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Connecticut Senators Christopher Dodd (inset, left) and Joseph Lieberman are ardent defenders of the Seawolf SSN-21 program and agree with the Navy that the SSN-23’s survival is inherently linked to that of General Dynamic’s Electric Boat itself.
Though designed for stealth, the third and final Seawolf submarine, SSN-23, sticks out of the Navy’s 1996 budget like the Capitol dome, a plump target for a new Republican majority taking aim at their first defense budget.
Will Republicans pull the trigger? The Navy is worried. The Seawolf program, say service officials, is a vital part of their long-range plan to modernize the submarine force. But so far, the 104th Congress is not turning out as expected. Encouraged by pro-defense rhetoric during last fall’s election campaign, military leaders were optimistic that a Republican landslide would bring relief from tightening budgets. After all, even with Democrats in charge last year, the Navy Won every significant budget battle.
Early optimism about the new Congress, however, quickly gave way to confusion over conflicting Republican promises to cut taxes, increase defense sPending, and yet balance the budget by 2002.
After a couple of months, Republicans made clear their top priority is deficit reduction—not bigger defense budgets. When the House passed a balanced budget amendment m February, Navy officials knew the defense topline Was not going up. The real fight would be over the contents, which pits one Program against another,
°ne service against another.
Given the atmosphere, the Seawolf has become a hinge program. The fate °f this program might determine how many Arleigh Burke tDDG-51)-class destroyers are bought next year or whether Congress opts to begin early construction of the final Wasp ll-HD-1 )-cIass helicopter/dock landing ship, LHD-7. The new Congress is look- lng hard at other issues like readiness, quality of life, ballistic missile defense, and ways to fund operational contingents without damaging readiness. But only the Seawolf has the potential for a flat-out political showdown.
Not only do long-time critics of SSN-23, such as Senator John McCain (R-AZ), have more political clout this year, they also believe they have sounder arguments for killing the program, thanks to the Clinton administration’s modest— some say anemic—shipbuilding program. The total: three.
The Navy wants $1.5 billion to complete the third Seawolf, on top of $900 million already spent for the submarine’s combat system and nuclear reactor components. An emerging coalition of senior Republicans, including Senators Trent Lott of Mississippi and John Warner of Virginia, says the money would be better spent on surface ships built in their home states.
Lott, his Mississippi colleague Senator Thad Cochran, and Senator William Cohen (R-MA) want funds restored to build three, not two, Arleigli Burke (DDG-5 l)-class destroyers next year. No other new surface combatant construction is planned. The administration dropped the third destroyer last December as part of a $1.7 billion cut in weapons procurement. Work on the DDG-51 is shared between Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Bath Iron Works Corp. in Bath, Maine.
Lott and Cochran also want to accelerate purchase of the LHD-7, also built by Ingalls. Senator Strom Thurmond, the 92-year-old Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is sympathetic to complaints about the Navy’s shipbuilding plan.
“While phrases such as ‘recapitalization’ and ‘rightsizing’ convey an optimistic view of the future,” Thurmond told Navy leaders at a 7 March hearing, “the numbers tell a different tale.” Last year, he said, the Navy projected buying 22 ships from 1996 through 1999. The number has been cut to 15, Thurmond said, even as operational demands intensify.
With funding for a new aircraft carrier, CVN-76, for Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia safely tucked away in the 1995 budget, Virginians like Warner and fellow Republican Representative Herbert Bateman are more com-
Senator Strom Thurmond, the 92-year-old Chairman of the Armed Services Committee—shown here at the 20th birthday celebration of the USS South Carolina (CGN-37)—believes that defense spending should be increased over 1995 levels by 3%.
fortable attacking the Seawolf program and the decision in the Pentagon’s 1993 Bottom-Up Review review to award all future submarine construction contracts to General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut.
Ardent defenders of SSN-23, Connecticut Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, are now in the minority. Their staunchest ally is the Navy itself, which describes the third Seawolf as critical from two perspectives: as an industrial base bridge to keep Electric Boat in business until 1998 when work begins on the cheaper new attack submarine, and as a fleet asset to counter Russia’s continued development of ever more quiet submarines.
Admiral Mike Boorda, Chief of Naval Operations, gave Lieberman a third reason at a March Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Much of SSN-23, he said, is bought:
We have paid $900 million in advance procurement. . . .
We have $1.5 billion left to go.
If we don’t buy the submarine, we will pay a good portion of the $1.6 billion anyway in termination costs and in higher costs for SSN-21 and -22 that are [being completed) and the new attack submarine when it comes out. . . . We might as well go ahead and get it.
Bateman, whose district includes Newport News, rejects that reasoning. “It’s unfortunate we have expended as much money on the SSN-23 as we have,” said the new Chairman of the House Readiness Panel. “But I would like the Navy to save more, rather than less.”
A third Seawolf, Bateman suggested, allows Clinton to keep a campaign promise to Connecticut Democrats, but the submarine is not nearly as important as service leaders contend. “SSN-23 is being built not because it represents a significant budget priority of Navy shipbuilding, but because it’s necessary to support the [administration’s] industrial base decision that all future submarines be built by Electric Boat,” he said. But that decision was political and not based on efficiency or merit, Bateman said. Scrapping SSN-23 not only would save $1.5 billion next year but also another $1.7 billion in “reduced cost of producing five new attack submarines at Newport News as opposed to Electric Boat,” Bateman said.
Congress should use the savings to buy the destroyers and amphibious ships it really needs, Bateman said. As it is, the Navy will need “an enormous bow wave of ship construction” early in the next century or it will have “a fleet unable to accept the tasking routinely given to it.”
Cochran, second-ranking Republican on the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said he’ll try to restore funds for a third Aegis destroyer and startup money for the $1.4 billion Wasp- class LHD-7. The Navy needs the ship to have 12 large-deck amphibious ready groups, which the Joint Chiefs say they need. The Navy does not plan to buy the ship until 2001, however, when it’s expected to cost $2.1 billion.
The Navy and Marines want the LHD-7, Cochran said, although service leaders can not “formally argue with the budget presented.” That’s true. But Navy officials also believe the bill payer might be the SSN-23, which they would consider a disaster.
Cochran will not urge that the ships be built with Seawolf money, he said. “I’d hate to have to shift from one to pay for the other. Maybe we could postpone some of the environmental cleanup.”
The Navy knows its procurement account is too low. Hardware purchases are only 18% of the 1996 budget, compared with 34% a decade ago. Twenty years ago, the department had 100 more ships, 150,000 more Sailors and Marines than it does today, and still managed to put 33% of assets into procurement.
But the emphasis today is on shortterm readiness, which means higher amounts for personnel, training, operations, and maintenance. Those accounts represent 65% of the 1996 budget, versus only 53% a decade ago.
Help from the GOP?
Republicans named new committee chairmen, reorganized and retitled defense panels, and began to hold hearings. The Senate even restored the Sea Power Subcommittee after an eight-year absence. But early action in the 104th showed little support for raising the top line for defense. Still, the rhetoric flowed.
Representative Floyd Spence, new Chairman of the House National Security Committee, and Representative C. W. “Bill” Young (R-FL), Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, told the House Budget Committee they want to add $70 billion to $125 billion to Clinton defense budgets over the next five years. Spence and Young, who came to Congress together 24 years ago, are two lawmakers who believe defense hikes are more important than a balanced budget, Spence said.
Representative Robert Dornan (R-CA), new Chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee, held hearings on quality of life and closing what’s perceived as a large gap between military and private sector pay. But the real action went on behind closed doors, in the offices of House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-OH). Kasich does not share the view of his party’s “defense hawks.” His panel is looking for cuts and new efficiencies in defense spending. He gratefully accepts the administration’s assessment that readiness is fine.
In the Senate, Thurmond and other Republicans on Armed Services told his Budget Committee Chairman, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) that defense spending should be kept at 1995 levels plus 3% to cover inflation.
Larry Di Rita, a defense analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the new Congress clearly “has no stomach for large defense increases.” Republicans will not accept the Clinton administration’s call for another 10% cut in defense spending through 1999, said Steve Koziak, with the non-profit Defense Budget Project in Washington. But neither will they add money to provide real growth.
“If you look at what Republicans won the election on,” said Koziak, “defense was ranked among the lowest issues people seemed interested in.” A Budget Committee staffer said Kasich supports the Republican “Contract with America” but believes its most important promise is to balance the budget.
Because Republicans would not say how defense would fare under a balanced budget amendment, Navy leaders were relieved to see the amendment fail in the Senate by a single vote. The deadline for ending deficit spending, in 2002, is when the armed services hope to see increases in modernization.
“My concern,” said Admiral Boorda the day before the vote, “is that they’ll fence so much [in domestic programs], defense will be the only place they’ll get the money. Then I think it would be disastrous.”
While the services preach interservice cooperation and jointness, the ever tightening budget forces them to compete vigorously for a bigger share of a shrinking budget pie. These are tough times to pretend they love one another.
Navy officials, for example, fear a push by some lawmakers to plus-up Air Force programs such as the B-2 bomber, which at $500 million per plane could put sea-service projects at risk.
“If you bought B-2s and didn’t use Navy money to do it, would that hurt the Navy? No, of course not,” said Admiral Boorda. “But if you used DDG-51 money or sub money to buy B-2s, yeah, that Would hurt the Navy. I think it would end up hurting the nation. You need both of those things.”
“I really want the Air Force to succeed,” Admiral Boorda added. “I’m an American, too, but I need to make the best case I can for our systems and what they can do.”
The Air Force, of course, has similar concerns. Its long-range plan to buy more than 400 F-22 heavy stealth fighters at $160 million per copy appears vulnerable. Navy officials believe there's a small Possibility the Air Force will decide instead to purchase large quantities of the E/F version of the F/A-18 Hornet. Doubling the buy might cut the Navy’s per- unit cost by 25%, saving Navy money to upgrade its fleet of strike support aircraft.
To date, the Air Force is not arguing for more B-2s than the 20 on order. A recent Air Force white paper suggested a bomber fleet can provide what one official described as “virtual presence” to potential adversaries, as intimidating as an aircraft carrier but at less cost.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (right) may have the last word on any defense issue. Kasich—shown here with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici—accepts assessments that readiness is fine.
“I don’t ever plan on advocating a virtual Navy,” quipped Admiral Boorda at a luncheon with maritime writers. When Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald Fogelman mentioned “virtual presence” at a Senate hearing, Warner greeted the concept with what a staffer described as amused skepticism.
So far, Republicans do not appear to favor one service over another. “Lott and Cohen are predisposed to higher levels of shipbuilding, but as a whole it’s evenly balanced,” a staffer said. Those who oppose the Seawolf program as an overpriced Cold War weapon are likely to oppose more B-2s for the same reason, he said. “Each program will sink or swim on its own.”
Recommendations from the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, due out 24 May, could have some impact on the 1996 budget. Congress is not waiting for that report to get behind an expanded role for Navy in theater ballistic missile defense. Until recently, the service hadn’t pushed the program hard. Admiral Boorda now has the Navy “playing catch-up,” said a congressional analyst. And lawmakers seem to like what they’re hearing.
“Besides the fact that we’re pretty advanced and can probably field [a ballistic missile defense system] quicker than anybody, we can cover a very large amount of space,” Admiral Boorda said. U.S. strategy in any conflict is to move forces quickly to the theater by sea and air. With enemy missiles becoming longer range and more accurate, protecting entry points for arriving forces—including land-based missile defense systems—will become increasingly difficult without sea- based missile protection. Admiral Boorda also stated.
Republican Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Chairman of the House Procurement Subcommittee, agrees. He has decided the Navy’s Theater Wide Defense (Upper Tier) program is woefully underfunded and urged the same view on Army Lieutenant General Malcolm O’Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. At a 7 March hearing, O’Neill said, if given more money for ballistic missile defense, his first priority would be to beef up the Navy’s program.
“What Navy Upper Tier brings to the table is the mobility of the fleet around the world, the ability to lay off a host country, and, from over the horizon, provide friendly, protective fire in support of our allies or of our operations,” O’Neill said.
Aegis cruisers and Arleigh Burke destroyers not only provide launching systems but also a command-and-control system that can link every ballistic-missile-defense leg. Aegis, said O’Neill, “is an incredible system. It’s the best fire- control system I’ve ever seen. It has tremendous growth potential, tremendous capability in terms of radar, computing,” and the Aegis ships “carry thousands of tons of stuff into combat.”
Cochran, too, said he favors adding money to missile defense, particularly for Navy test and evaluation. The administration, he said, isn’t doing enough “to protect our security interests against a threat from missile technology in the hands of renegade nation states.”
All fine and dandy. But in this Congress, perhaps the last question to ask on any defense issue is this:
“What do you think, Mr. Kasich?”
Warm Fuzzies
A Pentagon secretary, knowing she faced a long walk from the parking lot on a cold snowy morning, donned her long underwear. She was very comfortable on the trek, but as the day wore on and the building heated up, she became very uncomfortable. Grabbing a large manila envelope, she headed for the ladies room where she removed the “woolies” and placed them in the envelope. Returning to her office, she tossed the envelope on her desk.
Later in the afternoon, the envelope returned to her desk where she noted, to her horror, that it had been stamped “All Naval Officers Read and Initial.”
Barnett B. Young