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MISSION IMPROBABLE: They didn’t see this coming. Just as the services were breathing a little easier with fresh money from Congress for spare parts and maintenance operations to begin to restore the readiness of their crippled aviation squadrons, the big guy issued orders to march in double time. On Tuesday, news broke that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a memo last month to the Air Force and Navy departments giving them just 12 months to get 80 percent of their fighter jets fit for combat. While no one is complaining publicly, several of the players in the tactical aviation units I talked to yesterday indicated that Mattis’ tall order may be a tad unrealistic. “Up to now our talking point has been that it took us years to get into this problem, it’s going to take years to get out,” said one officer who asked not to be identified. “We’re in a big hole,” said another. For example, only 53.3 percent of Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets are rated “mission-capable,” meaning they are fit to fly, but even they may not be combat-ready, which requires a higher rating of “fully mission-capable.” And only last month, the number of F/A-18s available was below 50 percent. “Those are horrific numbers, all of them,” said John Venable, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who served 25 years in the Air Force. “It’s a huge lift but it is about time they got the pressure. “The laissez-faire style of leadership is gone and that left with the Obama administration and the commanders that were associated with that. They weren’t given the funds, they weren’t given the certainty they needed to lead their forces. Well, now there is no excuses. These guys have the money, they have the personnel, they have the machinery,” Venable said. LEARN FROM THE PROS: The Mattis memo orders the services to bring mission-capable rates for their F-35, F-22, F-16 and F/A-18 fleet above 80 percent by Oct. 15 of next year. “I’m just not sure that’s possible,” lamented one aviation officer. Mattis directed the services to take a page out of the private-sector playbook, and use the best practices of commercial aviation companies to improve readiness quickly. “I am confident in our Department’s ability to generate additional capacity from our current aircraft inventory, alongside the commercial aviation industry’s sustainment of high availability rates,” Mattis wrote in the Sept. 17 memo. The Senate Armed Services Committee drilled down on the commercial industry’s example during testimony by Air Force leaders on Wednesday. “I did a little sniffing around, I think Delta Airlines, their aircraft readiness in their fleet is about 86 percent. I believe it’s somewhere along those lines. Yet for the [Air Force] F-35 that’s a new airplane, coming online, coming to the fleet, I think it’s in the … mid-60s,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, a subcommittee chairman, said while questioning Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff. LOW RATES: Sullivan’s estimate for Air Force F-35 readiness turns out to be overly optimistic. The real rate is just over half, and slightly better than its cousin the F-22. The Air Force gave the following breakdown of its mission-capable rates, which it said was from fiscal 2017, the most recent year from which data were available, even though we know the rates are tracked almost daily:
Wilson told Sullivan that despite the overall low capability rate for the F-35, its readiness actually varies significantly from squadron to squadron. Supply lines and its stealth coding make the fifth-generation fighter, the most expensive weapons program in Pentagon history, more difficult to keep in the air than a Delta airliner, Wilson told Sullivan. TOO MANY AIRPLANES: The Marine Corps appears to be in the worst shape. Heritage found about half of the service’s tactical aircraft were considered flyable as of 2017. Unlike the other services, the Marines refused to release their current mission-capable rate citing “operational security concerns.” A spokesman said it would take a Freedom of Information Act request to get the numbers, but then he added, “the aviation fleet is healthier today than it has been since 2013.” The Marines fly the legacy F/A-18 Hornet, not the Navy-only F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Gen. Robert Neller, the Marine Corps commandant, said the good news is the service has its annual funding from Congress and not a stopgap budget to hit Mattis’ goal. “He told us we’ve got a year, so OK. I mean, I know where we are right now,” Neller said during a breakfast meeting with defense reporters. Part of that solution will be getting rid of the oldest Marine Corps F/A-18 jets “to take advantage of the parts we can get off of them and reduce the number of airplanes,” he said. “I’ve said we have too many airplanes, we’ve got to get rid of airplanes. At some point when you get new you’ve got to get rid of the old ones. You can’t just keep them. Now, you’ve got a squadron that’s designed to maintain 12 airplanes and they’ve got to maintain 16,” Neller said. Venable warned that jettisoning jets to get capability rates up could amount to gaming the system. “You can lower your sights, reduce the number of commissioned aircraft you have, and therefore your numbers go up. I would never throw that rock at Neller but this is one of those things the secretary of defense should be looking at pretty hard,” he said. Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense. |
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BREAKING THIS MORNING: Two astronauts heading to the International Space Station are in good condition this morning after a booster rocket failure forced them to conduct an emergency landing just minutes after launch, NASA said. NASA astronaut Nick Hague (who’s also an Air Force colonel) and Russian cosmonaut Alexie Ovchinin lifted off this morning atop a Soyuz booster rocket in Kazakhstan, which then suffered the engine failure. SPATE OF SPACE LAUNCH DEALS: The Air Force has inked a $792 million agreement with Northrop Grumman to develop the OmegA space rocket, which could be used for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, or EELV, program. Northrop said it plans ground tests for the rocket next year and a launch in 2021. It came as the Pentagon announced other investments in the EELV program and its effort to develop multiple commercial launch services for its heaviest and most complex payloads. United Launch Services was awarded $967 million for development of the Vulcan Centaur launch system. Blue Origin got $500 million to develop the New Glenn launch system. NOT AWARDED: SpaceX, which came as a shock, according to Defense News. BOEING PURCHASE: Boeing is investing in a satellite-building startup that’s developing a more efficient propulsion system. The aerospace giant’s involvement will help Boston-based Accion expand its manufacturing capabilities and offer access to the Chicago-based company’s experts and facilities, the companies said in a statement. Accion’s Tiled Ionic Liquid Electrospray, or TILE, propulsion combines non-toxic propellant and thrusters the size of a postage stamp to provide smaller, lighter, and more cost-effective maneuvering for vehicles in orbit. HAPPENING TODAY — THREAT BRIEFING: The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to receive a closed briefing at 9:30 a.m. on the threats posed by China and Russia, according to the chamber. YEMEN CERTIFICATION SKEPTICISM: A bipartisan group of senators is questioning Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s certification last month that allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are trying to limit civilian casualties in Yemen and adhering to agreements related to U.S. weapons purchases. Sens. Todd Young, Jeanne Shaheen, Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, Chris Coons, Chris Murphy and Jeff Merkley pointed to airstrikes that have killed civilians including “dozens of children” in Yemen in recent months. “In short, we are skeptical a certification that the two governments have undertaken demonstrable actions to reduce the harm to civilians is warranted when the Saudi coalition has failed to adopt some U.S. recommendations while civilian deaths and casualties due to coalition airstrikes have increased dramatically in recent months,” the senators wrote in a letter to Pompeo on Wednesday. Pompeo’s certification, which allowed U.S. war support to continue, found the Saudis and UAE followed laws on the sale and transfer of weapons “with rare exception.” “We do not understand a certification that the Saudi and Emirati governments are complying with applicable agreements and laws regulating defense articles when the [certification] explicitly states that, in certain instances, they have not done so,” they wrote. SAUDI SANCTIONS: Top Senate lawmakers on Wednesday called on President Trump to consider sanctioning Saudi Arabia, including its highest-ranking officials, over missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a critic of the government and has not been seen since entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2. The letter, sent by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker and a bipartisan group of more than 20 lawmakers, requests that Trump “make a determination on the imposition of sanctions … with respect to any foreign person responsible for such a violation related to Mr. Khashoggi.” CROWN PRINCE PLOTTED AGAINST HIM: Turkish officials said Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered with a saw upon the orders of Saudi royalty. A Washington Post report Wednesday night appeared to back that claim. U.S. intelligence shows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a self-proclaimed reformer, ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia to Saudi Arabia so he could be detained. PAUL SQUALL: Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday fought on the air with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade over what the Kentucky Republican called an overly interventionist U.S. military policy. ISIS FINANCIERS CAPTURED: The U.S. coalition says it has helped Iraqi special operations forces arrest members of a key ISIS financing group. The arrests include 10 members of the al-Rawi network in Baghdad and Erbil between Sunday and Tuesday. “The arrests deal a major blow to ISIS’s capacity to threaten and terrorize civilians,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, commander of Special Operation Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement this morning. ‘NOTHING WITHOUT OUR APPROVAL’: South Korea is reportedly considering lifting sanctions on North Korea despite the U.S. pressure campaign aimed at forcing it to give up its nuclear weapons. But Trump says that’s not going to happen. “Well, they won’t do it without our approval. They do nothing without our approval,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. The comment comes as the administration and the long-time U.S. ally appear to have diverging strategies for edging the North toward giving up the weapons. South Korea Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said his country is leaning toward the move, the New York Times reported. “We are reviewing it with related government agencies,” Kang said. POMPEO: BLOCKED NOMINEES PUT U.S. AT RISK: Senate Democrats are putting America’s national security at risk by delaying the confirmation of nominees to top diplomatic posts, Pompeo is charging. “We’ve done our part at the State Department by putting forward a slate of candidates,” Pompeo said in a Wednesday evening bulletin. “It’s Sen. Bob Menendez and his colleagues who have refused to vote on these nominees, putting our nation at risk.” That salvo continued a fight that broke out publicly last week, when Pompeo accused the New Jersey Democrat of using his position as the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee to slow-walk dozens of nominees. Menendez’s team denied that charge and faulted Pompeo for failing even to nominate ambassadors to certain key countries. NATSEC THREATS: Homeland Security Secretary listed the top five threats to the U.S. yesterday. TERROR PROBES: FBI Director Christopher Wray made a stunning disclosure to the Senate Homeland Security Committee: The bureau is investigating 5,000 terrorism cases around the world. HALEY’S FINANCES: Ambassador Nikki Haley’s resignation was not motivated by financial pressure, according to a spokesperson who contradicted reports that the Haley family has a burdensome debt load. JEFF DAVIS CHECKS IN: Former Pentagon spokesman retired Navy Capt. Jeff Davis has made a soft landing and is now the top spokesman for General Dynamics, with the title of staff vice president, communications. “GD is a fascinating place — lots of defense of course — everything from Electric Boat (submarines) and Bath Iron Works (destroyers) to the Stryker, M1 Abrams, G-6 business jets for celebrities (Gulfstream), and IT services,” he said. Davis, you may recall, delivered a heartfelt critique of today’s news environment at his Pentagon retirement ceremony in May, which was posted on YouTube. “There has been a blurring of the line between fact and opinion in journalism, and a declining ability of consumers of news to differentiate between the two. News organizations facing competitive pressures reward speed over accuracy, exclusivity of information over that which comes from official or widely available sources, palace intrigue over the substance of issues, breaking news over in-depth reporting, and breathless ledes over content that fosters a deep understanding of and respect for both sides of an issue based upon a sober presentation of the facts.” But he also had kind words for those of us who cover the military. “The reporters I know do an admirable job in my estimation of shielding the coverage of military operations from these pressures,” he said. “To call their work fake news is insulting. To call them the enemy of the people is dangerous.” THE RUNDOWN Washington Examiner: Rubio: Xi Jinping harassing Chinese Americans in the United States Washington Examiner: Chinese spy lured to Belgium by FBI, extradited to US to face trial Bloomberg: Trump Space Force, Pentagon Plan Set to Collide With Budget Caps Defense One: All the Times Trump Has Invoked ‘National Security’ Army Times: The Army’s next tank might not be a tank at all Defense News: Can the Army pull off buying two new helicopters back to back? Breaking Defense: DoD Scrambles To Write Space Doctrine As Space Command Plan Takes Shape Air Force Magazine: “Crimped” Component— Not Ejection Seat— Caused B-1B Mishap, UTC Says Defense News: ‘You’re on your own’: US sealift can’t count on US Navy escorts in the next big war Defense One: Curtailing Korean Exercises Comes at a Price, Says USMC Commandant Reuters: Boeing rocket for NASA over budget, could further delay launch: audit Task & Purpose: The Marines Are Finally Getting Rid Of Their Oldest, Crappiest Jet Fighters |
CalendarTHURSDAY | OCT. 11 1 p.m. 929 Long Bridge Dr. U.S.-ROK Defense Industry Consultative Committee (DICC). ndia.org FRIDAY | OCT. 12 8 a.m. 300 1st St. SE. Space Threats to the US: A Discussion with Jeff Gossel, Senior Intelligence Engineer with the Space and Missiles Analysis Group at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. mitchellaerospacepower.org 12 noon. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age with David Sanger. heritage.org TUESDAY | OCT. 16 7 a.m. 100 Westgate Circle. 23rd Annual Expeditionary Warfare Conference. ndia.org 8 a.m. 1400 14th St. N. Procurement Division Meeting. ndia.org 9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Hearing on Nominations of Thomas McCaffery to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, and William Bookless to be Principal Deputy Administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration. armed-services.senate.gov WEDNESDAY | OCT. 17 9 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. The Evolving Iranian Strategy in Syria: A Looming Conflict with Israel. atlanticcouncil.org 12 noon. 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Book Discussion of The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy with Author Stephen Walt. cato.org 3 p.m. Russell 222. Subcommittee Hearing on the Implications of China’s Presence and Investment in Africa. armed-services.senate.gov 5:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Free Speech and National Security. csis.org |
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