We Can Fix Acquisition

Transformation means continuous change and requires continuous experimentation, but the current acquisition system is out of touch. The Navy still has sailors handling phone-and-distance lines on frontline destroyers that can deliver Tomahawk missiles with pinpoint accuracy.

Our approach to transforming our armed forces must be changed—particularly the way we acquire systems. If we do not change it, it will break us. I say this even though we are winning wars with the current system. The joint task forces of U.S. Central Command have done very well in Afghanistan. But we are wasting money, missing opportunities, and, worst of all, not using our greatest transformation resource—the sailors and Marines in the fleet and the soldiers and airmen in the field.

In December, I spent a day on two of our new Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class guided-missile destroyers (DDGs). It gave me a chance to think about change in the Navy. My seagoing career included service on four Charles F. Adams (DDG-2)-class DDGs, preceded by midshipman cruises on two others. I know DDGs.

The improvements in the combat systems are spectacular. The Aegis radar and fire control system and vertical launch systems and the improved Standard missiles can engage threats with confidence that we could not touch in the old days. These combat systems show the results of Rear Admiral Wayne Meyer's "build a little, test a little" approach.

One of the events I observed, however, was an underway replenishment. I could not believe it. We still use a phone-and-distance line in the 21st century. We put six sailors on the most dangerous part of the focsle, getting tired and wet, to provide at best an inaccurate reading of the distance between two ships, so the conning officer can keep the destroyer at the right distance from the oiler. How can it be that the U.S. Navy has not fielded a laser-accuracy rangefinder, directly reading out to the conning officer?

I checked Amazon.com. It lists three brands of laser rangefinders costing $50-70. I understand some skippers in frustration have bought them.

When a deficiency this obvious has not been fixed, it is a symptom of deep systemic shortcomings. How many similar missed opportunities are out there?

Our acquisition system is fundamentally broken, especially in the area of information technology. We do not put engineers together with operators to fix real operational problems, deal with real war plan deficiencies or emerging threats, and take advantage of real opportunities. The reward system that drives the detached bureaucracy of requirements writers, comptrollers, and program managers is connected only tenuously to what our forces need to operate and fight better.

I am picking on the Navy, but of the services I observe, the Navy actually does better than most to connect operators with system developers. The submariners have a tight loop between operating crews and engineers who develop sonar sensors and display systems—and the engineers are very aggressive about taking advantage of commercial technology. Each submarine that goes on patrol benefits from the lessons of the last patrol, and probably will have one or two pieces of new gear to evaluate.

Before the Carl Vinson (CVN-70) Battle Group deployed, Rear Admiral Thomas Zelibor took his staff to the Naval War College to participate in a war game, and with help from the Office of Naval Research and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, they used what they learned to create a knowledge web for command and control. They set up the secret Internet protocol network (SIPRNET) to command and control key battle group functions; they developed a bulkhead of displays and multiple-screen watch stations, and they established procedures to run the battle force on the web. They arrived in the Central Command on 11 September ready to conduct Operation Southern Watch. The system they had developed themselves worked splendidly in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Many pockets in the armed forces do connect developers and operators closely. Generally, they are the smaller aircraft or specialized communities or individual commanders with initiative. The big money in acquisition, however, goes to the long-term replacement programs that are detached at an early stage from the dynamic reality of operations and warfare. They emerge decades later with new generations of systems. Yes, these new systems are better than what they replace, but they are not as good as they could be in meeting the needs of the warrior, which will have changed significantly since the original requirements for the program were established.

Even if we were able to reorganize our acquisition system so program managers had to stay in touch with operators during the long development period of a program, we still would not reach our full potential. Why? Because our acquisition system is dominated by two dynamics: (1) the replacement of an aging system with one technically more advanced—a new bomber, fighter, submarine, or destroyer, and (2) new technology forcing its way into the current way of doing business—unmanned aerial vehicles, space-based radar systems. Either way, the emphasis is on hardware, building a new class of platform rather than a new warfighting capability.

The system rewards bringing a program in on time on budget, and then fielding it with the operating forces. The bigger and more standardized the program, the better, from the perspective of the program manager. Cutoff dates for good ideas come very early in the development process. Incorporating flexibility to meet changing missions or threats or take advantage of emerging technology is heavily discouraged.

But what's the beef? Aren't we doing well?

Yes, but we could be doing so much better. We are missing a tight and continuing connection between programs as they progress and evolving requirements.

Another flaw in our acquisition system is that it is organized by service and our operations are joint. We must institutionalize a continuing connection between joint operations and the service acquisition systems, to evolve programs in the joint warfighting environment where they will be used.

This cannot be done in Washington with meetings, vu-graphs, and PowerPoint presentations. It must be done in the field. When we force service systems to work together in joint exercises and operations, and get funding to correct the deficiencies, we improve operational capabilities dramatically in months. When we write new joint specifications in Washington, we contribute to obsolete technology reaching the field in years.

In Pacific Command, we are developing a concept called a Joint Mission Force (JMF). The objective of this force is to create rapidly adaptable and deployable joint task forces from a carrier battle group, an amphibious ready group and embarked Marine expeditionary unit, an expeditionary air wing, an Army ready brigade, special forces, and coalition partners.

From these 20,000-25,000 personnel, we should be able to form a task force to conduct a mission, then reconstitute and move to the next mission with the speed of Special Forces consisting of several hundred personnel today. Short of a major war, such a force could handle any mission we anticipate in the Pacific Command. The forces we used in Afghanistan looked a lot like a JMF.

We have used a series of games and exercises to develop the command and control and procedures for a JMF. In November 2000, we conducted our first command-and-control exercise (C2X). Even though we have had joint task forces for some time, we found that the service component headquarters could not share a common operational picture. We documented the deficiencies and the service chiefs helped us correct them.

We conducted the next C2X about four months later. That time, I was able to sit in Fort Lewis, Washington, with the three- and four-star leadership of the Pacific Command, conducting a videoteleconference over the net with component commanders around the Pacific—from Yokota, Okinawa, Guam, and ships at sea—sharing a common operational picture and a set of web-based operational procedures.

We demonstrated that we can field the technology rapidly to give our forces required capabilities when we get the engineers together with the operators and some financial support from Washington.

We have continued the C2X program, each time raising the bar on the information that the joint task force component headquarters must share and tying the exercise scenarios closely to operational plans. We have made rapid progress in improving both joint and coalition command-and-control capabilities. Starting in February, we began including experiments in our joint and combined command post exercises with information flow management and control technologies, information assurance technologies, and advanced fires and targeting capabilities. We are choosing technologies that will help us develop the operational capabilities we need—capabilities such as integrated fire and maneuver forces.

The next challenge is to move from the joint task force operational level—linking the joint task force commander and his staff with his service component commanders and their staffs—down to tactical commands. In the joint operating area, we need to be able to link Army ground units and helicopters with Marine Corps ground and air units, with Navy ships and aircraft, and with Air Force aircraft.

The Extending the Littoral Battlespace Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ELBACTD) showed us the way. The ELBACTD was designed to demonstrate the capability to establish a secure, wireless, wide-area network over a joint battle space covering 20,000 square miles. The major system demonstration occurred in June 2001 in conjunction with the experimental phase of the Kernel Blitz exercise.

In the exercise, the network was not secure. It took a platoon of contractors to man the server farm and keep the network running. A straight line drawn on an Army screen showed up as a curved line on the Marine Corps system.

But what I saw were commanders and their staffs bent over computer screens that showed the same picture their subordinate units were seeing in the field. The paper charts covered with acetate and yellow stickies had not been updated for days. At the operational level, the component commanders were doing collaborative planning on the ELB net. There were no fire support coordination lines, no phase lines, and no battalion boundary lines creating seams on the battle space. Instead, commanders saw the position of adjacent troops and synchronized operations at the tactical level.

In one telling vignette, an Army battalion commander used a company to attack a company-size enemy force, ignoring the classic 3:1 force ratio. He had Marine recon forces guarding his back, his other companies protecting his flanks, Harriers on call, and constructive naval gunfire support. He knew the threat; he knew his own support; and he could safely take an action that would have been foolhardy with the old information systems.

In another vignette, a Marine raid force conducted an airfield takedown 100 miles from the coast. The night before, Marine recon units infiltrated near the airfield. As the raid force approached the target in helicopters, the recon units updated the location of enemy forces using their ELB end-user terminals. The raid force commander received the new enemy disposition. He conducted a collaborative planning session during the last ten minutes of the ingress with the other heloborne units and the recon unit. He revised the set-down locations for the helos and the dispersion and attack plans for his troops. The takedown went flawlessly.

The Army, Marine Corps, and Navy component commanders in this exercise briefed the Joint Requirements Oversight Council that they had glimpsed the future and that we must move forward. The amphibious group commander found it painful to leave Kernel Blitz and ELB and return to his real-world job where he had to certify an amphibious ready group for deployment using acetate, voice radio, and post-its technology.

The ELBACTD now is transitioning to the Joint Task Force (JTF) WarNet program. Here is where projecting success becomes murky.

Some claim there is no operational requirements document for forces to coordinate fires at the tactical level. This was before special operators in Afghanistan began coordinating B-52 attacks with Northern Alliance ground maneuvers. Some program managers want to wait a few more years for the next upgrade in technology. The big joint experiment Millennium Challenge looked like the next opportunity for spiral development of the WarNet. Unfortunately, Millennium Challenge will not involve joint forces operating in the same battle space. Now, the program has slipped, because of both lack of funding to keep the ELB development team together and the lack of a field exercise. Were procedures in place to roll the JTF WarNet into a field C2X program, we already would have had one more turn on the spiral development.

Had we made the progress that we made with the JMF command and control, we would have had the technology, organization, and procedures to use an early version of the system in Operation Enduring Freedom. The special operators in Afghanistan would have had the same picture as the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Camp Rhino. The same picture would have been in the F-15, F/A-18, and B-52 cockpits. The same picture would have been in the joint task force commanders' headquarters and in the joint force air component commander's headquarters. The joint task force commander could have maneuvered the Marines, moved Northern Alliance forces, and directed bombing as part of a single integrated campaign. These are missed opportunities. The ELBACTD began in 1996. We should have had the capability by 2001.

In the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, U.S. forces achieved air supremacy. We have not deployed regular maneuver forces, however, but relied on the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Northern Alliance with a few of our Special Forces. The reason was not risk aversion. It was not lack of mobility or delivery capability.

The reason was that we have not developed the concepts, command, control, and communications to do so, and we have never tried it out in a joint exercise. The JTF WarNet will give us the capability to deploy and employ our ground forces and integrate them with air power. It is indicative of the shortcomings of our transformation system that we have the technology but have not provided it to our forces and developed the capability to use it.

So let me summarize.

First, if we rely solely on the acquisition process, we will never achieve our potential for force transformation. As an example, in 1994, I operated around Korea with my battle group and found that U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Army forces and their Republic of Korea (ROK) counterparts all had separate air pictures. This is a prescription for disaster in the complex and crowded airspace over Korea. Since coming to Pacific Command, I have pursued a program to fix this discrepancy, the Korean Tactical Digital Information Link (TADIL) Architecture Improvement Program (KTAIP). After three years, we are in the advanced testing stage for making the systems in Korea share one air picture.

Following the 11 September tragedy, the KTAIP testbed quickly was adapted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to fix the old U.S. radar surveillance network, which, like the ROK's, is in need of replacement and has a high rate of dual tracks. Within a month, the testbed provided the common tactical picture for homeland defense, integrating 50 radars, growing to 200 radars over the coming months. This program succeeded quickly because of the work that already had been accomplished on KTAIP.

The rest of the story is that we still are pressing to complete the testing and operate the system in Korea. The program objective memorandum process and the acquisition process are so thoroughly schooled into our program managers that they cannot figure a way to get obviously successful transformations such as KTAIP fielded except under emergency circumstances. That's just wrong.

The way ahead is to conduct frequent joint and combined exercises, both at command posts and with forces in the field, that involve advanced concepts and technologies. Determine the system deficiencies that impede joint operations, fix them in months, and start the cycle over. This approach leverages our legacy systems, which are too expensive to replace wholesale, and allows us to continually upgrade to take advantage of emerging technology.

Some object to such an evolutionary approach. They argue that we are not using breakthrough technology if we simply improve legacy systems to support new forms of force operations. They argue that their programs will produce the capability we seek if we just are patient until they are deployed throughout the force. They argue that we are too incremental by concentrating on existing and emerging operational needs.

I suggest they read James Corum's The Roots of Blitzkrieg (University Press of Kansas, 1992). The German Wehrmacht was focused on an immediate operational problem—a two-front war in Europe—not some theoretical concept for land warfare. The Germans were figuring how to invade and defeat Poland and France. They used cardboard strapped on cars to simulate tanks. They built and improved the tanks and armor tactics.

As Williamson "Wick" Murray has written, to the English and French, the Blitzkrieg seemed revolutionary. To the Germans it was evolutionary. They had been developing it for almost 20 years when they unleashed it on the Poles, the French, and the Russians.

We should not be patient for change. While studying distant future adversary capabilities and concepts, we must provide our forces the potential of current technology.

The second point is that forces need to be raised joint and combined. Some breakthroughs in warfare have involved solving daunting engineering problems, but many others—such as Blitzkrieg and amphibious warfare—have resulted from putting existing systems together and developing the communications and tactics to use them.

For example, the Army is developing Interim Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs). These brigades are designed so that C-130s can deploy and sustain them. Their command system shows the position of each vehicle and each squad. With our air supremacy and a system like the JTF WarNet, we should be able to deploy such brigades rapidly to places such as the Balkans and Afghanistan.

I have spoken to the Army leadership about involving IBCTs in joint and combined exercises as soon as they can—before they lock in all of the doctrine. In exercises in Alaska and Korea, we would find out how to deploy, sustain, and fight these forces. We could ensure they could work effectively with Air Force and naval air forces overhead and with Marines on their flanks. We must move beyond sterile arguments of whether ground is supporting air or vice versa. It is all one force.

Not all systems or forces must be born joint, but programs should die an early death if they do not add to joint force capabilities as soon as they are operational. The justification for their continued development should be in joint field exercises, not in a single service operational evaluation.

Third, we must experiment as we exercise and operate. Forces should gain experience trying new systems and new operational concepts and adapting their procedures and organizational arrangements to improve warfighting effectiveness.

We bring money and programs to our crises, and we make great strides. Why don't we bring the same to our exercises? Commanders-in-chief should conduct joint and combined Command Post C2Xs and Field C2Xs at least semiannually and record deficiencies. We should expect funding to fix most deficiencies between exercises. Some of this will involve making legacy systems work together. Some will involve fielding new systems.

Continuous improvement is unsettling and difficult. It does not mean abandoning standards and validation, but it does mean applying them as principles, not as straitjackets. Transformation means continuous change—in doctrine, operations, personnel, material, leadership, and facilities. This requires continuous experimentation. And the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines involved love it. Do not sell them short.

There is a lot of talk these days of transformation in the armed forces. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen that talk translated into changes in the reward system or the way we acquire warfighting capabilities.

I have seen programs cut or increased, but I have not seen the true lessons drawn from our combat experience of recent years.

And I saw a phone-and-distance line still in use on a frontline destroyer.

Admiral Blair is Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command. This article is adapted from his address at the U.S. Naval Institute-AFCEA West Exposition and Conference in January 2002.