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By John Keller
NASHUA, N.H., 14 Dec. 2008. The U.S. economy is reeling, the end of the Bush administration is in sight, and it's a common believe that U.S. military spending is headed downward -- after years of increases.
U.S. Rep. John Murtha, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, warned last week that incoming President Barack Obama faces an "enormity of challenges" in which Congress must "manage the current and future threats under a constrained defense budget."
The real question seems to be not whether defense budgets will be reduced over the next several years, but whether U.S. military capability will be hurt substantially in the upcoming era of smaller federal defense allocations.
I'm not sure if defense capability will be hurt overall, but I think the kinds of traditional big-system military procurement that we have seen over the eight years of the Bush administration will see some big changes. We need to watch how the defense money will be spent.
I'm no longer sure if huge and expensive programs like the F-22 and F-35 jet fighters will be viable in the future. Cold War spending for systems like heavy main battle tanks, sophisticated and complex aircraft, and big-deck aircraft carriers may give way to platforms like lightly armored wheeled vehicles, simple jet fighters, and relatively small surface warships and submarines geared for counter-terrorism operations may become the norm.
I read in Defense News recently that the U.S. Air Force is considering high-performance turboprop-powered fighter planes for irregular warfare operations. The Air Force hasn't used prop-driven fighters or fighter-bombers since the Vietnam War.
In addition, look to see existing military systems maintained and overhauled such that ships, tanks, and aircraft will stay in the inventory for longer than ever.
This picture could be good news for electronic and electro-optic component suppliers whose products would be of equal utility on new platforms or to upgrade current systems, but might be not-so-good news for major defense contractors with vested interests in seeing new or future platforms go to production.
It's going to take new thinking on the parts of many people, but the U.S. defense industry is up to the challenge. Leaders in the Pentagon and Capitol Hill have been talking about these kinds of changes for years. Now let's see how they put these ideas into practice.
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