By Marina Malenic
The Pentagon remains firmly committed to a tri-national air defense development program with two NATO allies despite systemic cost growth and Army officials’ attempts to kill the effort, top Defense Department and industry officials said yesterday.
Citing the troubled U.S. economy, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Defense Department is bolstering efforts to collaborate with allies on missile defense.
“One thing that I am sure of is that defense budgets are not going to be going up for the next couple of years,” Cartwright said. He was speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ 8th Annual U.S. Missile Defense Conference and Exhibit in Washington.
Both Cartwright and Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, reaffirmed the department’s commitment to the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), a co-development effort with Germany and Italy.
Last month, the Army circulated a memo expressing renewed concerns that requirements for MEADS, formulated in 1999, “do not address current and emerging threats.” The Army instead advocates harvesting MEADS technologies and improving the Patriot program it was designed to replace (Defense Daily, Feb. 25).
Mike Trotsky, Lockheed Martin [LMT] vice president of Air and Missile Defense Systems, told reporters that Army concerns about MEADS are nothing new.
“The Army really hasn’t changed its position in some time now,” he said.
Trotsky acknowledged that international development programs are “more complex and more difficult to manage” than domestic programs are.
“One of the down sides of having the biggest defense budget in the world is that we’ve become accustomed to having enough money that we didn’t need international partners and we had complete control of our own programs,” he said.
“But as we move forward in an environment where we’re not going to have the same kinds of budgets that we’ve enjoyed over the past decade…we’re going to have to participate with our NATO partners, especially, in co-development and co-production programs,” he added. “MEADS is an example of that. So the Army may not like it, and other services may not like it…but in a tough budget environment, if NATO partners bring forth forty percent of the budget, we all benefit.”
Last year, the program was given the go-ahead for production of a test system after the countries considered and rejected the option of terminating the effort, with considerable cost overruns remaining a significant concern. MEADS last year completed a series of reviews of all its major components and began production of radars, launchers, tactical operation centers and reloaders needed for system tests at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
A multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, Fla., MEADS International‘s participating companies are MBDA in Italy, LFK in Germany and Lockheed Martin in the United States. The United States funds 58 percent of the program, and European partners Germany and Italy provide 25 percent and 17 percent, respectively, as partners in the NATO Medium Extended Air Defense System Management Organization.
The program is progressing in accordance with a revised schedule toward Critical Design Review (CDR) in August, Lockheed Martin officials have said. The current schedule is based on a mutually agreed plan by top Pentagon weapons buyer Ashton Carter and his German and Italian counterparts in an amended memorandum of understanding that addresses cost increases and schedule delays late last year.
MEADS is a mobile system that is expected to replace Patriot in the United States, the Nike Hercules in Italy and both the Hawk and Patriot systems in Germany. It was designed for interoperability among the three allies and to provide 360-degree coverage for troops against tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft.
According to a defense official who spoke to Defense Daily on condition of anonymity, senior Army officials who met with representatives from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) earlier this month reached no decision on the Army plan to transfer management of MEADS to the agency. Senior representatives of both organizations agreed to continue discussing the possibility, however, according to the official. In the meantime, both the Army and the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office are conducting reviews and new cost estimates for the program.
An official with knowledge of the program said its cost has reached at least $3.5 billion.
Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, also speaking at the conference, pledged that Washington would continue to work with its allies and partners in building regional security architectures, particularly in the missile defense arena.
“Missile defense is an important aspect of our regional partnerships,” Lynn said.
He said the “most immediate” missile threat comes from short-range weapons wielded by regional actors.
“That threat is growing both quantitatively and qualitatively-systems that could someday be deployed against our forces are becoming more accurate and harder to defeat,” he said.
The Defense Department earlier this year completed its first Ballistic Missile Defense Review, releasing its conclusions last month along with the President’s proposed Fiscal 2011 Pentagon budget.
Lynn reiterated the U.S. pledge to help protect its allies.
“To counter the regional threat … we need to devote further resources to missile defense capabilities,” Lynn said. “The safety of our deployed forces and allies depend upon this investment.”