Weapons budget: the more you spend, the less you buy.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: DEFENSE WATCH

When Pentagon officials are grilled on Capitol Hill about the eye-popping price tags of military hardware, their standard response is that next-generation weapons are justifiably expensive because fewer of them are required.

While that logic in itself may be questionable, it's certainly a good thing that the Pentagon believes it will be able to do more with less because, eventually, it may not hare a choice.

A hyperinflation tsunami now threatens to sink the Defense Department's purchasing power so dramatically that a weapons budget that currently funds 95 programs over time will pay for just a handful of big-ticket programs, concluded the latest audit report by the Government Accountability Office.

This recent assessment of weapons programs brings to mind the musings of former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, who infamously predicted that by 2054, the Defense Department will only be able to afford one aircraft.

The projections from GAO paint an astonishing picture--given current trends in weapons cost escalation, most of the Defense Department's research, development and acquisition budget may in the foreseeable future only be enough to fund 10 programs.

Auditors calculated that the Pentagon's 95 major defense acquisition programs collectively are $295 billion more expensive than originally estimated. These 95 programs currently are projected to consume about $335 billion over the next five years. But the 10 largest programs gradually are crowding out the other 85, as they account for 58 percent of the total funding for research, development, testing, evaluation and procurement.

If the cost spiraling trends continue into the future, the auditors estimated, one can easily see how the top 10 could end up encompassing a much larger share of the total weapons budget.

By as early as 2012, the top 10 programs are expected to eat up 64 percent of the funds that currently pay for all 95.

If these projections hold true, the Defense Department's entire weapons budget will fund just the following 10 programs: the ballistic missile defense system, the Joint Strike Fighter, the Virginia class submarine, Future Combat Systems, the V-22 Osprey, the DDG-1000 destroyer, the CVN-21 aircraft carrier, the F-22A fighter jet, the P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft and the F/A-18E/F naval warplane.

The stunning shrinkage of the Pentagon's buying power has been documented by GAO for several years, and should not surprise anyone who has been tracking defense...