China is claiming that America’s top-line stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, is obsolete because a new Chinese radar system is able to detect it.
The Chinese claim, which appeared in an Oct. 4 Defense News report, is dubious. But given the efforts of many of our adversaries to find a “solution” to stealth, it has to be taken seriously. And if stealth is soon going to be obsolete, what can we develop to give us the technological advantage that stealth has provided over the past two decades?
That question occurs in the context of another that is equally important: After 13 years of war, how many of our primary military weapon systems — obsolete or not — are just worn out?
The U.S. military is sometimes described as a victim of its own successes. Some of that is because our troops are so good, they win despite their old and obsolete weapons. My father’s Marine platoon went ashore on Guadalcanal in 1942 armed with the 1903 Springfield rifle, but the Marines still won the battle. Our troops dominated the 1991 Gulf War battlefield with weapon systems such as the 1952 vintage B-52 and the 1963 vintage M-16 rifle. Even with better aircraft and rifles available, many of our primary weapons haven’t been replaced with the newer, more capable systems since President Reagan’s military buildup in the 1980s. Many are obsolete, worn out, and old. However, to analyze the problems, we have to understand the big differences among those terms.
A good definition of an obsolete weapon system is one that can no longer perform its mission because the enemy has a countermeasure that defeats its technological advantage. Since World War II, our strategies have relied on technological superiority — rather than sheer numbers — to dominate the battlefields. When we lose the technological edge, we risk losing the fight.
If China’s new radar truly can detect an F-22 — and by implication, all our stealthy aircraft, cruise missiles and drones — then our entire array of stealthy weapon systems will no longer be able to perform their principal mission unless we develop a technological countermeasure to restore the advantage. And if we can’t regain our technological edge, our strategies and tactics will have to change, as will the weapons we buy. Critics have often argued that the F-35 is unaffordable because of its numerous technological deficiencies and enormous costs. If stealth were no longer effective, we couldn’t justify spending $400 billion to buy almost 2,500 F-35s.
Which brings us to a parallel problem not often discussed in civilian circles: How many of our workhorse weapons are simply wearing out? The best examples are the Air Force’s F-16 and the Navy’s F/A-18.
Retired Rear Adm. Michael Groothousen used to fly F/A-18s when he was commander of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. How does combat wear on aircraft like the F/A-18? Flight stresses the aircraft in two ways, he said: compression of metal (or composite material) and expansion of it. “Eventually, it can break,” Groothousen explained. “Think about a wire coat hanger: If you bend it back and forth sufficient times, it will break in two.
“Every time an aircraft takes off, it incurs stress on its structures — wings, fuselage, tail and more — which we record after the flight,” he continued. “Combat — including combat training — places higher stresses on an aircraft than non-combat usage. In Operation Iraqi Freedom and the current missions against ISIS, we’re using up aircraft life at 125 to 180 percent the normal peacetime rate.”
Think about that: The toll of 13 years of war is that our primary attack aircraft are wearing out at nearly twice the normal rate. The Air Force and Navy will spend billions to keep these aircraft flying safely, but they can’t do so indefinitely. Eventually, they must choose replacement aircraft that fit into America’s changing national strategies.
But just what are our strategies? President Obama has often said that previous strategies were bad ideas, but his national defense policy documents don’t enlighten us — or our allies — on what will replace them.
Obama’s national security strategy (last stated in January 2012) sets forth a doctrine that is nearly Churchillian in its boldness. It proclaims that America will defend freedom around the world and shift its military presence to the Pacific. “Going forward,” he said, “we will remember the lessons of history and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when our military was left ill-prepared for the future.” And yet, there is a critical mismatch between the president’s words and what he is actually doing.
Throughout the Cold War, our two principal strategies to deal with the Soviet threat were deterrence and containment. Those strategies worked, but they were very expensive, requiring hundreds of billions in spending on land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as intercontinental bombers.
The end of the Cold War essentially halted public debate about nuclear weapons until the advent of the Obama presidency. Obama first declared his intention to eliminate nuclear weapons and then entered into a treaty with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in each nation’s arsenal to 1,550 (including both missiles and aircraft). He also wants to reduce the allowable number of nuclear warheads by one-third.
For its part, Russia is accused of violating a 1987 agreement on intermediate-range nuclear weapons by testing a nuclear-capable intermediate-range cruise missile. The Obama administration publicly confirmed in July thatthe violation occurred, but made no response.
The president has not said we are abandoning deterrence, and he has not announced any new strategy to replace it. However, nations such as Iran — which will soon be able to manufacture and launch nuclear weapons of its own — may not be susceptible to deterrence. So as our military planners look to the future to develop and buy the weapons we will need 10 or 20 years from now, there is a paucity of policy and strategic guidance for them to rely on.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shifted emphasis to conventional forces designed to fight terrorists and engage in nation building. President George W. Bush’s last defense secretary, Robert Gates, derided the idea that we should be thinking ahead to future conflicts. In a 2008 speech, Gates said, “I have noticed too much of a tendency toward what might be called ‘next war-itis’ — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict.”
Gates was dead wrong. The primary job of every defense secretary is not just to fight today’s war but also to plan for future wars.
Unfortunately, Obama has adopted Gates’ thinking. With Gates’ approval, he cut $400 billion from the defense budget over 10 years; after Gates left, in apparent disregard of future requirements, he approved another $600 billion in cuts through sequestration.
Spending cuts are only half the problem. When our strategies lag behind the threats that we need to deter or defeat, our weapons cannot anticipate vital new strategies regardless of what we spend. Our next president will face the monumental task of bringing our strategies in line with reality and restoring our military spending to equip our forces with what they need to make those strategies work.
Jed Babbin, former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, is a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research and the author of several books including In the Words of Our Enemies and The BDS War Against Israel.
