Election '10: Defense doesn't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

Not sure if you've heard, but there's an election in the United States today. Predictions are dire for the governing Democrats. In Nate Silver's Wednesday morning hypothetical, "Pundits are running out of metaphors to describe what just happened."

Not a wave, a hurricane. Not a hurricane, a tsunami! Not a tsunami; a tsunami from a magnitude 9.5 earthquake. Or by a meteor strike!

There's going to be change; this much we know. So what does that mean for defense? For major acquisition programs? For topline budgets?

Well, I'm gonna tell you: not very much. And now I'm gonna tell you why.

Fiscal restraint and budget tightening are not issues that break cleanly along party lines -- even when it comes to defense. Republicans and their shills in the punditocracy have made and will make a lot of noise about how defense budgets are more secure with a conservative majority. See here:

“If Republicans take over the House, I’m certainly less worried about major defense spending cuts,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, research fellow for national security studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “We’ll still see efforts to rein in wasteful spending, but they’ll want to reinvest some of those savings back into other defense programs.”

Eaglen fails to mention that the SECDEF's ongoing "efficiencies initiative" is based on precisely that sort of anti-waste approach, complete with a promise that services will be free to "keep what they catch" and reinvest the savings they've identified into their own modernization accounts.

“The aim is not to reduce the defense budget but to put its funds to better use”, Gates said. He stressed that: "the services will be able to keep the savings they generate to reinvest in higher priority warfighting needs and modernization programs….It is important that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, where tough economic times or the winding down of a military campaign leads to steep and unwise reductions in defense."

And what of these feared "major defense cuts," the ones that have mysteriously failed to happen in the last four years of Democratic control (two of those with a Democratic administration, which -- lest we forget -- Secretary Gates serves)? Presumably we'll have nothing to worry about in a Republican Congress, as these cuts would be championed by the sort of liberal Democrat who views fiscal solvency as a national security priority, and who believes that defense spending should not be immune to the sort of austerity measures that will be applied to nearly every other form of discretionary federal spending. Liberal Democrats like these folks:

• Sen. Tom Coburn (pdf), Republican of Oklahoma: "I appreciate that some of these thoughts [about "serious problems in our defense budget"] are controversial – even to the point that I have some reluctance in suggesting them. However, if we are to fulfill our mandate, we must make some difficult choices, not just recommend that others do so... Despite the sacrifice, heroism, and professionalism that our military personnel have shown in Iraq and Afghanistan, America‟s defenses have been decaying, despite – perhaps even because of - increasing budgets."
• Sen. Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, who "echoed the point made by President Obama and Democratic leaders like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, that the national debt and national security are intimately related."
• Sen. Jeff Sessions, who co-sponsored an amendment that would have placed a firm cap on discretionary spending (pdf), including defense, and the 38 other Republican Senators who joined him in supporting the amendment.
• Kori Schake, foreign policy advisor to Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign: "Conservatives need to hearken back to our Eisenhower heritage, and develop a defense leadership that understands military power is fundamentally premised on the solvency of the American government and the vibrancy of the U.S. economy."

Oh -- those aren't liberal Democrats at all!

The defense industry knows this: they don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, only that you're loyal and predictable. Which is to say, an incumbent. Like I said, philosophies on belt-tightening aren't necessarily consistent across caucus or conference. But you know what is consistent across both caucus and conference, on both sides of the aisle and around the 50 states? Commitment to pork. And ain't no pork like defense pork.

When Secretary Gates announced his intention to shutter Joint Forces Command as one part of his efficiencies initiative, making the sort of defense budget cut that Mackenzie Eaglen so fears, Congressional Republicans sure did flip their shit! Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) accused the administration of "selling off our military at auction to pay for its social programs." And Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA, minority whip) thought the cut should be examined with "the heaviest scrutiny." In what can surely only be called a very, very strange coincidence, Democrats also opposed the cut: Democrats... from Virginia! Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) saw "no rational basis" for the closure, while Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) complained that the proposal would be "harmful to the capabilities of the finest military in the world" and is holding up DOD nominations until he gets some answers. And then there's Rep. Glenn Nye (D-VA), in whose district JFCOM is based (and whose opponent in today's election is blaming him for the closure): he introduced legislation telling the SECDEF to get stuffed. On second thought, maybe I should revise my earlier statement: When the SECDEF decided to close JFCOM, Congressional Virginians sure did flip their shit!

When it comes to keeping frivolous, duplicative, unwanted, and unnecessary weapon systems in the budget, industry knows who to count on: Mackenzie Eaglen, Loren Thompson, and every single member of Congress -- from either party -- whose district stands to materially benefit from the survival or continuation of the program. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) loves the Boeing KC-X tanker entrant -- which would bring 7,500 jobs to Wichita -- and so does Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS). Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both from Boeing's home state of Washington, also have very good, well-developed ideas about which entrant best serves the Air Force's refueling requirements. Who loves the F136 (GE's alternate F-22 engine, to be produced in Cincinnati)? Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) do, you can bet on that! So too does Driehaus' opponent, former Republican congressman Steve Chabot (duh, also OH).

According to Driehaus, he’s defending 1,000 jobs in his district at GE’s Evendale plant near Cincinnati. And he’s painting Chabot as an opponent in [the alternate engine] case — since Chabot wins plaudits from the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, which opposes the second engine.

“The real question for voters is who’s answering to the voters of Cincinnati, and who’s answering to outside groups?” Driehaus asked.

That’s disingenuous, according to Chabot. “I supported the alternate engine program when I was in Congress for 14 years,” he told POLITICO. But he’s unapologetic that the anti-spending group has given him one of the highest lifetime scores on opposing wasteful spending — 97 percent.

“I think my support for the GE alternate engine is one of the reasons my score is 97 percent and not 100 percent,” he said, noting Driehaus’s score is just 11 percent.

Now how awesome is this?! You have a candidate for office bragging about being accused of facilitating government waste, while his opponent tries to suggest that the first guy's failure to vocally support a wasteful program should count against him! Is it any wonder that defense companies shower incumbents on Defense Approps and Armed Services with money when Congressional wannabes run around trumpeting their success at using time in elected office to wastefully channel money to programs run by the same companies they hope will jam their pockets full of campaign contributions?? Is it any wonder that these companies don't give a damn which party these candidates are going to caucus with?

Now ask yourself something else: if these incumbents somehow fail to return to Congress, do you think the Lockheeds, Boeings, Raytheons, and GEs of the world will have any compunction about shifting their financial support to the chumps who replace them?

So let's put it this way: short of a literal tidal wave or tsunami or meteor strike, Congressional support for expensive weapon systems of dubious necessity is simply not going to dry up, and it doesn't matter a tinker's damn whether Democrats or Republicans are running the show. (Loren Thompson, in a lucid moment, agrees.)

I could spend a lot of time analyzing the way this is going to impact national security policy writ large, and speculating about whether the war in Afghanistan or possible contingency operations elsewhere will go different under our new Republican overlords, but really, it would just be more of the same: if you're expecting major change in a field of governance that's primarily shaped by executive prerogatives and furthermore subject to the substantial influence of entrenched interests in government and industry, then you're probably wrong. (And really, for Republicans in Congress to take foreign/security policy down a different path, wouldn't they first need to get on the same page with one another?)

So here's my ballsy prediction for the next two years of security policy: Republicans will say that Democratic priorities are passive, stupid, and dangerous. Democrats will say that Republican priorities are aggressive, stupid, and dangerous. We'll figure out a way to leave Afghanistan that will be alternatingly criticized as too hasty and too slow. Defense contractors will continue to turn a profit. And then we'll do this all over again in 2012.

F136 lobbying/advertising update (oh yeah, and legislative update, too)

Want to see something really bad? Here's Pratt & Whitney's new internet advertisement opposing the JSF alternate engine:

Yep, you're seeing that correctly: it's a dirty, tired, raggedy-ass infantryman, out there in the field fighting for your freedom, wondering why we're talking about $3B for an extra engine when he's out here wearing one pair of socks for three months at a time. "If you support the troops, you can't support the alternate engine!", his sad eyes seem to implore.

If you click on the ad, it takes you to http://www.f135engine.com/, which is Pratt & Whitney's response to GE/Rolls-Royce's http://www.f136.com/.

Another awesome, heartstring-tugging addition to the trail of embarrassing half-truths propagated by both supporters and opponents of the alternate engine. These guys are dicks. I'd like to punch Pratt & Whitney AND GE/Rolls-Royce right in the face.

(For what it's worth -- and it's not much at this point -- the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee voted 11-5 yesterday in favor of the alternate engine program. The White House is still threatening a veto.)

Why defense industry lobbyists are so damn likeable!

The Joint Strike Fighter (aka F-35) is the most expensive U.S. defense buy in history. By the time the whole shooting match is over, the Defense Department will have procured around 2,500 of the aircraft, to be fielded by all services but the Army, at a total cost of nearly $400B. (Recent projections say $112M per plane for a total of $382B, a figure that's 65% higher than the 2002 estimate.)

You may have heard that there's a little legislative tussle going on over whether the JSF needs a second engine program. The Defense Department says no. (Unsurprisingly, it's joined by Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer of the engine that was selected when the program was originally competed.) A whole bunch of members of Congress (plus GE and Rolls-Royce, who lost the original competition), along with defense industry shills in the think tank world, say yes. In fact, the House slapped the extra engine (called the F136) into the defense authorization bill, then defeated an amendment that would've stripped that language out by a 231-193 vote. The White House has threatened a veto if the F136 provisions don't come out when the House and Senate authorization bills are conferenced, but the Hill seems confident.

I tell you all of this as prelude to the point that I really want to make, which is this: the defense industry, the lobbyists, marketeers, pollsters, and who work for them, and the think tank "professionals" who pimp themselves out to industry in pursuit of their ideological conviction that bigger defense budgets are always better... are all acting like assholes. Why don't we look at a few examples?

Anyone who reads the blog or follows me on Twitter will have sorted out by now what I think about the alternate engine program. But this isn't really about that. Let me prove it to you by first talking about the most recent bitch move taken by a participant in this little political drama: poll data commissioned by Pratt & Whitney. Here's a blurb from today's edition of Mike Allen's Playbook:

The new "bridge to nowhere"? -- Pratt & Whitney allies will distribute research on the Hill today arguing against an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter: "Voters in the 19 districts surveyed have decidedly negative feelings about Congress spending $3 billion on an extra jet engine when explained the circumstances, especially when they learn that the engine is opposed by the nation’s top military leaders for being wasteful and unnecessary."

(To be clear, by "Pratt & Whitney allies," he means Pratt & Whitney's lobbyists.)

Why don't we take a look at the poll results (pdf), commissioned by Pratt & Whitney and prepared by Clarus Research Group? Here's how the results of the "research" are introduced:

OVERALL TAKE-AWAY: Voters in the 19 districts surveyed have decidedly negative feelings about Congress spending $3 billion on an extra jet engine when explained the circumstances, especially when they learn that the engine is opposed by the nation’s top military leaders for being wasteful and unnecessary. Views expressed on the specific issue are clearly aggravated by, and must be understood within, the current political context in which voters believe that a massive amount of federal spending is wasted and that well-connected companies and special interests benefit from Congressional earmarks at taxpayers’ expense.

I for one am shocked that individuals would oppose spending deemed "wasteful and unnecessary" by "the nation's top military leaders," especially in the "current political context in which voters [presumably the same voters that are being asked these questions] believe that a massive amount of federal spending is wasted"!

Seriously, can you believe that shit? If that's not enough, let's look at the polling data a little more closely.

The survey found that 87% of voters agree with the statement: “If America’s military leaders at the Pentagon determine that a multi-billion dollar defense contract with a private company is wasteful and unnecessary, Congress should NOT spend the money.”

Only 87%?! Because I'd like to find the other 13% and punch them in the face. But really, when your interlocutor makes an argument from authority, throws out terms like "multi-billion" to people who probably don't have much sense for exactly how expensive defense procurement is, and then tells you that "America's military leaders at the Pentagon" -- another argument from authority, considering that no one wants to disagree with a general about what the troops want or need -- have determined that the program is "wasteful and unnecessary," how can you expect anybody to disagree? In a courtroom they call that a leading question (or maybe just in 7th grade mock trial; I'm not a lawyer or anything).

So who the hell are those 13% who disagree with that statement and think the money ought to be spent? Well, if you listen to the pollsters, those are just retards who didn't understand the question, or weren't asked forcefully enough. After all, among those who said initially that they support the extra engine:

• 35% to 41% of them say they are less inclined to support it when they learn that "President Obama, former President Bush, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the country’s top military leaders are all opposed to spending the money for this extra jet engine because they say it is unnecessary and wasteful.”
• 56% to 61% of them say they are less inclined to support it when they learn that “many of the jobs the manufacture of the extra jet engine would create would be in Great Britain, because Rolls Royce is a British company.”
• 57% to 61% of them say they are less inclined to support it when they learn that “GE and Rolls Royce already have large government contracts and are spending millions of dollars on lobbyists and advertisements trying to put pressure on members of Congress to approve the extra jet engine they would profit from.”

So if instead of just saying "senior leaders at the Pentagon," you actually spell out who the senior leaders are, more than a third of those 13% will abandon their support. More than half will give up the extra engine if you make it clear that it's going to be built by dirty furriners. And a similar number can be cowed into agreement if you tell them that a dirty, dirty defense contractor is trying to exploit the gentle voter's innocent, unknowing support by pressuring Congress in order to enrich themselves. Easy!

But here's my favorite part: the conclusion.

Support for the extra jet engine is more likely to hurt Congressional incumbents seeking re-election than help them: To assess the bottom-line political impact of the issue, the following questioned was asked at the end of each survey interview: “If your member of Congress voted to spend the three billion dollars for this extra jet engine, would you be more or less inclined to support him or her for re-election in this November’s election?” The result: 7% more inclined, 67% less inclined, 13% volunteered it would make no difference.

So these nice, complicit pollsters are ready to give Pratt & Whitney exactly what they need: assurances to Congress that this goofy F136 business, which looks like it might help get them elected, is actually going to kick them in the ass, so why don't they just go ahead and give up on this nonsense already and oppose the extra engine?!

It's impossible to overstate just exactly how noteworthy it is for this polling data to get linked by Mike Allen, perhaps the most influential Inside-Baseball political reporter in Washington, in the most influential daily political digest, in a paragraph that leads with an invocation of a senseless spending fiasco from times past: the "bridge to nowhere."

And now for the other side. I've already taken up a whole bunch of your time, and you're probably bored with the subject of acquisition and defense spending anyway, so I'm going to be brief. Fortunately, Pratt & Whitney's competitors at GE and Rolls Royce have misrepresented reality in such an unbelievably egregious fashion that this can pretty much be summed up with just one image.

Click on the image for a bigger version, but yeah, you're reading that correctly: "LET'S COMPETE: GE and Rolls-Royce are building the F136 engine for America's next fighter jet. But some want to hand a $100 billion monopoly to a sole contractor. At a time of record budget defecits, competition is more important than ever for taxpayers and the military."

Now, one might fairly argue that the competition is already over, that the other guys won, that the "sole contractor" approach is pretty much generally how these things go once one side has already won the competition for the contract, that the taxpayers can't really afford nearly $3B in extra spending on an unnecessary piece of redundant gear, and that GE and Rolls-Royce aren't "building the F136 engine for America's next fighter jet" because they already lost the competition for the right to do that... but I figure you guys can sort that one out for yourselves.

F the defense industry, man.