What the QDR Should Be Asking, But Isn’t - Armed Forces Journal Op-Ed by Peter W. Singer.
When today’s leaders compare our turbulent times to the drawdown era of the 1990s, they’re missing the target for a more useful historical lens. In the years surrounding World War I, fundamental political transition was accompanied by a wave of technological progress that seemed to leap from science-fiction novels. Just as submarines, tanks, and airplanes disrupted tactics, doctrine and organizational identity in the early 20th century, so today we are struggling with deep changes wrought by the likes of drones, cyber and lasers. And, strategically speaking, the U.S. at present is akin to Great Britain then: no longer a rising power but a status quo empire of global commitments, striving to maintain dominance in a changing world. Our military, like Britain’s during the Boer Wars and other colonial endeavors from Iraq to Afghanistan, has been fighting a series of tough, painful and exhausting deployments. But they have been “small wars,” not on par with the challenges from rising peer competitors…
Comments
I also initially copied and pasted your reference to the Army General's quote, however I believe it was taken out of context. It indicates that small terror and insurgent groups can react faster and field small numbers of unique threats. That is a far cry from a sanctioned rogue state being able to match our technology. Otherwise North Koreans would not still be operating T-62 variants and MiG-21s, nor would Iran be flying F-4s or F-5s, and trying to find parts for F-14s.
<blockquote>Militaries may not like it, but they must be prepared for cherished developmental programs to go rapidly out of date. Rather than holding on, they must be prepared to treat them as sunk costs: spent money to be lamented but not weighed in setting future requirements. And yet the real challenge isn’t merely to ignore lost bets, as a good investor should, but also to travel the larger transition. Success depends not on merely taking risks but spreading risks. Another way of putting it is that while there is danger in putting all your bets on the best of the last generation, there is also danger in embracing too closely the first generation of the new.</blockquote>
The F-35 is not the last generation. The F-117 and F-22 were the first generations of the new. We continued to improve the F-22, F-15, F-16, A-10, B-1, and B-52 and the same can occur with the F-35 to make it viable through 2099. At some point, the airframe could be converted to a UAS/RPA to maximize its utility once it becomes a high-hour airframe, while holding it in reserve for major wars and training for its use on simulators. Obviously, a one and two-seat F-35 optionally-manned variant could replace the F/A-18E/F at some point, as well, maximizing taxpayer value through R&D costs already harvested. That leads into another one of Singer’s comments about R&D and continuing to invest in the future:
<blockquote>Tough budget times are no excuse not to engage deeply in research, development, experimentation, wargaming and exercises. Our forebears who went through an actual Great Depression would laugh at the notion that sequestration might prevent the needed activities of learning. Indeed, they had far tougher budget lines to meet, but they figured out everything from uses for the new aircraft carrier to the development of an Army Air Corps.</blockquote>
This and his earlier bi-plane reference do not consider how aircraft costs have exponentially risen. The inflation-adjusted price of a WWII fighter compared to today’s F-22 and F-35, B-2, and Long Range Bomber is far different from WWII or even the Vietnam era F-4. The days of carpet bombing with dumb bombs are over. Instead smart munitions require superior sensors/radars, and communications data link capable of launch from stand-off or stealthy overflight over advanced air defenses. The era of close quarters dogfighting is being supplanted by beyond visual range engagement, engagement of threat fighters on the ground, and a quickly-depleted threat air force because they have fewer costly fighters overall and more air defenses. Few nations have defense budgets for more than a few Su-35s let alone some future Chinese or Russian stealth fighter.
The F-22 and F-35 are key to any hypothetical AirSea conflict because we will have the numbers of stealthy fighters and aerial refueling assets that no other nation can afford. We can protect the first island chain without penetrating mainland China. The A2/AD threats to island airfields is grossly exaggerated (and certainly not much different than faced in the Cold War with talk of tactical nukes and a huge USSR navy and air force) once you reach a certain extended range. Our aerial refuelers flying between distant bases and targets, missile defenses and jamming, and rapid runway repair would solve most realistic threats versus the hyperbole of the sky is falling. Having F-35s spread out over 49 stateside locations and available on up to 20 CVN and amphibious carriers and hidden land-based sites is more than capable of reinforcing the Pacific with active USAF flyers and exploiting airline pilots also in the Air Guard.
In any event, It is ludicrous to believe China would launch a few DF-21D against CVNs or amphibious ships, killing hundreds to thousands, and we would just capitulate. The subsequent long-term reinforcement of allies from stateside, TX Hammes off-shore control blockades, and interference with resupply/reinforcement of any temporary PLA/PLAN gains would economically collapse a China dependent on exports and soon to have a shortage in worker-age population
I have always enjoyed Peter Singer's presentations and his book "Wired for War." In this article he presents six questions:
1. Are you changing by learning?
2. Are you protecting the new from the old?
3. Are you spreading your bets and ignoring sunk costs?
4. Does your personnel system link to your strategic priorities?
5. What kind of leader will you be?
6. What trends are you watching?
This five page article is worth your time to request access to AFJ is you're interested in innovation. A couple of points made that I found of interest are:
He explains how the proliferation of technology is altering the strategic environment. 87 militaries now have UAVs, and more than 100 have cyberwarfare programs. More interesting, the low barriers to acquire technology are making non-state actors more relevant, and in some cases more powerful than states with large bureaucracies. He quotes one unidentified Army General, "The threat's ability to take the technology and innovate with it is higher than ours."
He identified what many of us have discussed in the SWJ, and that is the old is privileged by tribes of people who believe their careers and professional identity are linked to a particular system or specialty. For example, the U.S. Air Force asked to reduce spending on UAVs by 33% (4x the cuts recommended to the rest of the force). SOF has the same issues, and I still think one of my former mentors was right when he said every SOF unit should be disbanded after 20 or years, then build a new one based on current and projected requirements instead of constantly trying to trying to justify legacy requirements. I realize our bureaucracy won't allow us to do this, but in a perfect world we would be much more adaptive than we are now.
<blockquote>In 1934, the British Air Ministry poured money into a new aircraft meant to advance past the World War I generation of planes. The metal-clad Gloster Gladiator could fly almost 250 miles per hour and carry four machine guns. Unfortunately, this biplane was quickly outmatched by new monoplanes such as the Spitfire and the German BF-109. And yet the British plowed ahead, falling prey to the fallacy of sunk costs and ultimately building more than 700 Gladiators. The pilots unlucky enough to fly the last, best biplane gave it a different nickname: the “Flying Coffin.”</blockquote>
Suspect, Singer here implies we must move beyond the F-35 to either an all unmanned or next generation fleet, cutting our losses now as sunk costs. The F-35 will never be called a flying coffin and any new start FA-XX or all UAS fleet would be much more costly than the F-35. In contrast, those who would have us update and modernize 4th generation aircraft would have letters to write loved ones as future radar air defenses and fighter radars continue to advance. A recent article bad-mouthed the F-35 as an A-10 replacement yet failed to acknowledge that the A-10 will not survive an advanced air defense environment.
The AH-64E returning to low altitudes can substitute for many A-10C capabilities while surviving greater air defense threats particularly after F-35s suppress most of it. “Most” is the key word that precludes risking A-10s and 4th generation aircraft over threats not fully suppressed. Ask Scott O’Grady in a not fully modern air defense environment. Those who would seek a next generation air supremacy fighter to replace the F-22 and F/A-18E/F, or an all UCLASS-like or small swarming UAS force as alternatives to F-35 do not grasp those costs and unknown timeframe versus the all-purpose utility of the F-35 being fielded <strong>today</strong>.
Swarming UAS lack endurance and payload and are an extreme airspace hazard and cannot target effectively without violating DoD Directive 3000.9. Futurists don’t grasp the training challenges of operating an all UCLASS or swarming UAS fleet in peacetime or <strong>wartime</strong> airspace. They also are not considering the high maintenance costs of a multi-plane fleet versus the greater commonality of fewer F-35 that possibly could launch systems like MALD-J and lethal loitering missiles once clear of other airspace hazards.
However, a separate more practical and understandable rationale exists for both the Navy and USAF to partially put the brakes on UAS spending. Pilots don’t join the Navy, Marines, or USAF to fly fixed wing RPAs. I can’t even convince my own son to become an Army or USAF UAS/RPA operator because it does not appeal to him. Imagine the lack of interest of an F-16, A-10, or other pilot who is forced to become an RPA operator…in peacetime. At least in war, the RPA operator sees tangible benefits in helping ground forces. Then there is this:
<blockquote>For instance, if the Air Force seeks to maintain its leadership in unmanned/remotely piloted aircraft, it must consider the signal it is sending when a young officer in this community is roughly 13 percent less likely to make major than his peers</blockquote>
If a wartime Reaper/Predator pilot can’t get promoted, what are his/her peacetime prospects? What are the training opportunities in peacetime airspace? If hours of boredom ensue from conflict UAS operation, what incentive is there to bore holes in the sky in a UAS looking at imaginary threats or practicing pattern of life skills over USAF airbases, or worse U.S. civilian communities where Rand Paul’s misplaced paranoia might be proven partially correct. The good thing at least is that much of UAS/RPA operation can be simulated…but that is not the kind of peacetime training that likely recruits and keeps service pilots who quickly would flee to the airlines.
The best opportunity for future UAS/RPA integration into warfighting lies in manned-unmanned teaming. Let pilots be manned aircraft pilots to occasionally interact with and control UAS/RPA from the cockpit. Let enlisted operators and perhaps warrants continue to show their skills in more automated Army and USAF non-stealthy UAS for the bulk of long UAS endurance, ready to do what UAS/RPAs have accomplished so well in current wars once the threat air defense and fighter doors are knocked down. The future of UAS does not lie in fleets of costly stealth UAS/RPA that are unnecessary for 80% of conflicts. It lies in less costly UAS/RPA whose capabilities have been demonstrated once the threat is reduced…or more likely does not exist in foes we are fighting.
Plenty of allied or friendly governments willingly let us overfly their airspace if they have a terror or insurgent problem. The seas are most of the world’s terrain and UAS easily can avoid civil airspace over most areas the US Navy and Marines venture by flying lower than commercial flights. Peacetime flight by non-stealthy UAS still has value for gathering intelligence, indications, and warnings right up to the time bullets start flying and soon after threats are suppressed. Few nations and even fewer terrorists or insurgents have the wherewithal to defeat even basic UAS/RPA capabilities of today when backed up by our manned fleet. Ask the Iranians harassing a UAS in international waters with old F-4s. No nation has that wherewithal after we suppress/destroy their air defenses and fighters with our manned aircraft fleets and bombers.
With a war still ongoing and other Middle East conflict that may be thrust upon us in some manner, limited luxury exists to ponder excessively on theories of major power non-nuclear conflict between trading partners. God help us with we our downplaying the risks of nuclear war evolving from such conflict through thoughts of reckless penetration of Chinese or Russian airspace. Speaking of nukes, ironically, the poor USAF is facing conflicting budgetary and personnel dilemmas:
a) critical nuclear wings and weapons that require enormous costs to upgrade and zero errors/complacency yet little likelihood of employment and the simultaneously knowledge that use would mean the demise of their own families and nation
b) RPA wings going to war frequently using low cost systems and never having to leave their families.
As talk of optionally or unmanned deep penetrating bombers and hypersonic weapons gains fruition, the two dilemmas may converge. Part of the USAF dilemma is their technology fixation which necessitates increasingly high dollar expenditures in an evolving effort to have zero casualties in the air and few long deployments by having lots of AEW rotational force structure. If RPA fleets were to expand to their illogical conclusion, satellite control would be inordinately expensive, data links would be too few, only maintainers/launchers would deploy and face danger, while airspace concerns would be high in both foreign and U.S. airspace.
The latter would lead to few actual aircraft at many active and Air Guard airfields meaning few maintainers and other support folks at most bases throughout the U.S. Instead, they would be controlling multiple UAS elsewhere at major isolated airbases. Who volunteers to be that guy or be at the sole few bases in the U.S that launch/recover jet-powered RPAs. Imagine the noise complaints, civil hazards due to crashes, and enemy targeting/sabotage capabilities of all eggs in few baskets. Who wants to do all the aircraft maintenance for hundreds of aircraft in the desert heat for their whole career?
However, expanding on hypothetical all-RPA fleets, why do we believe a stealthy UAS fleet could loiter many hours over China or Russia or lesser Iran, Syria, or North Korea and never get shot down? Why do we think it would be cheaper than manned aircraft given the cost of the Global Hawk <strong>that isn’t stealthy</strong>? If they know you are up there somewhere fruitlessly searching for tunneled or well hidden missile launchers, troops hiding under trees or inside urban areas and not dressed as Soldiers, why can’t threats launch their Su-35 or even ancient Mig 21s hundreds of miles inland to look for and shoot down your lone UAS? If you only loiter UAS at night, won’t they shoot and scoot during the day?
Neither superpower airspace let alone that of Iran or Syria would readily accept immediate Reaper/Predator flights until the air defense threat is defeated.
That’s why the <strong>current</strong> budgets for the F-35 and EA-18G and Next Generation Jammer must be protected. These assets <strong>could</strong> knock down any air defense environment in the next few years along with the B-2 and F-22, allowing the non-stealthy Reaper/Predator/Global Hawk/Gray Eagle to function unimpeded.
<blockquote>For example, when developing the upcoming year’s budget, the Air Force asked to reduce spending on unmanned aircraft by 33 percent, about four times as much as the cuts for the rest of the force. Similarly, just as the Navy met with success with its X-47 next-generation drone, its budgeteers requested a 24 percent reduction in spending — again, several times the size of the rest of the budget cuts.</blockquote>
Today, given continuing threats unlike the peace dividend following the USSR’s demise, the services are being forced to balance needs of a very real “now” with the theoretical and unlikely “nextwaritis” AirSea conflicts of the future. Acting like a third World War (WW) is imminent or probable despite nearly 70 years without one indicates a selective emphasis on which histories we are doomed to repeat. Given nuclear deterrence’s place in that 70 year WW hiatus, we overstate the historical chance of that type of war, while ignoring recent smaller war history ongoing all around us.
No major conflict has occurred between superpowers armed with nuclear weapons. No major superpower navies have battled at sea, nor have major amphibious assaults been attempted against distant shores ala Normandy or Inchon. No extensive dogfighting has occurred since Vietnam and many realistic foes still fly fighters of that era while we do not. No “aces” with five air-to-air kills are flying these days regardless of which service you fly for but ample instances exist of air-to-ground fires aces in smaller conflicts.
I don’t share Mr. Singer’s optimism that fleets of UAS/RPA or ground unmanned vehicles/sensors are the long-term <strong>exclusive</strong> solution to anything. I will offer that the potential for manned-unmanned integration or teaming is pretty extraordinary. Sans a pilot or Soldier on board, why have the same level of stealth or survivability as the manned system. Long-range penetrating stealth unmanned systems are a solution in search of a problem unless accompanied and/or controlled by manned systems with the human judgment and adaptive observation to decide whether and how to attack a target.
<blockquote>Successful strategic reform in times of change — e.g., the development of the Blitzkrieg or AirLand Battle — requires introspection as much as external observation.</blockquote>
OK, but while speculating about an uncertain future, introspectively consider ethical issues of DoD Directive 3000.9 regulating autonomy for unmanned systems. If we end up without human boots on the ground, who will find ground-to-ground or air-to-ground targets? Will we control autonomous air vehicles by satellite or from the back of an AWACs or special stand-off C-130? Is a FOBBIT going to control ground systems despite ground line-of-sight issues? If we remotely maintain men/women in the loop, what if those data links and communications are targeted by triangulation? How many different frequencies are anticipated and will they interfere with each other? High-powered jamming? Satellites at risk of becoming single points of failure? Greater potential for cyber intrusion?
In contrast, what if the link is between an F-35 and a teamed nearby unmanned wingman, a low-flying AH-64E and elevated Gray Eagle, or between a tank and his nearby unmanned scout vehicle.
<blockquote>Thus he came before Congress in 1939, just as the Blitzkrieg was poised to strike, and argued, “We must not be led to our own detriment to assume that the untried machine can displace the proved and tried horse.”</blockquote>
Singer implies that if you see a place for high tech, stealthy or advanced manned aircraft that you are a Luddite like cavalrymen of old. First of all, a horse and its rider were highly vulnerable to machine guns, and direct/indirect fires. The armored component differentiated the horse from the tank, not to mention on board guns. Survivability and mission effectiveness disparities between manned and unmanned aircraft are not comparable, nor are there UAS advantages in surviving air-to-air encounters, strafing ground targets, or conducting shows of force.
The primary UAS/RPA advantage is their superior endurance and range. Yet superiority in dealing with the dull and distant is not equaled by claims that UAS are superior in the dangerous and dirty. Do you want to be in a squad inserted into a hot LZ by an unmanned pilot not sharing the risks and therefore landing despite withering fire?
As for UAS/RPA, those aircraft are anything but unmanned given an equal number of manned and unmanned aircraft in a squadron. Any attempt at exploiting that added endurance and range would require instead of 1.5 pilots per aircraft, more like 3-6 such pilots or enlisted personnel <strong>per aircraft.</strong> No personnel savings there unless you plan to violate DoD Directive 3000.9 with fully autonomous systems. Once ordnance is expended much of that endurance will be spent returning some distance to rearm at the same airfields or carriers theoretically endangered by A2/AD. Given equally complex aircraft, the UAS likely requires similar maintenance personnel if not more given data link related systems to control and guide the UAS/RPA.