V: CREATING TOMORROW’S DOMINANT FORCE

To preserve American military preeminence in the coming decades, the Department of Defense must move more aggressively to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, and seek to exploit the emerging revolution in military affairs. Information technologies, in particular, are becoming more prevalent and significant components of modern military systems. These information technologies are having the same kind of transforming effects on military affairs as they are having in the larger world. The effects of this military transformation will have profound implications for how wars are fought, what kinds of weapons will dominate the battlefield and, inevitably, which nations enjoy military preeminence.

The United States enjoys every prospect of leading this transformation. Indeed, it was the improvements in capabilities acquired during the American defense build-up of the 1980s that hinted at and then confirmed, during Operation Desert Storm, that a revolution in military affairs was at hand. At the same time, the process of military transformation will present opportunities for America’s adversaries to develop new capabilities that in turn will create new challenges for U.S. military preeminence.

Moreover, the Pentagon, constrained by limited budgets and pressing current missions, has seen funding for experimentation and transformation crowded out in recent years. Spending on military research and development has been reduced dramatically over the past decade. Indeed, during the mid-1980’s, when the Defense Department was in the midst of the Reagan buildup which was primarily an effort to expand existing forces and field traditional weapons systems, research spending represented 20 percent of total Pentagon budgets. By contrast, today’s research and development accounts total only 8 percent of defense  spending. And even this reduced total is primarily for upgrades of current weapons. Without increased spending on basic research and development the United States will be unable to exploit the RMA and preserve its technological edge on future battlefields.

The effects of the RMA will have profound implications for how wars are fought, what weapons dominate, and which nations enjoy military preeminence.

Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval. Likewise, systems entering production today – the F-22 fighter, for example – will be in service inventories for decades to come. Wise management of this process will consist in large measure of figuring out the right moments to halt production of current-paradigm weapons and shift to radically new designs. The expense associated with some programs can make them roadblocks to the larger process of transformation – the Joint Strike Fighter program, at a total of approximately $200 billion, seems an unwise investment. Thus, this report advocates a two-stage process of change – transition and transformation – over the coming decades.

In general, to maintain American military preeminence that is consistent with the requirements of a strategy of American global leadership, tomorrow’s U.S. armed forces must meet three new missions:

• Global missile defenses. A network against limited strikes, capable of protecting the United States, its allies and forward-deployed forces, must be constructed. This must be a layered system of land, sea, air and space-based components.

• Control of space and cyberspace. Much as control of the high seas – and the protection of international commerce – defined global powers in the past, so will control of the new “international commons” be a key to world power in the future. An America incapable of protecting its interests or that of its allies in space or the “infosphere” will find it difficult to exert global political leadership.

• Pursuing a two-stage strategy for of transforming conventional forces. In exploiting the “revolution in military affairs,” the Pentagon must be driven by the enduring missions for U.S. forces. This process will have two stages: transition, featuring a mix of current and new systems; and true transformation, featuring new systems, organizations and operational concepts. This process must take a competitive approach, with services and joint-service operations competing for new roles and missions. Any successful process of transformation must be linked to the services, which are the institutions within the Defense Department with the ability and the responsibility for linking budgets and resources to specific missions.

Missile Defenses

Ever since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a Saudi warehouse in which American soldiers were sleeping, causing the largest single number of casualties in the war; when Israeli and Saudi citizens donned gas masks in nightly terror of Scud attacks; and when the great “Scud Hunt” proved to be an elusive game that absorbed a huge proportion of U.S. aircraft, the value of the ballistic missile has been clear to America’s adversaries. When their missiles are tipped with warheads carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, even weak regional powers have a credible deterrent, regardless of the balance of conventional forces. That is why, according to the CIA, a number of regimes deeply hostile to America – North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria – “already have or are developing ballistic missiles” that could threaten U.S allies and forces abroad. And one, North Korea, is on the verge of deploying missiles that can hit the American homeland. Such capabilities pose a grave challenge to the American peace and the military power that preserves that peace.

To increase their effectiveness, ground-based interceptors like the Army’s Theater High-Altitude Area Defense System must be networked to space-based systems.

The ability to control this emerging threat through traditional nonproliferation treaties is limited when the geopolitical and strategic advantages of such weapons are so apparent and so readily acquired. The Clinton Administration’s diplomacy, threats and pleadings did nothing to prevent first India and shortly thereafter Pakistan from demonstrating their nuclear capabilities. Nor have formal international agreements such as the 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime done much to stem missile proliferation, even when backed by U.S. sanctions; in the final analysis, the administration has preferred to subordinate its nonproliferation policy to larger regional and country-specific goals. Thus, President Clinton lamented in June 1998 that he found sanctions legislation so inflexible that he was forced to “fudge” the intelligence evidence on China’s transfer of ballistic missiles to Pakistan to avoid the legal requirements to impose sanctions on Beijing.

At the same time, the administration’s devotion to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with the Soviet Union has frustrated development of useful ballistic missile defenses. This is reflected in deep budget cuts – planned spending on missile defenses for the late 1990s has been more than halved, halting work on space-based interceptors, cutting funds for a national missile defense system by 80 percent and theater defenses by 30 percent. Further, the administration has cut funding just at the crucial moments when individual programs begin to show promise. Only upgrades of currently existing systems like the Patriot missile – originally designed primarily for air defense against jet fighters, not missile defense – have proceeded generally on course.

Most damaging of all was the decision in 1993 to terminate the “Brilliant Pebbles” project. This legacy of the original Reagan-era “Star Wars” effort had matured to the point where it was becoming feasible to develop a space-based interceptor capable of destroying ballistic missiles in the early or middle portion of their flight – far preferable than attempting to hit individual warheads surrounded by clusters of decoys on their final course toward their targets. But since a space-based system would violate the ABM Treaty, the administration killed the “Brilliant Pebbles” program, choosing instead to proceed with a ground-based  interceptor  and radar system – one that will be costly without being especially effective.

While there is an argument to be made for “terminal” ground- based interceptors as an element in a larger architecture of missile defenses, it deserves the lowest rather than the first priority. The first element in any missile defense network should be a galaxy of surveillance satellites with sensors capable of acquiring enemy ballistic missiles immediately upon launch. Once a missile is tracked and targeted, this information needs to be instantly disseminated through a world-wide command-and-control system, including direct links to interceptors. To address the special problems of theater-range ballistic missiles, theater-level defenses should be layered as well. In addition to space-based systems, these theater systems should include both land-and sea-based interceptors, to allow for deployment to trouble spots to reinforce theater systems already in place or to cover gaps where no defenses exist. In addition, they should be “two-tiered,” providing close-in “point defense” of valuable targets and forces as well as upper-level, “theater-wide” coverage.

The Clinton Administration’s adherence to the 1972 ABM Treaty has frustrated development of useful ballistic missile defenses.

Current programs could provide the necessary density for a layered approach to theater missile defense, although funding for each component has been inadequate, especially for the upper-tier, sea based effort, known as the Navy Theater-Wide program. Point defense is to be provided by the Patriot Advanced Capability, Level 3, or PAC-3 version of the Patriot air defense missile and by the Navy Area Defense system, likewise an upgrade of the current Standard air defense missile and the Aegis radar system. Both systems are on the verge of being deployed.

These lower-tier defenses, though they will be capable of providing protection against the basic Scuds and Scud variants that comprise the arsenals of most American adversaries today, are less effective against longer-range, higher-velocity missiles that several states have under development. Moreover, they will be less effective against missiles with more complex warheads or those that break apart, as many Iraqi modified Scuds did during the Gulf War. And finally, point defenses, even when they successfully intercept an incoming missile, may not offset the effects against weapons of mass destruction.

Thus the requirement for upper-tier, theater-wide defenses like the Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the Navy Theater-Wide systems. Though housed in a Patriot-like launcher, THAAD is an entirely new system designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles earlier in their flight, in the so-called “mid-course.” The Navy Theater-Wide system is based upon the Aegis system, with an upgraded radar and higher-velocity – though intentionally slowed down to meet administration concerns over violating the ABM Treaty – version of the Standard missile. The THAAD system has enjoyed recent test success, but development of the Navy Theater-Wide system has been hampered by lack of funds. Similarly, a fifth component of a theater-wide network of ballistic missile defenses, the Air Force’s airborne laser project, has suffered from insufficient funding. This system, which mounts a high energy laser in a 747 aircraft, is designed to intercept theater ballistic missiles in their earliest, or “boost” phase, when they are most vulnerable.

To maximize their effectiveness, these theater-level interceptors should receive continuous targeting information directly from a global constellation of satellites carrying infrared sensors capable of detecting ballistic missile launches as they happen. The low-earth-orbit tier of the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS Low), now under development by the Air Force, will provide continuous observations of ballistic missiles in the boost, midcourse and reentry phases of attack. Current missile  tracking radars can see objects only above the horizon and must be placed in friendly territory; consequently, they are most effective only in the later phases of a ballistic missile’s flight. SBIRS Low, however, can see a hostile missile earlier in its trajectory, increasing times for interception and multiplying the effectiveness of theater-range interceptors by cueing their radars with targeting data. It will also provide precise launch-point information, allowing theater forces a better chance to destroy hostile launchers before more missiles can be fired. There is also a SBIRS High project, but both SBIRS programs have suffered budget cuts that are to delay their deployments by two years.

But to be most effective, this array global reconnaissance and targeting satellites should be linked to a global network of space-based interceptors (or space-based lasers). In fact, it is misleading to think of such a system as a “national” missile defense system, for it would be a vital element in theater defenses, protecting U.S. allies or expeditionary forces abroad from longer-range theater weapons. This is why the Bush Administration’s missile defense architecture, which is almost identical to the network described above, was called Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS). By contrast, the Clinton Administration’s plan to develop limited national missile defenses based upon Minuteman III missiles fitted with a so-called “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” is the most technologically challenging, most expensive, and least effective form of long-range ballistic missile defense. Indeed, the Clinton Administration’s differentiation between theater and national missile defense systems is yet another legacy of the ABM Treaty, one that does not fit the current strategic circumstances. Moreover, by differentiating between national and theater defenses, current plans drive a wedge between the United States and its allies, and risk “decoupling.” Conversely, American interests will diverge from those of our allies if theater defenses can protect our friends and forces abroad, but the American people at home remain threatened.

In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities. Projecting conventional military forces or simply asserting political influence abroad, particularly in times of crisis, will be far more complex and constrained when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a miniscule ballistic missile force. Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.

Space and Cyberspace

No system of missile defenses can be fully effective without placing sensors and weapons in space. Although this would appear to be creating a potential new theater of warfare, in fact space has been militarized for the better part of four decades. Weather, communications, navigation and reconnaissance satellites are increasingly essential elements in American military power. Indeed, U.S. armed forces are uniquely dependent upon space. As the 1996 Joint Strategy Review, a precursor to the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, concluded, “Space is already inextricably linked to military operations on land, on the sea, and in the air.” The report of the National Defense Panel agreed: “Unrestricted use of space has become a major strategic interest of the United States.”

Given the advantages U.S. armed forces enjoy as a result of this unrestricted use of space, it is shortsighted to expect potential adversaries to refrain from attempting to offset to disable or offset U.S. space capabilities. And with the proliferation of space know-how and related technology around the world, our adversaries will inevitably seek to enjoy many of the same space advantages in the future. Moreover, “space commerce” is a growing part of the global economy. In 1996, commercial launches exceeded military launches in the United States, and commercial revenues exceeded government expenditures on space. Today, more than 1,100 commercial companies across more than 50 countries are developing, building, and operating space systems.

Many of these commercial space systems have direct military applications, including information from global positioning system constellations and better-than- one-meter resolution imaging satellites. Indeed, 95 percent of current U.S. military communications are carried over commercial circuits, including commercial communications satellites. The U.S. Space Command foresees that in the coming decades,

an adversary will have sophisticated regional situational awareness. Enemies may very well know, in near-real time, the disposition of all forces….In fact, national military forces, paramilitary units, terrorists, and any other potential adversaries will share the high ground of space with the United States and its allies. Adversaries may also share the same commercial satellite services for communications, imagery, and navigation….The space “playing field” is leveling rapidly, so U.S. forces will be increasingly vulnerable. Though adversaries will benefit greatly from space, losing the use of space may be more devastating to the United States. It would be intolerable for U.S. forces...to be deprived of capabilities in space.

In short, the unequivocal supremacy in space enjoyed by the United States today will be increasingly at risk. As Colin Gray and John Sheldon have written, “Space control is not an avoidable issue. It is not an optional extra.” For U.S. armed forces to continue to assert military preeminence, control of space – defined by Space Command as “the ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations within the space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space” – must be an essential element of our military strategy. If America cannot maintain that control, its ability to conduct global military operations will be severely complicated, far more costly, and potentially fatally compromised.

As exemplified by the Global Positioning Satellite above, space has become a new ‘international commons’ where commercial and security interests are intertwined.

The complexity of space control will only grow as commercial activity increases. American and other allied investments in space systems will create a requirement to secure and protect these space assets; they are already an important measure of American power. Yet it will not merely be enough to protect friendly commercial uses of space. As Space Command also recognizes, the United States must also have the capability to deny America's adversaries the use of commercial space platforms for military purposes in times of crises and conflicts. Indeed, space is likely to become the new “international commons,” where commercial and security interests are intertwined and related. Just as Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote about “sea-power” at the beginning of the 20th century in this sense, American strategists will be forced to regard “space-power” in the 21st.

In the future, it will be necessary to unite the current SPACECOM vision for control of space to the institutional responsibilities and interests of a separate military service.

To ensure America's control of space in the near term, the minimum requirements are to develop a robust capability to transport systems to space, carry on operations once there, and service and recover space systems as needed. As outlined by Space Command, carrying out this program would include a mix of re-useable and expendable launch vehicles and vehicles that can operate within space, including “space tugs to deploy, reconstitute, replenish, refurbish, augment, and sustain" space systems. But, over the longer term, maintaining control of space will inevitably require the application of force both in space and from space, including but not limited to anti-missile defenses and defensive systems capable of protecting U.S. and allied satellites; space control cannot be sustained in any other fashion, with conventional land, sea, or airforce, or by electronic warfare. This eventuality is already recognized by official U.S. national space policy, which states that the “Department of Defense shall maintain a capability to execute the mission areas of space support, force enhancement, space control and force application.” (Emphasis added.)

In sum, the ability to preserve American military preeminence in the future will rest in increasing measure on the ability to operate in space militarily; both the requirements for effective global missile defenses and projecting global conventional military power demand it. Unfortunately, neither the Clinton Administration nor past U.S. defense reviews have established a coherent policy and program for achieving this goal.

Ends and Means of Space Control

As with defense spending more broadly, the state of U.S. “space forces” – the systems required to ensure continued access and eventual control of space – has deteriorated over the past decade, and few new initiatives or programs are on the  immediate horizon. The U.S. approach to space has been one of dilatory drift. As  Gen. Richard Myers, commander-in-chief of SPACECOM, put it, “Our Cold War-era capabilities have atrophied,” even though those capabilities are still important today. And while Space Command has a clear vision of what must be done in space, it speaks equally clearly about “the question of resources.” As the command succinctly notes its long-range plan: “When we match the reality of space dependence against resource trends, we find a problem.”

But in addition to the problem of lack of resources, there is an institutional problem. Indeed, some of the difficulties in maintaining U.S. military space supremacy result from the bureaucratic “black hole” that prevents the SPACECOM vision from gaining the support required to carry it out. For one, U.S. military space planning remains linked to the ups and downs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. America’s difficulties in reducing the cost of space launches – perhaps the single biggest hurdle to improving U.S. space capabilities overall – result in part from the requirements and dominance of NASA programs over the past several decades, most notably the space  shuttle program. Secondly, within the national security bureaucracy, the majority of space investment decisions are made by the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force, neither of which considers military operations outside the earth's atmosphere as a primary mission. And there is no question that in an era of tightened budgets, investments in space-control capabilities have suffered for lack of institutional support and have been squeezed out by these organization’s other priorities. Although, under the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the mid-1980s, the unified commanders – of which SPACECOM is one – have a greater say in Pentagon programming and budgeting, these powers remain secondary to the traditional “raise-and- train” powers of the separate services.

Therefore, over the long haul, it will be necessary to unite the essential elements of the current SPACECOM vision to the resource-allocation and institution-building responsibilities of a military service. In addition, it is almost certain that the conduct of warfare in outer space will differ as much from traditional air warfare as air warfare has from warfare at sea or on land; space warfare will demand new organizations, operational strategies, doctrines and training schemes. Thus, the argument to replace U.S. Space Command with U.S. Space Forces – a separate service under the Defense Department – is compelling. While it is conceivable that, as military space capabilities develop, a transitory “Space Corps” under the Department of the Air Force might make sense, it ought to be regarded as an intermediary step, analogous to the World War II-era Army Air Corps, not to the Marine Corps, which remains a part of the Navy Department. If space control is an essential element for maintaining American military preeminence in the decades to come, then it will be imperative to reorganize the Department of Defense to ensure that its institutional structure reflects new military realities.

Cyberpace, or ‘Net-War’

If outer space represents an emerging medium of warfare, then “cyberspace,” and in particular the Internet hold similar promise and threat. And as with space, access to and use of cyberspace and the Internet are emerging elements in global commerce, politics and power. Any nation wishing to assert itself globally must take account of this other new “global commons.”

The Internet is also playing an increasingly important role in warfare and human political conflict. From the early use of the Internet by Zapatista insurgents in Mexico to the war in Kosovo, communication by computer has added a new dimension to warfare. Moreover, the use of the Internet to spread computer viruses reveals how easy it can be to disrupt the normal functioning of commercial and even military computer networks. Any nation which cannot assure the free and secure access of its citizens to these systems will sacrifice an element of its sovereignty and its power.

 Although many concepts of “cyber-war” have elements of science fiction about them, and the role of the Defense Department in establishing “control,” or even what “security” on the Internet means, requires a consideration of a host of legal, moral and political issues, there nonetheless will remain an imperative to be able to deny America and its allies' enemies the ability to disrupt or paralyze either the military's or the commercial sector's computer networks. Conversely, an offensive capability could offer America's military and political leaders an invaluable tool in disabling an adversary in a decisive manner.

Taken together, the prospects for space war or “cyberspace war” represent the truly revolutionary potential inherent in the notion of military transformation. These future forms of warfare are technologically immature, to be sure. But, it is also clear that for the U.S. armed forces to remain preeminent and avoid an Achilles Heel in the exercise of its power they must be sure that these potential future forms of warfare favor America just as today’s air, land and sea warfare reflect United States military dominance.

Transforming U.S. Conventional Forces

Much has been written in recent years about the need to transform the conventional armed forces of the United States to take advantage of the “revolution in military affairs,” the process of transformation within the Defense Department has yet to bear serious fruit. The two visions of transformation promulgated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff – Joint Vision 2010 and the just-released Joint Vision 2020 – have been broad statements of principles and of commitment to transformation, but very little change can be seen in the acquisition of new weapons systems. Indeed, new ideas like the so-called “arsenal ship” which might actually have accelerated the process of transformation have been opposed and seen their programs terminated by the services. Neither does the current process of “joint experimentation” seem likely to speed the process of change. In sum, the transformation of the bulk of U.S. armed forces has been stalled. Until the process of transformation is treated as an enduring mission – worthy of a constant allocation of dollars and forces – it will remain stillborn.

There are some very good reasons why this is so. In an era of insufficient defense resources, it has been necessary to fund or staff any efforts at transformation by short-changing other, more immediate, requirements. Consequently, the attempt to deal with the longer-term risks that a failure to transform U.S. armed forces will create has threatened to raise the risks those forces face today; this is an unpleasant dilemma for a force straining to meet the burdens of its current missions. Activity today tends to drive out innovation for tomorrow. Second, the lack of an immediate military competitor contributes to a sense of complacency about the extent and duration of American military dominance. Third, and perhaps most telling, the process of transformation has yet to be linked to the strategic tasks necessary to maintain American military dominance. This is in part a problem for transformation enthusiasts, who are better at forecasting technological developments than aligning those technological developments with the requirements for American preeminence. Thus consideration of the so-called “anti-access problem” – the observation that the proliferation of long-range, precision-strike capabilities will complicate the projection of U.S. military power and forces – has proceeded without much discussion of the strategic effects on U.S. allies and American credibility of increased reliance on weapons and forces based in the United States rather than operating from forward locations. There may be many solutions to the anti-access problem, but only a few that will tend to maintain rather than dilute American geopolitical leadership.

Further, transformation advocates tend to focus on the nature of revolutionary new capabilities rather than how to achieve the necessary transformation: thus the National Defense Panel called for a strategy of transformation without formulating a strategy for transformation. There has been little discussion of exactly how to change today’s force into tomorrow’s force, while maintaining U.S. military preeminence along the way. Therefore, it will be necessary to undertake a two-stage process of transition – whereby today’s “legacy” forces are modified and selectively modernized with new systems readily available – and true transformation – when the results of vigorous experimentation introduce radically new weapons, concepts of operation, and organization to the armed services.

This two-stage process is likely to take several decades. Yet, although the precise shape and direction of the transformation of U.S. armed forces remains a matter for rigorous experimentation and analysis (and will be discussed in more detail below in the section on the armed services), it is possible to foresee the general characteristics of the current revolution in military affairs. Broadly speaking, these cover several principal areas of capabilities:

• • Improved situational awareness and sharing of information,

• • Range and endurance of platforms and weapons,

• • Precision and miniaturization,

• • Speed and stealth,

• • Automation and simulation.

These characteristics will be combined in various ways to produce new military capabilities. New classes of sensors – commercial and military; on land, on and under sea, in the air and in space – will be linked together in dense networks that can be rapidly configured and reconfigured to provide future commanders with an unprecedented understanding of the battlefield. Communications networks will be equally if not more ubiquitous and dense, capable of carrying vast amounts of information securely to provide widely dispersed and diverse units with a common picture of the battlefield. Conversely, stealth techniques will be applied more broadly, creating “hider-finder” games of cat-and-mouse between sophisticated military forces. The proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will make it much easier to project military power around the globe. Munitions themselves will become increasingly accurate, while new methods of attack – electronic,  “non-lethal,” biological – will be more widely available. Low-cost, long-endurance UAVs,   and even unattended “missiles in a box” will allow not only for long-range power projection but for sustained power projection. Simulation technologies will vastly improve military training and mission planning.

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes. Air warfare may no longer be fought by pilots manning tactical fighter aircraft sweeping the skies of opposing fighters, but a regime dominated by long-range, stealthy unmanned craft. On land, the clash of massive, combined-arms armored forces may be replaced by the dashes of much lighter, stealthier and information-intensive forces, augmented by fleets of robots, some small enough to fit in soldiers’ pockets. Control of the sea could be largely determined not by fleets of surface combatants and aircraft carriers, but from land- and space-based systems, forcing navies to maneuver and fight underwater. Space itself will become a theater of war, as nations gain access to space capabilities and come to rely on them; further, the distinction between military and commercial space systems – combatants and noncombatants – will become blurred. Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

This is merely a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the process of transformation, not a precise prediction. Whatever the shape and direction of this revolution in military affairs, the implications for continued American military preeminence will be profound. As argued above, there are many reasons to believe that U.S. forces already possess nascent revolutionary capabilities, particularly in the realms of intelligence, command and control, and long-range precision strikes. Indeed, these capabilities are sufficient to allow the armed services to begin an “interim,” short- to medium-term process of transformation right away, creating new force designs and operational concepts – designs and concepts different than those contemplated by the current defense program – to maximize the capabilities that already exist. But these must be viewed as merely a way- station toward a more thoroughgoing transformation.

Until the process of transformation is treated as an enduring military mission – worthy of a constant allocation of dollars and forces – it will remain stillborn.

The individual services also need to be given greater bureaucratic and legal standing if they are to achieve these goals. Though a full discussion of this issue is outside the purview of this study, the reduced importance of the civilian secretaries of the military departments and the service chiefs of staff is increasingly inappropriate to the demands of a rapidly changing technological, strategic and geopolitical landscape. The centralization of power under the Office of  the Secretary of Defense and chairman of  the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Joint Staff, and the increased role of the theater commanders- in-chief, products of Cold-War-era defense reforms and especially the Gold-water- Nichols Act of 1986, have created a process of defense decision-making that often elevates immediate concerns above long-term needs. In an era of uncertainty and transformation, it is more important to foster competing points of view about the how to apply new technologies to enduring missions. This is especially debilitating to the process of transformation, which has become infected with a “lowest common denominator” approach. “Jointness” remains an important dimension of U.S. military power and it will be necessary to consider the joint role of the weapons, concepts of operations and organizations created through the process of transformation. The capability for seamless and decisive joint operations is an important aspect of warfare. Yet, the process of transformation will be better served by fostering a spirit of service competition and experimentation. At this early stage of transformation, it is unclear which technologies will prove most effective; better to undertake a variety of competing experiments, even though some may prove to be dead-ends. To achieve this goal, service institutions and prerogatives must be strengthened to restore a better balance within the Department of Defense. The essential first step is to rebuild service secretariats to attract highly talented people who enjoy the political trust of the administration they serve. A parallel second step is to reinvigorate the service staffs and to select energetic service chiefs of staff. At a time of rapid change, American military preeminence is more likely to be sustained through a vigorous competition for missions and resources than through a bureaucracy – and a conception of “jointness” – defined at the very height of the Cold War.

Toward a 21st Century Army

There is very little question that the development of new technologies increasingly will make massed, mechanized armies  vulnerable in high- intensity wars against sophisticated forces. The difficulty of moving large formations in open terrain, even at night – suggested during the battle of Khafji during the Gulf War – has diminished the role of tank armies in the face of the kind of firepower and precision that American air power can bring to bear. This is an undeniable change in the nature of advanced land warfare, a change that will alter the size, structure and nature of the U.S. Army.

Yet the United States would be unwise to accept the larger proposition that the strategic value of land power has been eroded to the point where the nation no longer needs to maintain large ground forces. As long as wars and other military operations derive their logic from political purposes, land power will remain the truly decisive form of military power. Indeed, it is ironic that, as post-Cold-War military operations have become more sophisticated and more reliant on air power and long-range strikes, they have become less politically decisive. American military preeminence will continue to rest in significant part on the ability to maintain sufficient land forces to achieve political goals such as removing a dangerous and hostile regime when necessary. Thus, future Army forces – and land forces more broadly – must devise ways to survive and maneuver in a radically changed technological environment. The Army must become more tactically agile, more operationally mobile, and more strategically deployable. It must increasingly rely on other services to concentrate firepower when required, while concentrating on its “core competencies” of maneuver, situational awareness, and political decisiveness. In particular the process of Army transformation  should:

• Move ahead with experiments to create new kinds of independent units using systems now entering final development and early procurement – such as the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft and the HIMARS light-weight rocket artillery system – capable of longer-range operations and self- deployments. Once mature, such units would replace forward-based heavy forces.

• Experiment vigorously to understand the long-term implications  of the revolution in military affairs for land forces. In particular, the Army should develop ways to deploy and maneuver against adversaries with improved long-range strike capabilities.

As argued above, the two-stage process of transforming the U.S. armed forces is sufficiently important to consider it a separate  mission for the military services and for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The need for both the near-term and long-term transformation requires that a separate organization within these institutions act as the advocate and agent of revolutionary change. For the U.S. Army, the appropriate home for the transformation process is the Training and Doctrine Command. The service needs to establish a permanent unit under its Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to oversee the process of research, development and experimentation required  to transform today’s Army into the Army of the future.

With the need to field the independent, combined-arms units described above, this “transformation laboratory” must be established as rapidly as possible. Although many of the weapons systems already exist or are readily available, the introduction of new systems such as an armored gun system, wheeled personnel carrier such as the Light Armored Vehicle or the HIMARS rocket artillery system in sufficient numbers will take several years. Further, the process of “digitization” – the proliferation of information and communications in tactical units – must be accelerated. Finally, the Army needs to increase its investment in selected new systems such as UAVs and the Comanche scout helicopter to field them more rapidly. These will need to be integrated into a coherent organization and doctrinal concept. The process of near-term experimentation needs to be sharply focused on meeting the Army’s near- and mid-term needs, and to produce the new kinds of units needed.

Yet this initial process of transformation must be just the first step toward a more radical reconfiguring of the Army. Even while the Army is fielding new units that maximize current capabilities and introduce selected new systems, and understanding the challenges and opportunities of information-intensive operations, it must begin to seek answers to fundamental questions about future land forces. These questions include issues of strategic deployability, how to maneuver on increasingly transparent battle-fields and how to operate in urban environments, to name but a few. If the first phase of transformation requires the better part of the next decade to complete, the Army must then be ready to begin to implement more far-reaching changes. Moreover, the technologies, operational concepts and organizations must be relatively mature – they can not merely exist as briefing charts or laboratory concepts. As the first phase of transformation winds down, initial field experiments for this second and more profound phase of change must begin.

While the exact scope and nature of such change is a matter for experimentation, Army studies already suggest that it will be dramatic. Consider just the potential changes that might effect the infantryman. Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated, climate-controlled, powered fighting suits, laced with sensors, and boasting chameleon-like “active” camouflage. “Skin-patch” pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focus concentration and enhance endurance and strength. A display mounted on a soldier’s helmet permits a comprehensive view of the battlefield – in effect to look around corners and over hills – and allows the soldier to access the entire combat information and intelligence system while filtering incoming data to prevent overload. Individual weapons are more lethal, and a soldier’s ability to call for highly precise and reliable indirect fires – not only from Army systems but those of other services – allows each individual to have great influence over huge spaces. Under the “Land Warrior” program, some Army experts envision a “squad” of seven soldiers able to dominate an area the size of the Gettysburg battlefield – where, in 1863, some 165,000 men fought.

The Army’s ‘Land Warrior’ experiments will greatly increase the value of dismounted infantry.

Even radical concepts such as those considered under the “Land Warrior” project do not involve outlandish technologies or flights of science fiction. Many already exist today, and many follow developments in civilian medical, communications, information science and other fields of research. While initiating the process of transformation in the near term, and while fielding new kinds of units to meet current missions, the Army must simultaneously invest and experiment vigorously to create the systems, soldiers, units and concepts to maintain American preeminence in land combat for the longer-term future.

Global Strikes from Air and Space

The rapidly growing ability of the U.S. Air Force to conduct precision strikes, over increasingly greater range, marks a significant change in the nature of high-technology warfare. From the Gulf War through the air war for Kosovo, the sophistication of Air Force precision bombing has continued to grow. Yet, ironically, as the Air Force seems to achieve the capabilities first dreamt of by the great pioneers and theorists of air power, the “technological moment” of manned aircraft may be entering a sunset phase. In retrospect, it is the sophistication of highly accurate munitions in the Kosovo campaign that stands out – even as the stealthy B-2 bomber was delivering satellite-guided bombs on 30-hour round-trip missions from Missouri to the Balkans and back, so was the Navy’s ancient, slow, propeller-driven  P-3 Orion aircraft, originally designed for submarine hunting, delivering precision-guided standoff weapons with much the same effectiveness. As the relative value of electronic systems and precision munitions increases, the need for advanced manned aircraft appears to be lessening. Moreover, as the importance of East Asia grows in U.S. military strategy, the requirements for range and endurance may outweigh traditional measures of aircraft performance. In sum, although the U.S. Air Force is enjoying a moment of technological and tactical supremacy, it is uncertain that the service is positioning itself well for a transformed future.

In particular, the Air Force’s emphasis on traditional, tactical air operations is handicapping the nation’s ability to maintain and extend its dominance in space. Over the past decade, the Air Force has intermittently styled itself as a “space and air force,” and has prepared a  number of useful long-range studies that underscore the centrality of  space control in future military operations. Yet the service’s pattern of  investments has belied such an understanding of the future; as described above, the Air Force has ploughed every available dollar into the F-22  program. While the F-22 is a superb fighter and perhaps a workable strike aircraft, its value under a transformed paradigm of high-technology  warfare may  exceed its cost – had not the majority of the  F-22 program already been paid for, the decision to proceed with the project today  would have been dubious. As also argued above, further investments in  the Joint Strike  Fighter program would be more expensive  still and  would forestall any major  transformation efforts. Therefore, the Air Force should:

• • Complete its planned F-22  procurement while terminating its  participation in the JSF program and  upgrading the capabilities of  existing  tactical aircraft, especially by  purchasing additional precision  munitions and developing new ones  and increasing numbers of support  aircraft to allow for longer-range  operations and greater survivability;

• • Increase efforts to develop long-range  and high-endurance unmanned  aerial  vehicles, not merely for reconnaissance but for strike and even air-  combat missions;

• • Pursue the development of large-bodied  stealthy aircraft for a variety  of roles, including lift, refueling, and  other support missions as well as  strike missions. 

• • Target significant new investments  toward creating capabilities for  operating in space, including  inexpensive launch vehicles, new  satellites and transatmospheric vehicles, in preparation for a decision  as to whether  space warfare is  sufficiently different from combat  within  earth’s atmosphere so as to  require a separate “space service.”

Such a  transformation would in fact  better realize the Air Force’s stated  goal of  becoming a service with true global reach and global strike  capabilities. At  the  moment, today’s Air Force gives a glimpse  of such  capabilities, and  does a remarkable  job of employing essentially tactical  systems  in a world- wide fashion. And, for the period of transition  mandated by these legacy  systems and by the limitations inherent in  the  F-22, the Air Force will remain primarily capable of sophisticated theater-strike  warfare. Yet to truly transform itself for the  coming century, the  Air Force must accelerate its efforts to create the new systems – and, to repeat, the space-based systems – that are necessary to shift the scope of air operations from the theater level to the global level. While mounting large-scale and sustained air campaigns will continue to rely heavily upon in-theater  assets, a greater balance must be placed on long-range systems.

The Navy Returns ‘To the Sea’

Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has made a dramatic break with past doctrine, which emphasized the need to establish control of the sea. But with American control of the “international commons” without serious challenge – for the moment – the Navy now preaches the gospel of power projection ashore and operations in littoral waters. In a series of posture statements and white papers beginning with “…From the Sea” in 1992 and leading to 1998’s “Forward…from the Sea: Anytime, Anywhere,” the Navy, in cooperation with the Marine Corps, embraced this view of close-in operations; to quote the original “From the Sea:”

Our ability to command the seas in areas where we anticipate future operations allows us to resize our Naval Forces and to concentrate more on capabilities required in the complex operating environment of the “littoral” or coastlines of the earth….This strategic direction, derived from the National Security Strategy, represents a fundamental shift away from open-ocean warfighting on the sea—toward joint operations conducted from the sea.

The “From the Sea” series also has made the case for American military presence around the world and equated this forward presence specifically with naval presence. Following the lead of the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Navy and Marine Corps argue that “shaping and responding require presence – maintaining forward-deployed, combat-ready naval forces. Being ‘on-scene’ matters! It is and will remain a distinctly naval contribution to peacetime engagement….The inherent flexibility of naval forces allows a minor crisis or conflict to be resolved quickly be on-scene forces.” The sea services further have argued that the conduct of these presence missions requires the same kinds of carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups that were needed to fight the Soviet Union.

The balanced, concentrated striking power of aircraft carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups lies at the  heart of our nation’s ability to execute its strategy of peacetime engagement. Their power reassures allies and deters would-be aggressors….The combined capabilities of a carrier battle group and an amphibious ready group offer air, sea, and land power that can be applied across the full spectrum of conflict.

Thus, while the Navy admitted that the strategic realities of the post- soviet era called for a reordering of sea service mission priorities and a resizing of the fleet, it has yet to consider that the new era also requires a reorientation of its pattern of operations and a reshaping of the fleet. Moreover, over the longer term, the Navy’s ability to operate in littoral waters is going to be increasingly difficult, as the Navy itself realizes. As Rear Adm. Malcolm Fages, director of the Navy’s submarine warfare division, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “A variety of independent studies reviewing key trends in future naval warfare have concluded that 21st century littoral warfare could be marked by the use of asymmetrical means to counter a U.S. Navy whose doctrine and force structure projects…power ashore from the littorals.” Already potential adversaries from China to Iran are investing in quiet diesel submarines, tactical ballistic missiles, cruise and other shore- and sea-launched anti-ship missiles, and other weapons that will complicate the operations of U.S. fleets in restricted, littoral waters. The Chinese navy has just recently taken delivery of the first of several planned Sovremenny class destroyers, purchased along with supersonic, anti-ship cruise missiles from Russia, greatly improving China’s ability to attack U.S. Navy ships.

China’s acquisition of modern Russian destroyers and supersonic anti- ship cruise missiles will complicate U.S. surface fleet operations.

In addition, America’s adversaries will gradually acquire the ability to target surface fleets, not only in littoral waters but perhaps on the open oceans. Regional powers have increasing access to commercial satellites that not only can provide them with detection and militarily useful targeting information, but provide also important elements of the command, control and communication capabilities that would be needed. As Fages put it, “Of concern in the 21st century is the potential that the combination of space-based reconnaissance, long-range precision strike weapons and robust command and control networks could make non-stealthy platforms increasingly vulnerable to attack near the world’s littorals.”

To preserve and enhance the ability to project naval power ashore and to conduct strike operations – as well as assume a large role in the network of ballistic missile defense systems – the Navy must accelerate the process of near-term transformation. It must also addressing the longer-term challenge of the revolution in military affairs, to ensure that the America rules the waves in the future as it does today. Navy transformation should be a two-phase process:

• • Near-term Navy transformation should accelerate the construction of planned generations of 21st century surface combatants with increased stealth characteristics, improved and varied missiles and long-range guns for strikes ashore. Efforts to implement “network-centric” warfare under the cooperative engagement concept should be accelerated. The Navy should begin to structure itself for its emerging role in missile defenses, determining, for example, whether current surface combatant vessels and a traditional rotational deployment scheme are apropos for this mission.

• • In the longer term, the Navy must determine whether its current focus on littoral operations can be sustained under a transformed paradigm of naval warfare and how to retain control of open-ocean areas in the future. Experiments in operating varied fleets of UAVs should begin now, perhaps employing a retired current carrier. Consideration should be directed toward other forms of unmanned sea and air vehicles and toward an expanded role for submarines.

The shifting pattern of naval operations and the changes in force structure outlined above also should show the way for a transformation of the Navy for the emerging environment for war at sea. In the immediate future, this means an improvement in naval strike capabilities for joint operations in littoral waters and improved command and control capabilities. Yet the Navy must soon prepare for a renewed challenge on the open oceans, beginning now to develop ways to project power as the risk to surface ships rises substantially. In both cases, the Navy should continue to shift away from carrier-centered operations to “networks” of varied kinds of surface ships, perhaps leading to fleets composed of stealthy surface ships and submerged vessels.

The focus of the Navy’s near-term transformation efforts should be on enhancing its ability to conduct strike operations and improving its contributions to joint operations on land by patrolling littoral waters. The Navy’s initiatives to wring the most out of its current vessels through the better gathering and distribution of information – what the Navy calls “network-centric” warfare as opposed to “platform-centric” warfare – should be accelerated. In addition to improving intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and command and control networks, the Navy should, as described above, acquire larger fleets of surface combatants and submarines capable of launching cruise missiles. Expanding the Navy’s fleet of surface combatants primarily should provide an opportunity to speed up research and development of the new classes of destroyers and cruisers – and perhaps new frigates – while perhaps extending only modestly current destroyer programs.

Moreover, the Navy should accelerate efforts to develop other strike warfare munitions and weapons. In addition to procuring greater numbers of attack submarines, the Navy should convert four of its Trident ballistic missile submarines to conventional strike platforms, much as the Air Force has done with manned bombers. Further, the Navy should develop other strike weaponry beyond current-generation Tomahawk cruise missiles. Adding the Joint Direct Attack Munition – applying Global-Positioning- system guidance to current “dumb” bombs – will improve the precision- strike capabilities of current naval aircraft, but improving the range and accuracy of naval gunfire, or deploying a version of the Army Tactical Missile System at sea would also increase the Navy’s contribution to joint warfare in littoral regions.

However, improving the ability of current-generation ships and weapons to work together is important, but may not address the most fundamental nature of this transformation. The Navy has already demonstrated the ability to operate unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles from submarines and is improving its abilities to communicate to submarines; as long as submerged vessels remain relatively stealthy, they may be able to operate where surface vessels face high risks.

The Navy should consider using a de-activated carrier to better understand the possibilities and problems of operating large fleets of UAVs at sea.

Thus, the Navy should devote an element of its force structure to a deeper investigation of the revolution in military affairs. Beyond immediate opportunities such as conversion of Trident submarines, consideration should be given to employing a deactivated carrier to better understand the possibilities of operating large fleets of UAVs at sea. Likewise, submerged “missile pods,” either permanently deployed or laid covertly by submarines in times of crisis, could increase strike capabilities without risking surface vessels in littoral waters. In general, if the Navy is moving toward “network-centric” warfare, it should explore ways of increasing the number of “nodes on the net.”

For the moment, the U.S. Navy enjoys a level of global hegemony that surpasses that of the Royal Navy during its heyday. While the ability to project naval power ashore is, as it has always been, an important subsidiary mission for the Navy, it may not remain the service’s primary focus through the coming decades. Over the longer term – but, given the service life of ships, well within the approaching planning horizons of the U.S. Navy – the Navy’s focus may return again to keeping command of the open oceans and sea lines of communication. Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.

As Goes the Navy, So Goes the Marine Corps

Ironically for a service that is embracing certain aspects of the revolution in military affairs, the long-term pattern of transformation poses the deepest questions for the Marine Corps. For if the survivability of surface vessels increasingly will be in doubt, the Marines’ means of delivery must likewise come into question. Although the Corps is quite right to develop faster, longer-range means of ship-to-shore operations in the V-22 and Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle, the potential vulnerability of Marine amphibious ships is almost certain to become the limiting factor in future operations. While the utility of Marine infantry in lower-intensity operations will remain high, the Marines’ ability to con-tribute to high- technology  wars – at least when operating from the ships that they rely on for everything from command and communications to logistics – may become marginalized. Also, the relatively slow speeds of Marine ships limit their flexibility in times of crisis.

Over the next decade, the Marines’ efforts toward transformation ought to allow the Corps to lighten its structures and rely on other services, and especially the Navy, to provide much of its firepower. This will permit the Marines to shed many of the heavy systems acquired during the Cold War, to reduce its artillery (the Marines, typically, operate the oldest artillery systems that are less effective and efficient in combat and more of a logistical burden) and eventually its fixed-wing aviation. Indeed, many Marine F-18s and EA-6Bs spend the bulk of their time on regular aircraft carrier rotations and in support of Air Force operations. Likewise, the long-term future of the AV-8B Harrier is in doubt. The Marines operate a relatively small and increasingly obsolescent fleet of Harriers; while service-life extension programs may be possible, the Corps will soon approach the day where it must contemplate life without fixed-wing air support of its own, especially if the Joint Strike Fighter program is terminated. Consequently, the Marine Corps should consider development of a “gunship” version of the V-22 and pursue unmanned combat aerial vehicles, as well as accelerating its efforts to develop methods of joint-service fire support.

Thus, the long-term utility of the Marine Corps rests heavily on the prospects for true transformation. As with the Army, if the relationship between firepower and maneuver and situational awareness cannot be redefined, then the relevance of land forces and naval infantry in future wars will be sharply curtailed – and the ability of the United States to undertake politically decisive operations will likewise be limited. The proliferation of technologies for delivering highly accurate fires over increasingly great distances poses a great challenge for both the Army and the Marine Corps, but rather than attempting to compete in the game of applying long-range fires, both services would be better off attempting to complement the vastly improved strike capabilities of the Navy and Air Force, and indeed in linking decisive maneuvers to future space capabilities as well.

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