Surely, there was some symbolism involved last week when a U.S. military blimp broke from its moorings and floated for hours before being shot down. Maybe something about a gaseous, bloated military program that needs to be grounded.
After all, long before the 240-foot aerostat went AWOL, it was clear that the program’s effectiveness has been limited while its cost has been exorbitant — an example of America’s military-industrial complex run amok. And now, the failure of the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System — more easily identified as JLENS — has a public embarrassment to highlight its foibles.
The unmanned, radar-equipped Army surveillance device came unmoored at the Aberdeen Proving Ground near Baltimore and floated toward Pennsylvania, travelling about 150 miles over 3-and-a-half hours before being brought down. Along the way, the blimp’s mile-long tether took out power lines, and a pair of F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to engage it — although Pentagon officials will not confirm how it was shot down.
This all must have come as a surprise to Raytheon, the defense contractor in charge of the program, considering that the company’s website says it is unlikely that one of the blimps would come untethered: “The chance of that happening is very small because the tether is made of Vectran and has withstood storms in excess of 100 knots. However, in the unlikely event it does happen, there are a number of procedures and systems in place which are designed to bring the aerostat down in a safe manner.” There was no mention of whether those procedures involve shooting down the $175 million airship.
There are, however, benefits to be culled from the incident. Primary among them is to bring public and congressional attention to a program designed to detect cruise missiles, airplanes, drones, and even vehicles on the ground within a range of 340 miles. The Pentagon has spent about $2.7 billion on the 17-year-old program, and yet the blimps failed to detect a personal gyrocopter that landed last year on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol — exactly the kind of incursion they are designed spot. Last month, The Los Angeles Times reported: “The 240-foot-long, milk-white blimps, visible for miles around, have been hobbled by defective software, vulnerability to bad weather and poor reliability. … JLENS is a stark example of what defense specialists call a ‘zombie’ program: Costly, ineffectual and seemingly impossible to kill.”
All of which calls to mind the warning issued by outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. … Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” The United States spends more on defense than any nation in the world — more than the next seven nations combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Much of that can be attributed to contractors who become entrenched in the system and face little accountability.
The saga of the wayward blimp provides a perfect opportunity to restore some accountability to that complex. It is past time for the JLENS program to be deflated.
