A Day Late and A Shell Short

In his farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961, then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower coined the term “military-industrial complex,” referring to the intertwining of legislative, military, and defense industry interests that manage the development, production, acquisition, and distribution of America’s military equipment and armaments.

In the early 1960s, the US military industrial complex was a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to World War II, US military spending languished at relatively low levels during times of peace, leaped during wars, and then declined just as rapidly at the signing of peace accords. After World War II, however, America faced a new combination of bloody wars in Asia, a mighty global adversary in the Soviet Union, and a more rapid pace of technological development that demanded quicker military innovation. The role of “protector of the free world” was assumed by America, and protecting the free world from the incessant communist menace demanded constant military preparedness and rapid technological advancement. Military spending did not decline to tiny fractions of national GDP after World War II like it had after previous wars, but instead leveled off at around ten percent. With this increase and the new emphasis not only on preparedness, but on technological improvement as well, came a dramatic rise in the peacetime military-industrial complex, the supposed dream team of industrial and military innovators tasked with keeping America’s warriors better armed than the Soviets.

Tellingly, Eisenhower coined the phrase in the context of a warning, telling Americans that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

A half century after Eisenhower’s warning, the US military-industrial complex is dysfunctional. Weapons systems arrive later and are less capable than expected , and come at a higher cost. Once deployed, they consistently require extensive modifications as they encounter problems not anticipated by the manufacturers, driving up costs and delaying capabilities.

Several projects in the past few years have highlighted these issues. The F-35 stealth fighter that was to form the centerpiece of America’s future air force is twice as expensive and less capable in every aspect of combat aircraft performance than originally planned. Additionally, it faces an uncertain role, as new drones and precision munitions can now execute the ground strikes the fighter was designed for. Crucially, these technological developments could not have been anticipated fifteen years ago when the F-35 was being drawn up. Now, with trillions invested in the program, America cannot back out.

Many military industrial programs over the last few years have resulted in similar outcomes, with projects arriving late, over budget, under armed, and out of touch with evolving combat situations. The F-35 fighter, Littoral Combat Ship, XM-29 rifle, and many other programs have suffered similar fates, ending with disappointing results after receiving ungodly amounts of federal money. These high-end projects suck up attention and resources, with the result that once weapons and equipment are operational, they suffer from development neglect, contributing to disasters like sending unarmored Humvees into Iraq. In a time of relative peace and high national debt, expensive and wasteful military projects are unacceptable. Yet leaving our soldiers without the most capable weapons and equipment in the world is disgraceful and dangerous. Our current military-industrial complex fails on both accounts.

The root of this failure lies in an obsession with long upgrade cycles for weapons and equipment. Over the past fifty years, the US military-industrial complex has shown a preference for investing in long, futuristic, expensive projects followed by massive procurements. These projects have a high failure rate and a tendency to overpromise and then wildly overcharge while not delivering on their promises. The most striking example is fighter jet procurement programs since the Korean War. Each generation of aircraft has become exponentially more futuristic and expensive. The problem is, long upgrade cycles achieve certain short-term goals for both the military and the industry. For the military, they provide inspiring technological achievements and create massive (if temporary) capability gaps between the US and competitor nations. For the industrial manufacturers, long upgrade cycles drive profits and functionally free them from many contractual obligations, including delivering on time and under budget.

The problem is that long upgrade cycles fail the most important constituents of the military-industrial complex: the soldiers who rely on it and the citizens who pay for it. Weapons and equipment are delivered to our military late, incapable of performing as promised, out of touch with current combat reality, and not ready to be integrated into existing infrastructure. Even “successful” programs that do provide the US with massive capability advantages, like the F-22, arrive behind schedule, under performance expectations, and with a long and expensive integration process ahead of them. Once weapons systems are integrated, the military industrial complex moves on to its next futuristic project, largely content that the weapon system it just delivered will remain modern for the next thirty years until it is time for another government-funded project. Unfortunately, other nations that use shorter upgrade cycles than the US often gain capability advantages as a once cutting edge but now outdated US weapons system is not upgraded or replaced in a timely fashion. Advanced Russian fighters can now outmaneuver most American fighters in air-to-air combat, because the Russian military industrial complex invested more in upgrading current aircraft while the American complex invested in entirely new fighters. The nature of combat itself can change, and the long upgrade cycle system, with its extensive planning and illiquid long-term investments, is poor at adapting to new realities. The end result is an inflexible roller coaster of advanced and outdated weapons and equipment.

Long upgrade cycles are not only a disservice to soldiers, they are also a disservice to citizens. They drive up costs by mandating an expensive technological development phase, followed by a long design phase that blends new technology with the realities of warfare, then a massive procurement phase where the new systems are built, tested, and corrected, and finally an integration phase where the systems are incorporated into the active military. All of these phases require obscene amounts of time and money.

The answer to this problem is to use shorter, more agile upgrade cycles. This option carries a multitude of advantages. For the military, it provides capability improvements that are less ambitious, but cost less, move faster, create less political angst, and deliver results quicker. Instructively, when the military is faced with an urgent problem, it shifts to this model. When US Humvees in Iraq faced a new style of warfare they were completely unprepared for, the army did not begin a two-decade development cycle for a new infantry transport. They bolted steel plates onto existing Humvees, then purchased existing mine resistant vehicles, then developed new, more advanced ones. Each step provided a small, but rapid and life-saving, improvement over the last. The end result over a ten-year period was a fleet of the most advanced mine resistant infantry transports in the world, fully integrated with the existing army and proven in modern combat. That would be a very rare result from a long upgrade cycle aiming at the same goal over the same timeframe. In addition, the military did not wait ten years to receive a sudden influx of better vehicles. The Army began improving transports as soon as the problem was identified.

Over long periods of time, short and long upgrade cycles usually achieve similar levels of technological progress. Had the military chosen to gradually improve the F-15, a previous generation fighter jet in the process of being partially replaced, rather than invest in massive technological development leading to the new F-35 fighter, it would have ended up with a highly modified F-15 with comparable fighting prowess to the F-35. Importantly, this increase in US fighter capabilities would have come already integrated into the current military, at lower cost and without the political anxiety of setting goals and then failing to meet them. Rapid integration of technological improvements as they come is a critical benefit. When the bullets start flying and Americans start dying, the difference makers are not the CAD renderings of a futuristic jet fighter that will not see flight, let alone combat, for fifteen years. They are the improved ballistic vests, jam-proof rifles, and rolled steel plates that sit on the shelves of civilian gun shops but not in the hands of American soldiers, because procurement officers, politicians, and defense contractors were focused on the future, not the present.

For the taxpayers, the benefits of shorter upgrade cycles are simpler and more obvious. Shorter cycles reduce expensive program failures and increase cost effectiveness of successful programs. This increases the efficiency of converting tax dollars to military might, providing citizens with more defense for their dollar.

Shifting emphasis in the military industrial complex from long upgrade cycles to shorter ones would level out gaps in operational readiness, and smooth adaptation to new combat realities while reducing costs and waste. It is a win-win strategy for the American military-industrial complex in a time of strategic uncertainty and high national debt.

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