Scratch a flat surface. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis checked into Newport News in May 2021 for a scheduled overhaul and refueling period, work that typically takes four years to complete. Last week, among the budget documents sent to Capitol Hill, came the news: The airline needs an additional 14 months out of service. Now, the Stennis will not be ready for duty. until October 2026 – more than five years after it arrived in port.
Delay has been the Pentagon’s dance partner all spring. Weapons program after program has fallen behind its production schedule, meaning cascading costs for taxpayers and reduced readiness for the military. The problem arises from choosing systems that are too complicated, too exquisite, and too expensive to maintain, and from relying on only a handful of prime contractors, most of whom face little or no competition. On June 17, the Government Accountability Office, in its annual survey of 76 leading acquisition programs, described the Pentagon called it “alarmingly slow” in deploying weapons to each service.
Consider these alarms: In a rare public report in April, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced that nine Navy ship programs were between one and three years behind schedule. The ships include the new Columbia-class submarine (12 to 16 months behind schedule); a new aircraft carrier (18 to 26 months behind schedule); and the first Constellation-class frigate (three years late). Del Toro called out the delayed contractors by name—General Dynamics Electric Boat, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc., and Fincantieri Marinette Marine—and went so far as to suggest that the United States should consider building some of its warships abroad.
Delays are equally rampant in the Air Force. The first flight of its new intercontinental ballistic missile, called Sentinel, is already two years late, while its price, once touted at $100 billion, has increased by an additional 37 percent. That news triggered a little-used law from the Reagan era that requires Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to certify that the program is worth pursuing. Meanwhile, a new Air Force trainer is more than two years delayed and the service has halved your purchase of the plane in 2025 in part to help its manufacturer, Boeing, catch up.
Deliveries of Boeing’s new KC-46 Pegasus tankers were stopped briefly earlier this year due to problems with its refueling boom, one of several delays that have affected an aircraft vital to US force projection around the world. AND dozens of F-35 fighters are parked at Lockheed Martin facilities awaiting long-delayed software updates.
Breaking the lock that a handful of prime contractors have on the Pentagon’s budgets and schedules won’t be easy. Del Toro is right to pressure Congress to buy more ships and their subsystems from fast-moving foreign manufacturers. Lawmakers like Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are right to pressure the Navy to move some shipbuilding away from overworked coastal shipyards and instead turn to smaller civilian facilities along the Great Lakes, where there is a shortage of skilled labor. less severe.
Inside the Pentagon, there are clear signs that the prime contractor gravy train could be slowing. In April, the Air Force ended a 50-year agreement with Boeing and instead asked a Reno, Nevada-area company to Sierra Nevada Corporation, to build the next-generation “Doomsday” command and control aircraft. Pentagon officials like to talk about “off-the-shelf” equipment, but Sierra Nevada did better than that; purchased five used Korean Air 747s and is now refurbishing them for the mission.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George deserves praise for canceling a new reconnaissance helicopter program in February, and the service receives extra credit for noting that the aircraft’s mission could “be achieved more affordably and effectively” if it relied on unmanned and space-based sensors. In May, the Space Force canceled its contract with RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) for a missile warning satellite due to delays and cost overruns. And it was encouraging this month to see two Pentagon agencies play four smaller ones Companies will build a new armed drone that can fly. 500 miles “Widening the aperture to include more non-traditional aerospace companies offers the best opportunity to achieve our unit cost objectives, project schedule and production quantity goals,” a Pentagon official said.
Thinking beyond prime contractors is necessary and welcome, but it remains the exception rather than the rule at the Pentagon, which is now on track to spend nearly $1 trillion next year on defense.
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