The Great Divide
U.S. Military vs. Modern Threats: What’s the Hold-Up?
The clang of steel and the whir of advanced machinery often paint the picture of military might. For decades, the United States military has stood as a global paragon of technological superiority, but beneath the surface of formidable power, a critical struggle is unfolding.
We are at a pivotal moment, perhaps one of the most urgent since World War II, where the formidable Chinese military threat, coupled with ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, demands an unprecedented leap in adopting new technologies and weapon systems. Yet, despite the availability of cutting-edge innovations, the US military, particularly the Navy, finds itself grappling with deep-seated challenges that impede its journey towards true modernization.
This article delves into the complex strategies the US Department of Defense (DOD) is employing, the specific priorities of branches like the Army, the remarkable technologies already at hand, and, crucially, the entrenched political, economic, and traditional "obstacles in the road" that create a profound divide between potential and reality in US military modernization.
The Imperative to Modernize
A New Era of Warfare
The primary impetus for the urgent demand to adopt new technologies and weapon systems is unequivocally the formidable Chinese military threat. This geopolitical reality underscores the DOD's overarching goal: to remain "one step ahead of the enemy". The evolving nature of warfare, highlighted by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran and preparations for a potential conflict with China, has starkly revealed the inadequacy of current weapon systems and the pressing need for new capabilities. The military's existing arsenal is being "challenged by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, as well as preparations for potential conflict with China," thereby underscoring the immediate relevance of these modernization efforts.
This isn't merely about incremental improvements; it's about a fundamental transformation. The landscape of modern conflict necessitates capabilities that can operate seamlessly across all domains – air, land, sea, cyber, and space – and in concert with allies and partners. The sheer speed and scale of data generated by modern sensors and platforms also demand intelligent processing capabilities that only advanced systems can provide. Without a rapid and effective embrace of these advancements, the strategic edge the US military has long enjoyed risks erosion, potentially endangering national security and global stability.
The DOD's Blueprint for the Future
Heidi Shyu's Three Main Themes
In response to this urgent demand, the US Department of Defense has articulated a comprehensive modernization strategy structured around three main themes, as explained by Heidi Shyu, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering:
1. Research and Engineering (R&E)
The first theme, Research and Engineering, focuses on ensuring that the joint force can operate seamlessly across all domains—air, land, sea, cyber, and space—and in collaboration with allies and partners. This involves a multi-faceted approach:
Advancing partnerships
R&E is actively advancing partnerships with key nations such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, and NATO. These collaborations are crucial for shared security and interoperability.
Foreign comparative test program
This program is designed to promote coalition interoperability and strengthen the shared defense industrial base. By evaluating allied and partner nation technologies, the US military can identify solutions that meet its needs and foster closer integration.
Mission engineering division
This division uses modeling and simulation to assess joint capability gaps and integrate critical enabling technologies into mission architectures. This data-driven approach helps identify where new technologies are most needed and how they can be effectively deployed.
2. Campaigning
The second theme, Campaigning, relies heavily on R&E's collaboration with various interagency partners. These include the Departments of Treasury and Commerce, the State Department, and the Small Business Administration. A cornerstone initiative within this theme is the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) program.
This program is embarking on a continuous campaign of joint experimentation to close gaps in joint warfighting capability. These joint experiments are scenario-based and will be conducted in six-month cycles, focusing on 14 critical technology areas for the warfighter. These areas represent the vanguard of defense technology and include:
- Biotechnology.
- Quantum sciences.
- Advanced materials.
- Future G (beyond 5G technologies)
- Trusted artificial intelligence and autonomy.
- Microelectronics.
- Space technology.
- Renewable energy.
- Integrated network.
- Systems of systems.
- Advanced computing and software.
- Human-machine interfaces.
- Hypersonics.
- Direct energy.
- Integrated sensing and cyber.
This targeted approach ensures that experimentation directly addresses current and future warfighting needs across a broad spectrum of critical defense technology.
3. Building Enduring Advantages
The third theme, Building Enduring Advantages, focuses on identifying reforms to accelerate the development and acquisition of critical technologies, alongside making necessary investments in the workforce. Key initiatives within this theme include:
Supporting the defense innovation base
The DOD supports small businesses, startups, and other nontraditional companies, encouraging them to work with the department. This broadens the pool of innovation and brings in fresh perspectives.
Leveraging the U.S. science and technology innovation community
The DOD leverages this community to solve operational and engineering challenges with cross-cutting solutions that benefit all military services. This ensures that advancements are adaptable and applicable across different branches.
Attracting a technical workforce
R&E is laying a foundation to attract the right technical workforce and supports university-affiliated research centers (UARCs) and federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs).
These institutions work on cutting-edge technologies like space dynamics, system engineering, applied physics, software engineering, and geophysical detection.
Fostering innovation and risk-taking
The DOD is committed to fostering a culture that encourages innovation and risk-taking. This includes investment in multiple talent pipelines for the STEM workforce, recognizing that human capital is essential for defense innovation.
These three themes, working in concert, form the strategic framework for the DOD's modernization efforts, aiming to create a more agile, technologically advanced, and collaborative joint force.
The Army's Focused Modernization Drive
A 2035 Vision
While the DOD sets the overarching strategy, individual branches like the US Army have specific, focused modernization priorities.
The US Army's last comprehensive modernization effort occurred a remarkable 40 years ago. To ensure the current effort is successful, the Army must maintain its readiness for ongoing conflicts while simultaneously preparing for the necessities of the future battlefield.
This critical balance is being achieved through six main priorities, identified by the Association of the United States Army (AUSA):
- 1. Long-range precision fires.
- 2. Next-generation combat vehicle.
- 3. Future vertical lift.
- 4. Air and missile defense.
- 5. Network.
- 6. Soldier lethality.
These six priorities are the focal point of Army research, development, and modernization. Since their designation and subsequent alignment with Army Futures Command (AFC) in 2018, these efforts have been led by eight cross-functional teams, leveraging the latest research and technology.
The ultimate goal is ambitious yet necessary
To develop "a transformed, multi-domain-capable force by 2035" that can deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversaries. This transformation ensures the Army maintains the necessary organization, leadership, training, conviction, weapon systems, and resources to execute its duties in collaboration with the joint force and allies.
The Paradox of Potential
Cutting-Edge Technologies Ready for Deployment
Despite the significant challenges, the reality is that the technology required for this modernization is not a distant dream; in many cases, "the technology is here".
Investigative reporter Eric Lipton highlighted that the US military has been testing new weapons with remarkable capabilities using cutting-edge, digital technology, including artificial intelligence.
The availability of these innovations presents a paradox: immense potential often clashing with entrenched resistance.
Consider these examples of available technologies that could revolutionize military capabilities:
Unmanned Vessels (Drones)
A collection of tiny, unmanned vessels represents a prototype for a cheaper, easier-to-build, and more mobile force. These drones offer significant strategic advantages:
Capabilities
They can operate for up to a year, see at night via infrared cameras, and are significantly more cost-effective and mobile than traditional manned ships.
Strategic Importance
Such vessels are already proving instrumental in containing adversaries like Iran and could be essential for fighting a war in the Pacific. By taking on reconnaissance, surveillance, and potentially even combat roles, they allow for more efficient use of larger, manned ships, reducing risk to human personnel and capital.
The Devil Ray
Another example is "the Devil Ray," a high-speed vessel capable of reaching 90 miles per hour. This speed allows it to track faster boats, providing a critical advantage in naval operations where rapid response and persistent tracking are paramount.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology with vast applications in military modernization. Eric Lipton explained to Terri Gross how AI is crucial for evaluating feeds from drones to identify threats and sifting through the overwhelming amount of data generated by DOD satellites, aerial sensors, and ground sensors.
Data Fusion and Threat Identification
AI can instantaneously fuse all this information, find targets, and act on that information in a way that no human can. It can adjust material instantaneously and identify potential threats, presenting its findings to humans for final determination.
This capability is vital, as demonstrated in the Ukraine conflict, where the ability to quickly process vast amounts of data and identify actionable intelligence can mean the difference between success and failure.
The availability of these technologies underscores that the problem is often not a lack of innovation, but rather the "obstacles in the road" that prevent their widespread adoption and integration.
The Elephant in the Room
Deep-Seated Obstacles to Modernization
Despite the clear strategic vision, urgent geopolitical drivers, and available cutting-edge technology, the US military is "struggling to modernize". This struggle is rooted in deeply embedded institutional and political forces that create significant hurdles for the adoption of advanced technologies and systems.
Tradition and Arrogance
One of the most profound obstacles is tradition and, in some cases, an "arrogance" within military branches. Retired Rear Admiral Lorin Selby, after a 36-year career in the Navy where he helped run major acquisition units, candidly stated, "The U.S. Navy is arrogant. We have an arrogance about, we’ve got these aircraft carriers, we’ve got these amazing submarines. We don’t know anything else. And that is just wrong". This attitude leads to a resistance to change and an unwillingness to adopt new, potentially more effective, but less traditional systems.
The Navy, in particular, is described as "lashed to big shipbuilding programs driven by traditions". Such a stance hinders progress towards implementing even autonomous deadly weapon systems, which are already being tested.
Political Influence and Lobbying
Political and economic forces play a colossal role in hindering military modernization. The Navy's procurement policies, for instance, are often "jobs-driven," produced by political and economic forces that result in powerful but cumbersome warships that may not be ideally suited for contemporary missions.
Congressional Aversion to Change
An aversion to change exists among members of Congress, particularly those representing states that rely on current levels of military spending and specific budgeting for traditional platforms.
Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, exemplifies this. Mississippi's largest manufacturing employer is Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, which builds traditional vessels like the Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyers.
Despite these destroyers being "increasingly vulnerable – especially in a conflict with China over Taiwan," the debate in Washington often focuses on protecting and expanding traditional platforms. Lawmakers frequently press Navy officials against delaying purchases of traditional ships, even when the Pentagon proposes it due to rising costs.
Industrial Lobbying
This resistance is further amplified by powerful lobbying efforts. Think tanks and consulting firms funded by shipbuilders actively push out opinion pieces urging the Navy to build more manned ships, even when the Pentagon proposes delays in traditional ship purchases. These efforts reinforce the inertia towards existing systems, often at the expense of more agile and cost-effective alternatives.
Procurement Bureaucracy and Budgeting Process
The procurement bureaucracy itself is a significant factor slowing down modernization.
The entire system, encompassing the budgeting process, the congressional process, and industrial lobbying efforts, is described as "the machine" that is "designed to continue to produce what we’ve already got and make it a little better". Selby pointed out that this incremental approach "is not good enough" for the challenges the military faces today. This "machine" inherently resists fundamental transformation, favouring the continuation of existing, slightly improved technologies over revolutionary new systems, regardless of their strategic necessity.
Disagreements within the Military
Implicit tensions exist between those advocating for cutting-edge, agile systems and those clinging to established platforms. These internal disagreements can further slow down decision-making and the adoption of new technologies.
Ethical Concerns
Finally, ethical concerns surrounding autonomous deadly weapon systems have also hindered their implementation. While the technology might be available, the moral and ethical implications of fully autonomous combat systems require careful consideration and deliberation, which can naturally slow down deployment.
These deeply entrenched factors collectively contribute to the US military's struggle to modernize, preventing the adoption of readily available technologies like tiny, unmanned vessels, high-speed vessels like the Devil Ray, and advanced artificial intelligence for threat identification and data analysis.
Conclusion
Navigating the Future; A Call for Transformation
The US military stands at a critical juncture. The imperative to modernize is undeniable, driven by a formidable Chinese military threat and the evolving demands of global conflicts. The Department of Defense has a comprehensive, multi-faceted strategy encompassing research and engineering, campaigning, and building enduring advantages, with specific branches like the Army pursuing targeted priorities for a "transformed, multi-domain-capable force by 2035". Furthermore, cutting-edge defense technology, from unmanned vessels and high-speed crafts to advanced AI for data fusion, is not only available but is actively being tested and demonstrated.
However, the journey to modernization is not merely a technological race; it is a battle against deeply ingrained institutional, political, and cultural resistance. The "arrogance" within certain branches, "jobs-driven procurement policies" influenced by political and economic forces, powerful lobbying efforts, a cumbersome procurement bureaucracy, and an aversion to change in Congress all create significant "obstacles in the road".
As former Rear Admiral Lorin Selby succinctly put it, the entire "machine" is "designed to continue to produce what we’ve already got and make it a little better," but this incremental approach "is not good enough" for the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Overcoming these deeply entrenched obstacles is as critical, if not more so, than the technological advancements themselves.
True modernization will require not only innovation in defense technology but also a fundamental transformation of the bureaucratic, political, and cultural systems that govern military procurement and development.
Only by addressing this profound divide can the US military truly prepare for the complexities of future warfare and maintain its strategic edge in an increasingly volatile world. The future of US military capabilities, and indeed global security, hinges on its ability to evolve beyond traditional paradigms and fully embrace the innovations that are already within its grasp.
Source: RFGlobalnet
Post a Comment