Lobbying for Defense: An Insider's View

INTRODUCTION

Iretired from the Army in 1987 after twenty-eight years of active military service, during which I spent ten years in the Pentagon as a staff officer in a variety of assignments, all leading to very senior positions controlling research, development, and procurement of Army aviation systems such as attack, scout, heavy-lift, and utility helicopters; fixed-wing airplanes; and associated subsystems. Upon retirement, numerous companies with whom I had worked while in uniform asked me to assist with their Defense programs, so I launched a second career as a consultant, then lobbyist, a career today buttressed with eighteen additional years of working within the boundaries of the Washington, D.C., Beltway on Defense issues related to all the Military Departments and many other government agencies.

During the eighteen years since retiring from the Army, I have learned a great deal about lobbying in the nation’s capital. In this book, I hope to share these lessons learned with readers who might come from U.S. industry, from foreign industry seeking to do business with the Military Departments of the United States, from within the Military Departments themselves, and with interested staff assistants serving Members of both houses of Congress.

This is essentially a how to lobby successfully text based on solid, proven results. It is perhaps the first of its kind in terms of Defense-related lobby activities, and one that might prevent a company from being drawn in by the razzle-dazzle footwork of a lobby group from inside the Washington Beltway, as sometimes occurs. Lobby groups will too often simply charge companies extraordinary amounts of money to accomplish factually very little on a company’s behalf.

My primary focus is on industry because I believe industry needs to learn that there is a correct, very efficient, and successful way in which to lobby for Defense programs. I want industry to see that there is no great mystery to lobbying appropriately for Defense dollars. In fact, industry can easily use this book as a guide to pursuing additional Congressional funding, when and if opportunities arise to meet required capabilities of one or more of the Services.

My intent, also, is to enlighten industry about what must be understood and done, on a step-by-step, month-by-month basis in any fiscal year, to secure funding for a project in the annual Defense Authorization Act and Defense Appropriations bills, the two key pieces of legislation that together fund the Department of Defense.

I also hope to convince industry that there is no need to pay large Washington lobby groups hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to produce a $10 million or $15 million Defense appropriation at the end of a budget cycle. Positive results can be achieved at far less cost to a company if my prescribed steps are followed, and if a company understands what is being accomplished by a lobbyist and what price is being paid for that service.

This book is also addressed to the military because I believe the Military Departments need to understand how the process of lobbying actually works within industry and within Congress, and how it can serve as a tool to enhance their ability to procure additional funds for necessary programs. With this understanding, members of the military will know more about and when to support—and when not to support—lobbying by industry. Because lobbying is something the Military Departments are prohibited from doing, little is said or taught to officers in uniform about the practice of lobbying or how industry conducts its business within the defense environment. Understanding the lobbying process can better equip military staff to deal with Pentagon assignments, particularly those directly related to major weapon-system development and procurement.

Junior officers in all the military Services can also benefit from an understanding of what constitutes lobbying. In recent years more responsibility for research, development, and procurement of programs has been delegated to lower commands outside the Pentagon, to be handled by officers with far less experience than the more senior personnel assigned to Pentagon positions. These junior officers, however, are making decisions about multimillion-dollar programs, and invariably are interacting with consultants and lobbyists.

Overall, this book is intended to show that lobbying inside the Pentagon is common; and that many major weapons systems have their budgets supplemented by lobbyists either working from within major companies—or hired separately as lobby groups—or individuals acting in a company’s direct support. Lobbying, when done correctly, is not illegal, and certainly should not be perceived as such by those outside Washington. This misperception is too often the case within many subordinate commands outside the Pentagon, and this is to the detriment of the Service if they miss out on opportunities to raise funding for needed programs.

With this book, I would also like to reach young, aspiring staff personnel supporting Members of the House and Senate, some of whom have, over the years, asked me how and when things happen in the Pentagon that create the programs later found in the Department of Defense budget. This book should jump-start the newly assigned Congressional staff members toward acquiring a sound, professional knowledge base with respect to what happens inside the Pentagon. This may help ameliorate what is sometimes seen as a steep learning curve in the Defense arena.

This book may even be of benefit to some Members of Congress who would like to better understand what happens in industry and the military departments to gain Congressional financial support for specific unfunded Defense programs. Of utmost benefit would be a grasp of the difference between valid, necessary program requests of the military Services, and the kinds of programs that are put forward simply to make money (what some commonly call pork). There are, in fact, senior Members of the House and Senate who pride themselves on denouncing what they perceive as pork in a Defense bill, discrediting virtually all requests for additional funding for military purposes, yet having no understanding of the difference between pork and legitimate requests. This lack of understanding is much to the detriment of the nation and the Defense Department, specifically in the department’s ability to improve the combat readiness of our soldiers.

Finally, although there are those in industry, the Services, and in Congress who have a deep appreciation for the process of lobbying and understand it well, many people still have misperceptions, or no perception at all, of how things happen successfully in the world of lobbying. To this point, my hope is that at its conclusion the reader will understand that lobbying correctly is not a complex process, though it is enormously interactive if conducted properly. It is anchored to an annual government budget cycle demanding that identical proceedings occur during each budget year, thus creating events to which all participants in the process must respond along a set time line, and to which they must adhere if they are to be successful. I have purposely kept the text simple, limited military acronyms except when useful, and raised only those points that I believe need to be understood to achieve the goals I have mentioned.

SOME NOTES ABOUT THE BOOK

This book is not a text written to describe the functions of Congress nor the Military Departments. I do not provide a narrative about the history and make-up of committees nor of the Pentagon, but instead focus on what the lobbyist must do to interact effectively with these organizations. Lobbying for Defense provides a tutorial depicting what needs to be understood and done to lobby for funds for the Department of Defense.

Many may argue the merits of one point or another brought up in the book. My only reply is that what I provide has a successful track record, and I fully recognize it is not the only or approved solution. It is, nevertheless, a very workable solution and methodology by which to lobby for Defense dollars, and perhaps the only guide available today describing the process in detail.

The book is simply a guide, a how to lobby text that provides step-by-step instructions for working your way through the lobbying process. It also includes in the Appendix many completed samples of required documents. Most of the documents I have provided as samples are models I have personally created and used successfully for eighteen years. However, they certainly can be modified as any lobbyist or client may choose.

This book is an instructional guide that one person can use to carry a program through the entire process of lobbying, from identification of requirements, coordinating with the Military Departments, to working with Congress. Although many companies enjoy great wealth and have the luxury of breaking these responsibilities into two jobs—those of consultants and lobbyists—this book is a guide for the company that can only pay for one person to lobby its cause. In that context, I will refer to the person as a lobbyist, although much of what he or she does could be called consulting, specifically when dealing or coordinating with the military departments at the various command and installation levels and, in turn, advising one’s client. Should a company have the luxury of hiring more than one person to do this type work, it can be useful to keep the consultant engaged with the Military Departments, the lobbyist engaged with the Congress. The two can certainly coexist to the company’s good fortune, and each will be required to do far less work.

I would suggest, however, that to be a truly effective lobbyist on Defense-related issues, you need to have the background in the operational requirements of the Services with which you are working, as well as a working knowledge of program management, both of which are characteristically tied to the practice of consulting to Defense contractors. In my judgment, however, an effective lobbyist should be imbued with the knowledge and skills of a Defense consultant, though conversely, the consultant in his practice of simply consulting has little need for the knowledge and skills of a lobbyist.

The reader should note that while the focus of the text is on lobbying for Defense, the same process may be applied toward lobbying for funds in support of any of the remaining appropriations that support the nation’s other major departments such as State, Transportation, or Homeland Security.

Lobbying for Defense does address some lobbying abuses that have been in the news of late, but touches on them lightly, and certainly does not advocate the more frequently discussed types of illegal lobbying that have come to light. The book simply provides a measured approach to working within the Military Departments and with the Congress to support programs needed by the Services. It is a guide to securing funding for programs in a manner wherein all participants are: aware of what is being done, supportive of the efforts, working within the bounds of propriety, and assured that any funding applied will be in support of programs and products truly needed by the Military Departments.

Finally, in addition to the industrial, military and congressional audience discussed above, Lobbying for Defense was written to raise the awareness of students at civilian universities and military educational institutions such as senior Service colleges as to how lobbying is practiced today, and how lobbying goals are achieved with propriety, dignity, and integrity, all the while providing a needed service to the Department of Defense.

Matthew R. Kambrod

Colonel

United States Army (Ret.)

CHAPTER 1

Lobbying for Defense and Understanding Requirements, Now Capabilities

The Three Servicemen Statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Lobbying for the Department of Defense (DOD) serves the military by providing money for programs that would otherwise go unfunded, thereby denying the Services research and development of technologies or procurement of equipment needed to attain short- and long-term objectives for success on the battlefield. Today’s lobbyist serves as a catalyst to bring the focus of the three key members in the lobbying equation—U.S. and foreign industry, the military, and Congress—on military programs and their funding needs. To be effective, lobbyists must understand military requirements or capabilities and the process of developing them.

Many who read this book and have worked with the Military Departments for the last ten to twenty years are intimately familiar with the term requirements. In 2001, however, in recognition that the Services no longer conducted combat operations unilaterally as separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force organizations but rather as integrated units conducting Joint Operations, the term requirement was officially taken out of use, and in its place the term capability was established as the baseline in the process of developing and procuring of weapons systems and other needs. I will tell you, however, that the term requirement has not been entirely erased, and is often interchanged with capability. Even within the Pentagon, there are still some formal holdovers such as Unfunded Requirements (UFRs), which we will discuss at great length later in the book, and that substantiate the continuing interchangeability of the term. Pentagon Reviewing authorities such as the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, a Joint Staff approval authority, still keeps the term in use, as well.

Further, the basic document known for years to be associated with development and procurement, specifically the Operational Requirements Document (ORD), is now called the Capability Development Document (CDD). This transition in terminology was a direct result of the role that the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon took on as overseer of weapons-system development necessary to insure complete integration of systems on the joint battlefield or battlespace, as it is often called, in which some or all Service components may operate simultaneously. The transition assured, then, a standardization in terminology across the Services necessary for efficient interaction of staff agencies within the Pentagon and throughout United States military organizations. It also resulted in the Services’ now looking at a requirement not as a response to a threat but understanding it as a capability that needs to exist for the conduct of combat operations, regardless of type threat. A requirement, now a capability, is a validated need for something—be it training equipment, uniforms, rifles, airplanes, naval vessels, tanks, missiles, mess kits, boots, or any of a myriad of items—a soldier, sailor, or airman may need to go to war. It is also the term given to describe something accepted by a Service in concept and established with formal documentation but not yet developed or in production. As a capability moves from concept formulation through its development and procurement process, it continues to be addressed as a capability.

Lobbyists must understand the capabilities process because without a requirement or need for a capability, lobbying for Defense dollars is virtually pointless. It would be tantamount to requesting that Congress add money in a given year’s Defense Bill for a program for which a Service has no need. This would be a gross misuse of taxpayers’ dollars and, although it has occurred in the past, it occurs less frequently now, but will continue to happen so long as special interests exist.

Further, without an understanding of how capabilities are developed, a lobbyist lacks the knowledge and experience to guide his or her client through the year-long lobbying process, leading too often to spent capital on the part of the client in what will ultimately prove, in all likelihood, a fruitless effort. Conversely, an understanding of the process can not only help the lobbyists’ client but also sometimes help a Service define its requirements, and even assist in securing funding on an accelerated basis for an item before a formal capabilities document is ever published.

As a recent example, Congress asked what the Army was doing to enhance the operational capabilities of tactical wheeled vehicles to drive at night under blacked-out conditions. At issue was the ability of armored vehicles equipped with night vision devices to move quickly in Iraq and Afghanistan, while trucks without this capability were relegated to slower speeds. When both types of vehicles moved together, armored vehicles were slowed to the operational capabilities of the ill-equipped trucks.

A manufacturer of Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) devices, which allow vehicle operators to see at night and under obscured visual conditions, stepped up lobbying the Congress for research and development funds so that the Army could begin development of an optimum FLIR system to meet its needs. In the meantime, the manufacturer worked with the Army to identify technologies capable of satisfying the system’s capabilities, leading to the Army’s formulating the specifics for which it would look in developing a system for its trucks, i.e., the specifications for an urgent capability.

DEFINING CAPABILITIES: A COMPLEX MATTER

Lobbyists—and all who work in DOD-related industries—must understand the development of Service capabilities. Defining Service capabilities in a formal context is both complex and a very lengthy process. Getting a capability approved routinely takes as a minimum eighteen months within a Service. To illustrate the requirements process, we’ll look at the development of a new type of aircraft for the Army.

The process initially takes shape within the Army center responsible for the equipment under consideration. For example, the home of the Army Aviation Branch is the Army Aviation and Warfighting Center at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Fort Rucker is where the Army trains its aviators in helicopter flight, where aviation employment doctrine is developed, and where aviation systems needed to support Army aviation in the execution of its varying roles and missions are first defined as capabilities by an agency known as the Combat Developments Directorate. The same would hold true of infantry equipment capabilities developed at Fort Benning, Georgia; armor equipment at Fort Knox; artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and so on.

If the Army Aviation Center, for example, determines that there is a need for a new type aircraft (or a new type of helicopter-mounted weapon or subsystem), it could not act in isolation from the rest of the Army. It would first generate a concept for an aircraft capability, and reduce that capability to three separate documents, an Initial Capabilities Document (ICD), defining the need, a Capability Development Document (CDD), and a Capability Production Document (CPD), the latter two stating the operational and performance attributes of the aircraft envisioned by the Aviation Center, the last providing a much more refined definition. To gain an appreciation of the time involved in developing capabilities documents, it is important to understand that the aircraft must not only fly or fly and shoot but also be capable of interacting with the other elements of the Army that it will support and with which it must function. The aircraft, for example, must be able to communicate with the soldier on the ground, with tanks, with vessels, and with self-propelled artillery on the battlefield, and a full array of equipment owned by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines, now that most military operations conducted are joint in nature, meaning that more than one Service is involved.

To be certain, then, that a capability is truly valid and all-encompassing, the concept must be staffed throughout all segments of the Army, the process whereby each element of the Army has an opportunity to review what the proposed aircraft or system