Doesn't the RAF already have a dual-mode guided bomb? Or, how to confuse the task with its process.

All these contract protests of late have given me quite a bit about which to write—in this column I’ve contributed commentaries on the FMTV, the CSAR-X, the KC-X, and others. After another essay, I received a comment from a colleague that just has a fabulous and recyclable line about how contract protests can quickly obscure the whole point of what we’re doing here. I’ve edited the comment for readability, but as he put it,

        Here’s a classic example: the Dual-Mode Laser-Guided Bomb (DMLGB). In 2004, Marine Harrier pilots noticed these dual-mode things—Raytheon's Enhanced Paveway IIs—on their brother British Harriers in the RAF. By the time the request made it up the chain, the official 2005 UUNS out of I MEF requested the more generic "dual mode guided bomb units (GBUs)" to be developed/produced out of the existing laser-guided bomb funding line. By the time Naval Air Systems Command received the tasking, and after several years of contract execution, we're still working on the "dual mode GBU" that will do, fundamentally, what EPII has been doing for years. I know many of the folks who were involved with the project since 2005 and I believe all of them have been/are trying to do what they perceive is in the best interests of the fleet. But why the plan wasn't simply to buy what is essentially an off-the-shelf system, Raytheon's EPII, I don't know. Likely, the regulations of the acquisition system didn't allow it; rather, it forced the creation of a generic requirement and then a competitive bid. The end result is that the Navy has spent years and tens of millions of dollars to do something that could have more simply been done had the acquisition system not confused the task with its process. I'm not saying the acquisition system should be chucked, but as you note in your essay, some means of non-traditional tool acquisition may be useful in some cases for more closely coupling an operational requirement with a material solution.

This sort of behavior sometimes seems endemic to the US and the UK. As money has gotten tight around the world, some other defense ministries have surged ahead with reforming their approach to business. In early 2007, Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors announced that Sweden’s days of building everything locally to locally-developed requirements were over. Henceforth, procurement would follow a three-phased decision process:

1. The first choice for procuring new hardware would be off-the-shelf purchases which satisfy 80 percent or so of the military’s stated requirements for new systems. Purchases would be pursued for best value regardless of the nationality of the offering firm.
2. If off-the-shelf equipment were not available, the ministry would pursue a cooperative development program with other national governments with similar requirements.
3. If no development partners could be found, a purely national development program would be undertaken.

In the interests of simply being able to deploy the largest number of well-outfitted troops for battle, this makes great sense. It didn’t make BAE Systems Bofors or Hägglunds happy in the short run, but their skills had long been honed in the export markets anyway. It wasn’t a process for fostering autarky, but it couldn’t be assailed as unfair, either.

That should take care of the question of the DMLGB, if it really does do 80 percent of what the Marines need want it to do. In the case of the KC-X, however, there’s a further argument about opportunity to be debunked.

In the US, the contract protest culture amongst some military contractors seems to incorporate a presumption of a right to play. Witness, most poignantly, Todd Tiahrt and Norm Dicks’ complaints about Airbus’s launch aid: the issue of what is best for international security, or just the interests of the troops, is kicked to the side in favor of “leveling the playing field”. The peculiar problem in this case is that launch aid, contrary to Boeing’s assertions, is a good deal for Americans. Effectively, assuming the USAF again chooses Airbus’s tanker, taxpayers in France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain will be footing a small part of the Pentagon’s bill through their state-sponsored low-cost financing. This doesn’t make Airbus a particularly stronger company; if anything, it makes it more susceptible to political decisions like that of the A380. If it were such a good deal for governments everywhere, then we’d all be flying on Tupolevs and trying to rack up frequent-flyer miles on Aeroflot, comrades.

Rather, as with the Navy’s tedious approach to buying the Marines a new guided bomb, this is confusing the task with its process. Whether Boeing or Airbus wants another try at an aircraft contract, the essential question really ought simply to concern the goal of providing the most suitable kit to the front line.