Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Defense Appropriations Bill. The bill contains $530 billion in funding for non-war programs and accounts, an increase of $17 billion over FY 2011 and a decrease of approximately $9 billion from the President’s request.

In addition to $530 billion in base spending, the bill contains $118.7 billion in spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, $842 million above the President’s request and $39 billion less than FY 2011, a decrease due to the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. This total includes $12.8 billion for the training and equipping of Afghan Security forces, and $1.1 billion for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF), which has moved from the subcommittee on State/Foreign Operations to the subcommittee on defense.

The total in the bill is $648.7 billion. Other portions of defense spending are contained in the Military Construction and Energy and Water Appropriations Bills.

The bill is expected to be considered by the full House of Representatives the week of June 20. It is expected that germane amendments will be permitted.

Check out the full analysis here.

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Security Matters, House, Congress, F-35, Defense Spending (all tags)

f136 (F-35 extra engine) prototype

The saga continues in the fight to fund the F-35 extra engine.  Today, the House voted 233-198 on an amendment that would cancel the program.

The vote split both Republicans and Democrats, with over 100 Republicans and around 130 Democrats voting yes.  Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) took the lead on the amendment, crediting House GOP leaders with allowing a vote on the issue despite Speaker John Boehner’s opposition.

Freshman Republicans in the House were initially hesitant to trim military spending, but have since broken ranks with their party’s speaker to include $16 billion in military cuts in the current spending bill.  Cutting the F-35 extra engine would save an additional $450 million.

House GOP leaders hope to pass the overall spending bill later this week, which would fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, but the buck does not stop there.  The bill then goes to the Senate.  Funding for the extra engine could be among the many changes that are made.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, F-35, Extra Engine, FY 2011 (all tags)

GE at AFA's conference last week.

Last week, while opposing sides Pratt & Whitney and GE/Rolls Royce faced off at the Air Force Association’s annual conference at the National Harbor, the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee dropped funding for GE/Rolls Royce’s F-35 extra engine.  The decision could ultimately prove irrelevant, since predictions have the bill moving forward through an omnibus or continuing resolution, but was important politically nonetheless.

Naturally, Pratt & Whitney did a little dance, stating:

This Senate action is a clear message that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense supports President Obama and Secretary Gates in their position that funding an alternate engine will not save taxpayer’s money or improve military readiness in any way.

GE and Rolls Royce, on the other hand, seemed to sit stunned in silence… until Thursday.

Thursday brought new news from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the potential cost of funding an extra engine.  Highlights after the jump...

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Security Matters, F-35, f136, Levin, SAC-D, GAO (all tags)

As the tension builds, with a few even speculating that neither the C-17 nor the F-35 extra engine will make it in to final fiscal 2011 defense appropriations, things have heated up at the Farnborough International Airshow, taking place from July 19-25 in the UK.

Dave Hess, president of Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer of the current F-35 engine, acknowledged at the show that his company was actively lobbying lawmakers on the issue.  He insisted, though, that the rival team of General Electric and Rolls Royce are spending “orders of magnitude” more.

While he acknowledged that the issue is an “enormous priority” for both GE and Rolls, Jean Lydon-Rodgers, president of GE Aviation's military business and former head of the GE-Rolls engine team, rejected Pratt’s criticism as “unfair”.

Boeing and EADS also took their show on the road, each touting the size of their orders.  Bids for the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract have closed and a decision is due in November.

As the Pentagon’s belt gets tighter and tighter, the fierce competition for contracts is reaching a fever pitch.  PACs associated with both Lockheed and Boeing are on track to make record-level campaign contributions this election cycle, with each already well over the $2 million mark.  Both have already maxed out contributions to several lawmakers, as well as to party committees.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, C-17, F-35 (all tags)

For the fourth year in a row, the House Armed Services Committee has ignored Pentagon recommendations (including a veto threat from Sec. Gates) and approved the continued development of the F136 alternate engine, developed by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, for the F-35 fighter aircraft program.  

The measure would require the Pentagon to budget for the alternate engine starting in fiscal 2012 and withhold 25 percent of fiscal 2011 funds for F-35 development until the Pentagon's top arms buyer certified that all funds for the engine's development and procurement had been made available.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett said during the markup today that “competition is warranted and critical and costs nothing more, according to the GAO.”

This isn’t quite true.  Money for the upfront costs of building and buying an alternate engine are not included in current DoD plans, so any increase is just that – an increase – and any actual savings brought about by competition will easily be eaten up.

"Study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy upfront costs -- nearly $3 billion worth," Gates said on May 8.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell reiterated later today that Gates would recommend a veto if Congress budgets any funds for the alternate engine:

Pursuing an extra engine is an unnecessary luxury we simply cannot afford, especially in our current fiscal condition… Any savings that might result from an engine competition are years away, purely hypothetical and likely modest at best.

Morrell went on to say that amount we will spend to complete an alternate engine for the F-35 “would prevent us from providing our warfighters with more urgently needed equipment.”

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Security Matters, Congress, Defense Spending, F-35, FY12, FY11 (all tags)

The HASC Air/Land and Seapower/Expeditionary Subcommittees today defied Secretary Gates by providing funds for the F-35 alternate engine in FY 2011, even though the Pentagon didn’t request the funding and Gates has threatened to recommend a veto if the bill includes money for the extra engine.

“I was very concerned about the [engine] program last year.  And that was the reason that the veto threat was focused on disruption of the program,” Gates said in February. “We think that the level of costs is such now that -- and the fact that this is unnecessary -- that it's important to take a final stand.”

As today’s subcommittee endorsements indicate, it’s going to be an uphill climb for Gates on the alternate engine. SASC and HASC chairmen Carl Levin and Ike Skelton, respectively, have both expressed disappointment in Gates’s decision to oppose the engine. Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Daniel Inouye has said his committee would try to fund it in FY 2011 And his new House counterpart, Norm Dicks, said “I think there’s still a lot of support” for the engine. Moreover, Air Force officials told Congress that their decision to support Gates’s opposition to the engine was a “close call,” language that suggests the Service vertex of the Iron Triangle may be wobbly.

This brewing Gates vs. Congress showdown is sure to get a lot of ink. But it’s worth noting that because the F-35 alternate engine (and C-17, for that matter) aren’t currently in DOD budget plans, stopping Congress from adding money for them doesn’t save any money in DOD’s overall budget. Thus, defeating these programs in FY 2011 won’t contribute to Secretary Gates’s plan to trim DOD “overhead costs,” which he announced in Kansas last week.

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Security Matters, Congress, Defense Spending, F-35 (all tags)

…is what the Navy is calling its work on the F/A-XX, the optionally-manned fighter jet that would replace the F/A-18E/F and F-22 after 2025. The Navy and Air Force are both entering the analysis of alternatives stage according to Stephen Trimble’s report at The DEW Line.

The JSF may be having cost problems, but that doesn't mean we can't ogle the next honeypot, right? Trimble posted pictures and video of Boeing’s prototype. Check it:

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, Acquisition, F-35 (all tags)

I need a new home!

InsideDefense.com (subscription only) reports that it will cost $339 million to make the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) capable of carrying nuclear weapons, according to U.S. Air Force officials.  

Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey continue to host an estimated 200 B61-3 and -4 gravity bombs for delivery by various U.S. and NATO aircraft, including the “dual-capable” F-16 fighter-bomber that the JSF is slated to replace. Like the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) before it, the 2010 NPR punted on the question of U.S. tacnukes in Europe, concluding that “Any changes in NATO’s nuclear posture should only be taken after a thorough review within – and decision by – the Alliance.”

Yet the $339 million price tag to wire-up the B61 and JSF does not represent the full cost of maintaining nuclear-capable U.S. aircraft in Europe. As Malcolm Chalmers wrote recently:

The US is obliged to maintain a special infrastructure for the purpose [of maintaining nuclear-capable aircraft in Europe], together with the posting of around 1,500 of its service personnel (250 in each of six [US Munitions Support Squadrons] bases) in expensive foreign security postings. Ongoing threats from terrorism further add to the risks against which these bases must guard themselves.

Because of these costs, the U.S. military has long questioned the usefulness of continuing to deploy U.S. tacnukes in Europe. Chalmers noted:

As early as the 1970s, there was a fierce internal Pentagon dispute as to whether the increased weight and complexity required to wire the USAF’s F-16s for the nuclear role, together with the training required to provide a useable capability, justified the costs in reduced conventional capability.

Those questions have not disappeared. As one senior leader of USEUCOM put it to the Secretary of Defense Task Force on DOD Nuclear Weapons Management, “We pay a king’s ransom for these things [nuclear weapons in Europe] and…they have no military value.” The Task Force of course disagreed with this assessment, arguing that such an attitude ignores the political and psychological value that tacnukes possess as a concrete U.S. commitment to NATO security.

But are tacnukes really the best way to address squishy concerns like politics and psychology, particularly when the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal already provides a credible “over the horizon” deterrent? Not every problem needs to have a (redundant) military solution, after all, particularly when enormous budgetary pressures confront the U.S. military in the years ahead. If the Soviets probably aren’t coming through the Fulda Gap anytime soon, then maybe it’s time to do something totally unprecedented in U.S. defense planning—make a tough choice!—and reallocate resources toward the most serious and most likely threats confronting the United States in the 21st century.

Anyway, here are the key excerpts from the InsideDefense.com article…

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Nukes on a Blog, Posture Review, FY 2011 Budget Request, B61, Air Force, tactical nuclear weapons, Extended Deterrence, F-35 (all tags)

Lockheed Martin's F-35B short-takeoff, vertical-landing (STOVL) stealth fighter completed its very first vertical landing today.

The success couldn't have been better timed.

See it here. The music is great.

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, FY 2011 Budget Request, F-35 (all tags)

Yesterday, U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley announced a probable cost overrun and major delay in the tri-service, nine-nation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Under the Nunn-McCurdy statute, this would trigger an extensive, mandatory review of alternatives.

The outcome of any upcoming review, however, appears to already be determined. “This is a fifth-generation fighter/attack capability,” Donley told reporters, “There are no alternatives to that in our system. Yes, you can build the 4.5 generation, enhanced capability F-15 kind of capability. But, really there are no good alternatives to F-35 at this point. This is a program to which we are deeply committed.”

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget bases its revised program strategy for the F-35 on the Joint Estimating Team II report (JET II), prepared last fall. Based on this analysis, the Pentagon chose to extend development by 13 months, reduce production by 122 aircraft and add an additional low-rate initial production lot, LRIP 9, to the program. It also adds a single carrier variant to the development program and pulls three LRIP aircraft into developmental testing to add to the 19 flight test assets already in the program.

Overall, the FY 2011 budget request contains $11.4 billion for the F-35, including $8.7 billion in procurement funding, $2.3 billion for continued research and development and $535 million for spare parts.

Since the budget was announced in February, however, problems with the F-35 have continued to mount…

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Security Matters, Defense Spending, FY 2011 Budget Request, F-35 (all tags)