symposium

Q: Is the V-22 Osprey aircraft a must-buy for the United States?

Yes: The combat performance and mission flexibility the Osprey offers are unequaled.

In 1981, I had the privilege of serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee staff at the start of the Reagan defense buildup. It was a heady time, as Congress turned with bipartisan vigor to approving the enormous sums the nation's military needed to recover from the effects of an expensive but unpopular conflict in Vietnam and the Carter presidency.

Unfortunately, our counterparts in the House of Representatives had decided not to give President Reagan everything he thought was required. They chose to cancel a program that was about to transition, all other things being equal, from research and development to a very expensive procurement program. They elicited testimony to the effect that the military could do without this system and, when the matter subsequently was taken up in the House-Senate conference, the House conferees strenuously resisted Senate efforts to restore the funding. It was the last item to be resolved and could have gone either way.

In the end, the senators prevailed and the nation went ahead and acquired the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system that has, in the succeeding 20 years, revolutionized the art of war, immeasurably improving the effectiveness of U.S. combat power and reducing the risks to American military personnel as they perform their missions. GPS also has spawned a $10 billion-a-year commercial industry, touching virtually every one of us in myriad ways, such as by making our air travel safer, enabling such innovations as the Internet and cellular communication and facilitating globalization.

I am reminded of how close we came to making an epic mistake as similar arguments now are being made to terminate another expensive military program poised to go into full-scale production -- the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, known as the Osprey. In the wake of several fatal accidents, everyone from the General Accounting Office (GAO) to 60 Minutes to the Pentagon's own testing czar have expressed concerns about the Marine Corps' plan to start acquiring nearly 400 of these planes with their unique ability to reconfigure the attitude of their propellers in flight so as to take off and land like a helicopter yet fly like a conventional fixed-wing plane once airborne. The drumbeat has intensified amid allegations that one or more Marines covered up the Osprey's maintenance problems.

There is only one problem with this emerging "conventional wisdom." It's wrong.

Although 60 Minutes'powerful assault on the V-22 program -- with its heart-rending appeals from those who lost Marines in the latest Osprey crashes-- made the point dismissively, the Corps is right when it says the missions of the future require the application of this aircraft's revolutionary tilt-rotor technology. In fact, successive studies by the Pentagon and by outside experts (including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) conducted during the last 18 years have confirmed again and again that no combination of traditional helicopters offers as much combat performance, mission flexibility and survivability at a lower cost than the V-22.

Like it or not, the Marines will have to purchase something to provide for the future mobility of their air-assault forces and the associated equipment. The Corps' existing fleet of CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters is rapidly obsolescing and has been forced to stand down for safety reasons at various times in recent years.

Alas, the Marines' existing aviation assets are not the only sophisticated weaponry experiencing the sorts of acute readiness problems said to be afflicting the V-22 (and allegedly being suppressed). The cumulative effect of inadequate funding for spare parts and maintenance and the wearing-out of so much of the Pentagon's inventory is part of the Clinton legacy that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are going to have to work hard -- and invest massively -- to overcome.

While the manufacturer of the Blackhawk UH-60 helicopter has been trying to kill the Osprey for years with assurances that its product (or a variant) can supplant the V-22 for less cost, the siren's seductive song is deceptive. To make an apples-to-apples comparison, the Blackhawks would have to be modified to carry larger payloads and many more would have to be purchased. In addition, a new buy of the heavier-lift CH-53 helicopters would be required to get capabilities remotely approaching those of the planned V-22-only fleet.

The CH-53 no longer is in production, however. There would, therefore, be considerable delays in taking delivery and large costs associated with restarting the line -- especially if, as seems certain, there would have to be redesigns and requalification of suppliers. In addition, there will be further high costs associated with maintaining the existing fleet of Marine helicopters for a still-longer period until such time as the replacement aircraft become available.