http://douglasmacgregor.com/RANDandFCSmess.pdf
What makes the attached RAND REPORT
interesting is that RAND analysts knew the Future Combat System (FCS) program
was a disaster on day 1. But no one inside RAND would dare to tell the Army
Chief of Staff that he was on the road to waste billions and billions of
dollars.
Conditions inside today’s Army are
not very different from the time when FCS introduced. Even Dan Goure from the
Lexington Institute, normally a stalwart supporter of the military status quo
and whatever the Army Chief of Staff wants recently wrote: ”Over the past
thirty years, the U.S. Army has cancelled some 20 major acquisition programs
including armored fighting vehicles, helicopters, artillery pieces,
communications systems, infantry weapons and munitions. If you count designs
that never got out of the research and development (R&D) process that
number more than doubles.” (“The U.S. Army Defeats Itself More Often Than All
Its Enemies Combined,” The National Interest, 1 July 2016.)
So why are things so very wrong
inside the US Army? RAND’s study fails to point out the real problem in 2000:
Leadership at the top. In GEN Shinseki’s case, FCS was a requirement he
created. Once written in stone, a Four Star’s program became something that no
one in uniform could challenge without risking the destruction of his or her
career. Today’s Army continues to suffer with the legacy of the FCS program and
the behavior of its Four Star leadership. Consider the following notes:
A successful program requires a sound
technical feasibility analysis.
Senior-level involvement can
significantly motivate an acquisition effort. (RAND)
1.
GENERAL ERIC SHINSEKI, Army Chief of
Staff, demanded that the contractors do what they could not: Break the laws of
physics and create a 13-15 Ton wheeled armored vehicle with the protection of a
70 Ton Abrams tank that could fly on a C-130 aircraft. Finally, when Boeing
realized that if they would lose the billions that Senators Stevens and Inouye
on the SAC would provide to GEN Shinseki if Boeing continued to tell the Army
Chief of Staff, “It cannot be done,” Boeing accepted the mission. Of
course, Boeing’s terms were very lucrative and antithetical to the Army’s and
the American Tax Payer’s interests, but GEN Shinseki pushed through the
contract.
2.
The stated goal of the vague FCS
System of Systems was to uniformly equip all ten divisions in the Army. Program
Completion was scheduled to occur in 2032. Given that we moved from horse
cavalry in 1914 to the Atom Bomb in 1945 (31 years), the idea that equipment
designed in 2005 would still be relevant in 2032 never made sense, but no one
dared say so. Despite assertions that he was a “futurist and a visionary,”
General Shinseki was far more worried about preserving the ten triangular
division 1942 structure than he was in future warfare. Privately, he told his
general officers, “If I don’t buy something new, no one on the Hill will
believe that the US Army is changing.” And, second, GEN Shinseki testified in
2000 before the SASC about the interim combat vehicle—a block III LAV with no
armament—that in his judgement SUV technology had reached a level of maturity
that “an entire Army on wheels was now feasible.” Even his strongest backers,
Senators Stevens and Inouye were surprised at this statement, but given the
money involved, neither one was prepared to halt the massive spending spree
that was about to begin. Search through C-SPAN’s files and you can watch this
event. Only Senator Joe Lieberman pushed back at the time saying, “The Germans
were able to achieve revolutionary change by starting with an operational
concept. What’s your operational concept?” GEN Shinseki’s answer was: “I
just want to make sure that our ‘kids’ (referring to the 82nd) that
go back to Iraq the next time don’t end up without the mobility they need.”
Berets and wheels became the “sin qua non” of Army transformation.
3.
It was not long before SASC Staffers
figured out that FCS was a scam. One wrote on 27 October 2006, “The Future
Combat System (FCS) involves no net increase in army fighting strength. But
together with modularity, it costs something like $48 billion (modularity) +
$145 billion (FCS) + $25 billion (communications network), and will equip only
one-third of the army in 20 years! This is nuts!” However, as the money flowed,
GEN Shineki’s Potemkin Village grew to ever increasing proportions. Once GEN
Shinseki announced his determination to build ‘FCS’ anyone in uniform who did
not sign up for it was DOA. Those officers who wanted to be generals knew that
to reach flag rank they had to slavishly support a program that made no sense
and had no chance of success. The sitting three and four stars knew that
to get access to the vast sums of money for FCS they had to work closely with
the contractor, Boeing and Boeing’s subcontractors. Once the money flowed to
contractors in districts and states, it was largely irrelevant to members
whether it produced anything of value for the US Army as long as the money
flowed and their reelection campaign funds prospered. The outcome is summed up
by an anonymous Army Colonel who worked on the project:
“FCS lasted 8
years and squandered nearly $20 billion on a fantasy: that soldiers, bombs and
bullets could be replaced by remote sensors and networks. Once the money
started pouring in, the Army's top generals did not want to risk their careers
by revealing the program’s obvious flaws and unrealistic goals. Members of
Congress declined to challenge sub-contracts that brought money into their own
districts.”
By the way, no hearings to determine
what went wrong with FCS were ever held on the Hill. Clearly, nothing went
wrong. “Money spent was capability achieved” in the minds of members.
The bad news is that battlefield
lethality is rising dramatically on a scale not seen since WW II. Meanwhile,
today’s U.S. Army fighting force is in ruins and falling further and further
behind its potential opponents in Eastern Europe, Asia and the Near East. This
is due, in part, to FCS; a program that was conceived to ensure the US Army
remained frozen in its 1942 ten division construct. The rapid conversion of the
U.S. Army during the Iraq/Afghan occupations into a light infantry constabulary
force on wheels reinforced with old tanks, brads and artillery designed in the
1970s was in many ways an unavoidable outcome of occupation, but it has simply
exacerbated the problem that confronts today’s Army.
Conditions today are frighteningly
reminiscent of conditions during the interwar period. As Dr. David Johnson of RAND
described several years ago, between 1919 and 1939 the Army’s Senior Leaders:
1.
Focused on traditional
roles—re-fought the last “successful” war (or, in the British Army, built a
constabulary, motorized force);
2.
Fought for budget share &
end-strength, not capability;
3.
Advanced the “Single Service” way of
fighting;
4.
Experimented with the “familiar”,
but crushed innovation;
5.
Preserved status quo structure and
career pattern. Officers that did not conform vanished.
Once more, the mantra from the top
is, “Read my lips. Ten Divisions.” However, this time it’s “Light Infantry
ueber Alles!” The unrelenting investment in light solutions like the JLTV and
Stryker http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/europe/2015/07/23/us-army-strykers--europe-need-30mm--russia/30551987/
continues with ominous consequences for future Army forces. The passion for
dismounted airborne operations, an anachronism whose record of failure in
action (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26371787-when-failure-thrives
) and human loss is unmatched in the annals of 20th Century military
history is currently shaping future Army investments (http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/02/21/army-wants-light-tanks-for-the-airborne.html
).
From his vantage point on 19 July
1916 in France, then, Colonel JFC Fuller observed, “The Soldier is the most
conservative creature on earth. It is really dangerous to give him an idea,
because he will not adopt it until it is obsolete, and then, will not abandon
it until it has nearly destroyed him.”
[JFC Fuller, Memoirs of an
Unconventional Soldier, page 151.]
Fuller’s assessment perfectly
describes the state of thinking, modernization and acquisition in today’s US
Army. The real question is whether the next president will do anything about
these conditions, as well as, the leadership in the U.S. Army. If reform and
reorganization are derailed yet again as they were with FCS, modernization will
fail. Moreover, Soldiers won’t have years to gear up for the fight as we did
before the two world wars let alone allies that will take casualties for years
before we arrive. That’s the strategic dilemma for which the U.S. Army is
totally unprepared.
Cheers, Doug Macgregor
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