By Elliot Suthers
Incoming Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will have a number of massive challenges ahead of him. These range from a sprawling military structure to the planned refurbishments of the Pentagon.
However, a recent decision to halt funding for a congressionally earmarked program of note offers him some insight into the inner working of his new charge.
Allow me to elaborate…
On Monday, Department of Defense acquisition czar Ashton Carter finally hammered the remaining nails into the coffin of the General Electric/Rolls Royce F136 second engine for the F-35 Lightning — an aircraft which itself is grossly behind schedule and overbudget.
For those unacquainted, the F136 program was an initiative devised to develop an alternate engine for Lockheed Martin’s F 35 Joint Strike Fighter. In 2005, Congress, with more than a gentle nudge from GE and Rolls Royce lobbyists, decided that one engine for the pride of America’s air fleet would not suffice, appropriating a $2.4 billion contract against the advice of Pentagon brass. (I’m sure there was some kind of complex at work here…) The program’s basically been in trouble ever since.
While the decision to axe the F136 wasn’t entirely unexpected, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion either. Thanks to some clever thinking from GE, it managed to situate its production facilities in strategic congressional districts across the country, including none other than newly elected Speaker of the House, John Boehner’s Ohio constituency. A coincidence? I think not…
By essentially spreading the jobs out across multiple states and districts, the F136 bought itself numerous high-powered advocates, each with an obviously vested interest in keeping the program up and running. This blind devotion to the program has been demonstrated time and time again through numerous Congressional resolutions to fund the engine, ignoring repeated requests from top Pentagon officials for it not to be.
But despite such aggressive lobbying and congressional strategies, the GE/Rolls Royce team still managed to lose the PR war. Their engine was still seen as the embodiment of military overspending, and their best efforts to paint it otherwise fell decidedly flat.
There were brief moments of joy for the F136, to be certain, but they were few and far between. For a while, the engine was being touted as the green alternative to the old school Pratt & Whitney, but the message never really stuck. Likewise went their efforts to associate the engine with the warfighter: one ad went so far as to ask the viewer whether they could tell the dirt-smeared soldier below the headline that he wasn’t worth two engines.
Well, can you?
The media, however, never bought into the second engine, and this perhaps sounded the death knell for the program. What this program proved, among other things, is that no matter how powerful Congress is — and it is — the court of public opinion is often times as powerful, if not more so. Top-tier news outlets such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist all penned scathing editorials on the engine, denouncing it as unnecessary and wasteful. This, combined with frequent footage of Secretary Gates’ on the Hill bashing the program, equaled an uphill battle for GE’s team.
What can be learned from this? Well, a lot.
First, no longer is it sufficient for defense companies to simply beat their competition. As programs become more competitive and more scrutinized, keeping the program sold to the general public and key stakeholders is every bit as critical as just winning a downselect.
Second, the general media are becoming much more interested in what would have been considered small programs in the past. Therefore, engaging them and developing relevant messaging will be a requisite part of any and all successful acquisition strategies in the coming years.
My third and final takeaway from this is a somewhat more positive one, and that’s that when OSD/DoD and Congress battle each other, the former will always win. And so it should. Congress, for all their Bluetooth headsets and self-importance, really have very little idea about our military’s requirements. We need to listen to those who understand the needs of our soldiers and know what will and won’t work. I’m reassured by this latest turn of events and hope that it’s an indication of things to come.
Mr. Panetta, you have a lot to live up to, and I have high hopes. Stand your ground, listen to your constituents and fight the good fight.
America will be thankful.
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Elliott Suthers, a native of Australia, is a VP at Spector & Associatesand former staffer at United Nations’ Development Programme in Washington, D.C, and the Republican National Committee. He can be reached at Elliott [at] SpectorPR [dot] com.
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