialized world.
A. On the IED threat, we are buying and fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected-All Terrain vehicles for Afghanistan just as fast as we can.
Another is protection of our forward operating bases and route clearance; we are looking for good technical solutions. They not only save lives, they are essential to mission success. The protection of aircraft and rotorcraft from small arms fires and other non-high end threats is another area where we need some good ideas. Another is finding better ways to care for our wounded, including the mentally and emotionally wounded.
Others are ISR capabilities that take advantage of the information age for data collection, data fusion, exploitation of new media, and rapid response tracking of individuals. There's no shortage of things on which I'm asking our R&D and acquisition folks to focus.
A. We have to withdraw from Iraq on a timetable the president has set. And we must do it in an environment where an enemy is very active. The even bigger challenge is to get into Afghanistan on the president's schedule, and with an urgent need to be effective as we can. The long pole in that tent is logistics.
The biggest challenge is figuring out where all that materiel goes. Does it go back to the United States to reset the Army or the Guard or the Reserves? Does it swing to Afghanistan? Does it stay in Kuwait for future contingencies? Is it added to pre-positioned stocks around the world? Is it shared with security partners, like the Iraqi security forces? If you're going to move everything, you have to know where you're moving it to. ■
By John T. Bennett and Vago Muradian in Washington.
■ Acquisition Workforce: 129,500
■ Budget Oversight: $250 billion
■ Missions: Oversees and manages acquisition programs; research and development (R&D); systems engineering; developmental test and evaluation; logistics; installation management; military construction; environment; energy; and nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs.
Source: USD (ATL)
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