Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson on Tuesday compared an early 1990s surveillance plane to outdated technology like two-pound cellphones and dial-up Internet, and said the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar, or JSTARS program, has to go.
“1991 was two years before the first 20-ounce mobile came into being, remember those? 20 ounces is about the size of a bottle of Diet Coke you get out of a machine, a big brick of a thing and really expensive,” Wilson said. “I guess it was 1993 when a company changed its name and it became AOL and then a few years after that they started mailing us those discs to put into computers.”
“Technology has changed since 1991 and so has the threat,” she said during the think tank appearance that was ostensibly about building foreign alliances.
The Air Force had planned to replace the fleet of 17 aircraft built by Northrop Grumman, which cost up to $7 billion. But now it wants to abandon the program and develop new ways of monitoring the battlefield in front of Army units because its says the JSTARS planes would be quickly shot down by modern air defenses.
“All of us in this room have more sensors in our pockets today than we would have in a whole city block at the time JSTARS was created, so we think there is a different way to solve the battle management problem,” Wilson said.
Lawmakers are skeptical of the move. The House and Senate are weighing whether to block the move or even force the service to begin spending money on the replacement program as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act legislation.
Wilson also warned the Senate Appropriations Committee that future JSTARS would not survive on the battlefield and asked senators not to force a replacement program.
But the House has already passed a version of the NDAA calling for $623 million for the program, and the Senate Armed Services Committee has passed a version of the bill barring any retirement of the aircraft.
