Cebrowski calls for economic shift in Defense

By Susan M. Menke

Connecting state and local government leaders

| January 27, 2005

The Defense Department won't backtrack from its focus on network-centric warfare, Arthur Cebrowski predicted today at a Washington lunch

'We're entering an era of historic opportunity when the timelines for structural materials, fuels and sensors are shorter because much of the R&D is already done,' Cebrowski said. 'We should cash in on' advances such as molecular engineering of higher-density munitions by supercomputers.He condemned U.S. defense industries such as ship-building that he said have grown noncompetitive, predictable and slow. 'I say, let's compete on cost and cycle time,' he said. 'Learning comes out of that. Don't down-select to one industry.'

The Defense Department won't backtrack from its focus on network-centric warfare, outgoing Office of Force Transformation chief Arthur Cebrowski predicted today at a Washington lunch sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' National Capital Section.

'It's difficult to undo the legislative and management changes' wrought by DOD's net-centric emphasis this decade, said Cebrowski, who spent 37 years in the Navy. But he sees the military services 'steaming at flank speed into a budget tsunami' because of the fast cost growth for conventional warfare.

'Any service's investment program has to be completely retooled,' he said.

'Nobody wants to slip back to a less networked, less well-informed age. We are raising up a very large number of noncommissioned and junior officers with combat experience,' he said. 'They are changing tactics. The Marines and the Army have a robust way of capturing this and training.'

In an era when nuclear weapons have given way to weapons of mass destruction and irregular attacks, decision-makers must abandon their 1950s business models, Cebrowski said.

'We need new rules on the economics of defense in the age of globalization,' Cebrowski said. When war becomes more labor-intensive and less capital-intensive, 'it's less cost for [the enemy] and more cost for us.'

Among the shifts he foresees:

Different kinds of battlefield systems

De-emphasizing expenditures on high-cost arms

Shortening the delivery timelines for IT components to less than three years

Coupling information systems with physical systems for propulsion and sensing.

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