By Jen DiMascio
A House Armed Services Committee (HASC) panel released a study last week on the Defense Department’s roles and missions intended as a “brainstorming” session to kick off an open-ended discussion about potentially sweeping changes to the Pentagon and across the administration.
Although the report, a collection of essays about 700 words long, was intended to provoke thought more than spur concrete action, the report does present some opinions likely to cause heartburn in certain circles–including a nod to legislative action on joint acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
“Unlike many Congressional reports, we have raised contentious issues and resisted the temptation to find easy, lowest-common-denominator solutions,” said panel Chairman Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). “My fellow panel members and I don’t agree with every idea in the Roles and Missions Panel report, but we believe the questions it raises must be answered. It’s time to start a conversation–not just in Washington, but across America–about rethinking national security.”
That conversation includes an essay by one individual who argues that the services have little reason to work well together to develop common UAVs and that even with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s task force, the Pentagon needs a “stronger push” toward joint cooperation.
As budgets tighten, “our elected leaders will either have to pick one program and hope it matches our strategic needs or underfund all of the programs,” the report said. “Only by making the hard strategic and budgetary choices now can we optimize unmanned drones for the future. Allowing service rivarly to determine the answer creates flawed answers.”
Another essay titled, “Tyranny of Optimism in Acquisition,” calls for “strategic pause–or at least a review” of Pentagon weapons buying. “The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics must reevaluate not only what we buy, but how we buy it,” the report said.
The essay suggested that the HASC oversight and investigations subcommittee undertake such a review using the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service and consider winning and losing programs.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) authored that section of the report in response to continued cost overruns within Navy and other service programs, saying that the services have been hard pressed by the “tyranny of optimism” and historically done a better job of estimating costs. “I’m very concerned about the credibility of the services as they come forward,” he said.