If you’re waiting for the next Sputnik moment in U.S. national security, you should stop waiting, says Steven Grundman, director of aerospace at consultancy CRA International. It was improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
On Monday I asked Grundman – Full Disclosure: he and CRA are significant partners in Aviation Week & Space Technology’s recent innovation coverage and ongoing A&D Programs conference here in Phoenix – how he saw disruptive change affecting the Pentagon’s budget, if at all. He doesn’t, he basically said, because he thinks that happened shortly after the start of the Iraq war with the rise of IEDs. That was this generation’s Sputnik weapon crisis.
I am simplifying Grundman’s comments here, but the gist is the same: if you are in the A&D industry, stop wondering what is going to come next. At least for the next four to eight years, we’re pretty sure Washington is going to follow the Obama administration’s emphasis on counter-insurgencies and asymmetric warfare while sustaining many but not all legacy capabilities against the eventual rise of a near-peer competitor.
What does that mean? MRAPs, ISR and communications are in vogue while Next-Generation Bomber is not – although notice the replacement for aging Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines is getting accelerated. All of this has been made plain by Defense Secretary Robert Gates since April 6, Grundman noted.
Grundman’s assertion seems pretty bold, considering the pace of change and the desire by more than a few (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, hackers, drug smugglers and al Qaeda) to be able to keep the U.S. in check, if not knock it down. And he acknowledges that five years from now we may be talking about some MRAP-like defense program that jumps to the top of the Pentagon’s portfolio despite the fact that it didn’t appear on anyone’s radar today. But he still could be right. After all, while we hear U.S. hawks warn of cyber attacks, anti-satellite strikes, ship-killing missiles, electromagnetic pulse weapons, ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction and many other scary things, these are already being accounted for one way or another – albeit contentiously – by U.S. planners.
Eight years into the post-9/11 landscape, perhaps we do know what the challenges are, even if we don’t know how to meet them.
We are the 800 pound gorilla that is trying to create order in their backyards. Their goal then will be to prevent us from making traction and momentum in our battle plans. That means the weapons and strategies they choose to use will be ones that cause disrupton and delay and hopefully attrition. Oh and i should mention that they will tend to seek counter access weapons that are cheaper than ours, so add ubiquity to the list of characteristics of weapons we will face.
What weapons fall in that category? They are: mines, IED's, ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles, SAM's, rapidly mobile rocket launchers, etc.
Some in the Pentagon have spoken of the anti-access focus the enemies of the US have taken, but their hasn't been a systemic view to looking at how we should circumvent these tactics/strategies that the enemy would employ.
We should be trying to employ asymetric responses rather than the typical counter to the enemy's tactics. This may result not just in surprising and foiling the enemy, but we may be able to do it cheaper through a more innovative use of weapons and tactics. (take for example the idea of getting a forensics team to study and dissect patterns in IED attacks as a non-conventional response to mitigating future attacks).