Weapons on the Chopping Block

laude Bolton, the Army's acquisition chief, has an unenviable job: Implementing the Army's plan to cancel 18 weapons programs in the coming years. But he has no qualms about the challenge.

"I had a history of doing this before I got here," says the retired Air Force general, noting that he scrapped two major missile programs while in uniform. Indeed, Bolton, who took the reins as assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics in January, has put top Army program managers on notice that other weapon systems could be killed as well. The Army's 12 program executive officers, who oversee the acquisition of numerous weapons, all received a one-page missive from Bolton this spring that outlined the factors that will be considered in weighing whether their programs could be terminated. Those factors include the overall health of a program, its management and the political context in which it operates.

"I'm not out there looking to kill things because of a temporary problem, but if we work real hard and can't make a go of it, then take the money and people and go somewhere else," Bolton says.

The Army certainly could find lots of places to spend its procurement dollars as it seeks to transform itself from a Cold War fighting force into a faster, lighter and more lethal force by 2010. Bolton says the service's challenge is balancing spending among upgrades of older systems, the purchase of new weapons and investments in research for future systems. For example, the Army's proposed 2003 budget calls for spending $440 million to upgrade existing Abrams tanks, puts $945 million toward procuring new Apache Longbow helicopters and allots $717 million for research and development of the Army's Future Combat System, its next-generation ground combat system.

Bolton says eliminating the 18 programs will free up hundreds of millions of dollars that the Army will invest in its future force. The service will get an additional windfall from the Pentagon's controversial decision earlier this year to cancel the $11 billion Crusader artillery system. In fiscal 2003, the Army had planned to spend $475 million on developing the Crusader, but those dollars are now proposed to go toward the Future Combat System, development of precision missiles and artillery shells, and new command-and-control technology.

Bolton says the Army still will benefit from the hundreds of millions of dollars it has invested in Crusader over the past several years. For example, the Crusader's software, cockpit, automated loader and cooled barrel technologies could be used in the Future Combat System.

The war on terrorism, Bolton says, has only reinforced the Army's vision of a more rapidly deployable force. "We were already under transformation, but [the ongoing war] validated the need and urgency. We knew we were going in the right direction and now we have to get there quicker," he says.

Another key priority, Bolton says, is finding ways to replace tens of thousands of Army acquisition workers who are slated to retire in the next two years. He said the service needs more money to offer buyouts to employees so it can better shape its workforce. The Army also is seeking changes in personnel rules to make it easier to hire and train the next generation of workers.