The Bunker: Return to Spender

NEVER ENOUGH

Better big bombs, more planes, new service

You know how when your boss schedules an hour-long meeting, even though it merits only 30 minutes? The Pentagon’s pretty much the same way. No matter how high you draw that budget top line, those wily, ever-efficient Defense Department bureaucrats (at least in this regard) will find a way to meet it.

This is less of a problem when the Pentagon is on a normal-dollar diet. But these days, fanned by waves of exaggerated existential threats to the American way of life, the U.S. government is intent on pumping $1.5 trillion next year into the American way of death. In recent days, the U.S. military has decided it needs a better bunker buster, Congress has warned the armed forces don’t have enough warplanes, and a pair of hawkish think tanks thinks the Pentagon needs a new service branch. Proposals like this predictably pop up, like mushrooms amid a lush lawn following a rain, whenever the money’s flowing.

In 2011, Admiral Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon had become lazy in the decade following 9/11 as its budget doubled. “It hasn’t forced us to make the hard trades. It hasn’t forced us to prioritize. It hasn’t forced us to do the analysis,” he said. “And it hasn’t forced us to limit ourselves, and get to a point in a very turbulent world, of what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.”

We didn’t take Mullen’s advice then. And now we’re doubling the defense budget again.

BETTER BIG BOMB

Because, why not?

President Donald Trump said he “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago when seven B-2 bombers attacked its underground bunkers with 14 GBU-57 bunker busters. The monstrous bombs, each weighing 15 tons, were the key weapon in “Operation Midnight Hammer.” But apparently, it was “Operation 11:59 P.M. Hammer,” because he launched additional U.S. attacks in February to try to finish the job.

So the Air Force is seeking a replacement for that Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which it’s calling the Next-Generation Penetrator (GBU-76/B, in Defense Department nomenclature). It wants contractors (PDF) to help with “all aspects of research & development, production, testing, and delivery” of the new bomb. Details are sketchy, but they include complex calculations into when the bomb detonates — critical to it blowing up at a specific depth deep underground — as well as grappling with the challenges posed by “Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages/Obsolescence Prevention” (PDF). Hope springs eternal.

The existing Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to destroy nuclear facilities or enemy command posts buried deeply underground. Its steel casing reportedly drills though up to 200 feet of rock before exploding (think of it as the ultimate deafening rock concert, featuring the rolling stones).

You can’t say the Pentagon doesn’t have a sense of humor. “The Government encourages all responsible businesses, including small businesses, to respond to this Sources Sought,” the June 1 solicitation said, adding that they have until June 16 to seek work on various elements. (The first-gen bunker-buster [PDF] was built by Boeing.)

Don’t fret if this new-and-improved non-nuclear bunker buster doesn’t pound enough stone into sand. That’s because the Pentagon is working on a new atomic bunker-buster, too. “The Nuclear Deterrent System-Air-delivered will provide the President with additional nuclear options to defeat Hard and Deeply Buried Targets, ensuring that adversaries cannot place their most valued assets beyond the reach of America’s nuclear forces,” a government spokesperson recently told The War Zone. “The program is moving aggressively, and further information will become publicly available when it is strategically beneficial to the United States.”

Because bombing their nuclear-weapons bunkers with our nuclear bunker-busters is just Good Government 101.

READY FOR TAKEOFF

U.S. warplane count slips below legal limit

The Air Force’s fighter fleet has dropped below the minimum required by law, Representative August Pfluger (R-TX, as well as “a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, battle-tested fighter pilot, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, and Chairman of the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors”) warned June 2.

Congress has required the Navy to have 11 aircraft carriers since 2006. But The Bunker didn’t know that since 2017, Congress has also required the Air Force to maintain a fleet of at least 1,145 war-ready fighters. (What’s next: The Army required to maintain an arsenal of 2 million bullets?) Pfluger, a one-time F-22 fighter pilot, says now is the time to invest in airpower. “In Congress, this is a moment in time where we have the ability to fund airpower … so that we keep our nation safe,” he said.

But the Air Force’s No. 2 general warns that the nation’s defense contractors can’t produce any more warplanes than they’re currently building. “Right now, I’d say our demand signal is outstripping their ability to produce quality airplanes on schedule, on time,” General John Lamontagne, the service’s vice chief of staff, said June 4. “Candidly, we probably had some more opportunities to buy, but industry can’t quite respond that quickly to what we’d like to do.”

However, it’s a safe bet that several years of trillion-dollar-plus defense budgets could help fix that problem. As Lamontagne added: “We’d love to buy more.”

CYBER SALUTE

Time for a new military service?

Cyber war is too important to be left to the admirals and generals of the other military services — it deserves its own, dedicated branch of the U.S. military. “Many observers contend that the challenge of generating military capability and capacity necessary to deter, compete, fight and win in the cyber domain can be directly attributed to the lack of a single organization responsible and accountable for force generation in cyberspace,” says (PDF) a new think-tank report.

The study, by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, estimates a U.S. Cyber Force would cost at least $10 billion to set up and need a workforce of about 30,000, mostly in uniform. That’s far smaller (PDF) than the Army (458,000 personnel), Navy (348,000), Air Force (320,000) or Marine Corps (170,000), but bigger than the Space Force (10,000).

The military services guide the Pentagon from their seats on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After fits and starts following their creation in 1942 (PDF), the Joint Chiefs as we know them today came into being in 1949 (PDF). They consisted of four officers — a chairman (rotated among the services), the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff, and the chief of naval operations. But since then, they’ve doubled in size, adding the Marine commandant (in 1952), a vice chairman (1987), the National Guard chief (2011), and the Space Force’s commander (2020).

Following their first victory — the “unconditional surrender” of both Germany and Japan in World War II, to use a phrase recently cited by the current commander-in-chief — the chiefs have a checkered record. Their influence isn’t directly responsible, of course, for wars’ outcomes. But they’d have a lot more clout if they were more willing to quit, instead of sticking around to do the logrolling required to make sure their services get what they see as their fair share of the Pentagon budget pie. Adding a ninth member to the JCS — enough for a baseball team! — isn’t likely to improve their battling average.

When it comes to chiefs — just like when it comes to cash — more isn’t always better.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently

→ Promotion commotion

The increasing politicization of promotions in the senior ranks of the U.S. military by the Defense Department’s civilian leaders risks corroding the trust that uniformed commanders need to do their job right, Mark Hertling, a retired Army three-star general, wrote June 3 in The Bulwark.

→ Utility bill

The U.S. industrial base for building warships has grown so anemic that it may be time to turn naval shipbuilding into a public utility, Joshua Tallis of the federally-funded Center for Naval Analyses suggests in the June issue of Proceedings, an independent journal covering the U.S. sea services.

→ Aggravating air-defense autopsy

The Wall Street Journal detailed June 9 why a U.S. Patriot missile, which can be fired in seconds, takes more than two years, 400+ contractors, and $4 million to build.

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