By Emelie Rutherford
The military’s top weapons buyer said yesterday that he does not anticipate additional sizable cuts to defense programs like those the Pentagon and Congress made last year.
“I think it’s fair to say that the poorest performers were identified in (fiscal year) ’10,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Ashton Carter said, referring the wide-range of weapon system curtailments and cancellations made last year for the current fiscal year’s defense budget.
Speaking at a Washington, D.C., conference, Carter said while the Pentagon is seeking to end some weapon programs in FY ’11, such as Boeing‘s [BA] C- 17 cargo aircraft, he hopes “that after a certain amount of trimming the underbrush” another round of big cuts won’t be needed. The White House earlier this month sent Congress its proposed Defense Department budget for FY ’11, which begins Oct. 1.
Carter, who assumed his post last year, said he does more than try to fix and at times cancel programs experiencing budget, schedule, and technology problems.
“There’s a flip side,” he said. “I have another kind of Hippocratic oath that I take, which is to protect programs that are performing well.”
Doing that in the Washington, D.C., area requires some effort, he said.
“There’s always someone out to get every program, or think they have a better idea or some other better way of spending the money,” he said. He said he spends “a lot of time…identifying the good performers and defending them.”
Several Pentagon speakers at yesterday’s Defense Technology and Requirements conference, produced by Aviation Week, addressed the newly unveiled 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and discussed how strategy shapes defense purchases.
Carter said, in his realm, there also are so-called “gates” weapon programs must go through. These gates involve scrutinizing poorly performing systems, canceling no-longer- needed programs, and seeking adaptable, multi-use platforms.
Carter said he, in the “managerial as opposed to the strategy-side” of the Pentagon, is focusing on identifying those non-niche, non-exquisite capabilities.
As a result of the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, the Pentagon is trying to manage programs differently than before at their beginning, middle, and end stages, Carter said.
Much of the new law, which President Barack Obama signed into law last May, addresses the early stages of programs, in areas including cost estimation, requirements discipline, developmental testing, and systems engineering.
Carter said the Pentagon now is approaching programs differently during their middle stages by “improving the business deal that we’re getting.” That includes “improving contracts, contract structures, overheads, indirect costs, (and) use of award fees,” he said.
At the end of programs, Carter said, there is more emphasis now in the Pentagon on ending them when they are no longer needed.
While the defense budget is projected to experience real growth in the coming years, it is not set to experience the double-digit, year-over-year boost of the years following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he noted.
Thus, he said, “that kind of aggressive management for getting good business deals is something the secretary [of defense, Robert Gates] wants us to do, something I take very seriously.”
Carter cited the recent restructuring of Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The Pentagon opted to extend the F-35 test program and reduce the number of production aircraft delivered in the early years following intense reviews conducted last year that found schedule delays, cost growth, and technical problems.
“We’re going to continue to review and aggressively manage this program,” Carter said.
Regarding the industry competition for the Air Force’s next aerial-refueling tanker, he said he hopes both competitors participate. A Northrop Grumman [NOC]-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team has threatened to not submit a proposal in response to a request for proposals (RFP) expected later this month. The team believes a draft RFP shows a preference for its competitor, Boeing.
While Pentagon officials know they can’t force a tanker competition, Carter said, “We think we have a fair, open, transparent, right-down-the-middle approach to this.”