US AirForce chief calls for procurement changes

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the first U.S. Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, says that the service must adapt its procurement system to respond more rapidly to the needs of commanders fighting today’s battles.

A quicker acquisition system could be used to field a next-generation unmanned aerial system  suitable for operations in contested airspace, he says.

The Pentagon currently buys weapons only after an arduous requirements-generation and vetting process called the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System. Through JCIDS, a service could require years to get approval on a set of requirements before selecting a contractor to begin design work.

Deptula also takes issue with the notion of some defence leaders that an autonomous, self-contained next-generation strike and ISR aircraft would come only at high cost. He suggests that this new system — sometimes called the next-generation bomber — must be capable of self-retargeting during missions, eliminating the need for reachback communications that can be vulnerable to jamming or tampering.

This is especially necessary for high-end, near-peer threats, such as China. But some in the Pentagon say this capability comes at a high cost, making it a non-starter for the bomber.

Not so, according to Deptula. He says that technology has progressed to produce “economical sensors” that can be integrated onto a single aircraft for the penetration mission.

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