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United States Department of Defense
News Transcript
Presenter: Senior Defense Official Friday, May 10, 2002 - 2:42 p.m. EDT
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Background Briefing on the Defense Planning Guidance
(Background briefing on the Defense Planning Guidance. Slides shown during this briefing are located at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2002/g020510-D-6570C.html.)
Staff: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your patience.
Just a reminder, as I have done on many times in the past, this is a background briefing. By that, what we mean is it's on the record; you can quote directly the words that are said; the transcript will be posted. The attribution is a senior defense official. For your information only, for those of you who don't know him, this is the senior defense official who will be briefing you today. No cameras or recording, please. You may use, you know, your personal recorders for note-taking purposes, but no recording for broadcast.
And with that, we'll begin.
Senior Defense Official: Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? And why are you here and not outside? (laughter)
Q: You can do it outside if you want to. It's --
Senior Defense Official: Oh, man. Yeah, really, it's a nice day.
I thought that what I'd do to start is just set the scene and then take whatever questions you have about this, with just one caveat. I am not going to talk about any of the details of what's in here. Okay? I mean, I can't do that. I mean, I can't tell you x, y and z. Now, you guys have probably been through this and have more information from people, and I'm happy to field the questions, okay? But let's just -- so don't be angry with me if I'm not going to confirm or deny. I'll talk in broad terms about where we're headed, what we're trying to do, why we're trying to do the things we're trying to do, and I'll answer the questions as best I can. But the document is an internal planning document, all right?
And as far as I know, this kind of thing, we did a bit of it last time, but this is the first time we've sort of done a full background for people on what we're trying to do in the context of internal planning. So if that's -- I mean, I know that's a little difficult, but I'll do my best to give you what I can. All right? So why don't we turn the first slide here.
Reminder. Last year, September, we talked about the QDR. We laid out a strategy. We talked about assuring allies of our commitment and ability to fulfill our commitments in the face of changing threats. Remember the threats. We talked about asymmetries, we talked about the speed of warfare, we talked about the changing places in which we might see conflict. We talked about dissuading. And by that, we meant both by virtue of the way we deploy our forces, the manner in which we use them, and also the way in which we develop, test and experiment with them, as a way of trying to dissuade potential adversaries from undertaking either technical programs that we would think to be threatening to ourselves or to our friends and allies, or to pursue courses of action that would be inimical to our interests or to those of our friends and allies.
We talked about the ability to continue to deter in a world that was full of surprise. And if you recall, the QDR talked an awful lot about the possibilities of surprise and how do you do that. And then, of course, in the end, we had to have the capability within the force to defend and if necessary to defeat an adversary. And in order to be able to do these four things in the future, it was our view that we needed to transform the force, given the way in which the environment was changing and the technical nature of the threat that we were facing was changing, as well. We then put together a planning construct that you have heard the secretary talk about before.
If somebody will give me the next slide -- I don't have a button, do I?
And what we talked about was something along these lines. And the idea was that we had to have the capacity in those four boxes in the middle you see to deter forward. That's the forward-presence mission: the ability to assure and dissuade and deter while we're forward and then on the two on the outside of that top line, these lesser contingencies -- smaller-scale contingencies is what they used to be called. But clearly, we would be involved in those kinds of operations.
But what we wanted to do was to create a force over time that would be capable of rapidly transitioning from that forward-deterrent posture and with support from the United States, be able to transition rapidly into a -- an effects-based campaign that would be designed to swiftly defeat an adversary in overlapping conflicts and to conserve or reserve for the president, then, the ability to win decisively, if that's what he decided was necessary in any given conflict. And by that, we meant the necessity for either occupation or regime change as a consequence of the conflict. And we needed to be able to do all that even while we looked after defense here at homes. So that was sort of the construct that we laid down for ourselves.
And then the question was, what did you need in the way of capability, then, in order to be able to meet those goals we talked about and then somehow put this planning construct into practical application?
So on the next slide, then, the six operational goals that we laid down a year ago and were the heart of effort in '03 in the Defense Planning Guidance, were to protect critical bases of operation. And I think I was here to talk with you about that some time ago. That's not only the United States, but those operating bases abroad or those places where American and allied forces are operating from abroad. And that was against not just missile threats, which is the way it's most commonly thought about, but there's also the passive defense operations that are needed, as well.
"Project and sustain the forces in the anti-access, anti-denial" -- that's an indication of the concern about there being not just missile defenses, but mines, new forms of torpedoes, underwater vessels -- I mean, all kinds of technologies that potential adversaries could bring to bear.
"Denying sanctuary" -- that was the idea that there was no place for an adversary to be able to go to, to protect himself if, in fact, we needed to respond to an attack of some kind. But also, the notion there was about surveillance, and that's where the notions about persistent surveillance, the use of Global Hawk, the ability assure ourselves that, in an area combat operations, we would be able to assure that an enemy was not able to move and to act without our being able to see and to respond quickly.
And then you needed to be able to assure your information systems. Clearly, that's a problem. We all know of the cyberwar kind of thing that goes on constantly, and we need to be able to be assured that our information systems work properly and that, in connection with that, the space capabilities that we have are safeguarded, as well.
And on that score, let me remind you that when one talks about space, we often talk about the satellites. And that's always a very interesting thing to talk about. But indeed, a good deal of the survivability and the enhancements have to do with the length between the satellite and the ground, the ground and the satellite -- the ground station, where all the information is processed, and then the net that connects that ground station to all the people that use it. So it's all of those segments, when you talk about enhancing space capability that one has to worry about.
And then lastly, it's leveraging the information. And you've heard an awful lot about that in the context of the Afghanistan war, and I don't think we need to talk about that very much more.
But those were six areas -- six operation goals that we talked about. And our view was and remains that if we could develop the capability that would commit those kinds of operational capabilities to be introduced into the force and used at the joint level of operations, not at the Army, Navy and Air Force, Marine level but at the joint level of operations, then we would succeed in developing a force that could meet the threats that we anticipate in the future.
And so that then led to the following schematic, on the next slide. And on the left-hand side of the chart is sort of where we've been over the last 10 or 15 years. What you see on the right is sort of how we want to think about what we're doing here. We've gone from a traditionally threat-based approach -- order of battle, where they lined up, how fast are they going to advance -- to thinking about the kinds of capabilities we want to bring to bear in order to be able to conduct the kind of campaign I talked about a few minutes ago.
The 421 is merely a shorthand for that schematic I showed you a while ago -- the four forward deterrent areas, be able to conduct two campaigns where we're looking to swiftly defeat an adversary and conduct those campaigns in overlapping time frames, and then to have the option, if necessary, to conduct a much more decisive campaign against an adversary, in which we talked about the regime change and occupation.
The focus security cooperation is designed to see if we can't assist allies and friends to enhance their own capabilities and even over time transform them in line with the kinds of capabilities we think are necessary for the war -- for warfare in the future.
And the last point may be the most critical of all, and the traditional form of warfare, in terms of mass and materiel sort of being built up, and you bring it forward, and over time what you end up with is a superiority that an adversary simply cannot overcome, whereas on the right-hand side, that is one way to describe the kind of campaign we conducted in Afghanistan, where you look for -- you realize that your adversary is himself a networked operation. You look for ways to break down that network and to ensure that it can't function. And if you do it properly and if you do it well, you can gain a level of battlefield and battle space superiority over your adversary that is unrivaled.
Well, that's all great as a way of theory, and so then how do you get from those theoretical things to reality?
In this building, as you all know, the way you get there is guidance and budgets. And the guidance goes to the budgets, the budgets are what buys the capability.
And so, on the next chart, direction. Starting with the QDR, going through the DPG in '03 -- I didn't mention the other planning documents here -- for example, the other posture reviews that we've done.
What did we ask for? We asked for the components, and that is to say both the services and the defense agencies, beginning in '03, to take the initial steps in transformation. And if you go and look at the budget, you'll see that there's quite a bit of money that has been put against command, control and communications, which is the C3ISR platforms -- Global Hawk, Predator, things of that sort -- and space, and among those three -- that is, the C3ISR and space -- the net that it takes to put all that together. (name of briefer deleted) will tell you in huge gigabit numbers -- and I can't remember what they are -- that we are laying down the fiber and all of the switches and so forth that are necessary to take vast amounts of information, move it very quickly to the users, so the user in turn then is able to reach into the system, into the databases, and draw the information that he needs for his operations, rather than the way it works today, which is the user usually gets what the supplier has. So the supplier thinks that something is important, and they send it. Well, what we'd really like to do is get to a situation where the user knows what's in the database. He can reach in, pull it out and get it to the people who need it as quickly as possible.
In '04, what we're trying to do is to continue that, because again, realize that guidance goes year for year for a budget, and then it goes out over a period of time, five years. So the one we're doing now is guidance for '04 to '09. Last year's was '03 to '07, okay? So you get sort of time slices where you're giving the programming guidance, but the actual guidance is for a given budget year. Okay, so in the year '03, I want you to do this, and then for the program year, carry it out in this fashion. Well, we've now moved to another budget year, '04, and we've extended by two years the time over which programming needs to be done. So now we're programming out as far as 2009. All right?
Now, what that means is that the services then, and the other components, look at what they anticipate their budgets will be and now try, based on what they have done in '03 and '04, to begin laying down their program plan for those out years. And so as you look at their budgets, you can today look at where they will be in '09, all else being equal. So they lay that down and they try to manage their way toward the objectives.
Now what do we do in '04 then? Well, having made the investments in '03, thinking out to '07; realizing that we are now programming out as far as '09, secondly; thirdly, coming to the conclusion that I think as both Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz have said, looking into those out years and realizing that many of the things that are begun -- that are begun in '03 will begin to mature not in '09 but in '10 and '11 and '12, all right, you ask yourself, given what you already are spending money on, do you want to continue to spend on those capabilities? So there are programs that we have underway that stretch back into the 1980s. Their origins are back in the '80s. They will come to fruition sometime at about the turn of this decade. The capability that we're bringing online relative to those operational goals will mature roughly in the five years after that. And so you ask yourself, does it all match? Do I have the right match of capabilities coming online in the '10 to '15 timeframe that will match and provide the operational-goal capability that I described earlier. That make sense?
So those are the questions we asked ourselves. How well are they going to contribute to a swiftly defeat (sic), all right? If you want to move quickly, you want to fight in a network faction -- fashion, you don't want to be tied to a heavy logistics tail. You want a real reach-back capability. You need to be able to see and move and strike very quickly.
How do the systems that we have in hand or that we plan to develop fit? Does it capitalize and make -- contribute to the goals that I talked about before? What about by the time you get to 2015? If you buy everything that's in the stack today and project out over time, what does that do to any reasonable estimation of what the budget will be in 2010, 2011, 2012? And if you've used it all up to buy the things that you started buying in 1990, for example, is that a wise investment? If you think by 2010 you're going to want to buy more Global Hawks, how do you balance those two things out?
What about risks in this decade, however? If you cancel something -- if you say, "I'm not going to do X any longer," do you create in the nearer term a risk which is better avoided, and therefore, you forego opportunity in 2012 or 2015 because you've decided to buy X today?
Other consideration: The industrial base is not a small consideration. It's something one has to think about. Cost differentials between different ways of doing things -- I mean, there's a large number of those kinds of other considerations one thinks about.
And then lastly, why there's some things that you'd want to accelerate in time, for some reason, because you think that they're a good idea, and you want to bring them on sooner, rather than later.
So those were the sorts of questions we started asking ourselves.
And then, as a consequence, we've laid down -- if you'd give me the next slide -- about four sets of reviews and said to ourselves, "Gee, let's think about how we do our business, and between now and, roughly, the 1st of September" -- because it's in the September- October-November time frame that we will begin to complete the budget, because the services began their bill for their budget and their program sometime late last year -- so they are in the process of working that now.
They will complete it over the course of the summer. And by the time we get into September, what we'll do is sit down and say, "All right, let's look at the budget you've laid down in your program plan" and ask ourselves, with respect, for example, to the way we fight jointly. We'd like to see more joint headquarters. We'd like to see more emphasis on joint operations, and therefore service and agency spending in a way that supports those joint operations and the development of the capabilities and training that goes along with it.
Now that sounds like a small thing, but you say: Gee, training. How much time do we spend at the service level training, as opposed to the joint level of training? And the answer today is very little on joint training, relatively speaking, and a very great deal in service training. Well, what's the proper balance? And it's time we started to think about that, and it's reflected in budgets. All right? And so you got to go look to see where that money goes.
Force availability sounds like a dry point, but let me see if I can explain to you what the issue here is. If you're going to have forward forces, the forces that are afloat in the Pacific or the forces that are in Europe, or the forces that we might have deployed in the CENTCOM region, for example, "How capable do they need to be in their own right to be able to conduct operations without any outside support" -- is the first question you ask yourself?
Well, you set some thresholds, and then you say: How much more support do they need? And then you say: Well, they need this much -- two units' worth, whatever that is.
You say: Well, then how fast do I have to get it there? Then you say if it's two units, and I have to get it there in four time sets, then you say: All right, but if it's two units, does it all have to be active forces, or is a mix of active and Reserve forces? And if it's a combination of active and Reserve forces, do I have to mobilize those Reserve forces? If I do, how much time is it going to take? And if it takes longer to activate the Reserve, maybe I should move them into the active force.
So what we're talking about here over time is adjusting the mix between actives and reserves, the mix in both, and assuring that over time what we have is the proper balance, so that both halves of the total force are designed for the kinds of warfare we anticipate we're going to see and the capabilities that I described earlier are distributed through the active and Reserve components in the proper mix and balance.
This is a very big thing. (chuckles) It is not going to be something that is going to be decided this year, and probably not next year. But it's something we're going to work on over the course of the next few years in trying to get that balance right.
Third section there -- we've talked an awful lot about command and control, communications, computers, information, surveillance, reconnaissance. We have put in what we think is the proper infrastructure or superstructure for that.
Now what we have to do is take all of the things that we have talked about thus far, and we have to marry them with what the Air Force and Navy talk about with their multi-mission aircraft. All right? This is the kind of thing that is run by the CINCs, for their purposes, but how does it net with the larger capability that we will have both in space and at the national level? How do we net those together and do it with the proper balance to make sure that all that information is moved around in a way that is efficient and quick?
If we do it right, what I talked about earlier in terms of persistence of surveillance and the ability to deny sanctuary is much more likely to be the case. If we don't do it right, what we're going to have are a lot of discrete units that fly around, collect information, but we don't merge it properly. So that's what that study's about. And it -- the implications in terms of cost -- dollars is quite high.
The last is, there are a handful of acquisition reviews that we need to look at. And again, it goes back to what I said earlier. These programs, in many cases, were started some years ago. The way we think about warfare, the way we fight, and the C4ISR conditions under which they are going to operate, are going to be very different in 2010 and 2015 than those who first thought of these programs could ever have imagined. So you've got to ask yourself a pretty straightforward question; how do they fit? And if they fit, great; if they don't, can they be modified? And so you go through that drill. So we will do that over the course of the summer and, again, look to have it done by the September time frame.
Next one. I think the secretary made reference, then, to the way we want to think about this. There's at least four categories of these things. One is to say, gee, I think we ought to do x, and specific instructions given and let's go do it that way. Second category is, well, we think x is a good idea, but there are probably other ways to do the same task. Why don't you, the service or agency, come back and tell us what are the ways you think it would be appropriate to do the task.
The third category is very much the same as the second, but rather than saying we think there is a specific choice that's a good one, we're not sure, so why don't you give a set to us and come back and tell us how we ought to think about it. And the last category is really what might be called, properly, a scoping exercise. We have a problem, we don't know how to address it; can you come back and give us some good ideas about how we might address it, and we'll see if want to develop programs over time.
So that's sort of the process. And then lastly what will happen -- on the last slide, please -- when we get to September and then go through the process of the program reviews and the budget reviews -- that is, looking at the five- to six-year program in the FY '04 budget -- the senior management of the department will look at it in the context of these four risk areas.
Force management has to do with the tempo of personnel, the operational tempo at which they operate. Going back to my construct from before, if you have forces forward and you think you want a lot of your force to be forward, how are you going to manage their time? You can't have people away from home 18 months out of every 24. You can't do that. So there's clearly got to be some balance in your strategy between the forces that you have forward and the forces that you have at home and bring forward once a conflict starts. And what's the proper balance?
Operational risk, we've already touched on that. There is going to be conflict. There are going to be crises. Have we put in place the proper capabilities in the near term to meet those risks, to assure that we have not given adversaries an opportunity which they otherwise would not have? But that needs to be balanced over against the future. And again, we touched on that, as well. If the future is going to be more risky and dangerous, have we made the proper investments?
And then lastly, have we institutionally changed the way we do our business, to assure that, in fact, if we want to acquire a new system, it's not going to take us endless years to get it and we can assure that when we talk about how much it's going to cost, we have a better sense of, indeed, how to budget for it since resources are always scarce and we'd be better off budgeting properly from the start?
That's the context. That's what we're dealing with.
Q: Could you go back to your next-to-the-last slide?
Senior Defense Official: Sure, if somebody can do it.
This one?
Q: Yeah. Presumably, Crusader fits in category A. Could you give us examples of things that go in the other three categories, just to illuminate that a bit?
Senior Defense Official: In terms of the last category, let me see -- things that we wanted to look at. We have asked -- let me see -- on the second category -- let's start from there and work my way down. The second category -- we have had an interest in seeing standing joint task forces created and standing joint task force headquarters, the idea being that in the future, the fight is going to be a joint fight, and it would be good, at the very least, if there were a headquarters that was always available in each of the combatant commands that could undertake operations with a joint force from the very beginning, rather than bringing all the elements together once a crisis or a conflict begins.
There are good reasons for wanting to do that. There are also some very good reasons for retaining the current approach. And so what we have asked is that there -- that the Joint Staff -- the chairman -- come back with a set of options, to include standing joint task force headquarters and standing joint task force, for that purpose. Now there may be other options, and we want to see those, as well, but we surely want to see that.
In terms of the second, C -- there are some things on precision munitions, I think. Let me check my list here. Category C. Yeah. Precision munitions. If you think about something like long-range strike capabilities, you want to be able to strike at all ranges, all weather, through a variety of media. Is there any one way to do that? No. Are there combinations of capabilities that you would like to bring to the fight in order to be able to do that? The answer is yes. Let's bring them forward, let's get them on the table, and the Navy, the Air Force and the Army all have something to say about that. So let's get them out and look at them. All right?
And the last category is an interesting one: lessons learned from Afghanistan. There is a long list of them that has been developed. And the question is, how many of them are peculiar or particular to that conflict, and how many of them are enduring? I mean, are there some lessons here that we need to incorporate into our general way of doing business, and if so, how do we go about doing that?
Q: So would say, the F-22 fit into Category B?
Senior Defense Official: It could be in a B or it could be a C. All right? Because as a C, it's air superiority, so how many ways are there to do it? It could be a B, which is to say, "Here are some options, and I want you to look at one in particular" --
Q: Well, is one of the options to look at 180 F-22s? Does that remain in the final draft, in the final version?
Senior Defense Official: As I say, there are options in there to go look at that, the F-22, in a variety of ways, and there are a variety of ways to look at it.
Q: Boy, you've got me --
Q: It's not classified. Yes or no? Can you -- did that figure survive the final cut?
Senior Defense Official: There are requests to the Air Force to look at specific options for the F-22.
Q: Now along these lines, one of the things that has come out was the need to look at an option for replacing the EA-6B. They did the AOA. The study came out. Now people are saying, "Well, it's a good study but didn't go far enough" and that sort of thing. How does that go from this point, along the lines of what you're talking about? What do we do now?
Senior Defense Official: The EA-6B is an interesting example of how warfare is changing right in front of us. For those of you -- I mean, it is the aircraft that accompanies strike aircraft to a target. It does electronic warfare mission. It's an escort, essentially.
One of the questions is, do you still need to have a penetrating jammer, essentially, or can you do it differently? So when you start to think about that, one of the questions you want to ask yourself is, well, what are the airplanes going to be doing -- back to the long-range strike thing -- how are we going to do long- range strike? Because the premise of the EA-6B is that it's going to go in with an airplane, but if you're not going to go do it in all cases or in -- do you want to have -- what do you want in the way, then, of escort? So if you're going to do it with unmanned aircraft or you're going to do it off of drones or you're going to do it with missiles or -- there are a variety of ways to do this. So let's get the strike options on the table and then ask yourself how do you want to do something like a penetrating EW aircraft. Because you can do it from standoff or you can do it not at all. So, how do we want to handle that? Seems to be a fair question, since it is an important decision to be made and the EA-6B needs support because it's old.
Q: Where does money come into this? I mean, where --
Senior Defense Official: Where does money come in?
Q: Just lack -- I mean, limited resources.
Senior Defense Official: Exactly. And so when we talked about the trades, the risk factors, you've got to ask yourself, for a given amount of money that you expect to have, how do you want to -- how do you want to distribute those dollars? And so those dollars end up being the answer to the question "Do I wish to take more risk in the future over against the present, over against the force management issues?" I mean, how do I want to a distribute that? Do I want to make sure that the housing and the facilities are at the level they should be terms of their quality, over against meeting the need for assuring that I have enough training time and I have enough fuel, flying hours and things and things like that; over against the choice between buying one set of equipment that is perfectly adequate for the next 10 years or more, over against investing in things that won't come on line for another 10 years? And that's where you make that balance.
Q: A general point. You make reference in one of your goals of focus security cooperation -- (inaudible) -- with allies. Is it any part of your thinking in terms of looking at how transformation would move forward, how that would interact with your allies? Is there any thinking that the actual technological gap is almost bound to increase? Does that figure in the document? Do you relate to that in any way? Is there any concern about how you would operate with allies, or any assumptions that you would be more likely to have coalition actions in the future or less likely to have them?
Senior Defense Official: Well, there's a bunch of things wrapped up there. There is a recognition that there are likely to be coalition operations in the future, and therefore, there has to be some care and attention given to the way in which we are going to interact with our allies. Mr. Aldridge has, as you know, been pursuing agreements with allies on various of these programs. I mean, JSF is an obvious example. We have opened up some -- I'm forgetting what they're called now -- agreements for negotiations. I want to call them "GOPs," but that's not right.
Q: Memorandums of agreement?
Senior Defense Official: Yeah, but they've got a particular name. But it is designed to permit a -- faster track negotiations with allies on these things.
And there's also some recognition of the need for the potential for common systems, particularly in the NATO context. All right? So there is, indeed, guidance on all three of those points.
Q: You mentioned the Navy and Air Force multi-mission aircraft. What is your assessment of what kind of cross talk, if any, is occurring between the two services? And also, how can you guarantee that those separate aircraft programs will facilitate the kind of interoperability you're looking for? Is there an overarching standard that they're being asked to adhere to?
Senior Defense Official: Well, there are two things going on. The Army -- the -- well, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force -- but the Air Force and the Navy particularly are very close in talking about these programs. I mean, they have spent a lot of time talking to one another. They, I think, have a better and better appreciation for how each service operates and then what the joint mission area's are going to be.
So what will happen is, as we go through this, there are a number of ways that you can think about programs that we'll share. One is the airframe. You know, do we need more than one airframe? The other is, what about the avionics on board the aircraft? I mean, can we have one set of avionics that they can all use? You walk your way down, and then you get to what are called the mission suites -- I mean, what do you need on board? Well, you know, a P-3 and a JSTARS and a Rivet Joint do different things, so you're not going to expect that all airplanes will do all missions, but rather, whether there is a group of airplanes flown by both the Army and the Air Force that can be interchangeable for surveillance missions, as opposed to electronic missions -- okay? So I mean, that's, I think, the way that they're trying to think about this.
Q: Is there a formal vehicle or a formal forum?
Senior Defense Official: I don't -- between them, I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them. But where this will go is, they will come back at the end of the summer and say, "This is how we're going to approach providing that capability." And they'll have it in the context of the aircraft. They'll have it in the context of that C4ISR study that I talked about. So there will be a couple of different ways that we will address that issue, and then when we get into the budget and program review, folks will sort all that out.
Q: (off mike) -- separately or together, in one briefing?
Senior Defense Official: I don't know that yet. My guess is, on that one, it'll probably come together. But I don't know -- I mean, that's -- the process by which we're going to go through this we're now working out with the deputy and the services. So that'll all get worked out over in the next week.
Q: If I can just follow on that for a second, with both MMAs, is there talk about maybe in the future buying fewer of them for both services and instead perhaps buying more UAVs to do the same job? Is that discussion -(inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: There you go. There's another set of choices, yeah. So, I mean, that's the kind of way to --
Q: Is that part of the discussion --
Senior Defense Official: That'll be of it as you go trading around and asking yourself: What's the mission? What's the joint level of capabilities that it would require? And cost, timeliness, you know, technological risk, schedule -- I mean, those things will start to play --
Q: And is there an expectation you will buy fewer MMAs, or is that still uncertain?
Senior Defense Official: Tell you what. I mean, I don't even know how many MMAs they're thinking about buying. I mean, they're sort of in the first stages of trying to think their way through this problem, which is why I have a great deal of confidence that between the chiefs of staff and the two service secretaries, they're going to have this thing pulled together by the end of the summer.
Yeah?
Q: Are there any other programs like the Crusader where the going-in assumption is that the program will be terminated?
Senior Defense Official: Now that's the level of detail I said I wouldn't get into.
Q: He didn't ask you which ones.
Senior Defense Official: (chuckles)
Q: Yeah, he didn't ask --
Senior Defense Official: But I'll give you another one.
Q: I mean, presumably if you have a category there, I mean, is it safe to assume that there --
Senior Defense Official: Well, but the Crusader is part of a DPG, so it's --
Q: (off mike)
Senior Defense Official: Yeah.
Q: One of the issues they're looking at is the logistics tail. How do you define light logistics tail or heavy? And are you giving any metrics for that?
Senior Defense Official: There are -- at least one -- (to staff) -- and are there two? We're going to do two on logistics?
Staff: Two studies?
Senior Defense Official: Yeah.
Staff: (off mike) -- at least two.
Senior Defense Official: Yeah, there are at least two that are trying to get there. Actually, there's a third. One is sort of how do you do it internally -- I mean, just sort of how do you organize yourself? The other is, how do you create the pipeline to move the stuff around?
The third will get to the question of how much do you have to move, how quickly, and one of our hopes and expectations is that as you move to different technologies, the amount of materiel that you need to have the same effect on your adversaries would go down. And, you know, we're all familiar with that in terms of the number of gravity bombs it takes to destroy a given target as opposed to a precision munition. Well, when you translate that into tail, the number of bombs that you have to move changes by that order of magnitude. So if it's 10 gravity bombs when it only takes one precision weapon, it turns out you have to move nine fewer bombs.
Q: Who's doing the studies?
Senior Defense Official: They'll be directed at (AT&L ?); is that right?
Staff: (off mike)
Q: (off mike) -- the Crusader a second? Now that you've laid out your planning construct, can you give us a sense of where the Crusader failed to meet the six categories you put up? Like logistics. Apparently, one of the issues was the number of trucks the Army would need just to resupply -- carry ammunition to supply the thing, and did it compare favorably with other alternatives. Are these some of the issues?
Senior Defense Official: Well, some, and there are others having to do with mobility and basing and -- you know, there were a number of those things which went into that decision. And each one is sort of a -- you know, a complex story in its own right. And that's where they ended up when they got finished with --
Q: Can you take one example, like -- maybe like basing or like logistics, and run us through just a little bit of the pros and cons of --
Senior Defense Official: Well, again, let me take you back to the question of how much forward, how much back, and how fast do you move what's back forward? Okay? And you ask yourself, you know, how did the Crusader fit into that mix, and are there other ways to solve the indirect fire organic capability that Secretary White said that is a continuing requirement for the Army? The conclusion was that there was another -- that there was other ways to think about this, and they were asked to go look at them.
Q: Could you review what questions are being asked about the department's missile defense programs, both the program to protect the United States and also troops in the field?
Senior Defense Official: The missile defense program was restructured over the course of last year. It is designed to, I guess, sort of do three things. One is to explore, without the constraints that were imposed by the treaty, the range of technical choices that there are for mounting a layered defense against missiles of any range, so there will be a continued technical development inside the program, and done in such a way that it is easier for the program manager, General Kadish or his successors, to move technologies that might have started in the short-range box, land- based, and move it into the long-range box, sea-based. In the past, it was very difficult to do that, given the way that it was structured.
Secondly, the idea was to try to increase the amount of experimentation and testing that was to be done in the program. And so for those of you who follow the program, if you look at the past test schedules with the ones that he's currently talking about or just the number that we've conducted recently, there is a significant increase. And I -- you're going to ask me what the number is, and I don't remember. But he -- General Kadish has laid in a whole lot more testing than we've done before.
Now on the basis of that activity, what we're looking to be able to do is to say in an emergency situation -- a threat arises that we hadn't anticipated or it arised (sic) more rapidly than we had anticipated -- can we take some of those test vehicles, those things we're experimenting with, and use them for operational purposes? So they'll -- so that guidance continues in place.
And then thirdly, as General Kadish has briefed, he has arranged the program such that for any given block or period in time, he could, if he were directed to do so, go ahead and lay down an acquisition program, if we decided that a particular system is now not only ready to be acquired but it is a system that we think we ought to have for a long period of time in the inventory. So his guidance remains what it was. It hasn't changed in a substantial way from what I've just described.
Q: If I could just follow real quick: Are there any questions being raised about the technical approach, the hit-to-kill approach in --
Senior Defense Official: No.
Yeah.
Q: All of this seems to be based on what you all think the world is going to look like over the next, you know, five --
Senior Defense Official: And the one we're in. You know --
Q: Right. But sometimes the world changes in ways that we don't anticipate.
Senior Defense Official: Yes, it does.
Q: How do you avoid getting caught flat-footed?
Senior Defense Official: Yeah. Well, part of the desire to have -- I mean, the description I just gave of the missile defense program is precisely designed to address that question. I mean, the threat can evolve rapidly and in an unexpected fashion.
The other is that the emphasis on joint capability is -- and a capabilities-based approach that we have talked about -- is intended to give us what we, for our shorthand purposes want to call a "portfolio of capability." All right? And it may be that, rather than optimizing against a point solution, what you really want is a variety of means which, in combination, give you an optimum solution to the problem you're facing.
So you're not looking for an optimum system; you're looking for an optimum solution. And what you'd like to try to do is then develop those -- the capabilities so that they're applicable to a number of different circumstances. Okay? So you don't want Global Hawks that can only fly over deserts. I mean, that doesn't help. I mean -- so you need to have it capable to doing a number of missions; you don't only want to be able to communicate to Army troops. It's got to be able to communicate to the Navy and to the Air Force. It needs to work with Predators, and it needs to work with offshore ships and so forth, so that you have that combination of capabilities to bring, rather than relying on a point solution.
I owe you one.
Q: Are you going to be looking at different options related to Northern Command? Because you'd already laid that out in the Unified Command Plan. So how does that fit in with the DPG?
Senior Defense Official: Different options for -- well, the --
Q: For things like force mix -- how many active forces would be --
Senior Defense Official: Right. That is actually not done in this context. This will be done in the context of a so-called OIPT -- these -- I don't know -- what's an OIPT? -- "integrated process team." I don't know what the "O" stands for.
Q: Overarching.
Senior Defense Official: Huh?
Q: Overarching.
Senior Defense Official: Okay.
Anyway, there's a group of folks from Joint Forces Command, from Space Command, from the Joint Staff, from the OSD shop, and they're sitting there, working their way through this, trying to figure out what the structure of the headquarters would like. What would the subordinate organizations look like? Do they need forces assigned, and if so, active reserve and what mix, for what missions? And that will, I think, begin to jell probably late summer, early fall, when they'll have to come back and give the secretary their recommendations, because they need to stand it up on 1 October.
Okay, time for two more.
Q: Two more for Tanya (sp).
Senior Defense Official: Okay.
Q: The Navy-Marine Corps Tactical Air Integration Plan that would cut the buys by the F-18 Super Hornet and the Joint Strike Fighter -- going back to those categories, what category would that have been under, in terms of it? Because as I understand, it was a result of studies they've done in response to Defense Planning Guidance.
Senior Defense Official: Actually, it was a result of last year's study. All right?
Q: Last year's. So once again, what --
Senior Defense Official: We urged -- huh?
Q: I'm not sure.
Senior Defense Official: Yeah, I think we urged them last year to go back and take a look at --
Q: In either case, what category would that then fit under, in terms of --
Senior Defense Official: It would have been, in this case, probably C -- I mean, if they'd been given specific guidance to go do that. It would've been, "There's an opportunity to integrate those forces for these reasons. Please come back with your view on options for doing so."
Oh, you've already done it.
Q: (inaudible) (laughter)
Q: What, in terms of the Army divisions and active, what -- I understand there was -- part of this guidance was possibly to cut two Army division. And I wondered if what you look at --
Senior Defense Official: That was last year.
Q: I hear, though, that it's kind of resurfaced. I don't know if -- are you looking at that again? Are you looking at any --?
Senior Defense Official: That's -- then you're the first one I've heard the rumor from. I mean, if it's back again, then that's news to me. I mean, how the Army puts its budget together is -- I mean, I don't know. I have no insight into it.
Q: Okay. But what -- in terms of the guidance, what are you -- are you -- in terms of that force mix for the Army, are you looking at anything -- any kind of changes in the active --
Senior Defense Official: There wasn't any guidance given on structure, as I recall.
Staff: No explicit force structure guidance -- (off mike).
Q: Is there any request for options for cutting the JSF by any of the services? Are there any options being sought -- (off mike)?
Senior Defense Official: I think that goes in the same category as the F-22 answer.
Q: Which is to say?
Senior Defense Official: I'm not answering. (laughter)
Okay? All right. Thanks.
Q: Thank you.
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