The NY Times (among other places) is running a story about the surprising result of the United States Air Force's rebooted air-refueling tanker competition. The Air Force announced today that the winner of the competition was Airbus A330, submitted by EADS in partnership with Northrop Grumman. The contract will be worth at least $40 billion over the next couple of decades and perhaps as much as $100 billion, as the Air Force replaces its enormous but aging fleet of tankers.
Air refueling and the planes that do it
For folks who don't know what these planes do, the air-refueling tanker is just that: a large, flying gas station that refuels airplanes in midair. Typically, these types of tankers are large commercial aircraft, anything from the current KC-135 series of Air Force tankers (cousins to the 707 passenger jet) to the much larger KC-10 (derived from the DC-10 commercial airliner) to the KC-767 operated by the Japanese and Italian militaries (a Boeing 767 modified for the tanker role). Some air refueling is performed by much smaller aircraft, especially in the US Navy, which employs F/A-18 fighters to refuel other aircraft using a "buddy" refueling system. Most air refueling aircraft are of the larger variety.
Scope of the contract
Replacing the KC-135 (and, eventually, the larger KC-10) is a monumental task. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 KC-135s of various vintages performing critical missions today. Mostly they act as tankers, but they occasionally carry cargo as well. These planes are not new: the oldest planes are around 50 years old, and replacing them will take so long that a senior Air Force general has noted that "the mother of the last KC-135 pilot has not been born yet." The planes creak, they rumble, they have frayed wiring and leaking hydraulics ... and they carry massive amounts of combustible fuel into the air whenever they fly. They need to be replaced.
The Competition
This competition has been going on for years. And years. And years. The Air Force painfully aware of the degree to which it depends on air refueling not only for core combat missions but also for humanitarian support and other nontraditional roles. The first major attempt at resolving the tanker problem resulted in a controversial decision by the Air Force to lease 100 767 tankers. Subsequent investigation showed that the lease deal would not be any cheaper than buying the aircraft outright. Still further investigation uncovered a hive of corruption that resulted in two boing employees going to jail and the cancellation of the contract. Oops.
So the competition was opened again, and, again, Boeing responded with a 767-derived tanker and EADS promoted an Airbus A330-derived airplane to be built by Northrop Grumman, a company better known for small fighters than big jets, in Mobile, Alabama, a city with no aviation industry history. And Airbus won.
On the merits
While a 767-based tanker fleet could have leveraged the enormous investment the Air Force has made in Boeing aircraft, the A330 seems to have been a clear winner: it is larger, can offload more fuel, has a more standardized cargo configuration, and is a far more modern aircraft overall. And this is not the first time that a foreign weapons system has won a major US contract. The smoothbore gun in all modern M-1 Abrahms tanks is German. The T-45 Goshawk carrier landing trainer is derived from a British airplane. The VH-71 Kestrel is a small contract but this European helicopter will be seen by millions of people lifting off from the White House lawn when it takes over as Marine One in a few years. Those who might be tempted to disparage Europe as cheese eating surrender monkeys must be fuming that the president will soon be flying around in a European helicopter, defended by fighter pilots trained on a European trainer and flying aircraft that are refueled by a European tanker. Still, these systems are legitimately good, and it is encouraging in some ways to see the military choosing what is perhaps a better system rather than strictly an American one.
What is unusual about this contract, though, is the magnitude: $40 billion. For starters. Who knows how many downstream contracts will crop up for aircraft based on a common airframe, in much the same way that the RC-135, E-3, and E-6 aircraft are more or less derived from the same platform. Yes, a large portion of that money will go to folks in Alabama and Congressional districts all over the country that will inevitably win coveted work on the airplane. But this is still a European aircraft, designed outside the United States, and supported by a spare parts infrastructure that is not controlled by US entities. An important consideration, even if Kossacks would not typically be the sort to get angry about ferners like some on the Right.
Why is this on DailyKos?
I bring this contract up because (a) it's gigantic news, (b) it illuminates a challenge we face as Democrats, and (c) the next Administration will (!) be Democratic, so we get to deal with the consequences of this deal. $40 billion is a ton of money. We have to find ways to finance health care, maintain Social Security, renew our schools, and fight crime. But we also have to find a way to extricate ourselves from Iraq, defeat legitimately bad people in and around Afghanistan, engage in humanitarian missions in Africa and elsewhere, all while rebuilding the capability of a military worn down Iraq and maintaining our readiness in the event that the world explodes somewhere important to us. We have to do this when we have a falling dollar, an uneasy credit system, and an increasing imbalance in trade.
Some might be tempted to condemn, with some justification, the entire miltiary-industrial monster that results in these bloated contracts for aircraft whose primary purpose is to increase the reach of America's destructive capability. Others might be tempted to note that we are long overdue for a replacement for an aircraft that serves a useful and necessary role in any national air force that is involved in matters beyond its borders. And still others might say that given the challenges the country faces, even a legitimate need such as this must be treated with skepticism.
What is surprising about this contract is that this preeminently unsexy military system may, even more than our $1.1 billion B-2 bombers or $200 million F-22 fighters or $2 billion submarines or $4 billion aircraft carriers, result in an evaluation of how we're spending our tax dollars on the military. Why? Because somebody, somewhere, on some end of the political system will decry the fact that the contract involves a foreign company, whether because of the number of dollars that will surely flee to Europe or because of the national security implications of entrusting a critical mission to a system designed by a foreign power or, perhaps, because Europeans are just weird (from their point of view, of course).
The contract also highlights the degree to which American industries have become ossified. Sure, Boeing has a hit on its hands with the shiny new 787 Dreamliner, but the only aircraft Boeing makes that are suitable for the tanker role are the 767 and 777. The 767 is smaller and much older than most European designs, and the 777 is far too large for the main mission (though I strongly suspect that the 777 will be purchased in relatively small numbers in the future to replace KC-10s when they are finally retired). Outside the realm of the tanker contract, Boeing is investing a lot of money in deploying a renewed 747, a remarkable plane with substantial improvements in fuel efficiency and amenities, but still 40 years old in basic concept. Can it really compete with the Airbus A380 in sheer spectacle and seat-per-mile costs? Are these companies squeezing diminishing profits out of tested designs when they should be investing in staying on the cutting edge, much like faltering American car companies? What does this say about the capability of our remaining industries to lead the world? Not much good, I reckon.
And what of the military issues? It may not be apparent, but this is a curious decision in at least one respect: these aircraft can be expected to serve for at least 50 years. During that interval, one way or another, the US Air Force will replace most, perhaps all, of its offensive aircraft with stealth designs (in the near term, the F-22 and the F-35; over a longer term, aircraft that are even stealthier) and stealth drones that will doubtless gain a refueling capability soon. We are, however, spending $40 billion on aircraft that reflect radar worse than the side of a barn. So, our future fighters and bombers may be nearly invisible, but our tankers will either make fat targets themselves or give away the locations of fighters on the way to a target. Could some of that $40 billion be used to research methods of decreasing radar visibility of the tankers?
Finally, a bit of environmentalism. We are spending $40 billion to continue an infrastructure dedicated to burning a diminishing supply of fossil fuels. While there are efforts to create synthetic aircraft fuels, these efforts prolong the carbon-based fuel system and do nothing to spare the world. It may seem ironic to mention sparing the world when I'm talking about instruments of destruction, but even a peacetime military doing nothing more than airshows and training is busy and burning fuel. And given the cost of modern fuel, synthetic or otherwise, and the fact that fuel infrastructure is a ripe target, I have to ask how much money and real effort the Air Force is putting towards alternate arrangements.
Sometimes I think that a contract like this is a last gasp, both of a bloated American hegemony that cannot last and of a bloated carbon fuel lifestyle that will falter and make the world a much larger place a century or so from now. But it's still important, both because of the necessary functions that these planes serve and because of the political, economic, military, environmental, and cultural issues that such a contract includes.
My bias? I'm strongly pro-military and support the idea of replacing the KC-135 with a more capable system, but I also am strongly in favor of far greater transparency in the military procurement process.
So, I guess the question is this: What do you think? Is $40 billion for military aircraft a travesty on its face? A needed step? A joyous occasion? And what can we, Democrats, do to ensure that the US retains an ability to perform legitimate missions in defense of its national security (without the doublespeak meanings that Republicans have given to that concept)? What do we do to balance the need to give our soldiers, sailors, and aircrew platforms they need to fight -- when necessity demands it -- and survive with the urgent needs of our domestic politics?
Have at it, and, without irony, peace.
EDIT - Added major f-ing point that I meant to make but forgot about: that the next Admin gets to deal with this contract.
EDIT THE SECOND - Added "USAF" to the title to clarify whose contract this is