"Executive Agent" Would Have Sole Acquisition, Development Responsibility

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England is probably feeling a bit like a referee -- or perhaps, an exhausted parent of toddlers.

The United States Air Force is vigorously lobbying to become the "executive agent" for drones -- unmanned aerial vehicles that fly above 3,500 feet -- and the Army, Navy and Marines are lobbying just as hard against it, according to the London Financial Times.

Should the Air Force win its bid, it would be solely responsible for acquisition and development of all military UAVs. England is due to make a decision on the issue soon.

Use of the vehicles has become so popular and so vast -- Central Command, which oversees the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, operates about 1,000 --the Pentagon is now debating how to best acquire and operate them.

The Air Force contends there is a need to streamline the process not only to reduce costs but for interoperability improvements and to decrease the chance of mid-air collisions.

"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.

The Army, however, doesn't think the Air Force is the best qualified for such a responsibility simply because it doesn't have the best record in acquisitions, pointing to the Global Hawk and Predator programs that have exceeded their budgets whereas the Army's own Warrior program has met its cost and schedule goals so far.

"It is the Air Force that refuses to join the joint team, preferring to criticize others, disseminate misleading statements and independently lobby Congress for support they do not have in the Pentagon," said a senior army officer. "The ruffled feathers and parochial egos belong to the air force . . . the Marine Corps, Navy, Special Forces and Army are cooperating across acquisition programs, common ground stations and future program development."

There are those, however, that think the concept of letting each branch control their own acquisitions has merit.

"If you think ... the Orville and Wilbur Wrights of the 21st century are running around in the UAV marketplace, then, as messy as it makes the environment, it is strategically important to have lots of players," said Pierre Chao, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

UAV expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Tom Ehrhard says the overall debate exposes failures of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. The act was an attempt to fix problems caused by inter-service rivalries.

"The bid for executive agent authority is, in part, an indictment of current joint organizations," Ehrhard said. "What the air force is trying to accomplish is supposed to be taken care of by existing organizations but it clearly is not."

FMI: www.af.mil. www.army.mil, www.navy.mil, www.marines.mil, www.csbaonline.org