Defense Spending Follow-up

Some years ago I brought you the curious case of a low-cost close-support aircraft that the Textron Company was developing for use by the Air Force. What make the story, and the airplane it describes, so unique was that no one in any of the Armed Services or either house of Congress had asked for such a thing. Given the enormous cost of designing and flying even the prototype for a new military aircraft, it has become increasingly uncommon for anyone to risk developing one on spec. Even more peculiar, though, was the fact that the next Textron product, now tentatively called the Scorpion, isn’t fast, sleek or pointy, and does not introduce any brand-new gee-whiz wonder technology – setting apart from everything the Department of Defense (DoD) has been interested in for the past few decades. But then, that’s kind of the point…

According to the story this week on the Business Insider website, the Air Force has finally agreed to run some tests with the Scorpion prototype and see it they can find a role for it in their upcoming doctrine. There’s no indication that they intend to give up any existing aircraft or support units, but it seems like the idea of having something in inventory that can perform some of these basic, low-prestige missions at less than a quarter of the cost per flight-hour is starting to catch on. How much of that policy shift is the direct result of the development and teething issues with the F-35 program is not mentioned in the article, and may not be clear even to General Goldfein, the Air Force Chief of Staff, who is apparently now in favor of the trials for this airplane…

The possible change in policy appears to be at least partly the responsibility of Senator John McCain, who recently released a policy statement about future defense spending. That the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee would be in favor of increased defense spending should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, but McCain’s new policy statement contains a surprising amount of support for low-intensity and non-traditional systems, such as unmanned vehicles and low-cost combat support units like the Scorpion. This is encouraging, in the sense that it isn’t more of the same warmed-over thinking we’ve been seeing from the DoD since the 1960s. The problem is that it’s an increase, not a reallocation, and that would mean spending more money we don’t have…

In his policy paper, Mr. McCain makes the point that the outgoing administration lowered discretionary spending for each of the past eight years, which greatly curtailed the amount of funding available for the Department of Defense to spend on untried weapon systems. It also left some of our more Hawkish lawmakers and their uniformed allies in the unenviable position of having to fight for funding to maintain aircraft that can’t fly in the rain, can’t fly in the dark, can’t fly above or below certain temperatures, can’t fly at all, or in extreme cases, that asphyxiate their pilots during their flights. Even granting that we need programs like the F-35, the F-22 and the Osprey, and we might, there remains the issue that the United States is only staying out of bankruptcy by borrowing money every year, some of which is coming from countries that aren’t particularly friendly…

Regular readers of this space (assuming there are any) will recall that I have been in favor of increased defense spending in the past, provided that the new acquisitions offer greater value for the money than existing systems. This is why, for example, I have objected to aspects of the F-35 program, and the development of supersonic aircraft into ground-attack platforms while trying to get rid of the highly-effective A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane. In this particular case, I do believe in the Scorpion program, for its capabilities as much as for its lower operating costs. I’m also in favor of the program in job-creation terms, assuming that Textron is willing to keep most of the airplane’s production units in the U.S. But in a time when this country’s infrastructure, healthcare, education, and human services needs are all dramatically underfunded, I’m not convinced that maintaining all of our current pork-barrel spending while purchasing cost-efficient new systems is the right answer…