Weapon Systems Procurement by Public Opinion Polls?

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember detailed public opinion polls being taken here at home to coincide with planned major defense weapon systems acquisitions.

On the other hand, public opinion expressed through editorials, opinion pieces, and through the use of lobbyists, corporate, political, and advocacy groups advertisements and public relations campaigns have often been a factor with important, expensive or controversial military procurements.

One recent and salient example is the highly publicized $35 billion U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract, originally awarded to Boeing’s rival—a Northrop Grumman-European team, including Airbus—last year, but now to be recompeted.

The upcoming recompetition was a direct result of U.S. public outcry, political pressure, a strong protest by Boeing and, subsequently, the discovery of errors in the award by the Government Accountability Office.

More recently, organizations such as “Preserve Raptor Jobs” have been active in mobilizing public opinion in support of keeping the F-22 production line open, through advertisements pointing out the huge potential jobs losses (between 95,000 and 125,000), should Congress or the administration cut back on F-22s production.

So, public opinion and pressure can be a factor in major defense procurements.

But I am referring not only to conducting public opinion polls among the population to gauge the sentiment towards an upcoming major procurement, but also to taking detailed opinion polls among groups belonging to specific political parties.

Therefore, I was surprised to read that the Dutch Public Broadcasting Corporation TV Show “EénVandaag” conducted a poll among 21,000 viewers from eight different Dutch political parties, on whether the Netherlands should go through with their planned purchase of the first two F-35 Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft.

As I have mentioned before, the Netherlands, along with several other countries are participating with the U.S. and Lockheed Martin in the huge JSF multi-national development program.

The Netherlands was planning to eventually purchase 85 aircraft.

The decision by the Netherlands to proceed with the next milestone of the program, and a condition for continued participation in the JSF program, the purchase of two F-35 test aircraft, is supposed to take place before the end of April.

In the meantime, the Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab has entered the fray with a “fixed price” offer on its Gripen “Next Generation” fighter.

But back to the “opinion polls”

According to the EénVandaag poll, even a majority of the members of the three parties making up the present Dutch “Coalition Government,” were against the purchase of the test aircraft—65 percent.

This is a surprising result because it is the majority coalition government that is in favor of purchasing the first two JSF aircraft.

Not surprisingly, members of the five other “opposition” parties voted against the purchase, with members of three of the five opposition parties voting against it upwards of 80 percent.

I have been covering the Netherlands’ deliberations for replacing their F-16 fleet and their participation in the JSF program in some detail, because its upcoming decision is an important one to the JSF program, to Lockheed Martin and to the U.S. military in general.

Many feel that the F-35 Lightning II aircraft is critical for maintaining future U.S. superiority in both the air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, and that the JSF program provides an affordable way for the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and our allies to acquire such fifth generation aircraft weapon systems by reducing the development cost, production cost, and cost of ownership of these aircraft.

It is particularly important to Lockheed Martin, as it is coming up to several critical appropriations and budgetary decisions, including a U.S. 2010 Pentagon budget for the JSF itself, and decisions on additional F-22 procurements and on the Presidential helicopter program—all multi-billion dollar programs.

Hopefully, those decisions will not be made based on public opinion polls, but rather on realistic national security requirements and sound procurement principles.

By this, I don’t mean to imply that the Dutch government will be influenced by public opinion polls on this important decision—I just found it interesting.