A decade of misguided procurement decisions.

• Author: Sledge, Nathaniel H., Jr.
• Position: Viewpoint

The past decade serves as cautionary advice for the Defense Department's weapons procurement decision makers, who will need to adapt to an austere budget environment and break the habits learned during the no-questions-asked spending spree of the early 2000s.

Philosophy, or the wisdom of the ages, provides a valuable prism through which to analyze and evaluate the way the services spent their budget windfalls during the decade of war following the 9/11 attacks.

A white paper titled, "What We Bought: Defense Procurement from FY01 to FY10," by Russell Rumhaugh of the Henry L. Stirn-son Center asserts that, contrary to prevailing wisdom, the military services took advantage of the enormous increases in national security spending to modernize their forces.

I beg to disagree. The Defense Department did spend significant sums on new equipment, but so-called modernization of the last decade was imbalanced. The systems that were procured over the past decade were more a reflection of the services' identities and priorities, which were only slightly and grudgingly influenced by the wars that U.S. forces have been fighting. The services essentially bought what they always wanted to buy and what they were predisposed to buy.

The services did indeed capitalize on the budget largesse of the past decade, but it is not clear that they achieved modernized forces, at least not when the present and future threats are taken into account. The Army, Navy and Air Force each approached modernization differently, but the priorities and the choices made suggest that the services behaved as expected given their recent histories and cultures.

"What We Bought" chronicles how procurement spending increased dramatically over the last decade from $62.6 billion to $135.8 billion annually, with supplemental funding making up a significant 22 percent of the generous windfall.

The paper provides insight into how the bulk of procurement dollars were spent. But there are some important omissions. Application of the "so what" test is almost always necessary. But the white paper does not address the 800-pound gorillas sauntering around the room. That is, was it wise to buy what the services bought? Can we refer to the procurement activity from 2001 to 2010 as modernization when many of the systems are arguably irrelevant in the context of the present, and most likely, future national security environment? Did the procurement priorities improve readiness, enhance capabilities and...