GATHERING STORMS

The Pentagon is primed for the perfect storm as operational, budgetary, manpower and transformation crises converge.

One of the early indicators of this pending collision is the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which critics say has shifted from a blueprint for military transition to management of minor changes to future programs.

The Office of Management and Budget has let it be known it will resist additional supplemental funding to pay for the war in Iraq (although it may be softening its stance). Military leaders are telling Congress they can't continue to support current troop levels in Iraq via the regular defense budget. QDR has changed from a template for transformation into a lightweight budget drill that will be overwhelmed by congressionally mandated changes. To add more delay and confusion, those congressional edicts will be stalled by a continuing resolution that is expected to shift program decisions well into next year.

"The QDR group of 12 [most influential military and civilian members] has had a lot of discussions over the last three weeks," says a senior Pentagon civilian. "Clearly they are planning significant program changes."

Within that group, the "remnants [of transformation planning] are still swirling around," agrees a long-serving House Armed Services Committee staffer. "But it's not a real QDR any more. It's a series of very focused, small-group, big-question sessions that [acting Deputy Defense Secretary] Gordon England and others are involved with. That's where the center of gravity has gone, and like all previous QDRs, it has turned into a budget drill.

"All the people that take QDR seriously as a policy exercise spend 3-4 months scraping together a couple of hundred million dollars in savings from here and there in order to buy the new policy initiatives," he says. "Then, in comes a bill for a $1.3-billion fix on a satellite program. They just get completely overwhelmed by the big budget bill problems. That's happening again."

EVEN SERVICE OFFICIALS are questioning the QDR's impact. A recent meeting was described not as a watershed event, but as a discussion between Gordon England and a group of senior military commanders "who actually know very little about requirements and acquisition," says a senior Air Force official. "They aren't the real decision makers. England talked about what a great job they're doing on the QDR and how the reorganized force will be able to better meet the demands of the future. But he didn't actually tip his hand about the major budget cuts he has planned."

As an example of the counterproductive efforts of the QDR effort, analysts point to an internal fight that could force tradeoffs between the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft System (J-UCAS) and a stealthy UAV expected to emerge, possibly from Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. All are transformational elements of the U.S. Air Force's warfighting plans, but they now primarily threaten each other.

The situation is reflected in the U.S. Air Force's dissatisfaction with the unmanned aerial systems roadmap that dedicates about $14 billion to these aircraft through 2010. Officials say it is too aggressive and outstrips manpower and freedom-of-flight issues.