The Future of Future Combat Systems

Project On Government Oversight (POGO), Included in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense authorization report for fiscal year 2008, is the following language regarding the Army’s behemoth modernization effort known as Future Combat Systems (FCS): 
 
Consequently, the committee is concerned about the most recent restructure, which now eliminates or defers four of the systems and stretches the field of FCS Brigade Combat Teams over a longer period of time. The committee believes this decision was purely a result of budgetary concerns, and does not reflect either a change in requirements or programmatic difficulties. 
 
But immediately following these concerns, in the very next sentence in the same paragraph, the Committee’s Authorization bill says this very contrary statement to prior one: 
 
The committee believes FCS is a well-run program which is well within cost and schedule parameters of the earned value management system. 
 
Confused? You should be. How can a program defer or eliminate 4 of its 18 systems, and stretch out its combat teams over a longer time period because of deemed budgetary concerns, yet then be classified by the very same committee making these statements as a “well-run program which is well within cost and schedule parameters?” The sentences just do not fit together logically, which makes you wonder how they can appear together, and be used to justify the Committee’s most recent demonstration of support for the full $3.6 billion requested for the FY2008 FCS budget. 
 
What I do not understand is how the Committee can find the latest programmatic restructuring “troubling,” and call any proposal to reduce or stretch out the FCS program “extremely short-sighted,” yet still support the full funding for an Army plan for FCS that has met repeated schedule delays and program modifications. Does it make sense to expect that these setbacks and evolutionary changes will simply disappear if they support the status quo in funding? 
 
To be fair, the Senate Committee on Armed Services has supported a few modest changes to the FCS budget. It has recommended an additional $90 million to develop Armed Robotic Vehicles (ARV), which was a casualty of the most recent program deferrals. It has also supported an additional $25 million to “accelerate development of the FCS active protection system.” 
 
But will $25 million suddenly jump-start a $162 billion program, and is adding $90 million to develop a deferred technology the best way of making FCS accountable for its schedule delays and cost overruns? If more money is appropriated to address ARV, the Senate Committee is essentially saying that they are willing to spend more on a program that, based on its most recent restructuring, plans to deliver far less. 
 
Regardless of the justification for these decisions, it seems that FCS will come under increasing scrutiny from Congress over the next month. The House has already passed its defense authorization bill, which proposes an $857 million cut in FCS, which far exceeds any previous cut they have proposed for the program. There may be a showdown when the two chambers convene to negotiate in conference committee, especially due to competing priorities such as MRAPs (Mine Resistance Ambush Protected vehicles) and the needs of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 
Perhaps this is the year FCS will be scrutinized closely: can we afford to keep funding a program that has met such difficulties without calling for a thorough reassessment of goals and expectations?