Don’t Leave Us Stranded

Don’t Leave Us Stranded: Speaking to reporters Nov. 20, John Young, Pentagon acquisition executive, essentially burst the bubble of those who thought that the need for a new Air Force combat search and rescue helicopter was universally supported within the walls of the Pentagon. In fact, Young said he’s not even convinced that the rescue community “has to have its own set of assets for the occasional rescue mission when we have new things coming online like V-22s and other things that could be pressed into service.” Young maintained that there are "a lot of assets that could be used in rescue missions with planning." He asserted, too, that a rescue mission would be a "come-as-you-are" operation "unless all of these CSAR assets are prepositioned for that.” (Yes, Mr. Young, the rescue assets are deployed to the combat theater and those other assets have jobs.) Young recently went on the record expressing his displeasure with the Air Force’s decision to delay announcing the winner in the CSAR-X contest until next year, so we don't think he's out to kill the program. He apparently was trying to use the CSAR-X as an example of how the “intensity” of parochial interests may adversely affect the best use of resources across the military enterprise. So much so, he contended, that the new Administration may well want to “revisit” the enterprise-vs.-community topic. (New to CSAR-X? Read The Struggle over CSAR-X .)

—Michael C. Sirak

11/24/2008

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.