Air Force still pressing to control unmanned aerial vehicle programs

Despite strong objections from the other armed services, the Air Force is moving forward with plans to become the so-called executive agent for many of the military's largest unmanned aerial vehicle programs, a senior Air Force officer said Thursday.

The Joint Requirements Oversight Council, a panel consisting of the services' vice chiefs of staff that meets regularly to review the military's vast array of programs, already has considered the Air Force's proposal in three separate meetings. The council, which rejected a similar proposal in 2005, is expected to make a recommendation on whether to proceed with the executive agency proposal "sooner rather than later," said Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley first proposed that his service take control of medium- and high-altitude UAV programs earlier this year, generating public outcries from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. The programs that would be affected by the Air Force proposal include the Air Force's Predator and Global Hawk drones, the Army's Warrior UAV, and the Navy's Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned system.

The Air Force's proposal has received significant attention on Capitol Hill, where both the House and Senate Armed Services committees have called on the military to review the matter further. The service's proposal also appears to have shed new light on duplication of efforts among the various services on UAV programs -- an expensive redundancy that, according to Deptula, the military can no longer tolerate in an era of intense government-wide budgetary pressures.

"We can't afford duplication anymore because the money ain't going to be there," said Deptula, who discussed the issue at a breakfast with defense reporters. Defense spending "ain't going to grow, it's going to go down from here," he added. But senior leaders from the other services have publicly expressed misgivings about giving up power over their own UAV programs, which they fear would result in systems that do not meet their specific needs.

In the report accompanying the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee requested a detailed report on the matter by March 2008, but noted that their language does not prohibit the Defense secretary from appointing an executive agent at any point. An executive agent could "reduce or eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort; enhance interoperability by directing standard architectures, datalinks, radios ground control stations; and achieve commonality" between existing technologies in the services, the committee said.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, stressed that it expects a "careful study" of the Air Force's plans. "In the meantime, the office of the secretary of Defense, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Army should strive to achieve as much commonality, interoperability, and flexibility as possible between UAV acquisitions," the Senate panel said.