NOT MUCH DEFENSE - AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  I recall that, in the early sixties, pro-defense members of Congress, frustrated at the Pentagon's procurement system, would carry around boards with tools mounted on them.  The boards showed the civilian price for a tool, then the price the Pentagon paid.  The difference was staggering.  I recall a screwdriver that cost the Pentagon hundreds of dollars.

Our procurement system is still broken.  Barry Goldwater railed against it.  So did Admiral Rickover.  Still broken.  John Lehman, President Reagan's secretary of the Navy, writes about the problem and proposes solutions.  If we don't find solutions soon, our defenses might be severely weakened:

When John McCain was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he was flying an A4 Skyhawk. That jet cost $860,000.

Inflation has risen by 700% since then. So Mr. McCain's A4 cost $6.1 million in 2008 dollars. Applying a generous factor of three for technological improvements, the price for a 2008 Navy F18 fighter should be about $18 million. Instead, we are paying about $90 million for each new fighter. As a result, the Navy cannot buy sufficient numbers. This is disarmament without a treaty.

The situation is worse in the Air Force. In 1983, I was in the Pentagon meeting that launched the F-22 Raptor. The plan was to buy 648 jets beginning in 1996 for $60 million each (in 1983 dollars). Now they cost $350 million apiece and the Obama budget caps the program at 187 jets. At least they are safe from cyberattack since no one in China knows how to program the '83 vintage IBM software that runs them.

COMMENT:  Pretty depressing.  And stories like this give ammunition to the unilateral disarmament crowd and the rest of the left.  Anyone who's pro-defense must be enraged by the chronic, year-after-year mess in the Pentagon.

When he left office, President Eisenhower warned, in a comment usually taken out of context, about the potential danger of an "industrial-military complex."  (In context, Ike was actually talking about the need for an industrial-military complex, but noting that it carried with it dangers.)  The original draft of Eisenhower's speech used the phrase, "the industrial-military-congressional complex," but the reference to Congress was taken out.  Eisenhower's concern was procurement, defense contracting.  Then, as now, politics plays a destructive role.  Weapons are bought because they're produced in some powerful senator's state.  Or, they're bought because components are built in many states, so the weapon gets widespread support.

We must do better.  We are, as John Lehman says, disarming ourselves with an inflated procurement process that is depriving our military of the best equipment, in sufficient quantity to do the job.

July 19, 2009