Critics question need for new CVNX study

Sea Power, Sep 2002

In a move that some industry officials have characterized as "studying a program to death," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has directed a new analysis of the CVNX future aircraft carrier program-despite the recent completion of a comprehensive report on the program by the Defense Science Board. Rumsfeld's tasking is included in the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) he issued in May to serve as groundwork for preparation of the fiscal year (FY) 2004 to 2009 FYDP (Future Years Defense Program). Industry sources told Sea Power that the Department of Defense (DOD) plans to "reexamine" not only the CVNX program but also four other major defense-- acquisition programs to identify possible candidates for future funding reductions.

One retired Navy flag officer told Sea Power that he found it "quite shocking" to see yet another study of Navy aircraft carriers ordered when the DSB's report is already in hand. "It just does not make sense," he said. The Navy, the Department of Defense, and Congress have analyzed more than 70 options associated with the aircraft carrier since the early 1990s, and spiral development of the CVNX was adopted as the best approach to build and maintain the number of carriers needed to meet the warfighting requirements postulated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president, and the secretary of defense.

Members of the DSB would not discuss the conclusions of their carrier study, but industry sources said that it emphasizes that sea-based aviation is a keystone in U.S. military power now and for the foreseeable future. The Navy's current carrier force is said to have no margin for future growth to insert new capabilities. "It is time to get on with the CVNX- program now to reduce carrier cost and to provide opportunities to demonstrate new seabased air capabilities," is how the DSB's report was described to Sea Power.

Asked why it is necessary to conduct a new CVNX study when the DSB's report is still in the "chop" process, DOD spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin told Sea Power that the DPG directed a number of studies in support of the FY 2004 budget-formulation process, with Secretary Rumsfeld's emphasis on transformation included in the underlying assumptions. The studies will be completed and their results considered this autumn, she said.

One industry source said that Rumsfeld's tasking implicitly questions the need for 12 big-deck aircraft carriers. It should be noted, this person said, that the last DOD budget to contain funding for the development of a small-deck carrier was prepared in the 1970s, during Rumfeld's first tour as secretary of defense.

Recent DOD studies, including one completed by the 2001 Study Group on Transformation, concluded that the CVNX program is "transformational" in the sense advocated by Rumsfeld himself. Capt. Dudley Berthold, the Navy's future carriers program manager, told Sea Power that the future carrier will maintain naval aviation's core capabilities (high-volume firepower, survivability, sustainability, and mobility) while introducing new technologies, systems, designs, and processes that will enhance the Navy's overall warfighting capabilities, significantly reduce the total-ownership costs (TOC) of future carriers, and allow significant "flexibility for change" within the ship's design.

CVNX- 1's projected manpower reductions are expected to reduce crew requirements by 300 to 500 billets, resulting in a TOC savings of between $1.5 billion to $3.1 billion.

"OSD's [Office of the Secretary of Defense's] analytical process for reviewing programs since Bush came to office has been arbitrary and amateurish," said Dr. Loren B. Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute. "I do not detect among senior policymakers a serious understanding of relevant technologies, operational realities, or even political rhythms-- a bad outcome on CVNX thus seems possible."

Ronald O'Rourke, a national-defense specialist with the Congressional Research Service, told Sea Power that he considers the DOD reexamination of the CVNX program to be a resumption to some degree of the examination of the CVNX that was carried out in 2001 as part of the so-called "Rumsfeld Studies" on defense policy and programs. "Although many studies on aircraft carriers have been done in previous years, and although some of the findings of these older studies may be included in the new DPG-directed study," O'Rourke said, "the information in the studies will be looked at differently than in the past-through the lens of OSD's interest in transformation and in the context of defense planning in the post-9/11 environment."