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| ISSUE #21 | December 11,1997 |
| ISSUE #21 | December 11,1997 |
Navy's Super Hornet Suffers Setback
by Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
On December 1, "Defense News" reported that Pentagon documents it had obtained indicate that the Navy's F/A-18E/F "Super Hornet" attack aircraft experienced airflow problems during flight testing which are so severe that the aircraft might have to be redesigned and rebuilt.
Originally the Navy billed the Super Hornet as an "upgraded" F/A-18: larger wings and fuselage, greater range and payload, no loss of agility. The Navy had planned to purchase 1,000 Super Hornets to replace the current fleet of F/A-18C/Ds at a total cost of $80 billion. The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), however, recommended only building between 548 and 785 of the aircraft, depending on the progress of the Joint Strike Fighter program.
The airflow problems as documented in the Pentagon's own papers cause the plane's wing to drop to one side during combat maneuvers, forcing the pilot to take immediate corrective action. Navy studies have shown that the problems do not occur at the extremes of the plane's performance "envelope" but rather are more likely to occur during dogfighting or high speed bombing runs when the aircraft and its crew is already at risk. Since this obviously is unacceptable, the Navy is faced with the prospect of finding a possibly costly fix or settling for a less capable aircraft.
These problems come at a difficult time for the program, which is already under close scrutiny. In addition to the reductions recommended in the QDR, the recently released report by the National Defense Panel questioned the Pentagon's continued emphasis on building large numbers of short-range aircraft. Further, Congress has already indicated its concerns about the total cost of the Pentagon's tactical aircraft modernization program. Together, the F/A-18E/F, the Joint Strike Fighter, and the Air Force's F-22 may cost as much as $350 billion dollars. Even Congressional supporters of these programs have raised questions about how to fund all three. Any significant delays or cost increases in one program could jeopardize its future.
Even more significant than the aircraft's problems is the fact that the Super Hornet's deputy program manager admits that the Navy was aware of the plane's airflow problems as early as March, 1996. However, the Navy did not notify Pentagon officials until well after the program was cleared for low-rate initial production earlier this year. Now, faced with the choice of pouring billions of additional funds into the program in the hope that the problems can be resolved at some point in the future or withholding funds until the problems have been fixed, the Navy has opted to withhold $1.5 billion from the Boeing Company. The money represents funding for the next block of twenty aircraft scheduled for low-rate production.
Ironically, the Navy might have avoided the current situation had they not rushed the Super Hornet program over Pentagon objections in its early stages. For instance, in 1992 while the Navy was portraying the F/A-18E/F as a low-risk venture based on simple alterations to the existing design, the Pentagon's Inspector General found that its development would be a new production aircraft. New aircraft must undergo a different, more rigorous approval process, and while the Office of the Secretary of Defense later approved the F/A-18E/F "upgrade," closer review might well have revealed significant problems with the program at an earlier date.
Questions about the Navy's management of the Super Hornet program, coupled with the prospect of major cost increases and doubts about how significantly the new aircraft's capabilities will exceed those of its predecessor, suggests that the Pentagon should reconsider its requirement for this plane. This is particularly critical as the military scrambles to fund its other modernization programs.
One Baby Step Forward, Two Giant Steps Back
by Andrew Koch, Senior Research Analyst, akoch@cdi.org
Last month President Clinton approved new guidelines for targeting U.S. nuclear weapons. The new plan, first reported in The Washington Post, calls for the U.S. to abandon its strategy of being able to win a protracted nuclear war, codifying a 1985 agreement by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that "a nuclear war cannot be won." The guidelines, contained in a highly-classified document called a Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), are an attempt to bring the U.S. nuclear war-fighting strategy more in-line with current realities.
The changes were prompted in part because U.S. military commanders, including then- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shalikashvili and Gen. Eugene Habiger, head of the Strategic Command, said they could not contemplate reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal and still plan for a protracted nuclear war. The changes could allow for a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons held in reserve and provide the Administration with greater flexibility to make cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. However, the new plan maintains the requirement that the President be offered a variety of target options from massive nuclear attack to a more limited response.
Despite the limited benefit of greater negotiating flexibility, the new guidelines could reinforce several negative aspects of America's nuclear doctrine. Although exact details of the plan are not publicly known due to the sensitive nature of the document, it reportedly suggests that the U.S. could respond to chemical or biological weapon attacks with nuclear weapons even if the aggressor is a non-nuclear weapon state. If true, such a policy would violate the U.S. commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. Statements by a variety of Pentagon officials suggest that the U.S. considers this guarantee forfeit if a state attacks the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction.
Efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons are further harmed by a directive in the PDD that calls for general planning for targets in countries which could potentially acquire nuclear weapons in the future. Combined with a continuation in the policy that allows the U.S. "first use" of nuclear weapons in a conflict, the U.S. nuclear strategy is harming efforts to convince other states that nuclear weapons are not important to their security. Robert Bell, President Clinton's point-man on nuclear issues, emphasized the U.S. stance, saying "it would be a mistake to think that nuclear weapons no longer matter."
Given this position--that nuclear weapons remain vital for safeguarding U.S. security--U.S. words and now deeds send the message that other states are free to pursue the same nuclear "security guarantor."
Detailing the Depths of Russian Military Cut-backs
by Piers Wood, Lt. Colonel, USAR (Ret.), Chief of Staff, pwood@cdi.org
A recently released study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), "Russian Conventional Armed Forces: On the Verge of Collapse?" graphically details the recent dramatic decline of Russia's military. With Russia--our strongest potential opponent--in the disarray portrayed in this report, the military spending and force structures recommended by the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Defense Panel (NDP) seem more excessive than ever. However, it's the ominous policy implications of the huge disparities that are of more concern than the excessive spending.
Ironically, the new strategic equation of the post-Cold War period is that precipitous decreases in Russian conventional forces will likely cause increased reliance on nuclear weapons. This situation seems like a mirror image of the post-WWII response by the U.S. to Stalin's retention of a huge land force in the late 1940s. In 1947 a U.S. force of 1.5 million men faced a Soviet military of 6 million. It was that great imbalance in conventional forces which drove the U.S. to rely so heavily on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. It should be worrisome to the American public that the dramatic reversal of the conventional military balance in the 1990s has now made Moscow feel vulnerable.
The report's analysis points out that quantitative reductions in key Russian weapons systems have exceeded U.S. reductions by up to 40% in some key categories such as tanks (67% cut), army divisions (72% cut), active duty manpower (70% cut) and attack submarines (76% cut). The importance of these cut-backs is amplified by the study's judgment that training has been "greatly reduced" and "morale has sunk to a low level." This sort of downward spiral leads the CRS analysts to conclude that "Russian military readiness is at the lowest level since the 1930s" and "it might take Russia ten years to rebuild its conventional military capabilities."
However, in the same breath the report also reminds us that "Russia remains a nuclear superpower" and will consciously resort more than ever to nuclear options. Specifically the CRS believes that the greatly reduced conventional capability will lead "to greater reliance on strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence at ever lower levels of conflict." Furthermore, the CRS characterizes the lowered nuclear threshold as potentially "destabilizing" and "hair trigger."
Russian perceptions of their own weaknesses are magnified by the realization that the U.S. military budget and its alliance system are extravagantly beyond what are needed in today's world. The U.S. is still spending 90% of the average amount spent on our military over the course of the Cold War and we are seeking to expand NATO toward Russia's borders.
The nuclear implications of the conventional forces gap could be sowing the seeds of another nuclear arms race. Those seeds may be dormant but are surely viable. How safe can any of us be if our most dangerous potential opponent feels threatened and vulnerable?
Shine a Little Light on Me
by Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret), Associate Director, dsmith@cdi.org
This past October, in spite of protests from some members of Congress and nongovernmental organizations opposed to anti-satellite weapons development and a letter from Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the U.S. Army tested a land-based laser in New Mexico against a USAF satellite. After two miscues, the two megawatt Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) fired. The result was a double disaster: a melted part in the laser and no information due to a data link malfunction.
But this was only part of the story, the part that received the most press attention.
What wasn't revealed until just recently--and then seems not to have been followed up by the mainstream press--is the effect that a low power (30 watt) chemical laser had. This small, commercial laser was used to help orient MIRACL on the MSTI-3 (Miniature Sensor Technology Integration) reconnaissance satellite located 300 miles in the sky. What happened was a great surprise: using little more wattage than available in a refrigerator lightbulb and magnifying it through a 1.5 meter mirror, the small laser "temporarily blinded" the satellite. This was not a one-time fluke; the low power laser was successful on three nights in mid-October.
In light of (no pun intended) the National Defense Panel's observations about how critical space control will be in warfare after 2020, the results of this experiment are significant. For protection of U.S. space assets, the test demonstrated that satellites can be rendered ineffective at a minuscule threshold--literally orders of magnitude less than the power thought to be needed to blind them (i.e., the two megawatts of MIRACL). Given that satellite fly-overs can be predicted and the commercial availability of these small lasers, in theory many nations would be able to acquire the basic elements to build an anti-satellite capability (which the Pentagon denied was the point of their test).
Of course, simply having components doesn't guarantee an effective weapon. Such factors as the focal length of on-board sensors, the altitude and vertical range to the satellite, and the exact location of a satellite make using a laser as a weapon more problematical. But the very possibility that a hostile or potentially hostile power might have such a device could turn intelligence collection into a form of Russian roulette with lasers being fired on a random basis as satellites pass overhead. The chances of being blinded, even temporarily, by a randomly fired laser might induce the Pentagon to rotate satellites to protect on-board sensors, effectively "blinding" the platforms to what is going on below.
All that seems to be known now is that "saturation" of the target was accomplished. Given the nature of the results, the Pentagon probably will classify everything else associated with the test, including any manipulation of the satellite that might have enhanced the chances the test would be a success.
Whatever one may think about the wisdom or folly of the Army exercise, enough has been published about the results to whet the appetite of nations (including our own) that might be tempted to create an anti-satellite capability. The upshot, unfortunately, may well be another chapter in the continuing world arms race.
America's Defense Monitor: "Military Leaders for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons."
In this episode of CDI's weekly television series, former Strategic Air Command chief Gen. Lee Butler is joined by other retitred military leaders in calling for elimination of the world's 40,000 nuclear weapons. Former leaders of the Navy, Army, Air Force, and British Royal Navy--all once prominent actors in the Cold War's nuclear drama--discuss why and how the world should proceed immediately toward total nuclear abolition.
Featured speakers include: