by Aaron Mehta
\nFeb. 2, 2016<\/p>\n
President Obama\u2019s fiscal year 2017 budget will request $582.7 billion in funding for the Pentagon, including $71.4 billion for research and development,\u00a0$7.5 billion to fight the Islamic State group, $8.1 billion for submarines, and $1.8 billion on munitions, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
In a speech previewing next week\u2019s budget release, Carter also highlighted new technologies his department is developing\u00a0to meet what he called a \u201cmajor inflection point\u201d that takes \u201cthe long view\u201d for the Department.<\/p>\n
The budget, Carter explained, was driven by five key factors: the rise of great powers in\u00a0Russia and China, the threat of North Korea to the US and its Pacific allies, Iran\u2019s \u201cmalign influence\u201d against allies in the Gulf, and the ongoing fight against the Islamic State group, commonly known\u00a0as ISIL or ISIS.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury of just one opponent, or the choice between current fights and\u00a0future fights \u2013 we have to do both,\u201d Carter said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what our budget is designed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense News: Budget ’17: Pentagon Planning Cuts in Production, R&D<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n In other words, the budget again reflects the dual\u00a0nature of the threats facing the Pentagon \u2013 both from near-peer nations such as Russia and China that require new technologies to counter, and from counterinsurgency operations.<\/p>\n \u201cKey to our approach is being able to deter our most advanced competitors. We must\u00a0have \u2013 and be seen to have \u2013 the ability to impose unacceptable costs on an advanced aggressor\u00a0that will either dissuade them from taking provocative action, or make them deeply regret it if\u00a0they do,\u201d Carter said, adding that \u201cIn this context, Russia and China are our most stressing competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the numbers put out by Carter:<\/p>\n The last point is key if the Pentagon is to move forward with the so-called third offset\u00a0technology development strategy, as acquisitions head Frank Kendall expressed at a December event.<\/p>\n Air Force Times: SECDEF: A-10 Will Stay Until 2022<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n “If you don’t do the R&D, you won’t have a product at all,” Kendall said. “It’s a fixed cost. Once you take the R&D out you are denying yourself future products, in any quantity, period.”<\/p>\n And the\u00a0budget does feature the development of new projects, with Carter highlighting the work of the Strategic Capabilities Office, a group he created in 2012 to \u201cre-imagine existing\u00a0DoD, intelligence community, and commercial systems by giving them new roles and game-changing capabilities to confound potential opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n Defense News: What to Expect in US Air Force’s Budget Request<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The first piece Carter highlighted was a navigation program that featured researchers putting \u201cthe same kinds of micro-cameras and sensors that are littered throughout our smartphones today, and putting them on our Small Diameter Bombs to augment their targeting capabilities.\u201d The goal, he said, is to create a modular kit that will work with many other payloads.<\/p>\n The second is focused on swarming, autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the air, they\u2019ve developed micro-drones that are really fast, and really resilient \u2013 they can fly through heavy winds and be kicked out the back of a fighter jet moving at Mach 0.9, like they did during an operational exercise in Alaska last year, or they can be thrown into the air by a soldier in the middle of the Iraqi desert,\u201d Carter said. \u201cAnd for the water, they\u2019ve developed self-driving boats, which can network together to do all sorts of missions, from fleet defense to close-in surveillance \u2013 including around an island, real or artificial, without putting our sailors at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Another program involves taking the projectile developed for the electromagnetic railgun and installing it on existing weapons \u2013 \u201cincluding the five-inch guns at the front of every Navy destroyer, and also the hundreds of Army Paladin self-propelled howitzers\u201d \u2013 to turn them into missile defense systems. Carter noted that this system was\u00a0successfully\u00a0tested on a Paladin a month ago.<\/p>\n Finally, Carter offered the vision of an \u201carsenal plane,\u201d which takes an unnamed, older Air Force platform turns it into \u201ca flying launch pad for all sorts of different conventional payloads. In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, networked to 5th-generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes \u2013 essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities\u201d<\/p>\n Missing\u00a0from Carter’s speech was a mention of the F-35, which is expected to face cuts as part of the tradeoffs to fund other priorities. He also did not mention the decision to turn the Navy’s UCLASS system into a refueling asset known as CBARS, first revealed Monday by Defense News.<\/em><\/p>\n Defense News: US Navy’s Unmanned Jet Could Be a Tanker<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Trade-Offs<\/strong><\/p>\n Carter largely avoided talking about what trade-offs would need to be made inside the budget, but did call out a significant one: cutting the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) buy, something he described as \u201cpart of a broader effort in our budget to focus the Navy on having greater lethality and capability that can deter and defeat even the most high-end future threats.\u201d<\/p>\n That move very publicly went against the wishes of Navy\u00a0Secretary Ray Mabus, something Carter was asked about by David Rubenstein, president of the Economic Club of Washington and the event’s host, and specifically what Carter would do if the Navy goes up to the Hill to fight to replace those ships.<\/p>\n Defense News: Pentagon Cuts LCS to 40 Ships, 1 Shipbuilder<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Carter indicated he would argue for what \u201cwe, including in the Navy, think is the best balance,\u201d while noting that he plans to increase the size of the Navy to 308 ships.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had to make trade-offs,\u201d Carter acknowledged. \u201cIn each of the services, you make trade-offs, as I said, for force structure, capability investment and readiness. All three of those are important and you just have to balance \u2013\u00a0we only have so many dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Rubenstein also asked about the future of the Gerald Ford-class carrier program, which has struggled with cost overruns.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a program that was undisciplined. We’re trying to wrestle that one into shape, but I’m not going to try to justify the history of the Ford-class carrier over the last 15 years or so,\u201d Carter responded. \u201cI think we’ll, of course, will buy more aircraft carriers in the future. I’m supposing we will, but not that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter also said that the department has been doing a \u201cthorough review for the last several months\u201d on potential Goldwater-Nichols reform, and said he expects to \u201cbegin receiving recommendations on that in coming weeks and making decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldwater-Nichols reform is a hot topic with both the Senate and House Armed Services leadership, and Carter has been attempting to create his own slate of reforms to avoid having the changes directed to the department.<\/p>\n Defense News: As Congress Pushes Defense Department Reform, So Does Carter<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n