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07 Mar 09

06 Mar 09

The Last Ace

An excellent argument by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, in favor of the F-22. Considering that Somalia is so often used as evidence in favor of the 4GW school of thought (which rejects technology like the F-22), it is interesting to see Bowden take this position.

www.theatlantic.com/...air-force - Preview

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American air superiority has been so complete for so long that we take it for granted. For more than half a century, we’ve made only rare use of the aerial-combat skills of a man like Cesar Rodriguez, who retired two years ago with more air-to-air kills than any other active-duty fighter pilot. But our technological edge is eroding—Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all now fly fighter jets with capabilities equal or superior to those of the F-15, the backbone of American air power since the Carter era. Now we have a choice. We can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22—maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.
American pilots haven’t shot down many enemy jets in modern times, because few nations have dared rise to the challenge of trying to fight them. The F‑15, the backbone of America’s air power for more than a quarter century, may just be the most successful weapon in history. It is certainly the most successful fighter jet. In combat, its kill ratio over more than 30 years is 107 to zero. Zero. In three decades of flying, no F‑15 has ever been shot down by an enemy plane—and that includes F‑15s flown by air forces other than America’s. Rival fighters rarely test those odds. Many of Saddam Hussein’s MiGs fled into Iran when the U.S. attacked during the Gulf War. Of those who did fight the F-15, like the unfortunate pilot framed on Rodriguez’s wall, every last one was shot down. The lesson was remembered. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Saddam didn’t just ground his air force, he buried it.

That complete dominance is eroding. Some foreign-built fighters can now match or best the F‑15 in aerial combat, and given the changing nature of the threats our country is facing and the dizzying costs of maintaining our advantage, America is choosing to give up some of the edge we’ve long enjoyed, rather than pay the price to preserve it. The next great fighter, the F‑22 Raptor, is every bit as much a marvel today as the F‑15 was 25 years ago, and if we produced the F-22 in sufficient numbers we could move the goalposts out of reach again. But we are building fewer than a third of the number needed to replace the older fighters in service.
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- When Obama unveiled his national-security team in December, he remarked that he intended “to maintain the strongest military on the planet.” That goal will continue to require the biggest bill in the world, but the portion that bought aerial dominance for so long may have become too dear.
- If Obama opts to shut down production on the aircraft, it will certainly be a defensible decision.
- But even reasonable decisions can have harsh consequences. Without a full complement of Raptors, America’s aging fighters are more vulnerable, and hence more likely to be challenged.
- Countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will be more likely to take on the U.S. Air Force if their pilots stand a fighting chance. This could well mean more air battles, more old-style aces—and more downed American pilots.
- The impact will not be felt only by aviators. Owning the sky is the first prerequisite of the way we fight wars today. Air supremacy is what enables us to send an elaborate fleet of machinery caterwauling over a targeted nation, such as Afghanistan or Iraq: the orchestrating AWACS (“Airborne Warning and Control System,” the flying surveillance-and-command center); precision bombers; attack planes, helicopters, and drones; ground support; rescue choppers; and the great flying tankers that keep them all fueled. This aerial juggernaut enables modern ground-fighting tactics that rely on the rapid movement of relatively small units, because lightly armed, fast-moving forces can quickly summon devastating air support if they encounter a heavy threat. Wounded soldiers can count on speedy evacuation and sophisticated emergency medical care. Accomplishing all this with anything like the efficiency American forces have enjoyed since the Vietnam War depends on owning the sky, which means having air-to-air hunter-killers that can shoot down enemy planes and destroy surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites before the rest of the fleet takes to the sky. Superior fighters are the linchpin of our modern war tactics. Having owned the high ground for so long, we tend to forget that it is not a birthright.
- So it is worth examining the nature of air-to-air combat today, and the possible consequences of not building a full fleet of F-22s.
- The Air Force fears that the dominance of U.S. airpower has been so complete for so long that it is taken for granted. The ability of the United States to own the skies over any battlefield has transformed the way we fight. The last American soldier killed on the ground by an enemy air attack died in Korea, on April 15, 1953.
  
  Russia, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and others are now flying fourth-generation fighters with avionics that match or exceed the F‑15’s. Ideally, from the standpoint of the U.S. Air Force, the F‑22 would gradually replace most of the F‑15s in the U.S. fleet over the next 15 years, and two or three more generations of American pilots, soldiers, and marines would fight without worrying about attacks from the sky. But that isn’t going to happen.
  
  “It means a step down from air dominance,” Richard Aboulafia, an air-warfare analyst for the Teal Group, which conducts assessments for the defense industry, told me. “The decision not to replace the F‑15 fleet with the F‑22 ultimately means that we will accept air casualties. We will lose more pilots. We will still achieve air superiority, but we will get hurt achieving it.”
- It was fashionable in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union to argue that the threat of conventional warfare was no longer relevant, because no other nation could compete with the United States on conventional terms. The attacks of September 11, 2001, underlined that argument; the new threat was “asymmetrical”—small cells of sophisticated terrorists against whom our huge arsenals were useless.
  
  Conventional weaponry may be useless against terrorists, but that doesn’t mean the old threats have disappeared. Russia’s incursion into Georgia and threatening gestures against the Baltic states; Iran’s persistence in pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; North Korea’s decision to ignore its agreement to cease building nuclear weapons—all are reminders that the threat posed by belligerent nation-states is still real.
- So America’s fighter fleet is likely to remain F‑15-based, backed up by the F‑22 and F‑35, a fifth-generation fighter that resembles the Raptor but without the same maneuverability and speed. It means that the days when the Air Force’s leading “ace” has only three kills may be coming to an end. If more vulnerability means more challenges—and it usually does—then more fighters will be seeing action. If the cost of air supremacy is not paid in dollars, it may be paid in blood.

Russia Building Anti-satellite Weapons

www.military.com/...ing-antisatellite-weapons.html - Preview

future war

Russia is working on anti-satellite weapons to match technologies developed by other nations and will speed up modernization of its nuclear forces, a deputy defense minister was quoted as saying Thursday.
- Wait, but don't the Russians know that we are in the "fourth generation" of warfare, that all we'll ever do from now on is fight non-state actors? And insurgents don't have satellites! So, antisatellite weapons, like airplanes, are totally useless! They should obviously listen to Bob Gates or read William Lind more. [said with extreme sarcasm] - on 2009-03-06
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27 Feb 09

A Balanced Strategy

If by "balanced" you mean completely unbalanced, then yes, this is a balanced strategy.

www.foreignaffairs.org/...a-balanced-strategy.html - Preview

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U.S. Military: The War Within

Like Charles Dunlap, Jr., Mr. Weinberger criticizes SecDef Gate's short-sighted policies of seeing Iraq, Afghanistan, and COIN as the basis upon which to plan future forces, with the result that the Air Force is being systematically ignored, even slowly dismantled. Dunlap cites this piece by Weinberger. Both make very strong arguments about what's wrong with the dominant assumptions that underlay current DoD policies.

www.humanevents.com/article.php - Preview

airpower air_force procurement future war military theory military_reform iraq coin

Forget the lessons of Iraq

The most recent piece by Charles Dunlap, Jr. He argues that the currently dominant thinking of what he calls the "New Establishment"-i.e. that counterinsurgency will be the main task of U.S. forces in the future--is both wrong and dangerous. Training and equipping our forces under these false assumptions, he says, will leave us unprepared should we find ourselves in a more traditional, high-intensity, state-on-state conflict, a possibility that he sees as far more likely than most in the "New Establishment" would like to admit. A great article, superbly argues and well-reasoned, that should be required reading right now, especially in the face of the "New Establishment's" attempts to eliminate or seriously cut practically every major weapon system currently in development.

www.armedforcesjournal.com/...3827971 - Preview

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26 Feb 09

Obama vows to help troops, cut weapon programs

www.spacewar.com/...s_cut_weapon_programs_999.html - Preview

F-22 F-35 fcs procurement future war

President Barack Obama said his upcoming budget would increase the number of US soldiers, state the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cut "Cold War-era" weapons programs.

Setting out his priorities for military spending, Obama said late Tuesday in his first address to a joint session of Congress that he wanted to provide relief to men and women in uniform with higher pay and more boots on the ground.

"To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines," Obama said.
- Of course, "Cold War-era" is now an epithet that encompasses fighter and bomber aircraft, as well as tanks too. How is it that we are "providing relief" to or "relieving strain" from our forces by increasing their numbers but not giving them the weapons they need to fight? What will soldiers and Marines use for air support when the Air Force has no aircraft? Will soldiers and Marines feel relief or strain when they come under enemy air attack for the first time in decade because the Air Force wasn't given the tools to maintain air superiority? - on 2009-02-26
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already warned of major cutbacks, citing expensive weapons programs such as the F-22 fighter aircraft as possible targets.

"It's obviously one of the programs that, along with a number of others -- many others -- that we will be looking at," Gates said earlier this month.
- But of course it's obvious. I mean, when you're top-line fighter is 30 years old and has literally been falling out of sky lately, has been grounded almost as long this year as it has been flying, it obvious and makes total sense that you would seriously consider canning its replacement that you've already spent years and billions of dollars to develop. Makes perfect sense! [heavy dose of sarcasm] - on 2009-02-26
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- The United States cannot "eliminate national-security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything," Gates wrote in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
  - True. But we also can't eliminate security threats without weapons. And with the F-22, F-35, and FCS all on the chopping block--i.e. all the major modernization efforts--one is left to wonder if Gates and the
    "New Establisment" really get that physical infrastructure in the form of weapons is still necessary, that war is not just a matter of mind. - on 2009-02-26
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- New weapons "have grown ever more baroque, have become ever more costly, are taking longer to build and are being fielded in ever dwindling quantities," he said.
  - So, in the case of the F-22, is cutting the number produced and fielded going to solve wither the "dwindling quantities" problem or the "more costly" problem? No. Part of the reason that numbers are dwindling Mr. Gates is that you are buying fewer. You have less because you bought less. Now, though not all of the cost increase problem is because of dwindling numbers--i.e. there are legitimate and serious problems in procurement that drive up costs--nonetheless, cutting the order and buying fewer increases the cost per unit. So, to a certain degree, you have fewer because you chose to have fewer, and those fewer units that you do have cost more because you chose to have fewer! You are to a large degree causing the problem that you are using to justify taking more of the actions led to the problem in the first place! - on 2009-02-26
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- Gates has made clear that counter-insurgency is the immediate priority, and that fleets of new ships, squadrons of sophisticated aircraft and a network of hi-tech army vehicles may be of little use in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  
  Apart from the F-22 Raptor fighters, which cost about 350 million dollars each, other candidates for possible cuts are F-35 and F-18E/F aircraft, the Navy's new generation destroyer -- the DDG-1000, a new amphibious ship, and computer-linked Army vehicles, known as Future Combat Systems.
  - Right, because our forces have made no use of airplanes, tanks, ships, or information networks in either Iraq or Afghanistan. And additionally, we all know that what we're doing right now (i.e. counterinsurgency) is all we'll ever do in the future, because we all know that that's how life works. Like, for exmaple, right now I'm writing a blog post, meaning that all I'll ever do from here on out will be to write blog posts. So, while I was planning what to eat for dinner, what I need to do this weekend, a conference for this fall, and all sorts of other stuff, it is clear now that I can just forget all of that because none of it relates to writing this blog post, which is, again, obviously all I'll ever do from now on. [Again, heavy dose of sarcasm.] The idiocy behind the dominant thinking of the "New Establishment" is mind boggling, and dangerous. - on 2009-02-27
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06 Feb 09

Hybrid Enemies – A Primer

www.dodbuzz.com/...rid-enemies-%E2%80%93-a-primer - Preview

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For the past fifty years, the military has sized, trained and equipped its ground forces to battle a conventional, mechanized, tank heavy opponent, organized in companies, battalions and brigades, with supporting artillery and aircraft.
A small group of strategic thinkers are flexing their intellectual muscle, and a new opponent model is taking shape against which America’s ground forces will be configured to fight (with the Marines way ahead of the Army). Called “hybrid” enemies, they come equipped with high-end, precision guided weapons, yet fight in distributed networks of small units and cells more akin to guerrillas. One of the leading scholars in this group, Frank Hoffman, who advises the Marines and is a researcher at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, says hybrid wars, “blend the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare.” Theory moved to reality when Hezbollah, equipped with loads of advanced missiles and skillfully using urban terrain, fought the Israeli army to a stand still in 2006. Hezbollah, Hoffman says, “is representative of the rising hybrid threat.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has given his imprimatur to the hybrid opponent as the new OpFor, first in his recent Foreign Affairs piece, and then again in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In his Senate hearing, speaking about the Army’s FCS program, Gates said that unless new weapons and vehicles can be shown to be effective in complex hybrid wars, they shouldn’t be funded. I’ve also heard that some services, I’m thinking of the Marines here, were loathe to buy into the irregular warfare mission as they couldn’t justify their more expensive new systems to fight counterinsurgencies, but they have a better chance at getting what they want if they play up the hybrid threat.

15 Jan 09

How to do Defense, When the Money's Gone

This has been out for a while but I just came across it recently. John Robb uses the occasion of financial crisis to promote his theory of global conflict. It's presented under the guise of telling us what the security implications of a global depression will be. But, par for the course for military theorists like Robb and others, his lessons about what the new situation will bring are actually the same old lessons he's presented before--i.e. there's nothing unique to global depression here, just the same stuff he's been preaching for years. It's the continuation of a patter I noticed long ago: Everything that happens seems to confirm his theory.

blog.wired.com/...unsolicited-a-2.html - Preview

future war military theory 4gw

25 Oct 08

Pentagon envisions spaceship troops

Halo-style marines anyone?

www.usatoday.com/...2008-10-14-spacetroopers_N.htm - Preview

future war

The Pentagon wants to rocket troops through space to hot spots anywhere on the globe within two hours, and planners spent two days last month discussing how to do it, military documents show.

Civilian and military officials held a two-day conference at the National Security Space Office to plan development of the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) program. The invitation to the conference called the notion of space troopers a "potential revolutionary step in getting combat power to any point in the world in a timeframe unachievable today." Attendees included senior Army, Marine, Navy and Air Force officers.
Terrorist threats to the United States, according to a statement of need from the Marines in July 2002, can emerge quickly anywhere in the world. A nearly instantaneous response from a small contingent of troops could snuff them out. Rocketship forces could also rescue troops trapped behind enemy lines.
- Sounds great. Just one question: How are the rocket-born rescuers supposed to get home with their rescued buddies? - on 2008-10-25
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- "In the end, events around the globe can unfold much more rapidly and in many circumstances call for the earliest intervention if larger conflicts or other negative international implications are to be averted," the statement says. "Space transport and insertion is the only means of attaining the needed speed of response."

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