A turf war over drones

Financial Times:

While Predator and Global Hawk drones cross the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan looking for insurgents or hunting for Osama bin Laden, thousands of kilometres away in Washington they have been dragged into a vicious turf battle.

Resurrecting tensions over US airpower that have lingered since the Korean war, the air force is pushing to become “executive agent” for drones – unmanned aircraft – that fly above 3,500 feet. The army, navy and marines oppose the move, which would make the air force responsible for the acquisition and development of unmanned aerial vehicles such as the army’s Sky Warrior.

As Gordon England, the deputy defence secretary, prepares to make a decision, air force and army officers are furiously lobbying Congress in preparation for a possible legislative battle. The stakes have risen dramatically as the use of drones has ballooned. Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now operates about 1,000 UAVs.

Aside from reducing military casualties, these roving eyes in the sky are becoming an indispensable tool for detecting insurgents planting the deadly roadside bombs that have become the biggest killer of US troops in Iraq.

“You can’t bring the soldier back to the farm once he has seen Paris,” says Colonel John Burke, the army’s former director of unmanned systems integration, to underscore the growing attractiveness of drones.

Their proliferation has intensified the Pentagon debate over how drones are acquired and operated. The air force says there is a need to streamline acquisitions to reduce cost and duplication, and for greater standardisation to improve interoperability and lessen the potential for mid-air collisions.

The air force argues, for example, that the Pentagon should have procured more Predators to deploy in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than allowing the army to develop the Sky Warrior, which will not be deployed until 2009.

Air force officers add that a compromise joint approach reached several years ago when it unsuccessfully pushed for executive agency has hurt UAV development.

“We can’t afford to compromise any longer, particularly when ‘compromise’ comes at the cost of inefficiencies and with no benefit beyond assuaging ruffled parochial egos,” says Lieutenant General David Deptula, deputy air force chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

But the army counters by questioning the air force’s record on acquisitions, stressing that Global Hawk and Predator have seen cost overruns, while other programmes such as refuelling tankers and search and rescue helicopter have been embroiled in controversy. It points out that its Sky Warrior programme has so far met cost and schedule goals.

“The ruffled feathers and parochial egos belong to the air force ... the marine corps, navy, special forces and army are co-operating across acquisition programmes, common ground stations and future programme development,” says a senior army officer.

“It is the air force that refuses to join the joint team, preferring to criticise others, disseminate misleading statements and independently lobby Congress for support they do not have in the Pentagon.”

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But some experts, including Pierre Chao at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argue that it would be a “strategic mistake” to narrow competition for UAVs.

“If you think it is a young technology, that the Orville and Wilbur Wrights of the 21st century are running around in the UAV marketplace, then as messy as it makes the environment, is it far more strategically important to have lots of players, different patrons behind those players, and to keep stimulating the useful competition of ideas that a useful inter-service rivalry brings.”

The air force argues that executive agency is required to reduce the possibility of mid-air collisions. But army officials say there have been no complaints from commanders in the field about traffic problems. Col Burke says the argument is a “red herring”, stressing that there has only been one minor incident in recent years when small Raven drone crashed into a helicopter on the ground.

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What the air force is really worried about is a shrinkage of its main mission as more and more drones are put into service. There is going to be less need for maned missions and more reliance on the UAVs and it is being done at the small unit level. That is bad news for control freaks. It also makes the Air Force less of a player in the "joint" programs because they are bringing less to the table.

At this point I come down on the side of having more players developing mission specific UAV's. I think this will lead to more and quicker innovation. The UAV's are relatively inexpensive on the small unit level, but as soon as the air force starts trying to develop a UAV that will cover all missions it will be bigger and more expensive and less responsive tot he small unit commander.