"Military Priorities And Future Warfare"
Revolutionary thinking. The war in Afghanistan has demanded major innovations in 
strategy and application of technology. It also requires new doctrine to match. 
JDW takes stock of US - and allied - efforts to make the leap forward 

By Nick Cook with Kim Burger, Luke Hill, Ian Kemp, Andrew Koch and Michael Sirak 


The nature of warfare - now and in the future - changed forever on 11 September 
2001. For a decade, commentators, analysts and military observers have been 
talking about a new defence 'paradigm' and the 'revolution in military affairs' 
(RMA), but only then, when airliners were used as weapons of mass destruction, 
did the revolution and the paradigm take flight and a new 'warform' mobilise. 

For a world used to four decades of stand-off between East and West, when a 
precipitate move by either side could have resulted in global annihilation, the 
speed of current events is unsettling and, at times, mind-boggling. One need 
look no further than the war in Afghanistan for the inherent contradictions of 
this new kind of war, where high-tech weaponry and the very last word in special 
operations tactics were - and still are - being employed against people armed 
with rifles and rocket launchers. 

Gen John Jumper, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force (USAF), has called it "a 
whole new realm of thinking" and illustrates this new thinking with several 
examples from the Afghan campaign: how B-52s, designed as strategic Cold War 
bombers, were operating as close air support aircraft; and how special 
operations forces (SOF) on horseback were punching in their target co-ordinates 
on laptops. 

"We have found that we are able to do something that we have not been able to do 
for a very, very long time and that is to relate air power to troops on the 
ground," said James Roche, secretary of the USAF. 

Gen Jumper refers to it as "innovative thinking", but the speed with which 
information is flying around the battlefield also makes its own demands on 
simplicity. 

A perfect illustration again comes from Afghanistan, where, after a rapid 
modification programme, USAF AC-130 gunships were able to receive live 
'streaming' video from an RQ-1A Predator unmanned air vehicle (UAV) intended to 
direct the gunship's fire on to terrorist ground targets. The experiment worked 
so well that the idea is being taken a stage further. This month, according to 
Gen Jumper, SOF will experiment with a laptop software programme called 'Rover' 
that will allow troops on the ground to draw directly on to photographic imagery 
of the target area. They will be able to 'paint' circles around the 'bad guys' 
and the 'good guys' then shoot the information directly to an AC-130, avoiding 
any confusion about who is where. 

"We linked news systems such as Predators with legacy systems like the AC-130 
gunship to enhance the effectiveness of time-critical targeting," said USAF Maj 
Gen Randall Schmidt, assistant deputy chief of staff for Air and Space 
Operations. "It's this type of new thinking that has positioned us to creatively 
use our technology to win 21st century wars." 

However, innovation - particularly when applied too rapidly - can bring its own 
hazards, as well. Gen Jumper relays an account of a SOF operator in Afghanistan 
who typed in the global positioning system (GPS) co-ordinates of a target into 
his laptop, but had to change the battery before relaying the information. It 
cost him his life. Because of a software glitch, with the new battery installed, 
the laptop gave the SOF operator's own position as the target to a circling US 
fighter, with inevitable and tragic consequences. 

It is important, Gen Jumper says, that these kinds of fallibilities are removed 
from the 'system'. Data, he says, is best fed directly into a weapon and then 
merely confirmed by a human in the loop. 'Fat-fingering' data, particularly in 
the cockpit, should be avoided wherever possible. 

The degree to which automation and robotics should be applied to the battlefield 
is a debate that is only just beginning. It has been pulled sharply into focus 
by some appalling incidents of 'collateral damage' from recent wars: the 
destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the 1999 Kosovo campaign 
and the deaths in July of Afghans at a wedding celebration after a mistaken 
attack by an AC-130. In both cases, data inputs by people were the common 
denominator. 

A decisive factor 

Many people believe the 'system' is the key to the West's success in future 
wars. Afghanistan was the testing ground for 'net-centric' warfare, a major 
component in the RMA. The ultimate vision for net-centric warfare is a seamless 
'web' - a kind of military internet - in which real-time information is shared 
and made accessible by and to those who need it. 

Mike Chester, senior manager business development for Raytheon Command, Control, 
Communications and Information Systems, describes net-centric warfare as a 
near-failsafe mechanism, in which, because of the network's redundancy, "unlike 
an AWACS [Airborne Warning and Control System] going down, you lose a little of 
the picture, but not the whole picture". 

Second, he says, because multiple sensors illuminate a target from different 
angles, you get a constant track. This not only sharpens target data, Chester 
says, but diminishes the potential for 'friendly-fire' instances. 

Third, "I reduce my kill-chain time. I shoot faster because of the 
higher-fidelity information and I also shoot further because my sensors can see 
further." This leads to another important corollary in that it gives 
decision-makers "an extended period to make a decision". 

When will a full-up network be in place? Opinion seems to differ markedly. The 
US military is still in the early stages of maturing its ability to apply 
net-centric operations successfully to warfare. US Department of Defense (DoD) 
leaders believe the best way to achieve a 'comfort level' with 'net-centricity' 
is through extensive experimentation and joint exercises, and even the creation 
of joint experimental units dedicated to this work. 

"We're not doing enough of that," a senior US defence official said. "When you 
talk to the services about that, they say they're all very busy and don't have 
the organisational slack to create [those] kinds of units." 

Parts of the network are already in place, such as the US Navy's Co-operative 
Engagement Capability (CEC), which has been integrated on board Aegis-class 
cruisers and certain airborne surveillance assets, linking their sensors in real 
time, since the late 1980s. The UK Royal Navy is adopting the CEC, which was 
highly classified in its early stages and is soon set for a Block 2 upgrade 
decision. 

The USAF is also forging ahead with its own net-centric initiatives and believes 
its capacity to operate as a fully connected service, with all the links and 
nodes of the kill-chain in place, will revolutionise its capabilities from the 
middle of the decade. One senior USAF official describes current USAF 
'connectivity' as "limited", but says it will be "significant" in a year or two. 
In four years, he says, it will be "predominant". Things are moving that fast. 

"Our ability to find, fix, track, target, engage and assess emerging targets is 
vastly improved," says Gen Schmidt, "enhanced even more through the use of SOF. 
We are working to improve this combat chain with machine-to-machine horizontal 
integration of sensors and shooters and to streamline the decision-making 
processes. A combination of 'eyes on the ground' and all-weather weapons under 
their [SOF] control enabled rapid and precise surveillance, tracking and target 
engagement". 

Regular ground forces also must fit into the vision of rapid, agile, joint 
warfare beyond adding digital technology to existing armoured divisions. 
Objective Force is the US Army's answer to this requirement. It will comprise 
ground-based weapon systems, robotics, UAVs and individual soldier systems tied 
together with radios and information networks. Systems are set to begin arriving 
in the field by 2008. 

This lighter-weight force is based on the idea that high levels of information 
can substitute for armour and massed ground formations. While technology 
programmes are developing new systems, the army has started devising a new 
fighting doctrine that entails using lighter-weight force with its new Interim 
Brigade Combat Teams equipped with Stryker medium armoured vehicles. 

In tandem, the services are seeking to seamlessly exchange information with each 
other, but that will take considerably longer. "A full-up, joint service 
network-centric system is at least 10 years away," one industry official said. 
Part of the problem is that current links such as Link 16 suffer from latency 
and bandwidth capacity. Improvements, however, are in the pipeline. 

Anything that shows promise in bolstering the strength of the network is 
benefiting from the Bush administration's decision immediately post-11 September 
to inject a further $50 billion into the coffers of the Department of Defense 
(DoD). 

The quick implementation of systems and networks that are geared towards 
near-instantaneous decision-making and rapid response require an overhaul of 
existing US warfighting doctrine. There is also a considerable amount of churn 
in the acquisition field. The Fiscal Year 2004-09 (FY04-09) Defense Planning 
Guidance emphasises creating pre-emptive capabilities, a strategy that was 
almost unthinkable 18 months ago. 

These capabilities are: 

*countering weapons of mass destruction and terrorism; 

*improving intelligence-gathering and -sharing; 

*developing both computer network defence and attack capabilities in the 
increasingly important field of information operations (IO); 

*improving long-range precision strike; and 

*using and controlling space. 

To fulfil these goals the services have instructions to plan to incorporate 
several new programmes, including: 

*fielding a squadron of 12 unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) by 2012; 

*developing and fielding a 600nm hypersonic missile by 2010; 

*accelerating laser and high-power microwave (HPM) weapons programmes; 

*developing a nuclear bunker-busting weapon; 

*improving IO and information warfare (IW) capabilities; and 

*expanding the use of SOF. 

"It is a very different strategy from containment and response," a US Army 
official says. The US military has limited experience in this area and planners 
are working out the means to potentially apply it. They note, however, that it 
is not clear what lasting role, if any, pre-emption will have in US military 
strategy. 

The army's future Objective Force is founded on the goals of: obtaining complete 
situational awareness; owning the night; strategic mobility; and responsiveness. 
All of these will be required of a force to react pre-emptively, officials say. 

To pay for these and other 'transformational' changes in the US military in the 
face of a large procurement 'bow-wave' that is expected to start in FY07, the 
DoD has considered a number of cuts in procurement programmes and troop 
strength. The cuts include possibly scaling back or cancelling outright many of 
the services' most prized initiatives, including the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor 
air-superiority fighter, the CVN(X) aircraft carrier, the Bell-Boeing V-22 
Osprey tilt-rotor and the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche reconnaissance and 
attack helicopter. 

The department is also looking at whether overall troop strength can be reduced 
over the long term to generate savings. The most dramatic proposal has been to 
reduce an army division and an equivalent reduction in USAF personnel. While the 
cuts would help generate significant savings - personnel costs represent around 
25% of the Pentagon's overall budget - they face serious opposition from the 
uniformed services and Congress. The navy alone needs an additional 4,000 
sailors for its higher force-protection workload. 

One change resulting from the 9/11 attacks is the USAF's efforts to incorporate 
homeland security into its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure and doctrine. 
The service says it has reviewed more than 135 volumes of doctrine since 9/11. 

"We have discovered that while our current concept of warfare is sufficient, we 
do need more homeland defence-related exercises to validate new C2 relationships 
and fully incorporate technical innovations," says Gen Schmidt. "The ultimate 
goal of the Directorate of Homeland Security is to institutionalise homeland 
security into every aspect of air force policy, procedure and doctrine," he 
adds. The directorate was formed in January 2002. 

New doctrine or not, administration and military officials are clearly pressing 
for weapon systems, supported by the network, that permit a near instantaneous 
response to any future outrages like 11 September. 

Speed kills 

"The attacks of 11 September brought home that we've got to have information, 
surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] systems," Roche says. "It also told us 
that when you see something you have to attack, you've got to do it immediately. 
A 16h bombing mission by a B-2 may be too late." Others have spoken of an 
intention by President Bush to have a system in place that will allow US command 
authorities to launch retaliatory strikes for any future terrorist attacks that 
would hit the enemy anywhere on the globe in under 2h. 

The USAF is working on a study for a long-range strike technology platform that 
could succeed the B-1B, B-2 and B-52 in around 15 years' time. As recently as 
last year, senior USAF officials were predicting that a high supersonic vehicle 
- manned, unmanned or a mix of both - would emerge from the studies. However, 
already that thinking appears to be migrating towards something considerably 
faster. 

In July, Gen Jumper spoke of UCAVs currently on the drawing board or in the 
prototype stage as a possible "first step" towards something far more ambitious 
- sub-orbital or orbital spaceplanes that could deliver ordnance with great 
accuracy and speed; the "immediate response" alluded to by Roche. 

George Muellner, responsible for all air force programmes, domestic and foreign, 
at Boeing, says that there is now a will to get a sub-orbital or orbital air 
vehicle into the air. Previous attempts to get a programme started, such as the 
NASA/DoD/industry X-30 National Aero-Space Plane, ended in failure, mainly 
because two critical technologies - propulsion and materials - were nowhere near 
ready, Muellner says. 

"Ten years later, we have a need for such a vehicle," Muellner says, adding that 
at the Boeing Phantom Works, where he was president until last month, there is 
mature technology that could be leveraged either for a hypersonic cruise missile 
or a "globally ranging hypersonic vehicle." 

The need to strike 'pop-up', time-critical targets quickly, particularly when 
they are carrier vehicles for weapons of mass destruction, stemmed from the 
1990-91 Gulf War, when Iraqi 'Scud' launchers would set up, fire their missiles, 
then scoot and hide within the space of 10min. 

USAF Gen Gregory Martin, commander of the US Air Forces in Europe, says that to 
increase the chances of successfully negating these threats, the US military 
must evolve from a series of 'warfighting networks' to one, common 'warfighter's 
network' that allows for predictive battlespace awareness (PBA). This would 
allow planners to anticipate the movement of mobile systems, enabling friendly 
forces to track them down with more confidence. 

"PBA involves those actions required to understand our adversaries to the extent 
of being able to accurately anticipate [their] actions before they make them," 
states a March 2002 USAF document to Congress. "This includes understanding how 
our adversaries organise and employ their forces. It means knowing their centres 
of gravity, capabilities and weaknesses." 

The key enabler of PBA is a persistent presence of sensors over a battlefield 
and the ability to fuse their data into a coherent picture. One of the USAF's 
highest priorities is to achieve this capability, which it refers to as 
'horizontal integration' of its ground, aerial and space ISR assets. 
"Ultimately, PBA allows finite ISR assets to be focused on confirmation of 
anticipated actions instead of the more time-consuming discovery," says the USAF 
document to Congress. 

The 10min goal from detecting a time-critical target to its destruction - the 
so-called 'sensor-to-shooter' gap - has been a priority for theatre commanders 
for over a decade. However, the above statements by Roche and Gen Jumper 
demonstrate that the need for rapid response is also being applied to 
strategic-type decision-making; it is almost as if speed, rather than nuclear 
'mega-tonnage', is the new deterrent. 

The recognition that US leadership is serious about having a variety of 
rapid-response tools at its fingertips has re-energised the army's efforts to 
build a force that can be deployed quickly and directly to a combat zone. The 
army's challenge is solving its problems with logistics requirements and airlift 
limitations that prevent its heavy units from being a genuine option for 
immediate action. High-speed and shallow-draft sealift are of particular 
interest. The US Marine Corps is also seeking easy-to-deploy capabilities, 
including fire support. 

The rapidity with which the USA is constructing a post-9/11 platform for the 
'war on terrorism', based on an innovative doctrine, an underpinning, 
all-seeing, all-reporting network, plus new weaponry and tactics, is not well 
reflected among its allies. 

Europe lags 

In the UK, the government in July published a 'new chapter' to the 1998 
Strategic Defence Review, along with the promise of an additional £3.5 billion 
($5.4 billion) - including £1.5 billion specifically for anti-terrorism measures 
- for the country's already overstretched defence budget. Geoffrey Hoon, UK 
defence secretary, says the new chapter, to focus particularly on ISR 
capabilities, will give the UK armed forces the means to "strike hard and fast, 
cutting down the enemy's decision time to think, plan and act. We are looking at 
the use of more rapidly deployable and sustainable light forces and ways of 
improving their mobility and firepower". 

This is leading to some rapid decision-making on forthcoming equipment 
priorities, the Watchkeeper UAV-based surveillance network foremost among them 
(JDW 26 June). In the meantime, the UK is wrestling with a 'manoeuvrist' 
doctrinal concept and is seeking to ensure that new big-ticket defence items 
such as the Future Offensive Air System (FOAS), a replacement for the Tornado 
GR4 bomber, fit in with it. 

FOAS, in its early planning phase, is likely to emerge as a 'force-mix' of 
manned fighter aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Lockheed Martin 
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, UCAVs and cruise missiles bound together by an 
advanced C2 system. It is slated to enter service in around 2017, but elements 
are likely to 'come on line' much sooner. 

Gp Capt Tim Anderson, deputy director equipment capability (deep strike) in the 
UK MoD, says FOAS will be the "lynchpin" of the UK's emerging doctrine. It will 
need "responsiveness, reach, persistence, survivability, agility, precision, 
interoperability and affordability", he says. While these may sound like the 
building blocks being put in place in the USA for weapons that tap into the US 
net-centric environment, the difference, Gp Capt Anderson makes clear, is the UK 
will not be able to afford anything as all-embracing. The UK MoD will opt 
instead for a less comprehensive 'network-enabled' architecture. 

"Money is the problem," a UK industry source says. "The UK is looking at a 
network-enabled architecture to get more bang for its buck. Traditionally, the 
UK MoD has bought stand-alone, stovepiped systems, especially when it comes to 
intelligence-gathering equipment. The sensor reports back to a specific 
ground-station and even though the information may be useful to another user, 
there's usually no way of ensuring it gets to him. 'Net-enabled' joins things up 
and helps to shorten the decision cycle between recognising a target and 
actually doing something about it." 

What is of concern, analysts say, is that the pace of transformation in the USA 
is leaving NATO Europe further behind than before. The 1999 Kosovo conflict 
highlighted the enormous differences that exist on opposite sides of the 
Atlantic and the need for European nations to shoulder the burden of 
responsibility in certain key areas of technology. These areas focus on ISR, 
precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and net-centric capabilities. 

Other than the UK and France, there is little evidence of any significant NATO 
activity beyond the acquisition of PGMs. This raises concerns that the gap 
between the USA and its allies - spurred by US activity post-9/11 - is 
increasing, not diminishing. 

While NATO's overt acts in the aftermath have been few in number, they have been 
laden with symbolism and backed by a flurry of preparations and new thinking 
that has brought a sense of transformation to headquarters unequalled since the 
78-day Kosovo air campaign that just preceded Lord Robertson's turn at the helm. 


The new climate was inaugurated by the first-ever invocation of Article 5 - the 
collective mutual defence clause of NATO's founding treaty that defines the 
alliance's raison d'être - in only 6.5h, an action which belied the notion that 
NATO is beset by internal squabbles that prevents it from acting swiftly. 

Second, the attack "rammed home the message that we need to be ready not for 
just the theoretical possibility of asymmetric threats but the reality of those 
threats becoming an actuality," Robertson says. 

The attacks of 11 September have served to galvanise and prioritise efforts to 
transform the alliance for the 21st century. In the past year, NATO has honed 
its ambitious 58-point Defence Capabilities Initiative, adopted in 1999, to just 
four main areas: 

*Better defences against nuclear, biological and chemical attack, for civilian 
populations and military forces; 

*Secure C2 communications and information superiority; 

*Improved interoperability and combat effectiveness of deployed forces; and 

*Rapid deployment and logistical support of combat troops. 

Specific projects within those main areas have also been pared to a few key 
priorities with the alliance seeking swift action to fill gaps in airlift, 
air-to-air refuelling, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, aerial jamming 
and PGMs. 

In preparation for the next alliance leadership summit in Prague in late 
November, questionnaires are being circulated to pin down allies to commit to 
actual deliverables by specified dates. 

In response to terrorism specifically, NATO is moving into two uncharted areas. 
Not only is it ramping up its ability to deter, disrupt and destroy terror 
networks, it is for the first time setting out to deal with the consequences; 
that is, to protect and mitigate damage from attacks to civilian populations as 
well as troops in the field. Moreover, the allies have removed any geographical 
constraints and reiterated their willingness to take pre-emptive action against 
terrorists anytime, anywhere. 

But when asked if NATO could be in a position to move to a network-centric 
warfare-style fighting mode in a certain number of years, most NATO officials 
pause. The consensus is an attitude of 'wait-and-see until Prague'. 

"If there was one byproduct of 11 September that will have changed more than any 
other single thing, it was the reaction of the Russians to what happened in the 
USA. It was swift, it was genuine and generally considered as heartfelt," 
Robertson says. 

At NATO this has led to a profound new upgrade in the relationship with the 
alliance's former foe, resulting in the creation of a NATO-Russia Council where 
NATO members and Russia sit around a table to discuss and act on shared areas of 
interest. 

Also, Robertson said: "There has been an unprecedented sharing of very sensitive 
intelligence. There's no doubt that between the USA and Russia, especially over 
the Central Asian area, there has been a quite remarkable sharing of 
intelligence. But what I'd like to see is more of a culture of sharing within 
the alliance. Otherwise you're always relying on ad hoc arrangements, and that 
isn't sufficient. When the terrorists are operating in a single global zone for 
observation, we've got to have the same. We need to use the unique network that 
we've got in this 27-nation partnership." 

Sweden - not a NATO member (it is a NATO Partner for Peace associate), but an 
emerging participant in EU peacekeeping initiatives - is also building on its 
considerable experience of networks to assemble a fully net-centric architecture 
for its armed forces by 2020 and an interim capability by 2010. A series of 
demonstrations is planned over the next few years that will test the concept, 
but the idea is "to lift the fog of war by introducing a secure network built 
around a civilian infrastructure that allows everything to be put on the net", 
according to an official at Saab Technologies, which is helping to pioneer the 
concept. Everything would then 'plug and play' off the net, including combat 
aircraft, UAVs and UCAVs. 

It is these technologies, wrapped within the general heading of 'robotics', that 
are generating considerable interest in the military and again it is the USA 
that is powering ahead in the field. The Predator and Northrop Grumman RQ-4A 
Global Hawk were widely used during Operation 'Enduring Freedom' in Afghanistan, 
where their great contribution was not only to locate difficult targets under 
24h conditions, but to help operators with the difficult challenge of positively 
identifying them. This is a process that modern rules of engagement over the 
battlefield demand, but with which operators often struggle. The ability to make 
full use of UAVs over Afghanistan has been bandwidth-constrained, but the USAF 
is responding with a series of initiatives, including innovative ways of 
compressing video and SAR imagery, pioneered within its UAV Battlelab at Eglin 
Air Force Base, Florida. 

However, irrespective of the challenges, the UAV and UCAV revolution is 
accelerating at phenomenal speed. In the USA, the USAF and the US Navy are both 
examining full-blown UCAV concepts and work is well advanced on the technology. 
The most visible initiative is the Boeing/ USAF/Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency (DARPA) X-45 UCAV demonstrator, which made its first flight 
earlier this year. 

Mike Heinz, vice president for Unmanned Systems in Boeing's Integrated Defense 
Systems group, says the "breakthrough is not necessarily in the [two X-45A 
demonstrator] vehicles themselves, but the mission-management software". 

Gen Jumper, whom Roche described as the "father of the armed Predator 
experiment" that made its combat debut in Afghanistan, is a huge supporter of 
UAVs and UCAVs, but does not belittle the challenges ahead. 

One such relates to the ever-developing sophistication of UCAVs, which emerged 
in the first place out of concerns about the spiralling cost of manned combat 
aircraft platforms. "Refuelling UCAVs in the air will only add to their cost. 
Also, how do you put enough of them out there to mass your firepower?" 

The only option, Gen Jumper says, is to fly them in formations - to "swarm" them 
in "convoys" - but that then becomes a "bandwidth and software nightmare". 

At Boeing, Heinz is more than aware of such concerns, but says they will be 
overcome by the incremental development approach that Boeing and the air force 
are taking. These increments - so-called 'spirals' of development - are already 
well-defined on the X-45 programme. The two vehicles built under the X-45A 
programme are already "pretty far along", Heinz says, with one aircraft in the 
air and the other due to fly before year-end. The next step will be to fly the 
aircraft together. 

The US Navy (USN) is also looking to UAVs and UCAVs in the same revolutionary 
way, although for subtly different missions. UCAV-N, at the blueprint stage, 
"will be an ISR platform", according to Rear Adm John Chenevey, programme 
executive officer strike weapons and unmanned aviation at Navair. 

The UCAV-N programme, entering the technology-demonstration phase at DARPA, will 
result in a platform that will be ready for service in around 2015, Adm Chenevey 
says. "It will be a complement, not a successor to the F-35 JSF," Adm Chenevey 
adds. Its huge worth to the navy will be its ability to fly during the carrier's 
'off-cycle' - the 10h in a 24h period on a carrier today when combat aircraft 
operations stand down. 

UCAV-Ns and UCAVs will carry conventional precision-guided ordnance such as the 
500-2,000 lb GPS-guided Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) family and 
the 100-250 lb Small Diameter Bomb, currently in competition. A series of exotic 
weapons are under development, however, that will truly revolutionise their 
capabilities. These are in the directed-energy field. 

The USAF's Block 10 UCAV could be used for electronic attack, carrying jamming 
packages as well as bombs for use against surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites and 
enemy radar systems, in a role similar to that of the USN's EA-6B Prowler today. 
Beyond that, the air force is looking to field a high-powered microwave (HPM) 
weapon on its Block 30 UCAV before the end of the decade.

The HPM would be used to knock out the electronics of command nodes and other 
high-value decision centres, particularly those buried deep underground. It has 
been suggested that a 1MW pulse of microwave energy would destroy most 
computer-based electronics equipment down to depths of 100ft (about 30m). 

The USAF is also looking to field a laser weapon on its UCAV and the F-35. An 
initial operating capability of around 2012 is possible. Laser weaponry will be 
used to attack a range of ground targets from SAMs to tanks with great accuracy. 
While they are permitted under international law, there is growing unease about 
the possible effects of these weapons on people. For a human, there is next to 
no defence against attack by a HPM - and their effects would be "horrific", 
according to one scientist. 

The army is also experimenting with UAVs, including armed drones, a remotely 
controlled version of a manned attack helicopter, and teaming arrangements with 
manned aircraft. So optimistic are some defence officials about UAVs' 
capabilities that some have suggested they could replace manned reconnaissance 
for the army, enabling the cancellation of the Comanche development programme. 

Cyberwar is next 

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen John Keane acknowledges "tension" around the issue, 
but says he believes a mix of manned and unmanned systems will prevail "because 
of the fluidity of that battlefield and the flexibility and responsiveness that 
that gives you".

Ground robotics also are quickly becoming commonplace in ground warfare. The US 
Special Operations Command, Marine Corps and Army are all rapidly pursuing 
unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), particularly for reconnaissance and 
surveillance in urban terrain, with prototypes in hand. Concepts range from tiny 
systems capable of scaling walls and ceilings, to larger combat platforms. 

The more technologically advanced the USA becomes, the more its enemies will 
have to resort to highly unconventional, 'asymmetric' tactics to strike back. 

"We face a lethal and complex strategic environment: one in which our enemy will 
seek to challenge us where we are most vulnerable; in new and innovative ways 
that generate surprise and chaos; and at a time and place of his own choosing," 
says Gen Schmidt. This environment, he says, is distinguished by two fundamental 
characteristics. "First, Americans at home in their daily walk of life are 
threatened by catastrophic attack. And second, that American military power 
alone will not be sufficient to thwart the threat that is confronting us." 

The USAF says it believes the best way to counter these threats is to leverage 
its own asymmetric warfighting advantages, which include stealth, persistent ISR 
capabilities, the ability to deliver lethal force precisely and information 
technology. 

Nothing illustrates this better than IO and IW. All the US armed services are 
increasing their capabilities in this area. The USN's senior surface warfare 
officer, Vice Adm Timothy Lafleur, notes that the future navy could include 
small but fast littoral combat ships carrying specialised jamming or computer 
network attack payloads. "We understand that if our network can outperform the 
other guy's network, we are going to win the battle, and hopefully, without even 
firing a shot," he says. 

Not everything related to IO is relegated to the future. US officials say their 
use of IO has increased as part of the 'war on terrorism', although unresolved 
legal issues surrounding their use has limited some applications. 

According to one senior army official, one legal issue that needs to be resolved 
is whether pre-emptive measures can be conducted against someone about to 
conduct a cyber attack. Without such measures it would be virtually impossible 
to defend US networks passively, he says. To do the job effectively, he 
continues, what are probably needed are sophisticated modelling and prediction 
tools to determine when someone is about to attack a US government network, then 
pre-emptively take that attacker down before the assault can begin. The 
legalities of this, however, remain unresolved. 

To defeat asymmetric attacks on the battlefield, "a versatile, flexible and 
expeditionary force can rapidly deploy, seize the initiative, defeat a regime, 
disrupt key terrorist activity and deny sanctuary," says Gen Schmidt. 

"Unprecedented persistence and speed of execution can deny sanctuary to 
terrorists. Our ability to have AWACS, Joint STARS, Rivet Joint, U-2, UAVs as 
well as loitering tankers, bombers and fighters maintaining a persistent 
presence over the battlespace is key to a sanctuary-denial strategy." 

What is less clear is how terrorists will seek to leverage asymmetric tactics 
off the battlefield. "We've probably closed the door on commercial aircraft as a 
threat ... those areas of threat to a large degree have diminished," says 
Muellner in his new capacity as head of all air force programmes at Boeing. Yet 
the need for defences against other kinds of asymmetric weaponry, ranging from a 
fully laden petrol tanker to a cruise missile, is increasing in the USA, spurred 
by the knowledge that adversaries who do not have access to overwhelming 
technology have no other choice. 

"If you have someone who has no regard for human life, and has no regard for the 
boundaries of civil behaviour, you begin to see how powerful asymmetry is," a US 
Army official says. Asymmetry is graphically apparent in the Palestinian suicide 
bomber attacks in Israel, but it could also be applied by nation states, US 
officials believe. China has always been expected to use asymmetric means in an 
attack against the USA, seeking to take advantage of its capability to attack 
the space downlinks crucial to US operations, but left largely unprotected and 
vulnerable. 

"When you take that asymmetric approach all the way to its extreme, that there 
are no boundaries of civil behaviour, then you have a wholly different threat," 
the US Army official said. "And it changes not just how the military operates, 
but also how civilians react. The military is trained and prepared to be 
attacked, while civilians are not prepared for operating in that kind of 
environment."

The US military knew and generally accepted asymmetry well before 11 September 
2001. Military planners for the past few years have been gearing up for the 
'full spectrum' of operations. Previously, people heard the term 'full 
spectrum', but did not readily appreciate its meaning. The 9/11 attacks and the 
ensuing campaign against terrorism made real what was previously just an 
intellectual exercise. 

We know now, too, what full spectrum means - anything from low-tech unexpected 
attacks to all-out war. 

"It's the appreciation of the threat now. We always knew it was there. But now 
we understand better how real it can be," a US military official says. 

USSOCOM: the main mission -- How the US special ops 'took the battle' to 
Al-Qaeda... 

Early in Operation 'Enduring Freedom' (OEF) US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
declared it US policy to take the battle to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. 
"How do you do that?" he asked during a Pentagon press briefing. "You don't do 
it with conventional capabilities, you do it with unconventional capabilities." 

Perhaps more than any other US military capability the 'war on terrorism' has 
boosted the visibility of special operations forces (SOF). "One thing 11 
September did was boost the value and importance of the special forces. We have 
to be more aggressive in integrating them into the larger war plans," says Rear 
Adm Daniel Bowler, the US Navy's Director of Warfare Integration and Assessment. 
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has directed the services to do just that in 
the 2004-09 Defense Planning Guidance. 

The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has endured the most casualties 
suffered by US forces since the start of the 'war on terrorism'. Since the 19 
October parachute assault on Kandahar by elements of the 75th Ranger Regiment, 
the command has suffered a total of 17 killed and 52 injured in OEF. To these 
should be added other USSOCOM casualties in the USA's global 'war on terrorism' 
such as the 10 personnel killed when a special operations MH-47E helicopter 
crashed in the Philippines on 22 February. 

It is an indication of the wide-ranging roles undertaken by USSOCOM that these 
casualties have been spread across the command's army, navy and air force 
components and have included both active-duty and reserve personnel. OEF has 
involved the largest deployment of US SOF since the 1990-91 Gulf War. 
Accompanying this has been the use of allied SOF units on an unprecedented 
scale. 

USSOCOM personnel have been active across the full spectrum of the command's 
principal missions. Psychological operations began with Air Force Special 
Operations Command (AFSOC) EC-130 Commando Solo aircraft dropping hundreds of 
thousands of leaflets and broadcasting messages warning that defeat was 
inevitable and urging the Taliban to surrender. 

The DoD has proposed a 21% increase in USSOCOM's budget for FY03. This $853 
million addition brings the command's budget to $4.9 billion, yet this still 
represents only 1.3% of the total DoD budget. Senior USSOCOM officers indicate 
they would like to see the command's personnel numbers and structure expand, 
noting that, for OEF, assets have had to draw from all areas of the command as 
well as from other service components. In a speech early this year to the 
National Defense University Rumsfeld admitted that "the department has known for 
some time that it does not have enough [of] certain types of special operations 
forces". 

The sharp edge in the 'war on terrorism' is the US Army Special Operations 
Command's (USASOC's) five active-duty and two Army National Guard (ARNG) Special 
Forces Groups (SFGs) that total about 9,000 of the USSOCOM's 43,000 active and 
reserve personnel. Each SFG, about 1,400-strong, is organised into three 
battalions capable of deploying 18 12-person Operational Detachment Alphas 
(ODAs). Each active-component SFG is assigned a regional area of responsibility 
with the 5th SFG covering Central and Southwest Asia, and the Middle East. 

Exploiting the linguistic abilities and regional knowledge of its members the 
5th SFG performed the classic Special Forces unconventional warfare mission of 
training, advising, assisting and co-ordinating anti-Taliban opposition forces. 
"Putting US Special Forces on the ground early to assist with reconnaissance, 
communications and targeting dramatically increased the effectiveness of the air 
campaign," said Rumsfeld last month in the annual report to Congress on DoD 
activities. One ODA, with an AFSOC combat controller attached, entered 
Afghanistan on 19 October and over 25 days directed 175 aircraft sorties against 
Taliban targets. 

The casualty list provides evidence of the heavy SF commitment to OEF with 
casualties suffered not only by the 5th SFG but also the 1st SFG, responsible 
for missions in the Pacific region, the 3rd SFG, responsible for Africa, and the 
ARNG's 19th SFG. In another clear indication of the heavy SF commitment to the 
'war on terrorism', in August the 19th SFG had 626 personnel on active duty 
while the 20th SFG had 817 personnel. However, these two ARNG units are not 
capable of sustaining such an operational tempo for a protracted period. 

Helicopter units, particularly the USASOC's 160th Special Operations Aviation 
Regiment (160th SOAR), is also stretching USSOCOM's assets. "We were not the 
right size for this," said USSOCOM Deputy Commander-in-Chief Lt Gen William 
Tangney. "We don't have enough of those aviators, we don't have enough of some 
of that structure." 

These shortcomings have been apparent for some time, as was made clear in the 
DoD's report to Congress,' Conduct of the 1990-91 Gulf War'. "There was strong 
demand for SOF aircraft during Operation 'Desert Storm'. The combination of 
combat search and rescue and other demands left little room for contingency 
missions." 

The imperative of the 'war on terrorism' has prompted action. Although not yet 
funded, the US Army is supporting a USSOCOM request to procure 25 MH-47 and 10 
MH-60 SOF helicopters and raise another battalion for the 160th SOAR. 

The regiment has lost four Chinooks over the past year, reducing its inventory 
to only 21 MH-47E platforms. 

An even greater capability enhancement will be the introduction of 50 
Bell-Boeing CV-22s, the special operations variant of the Osprey tilt-rotor 
aircraft. These are due for delivery to AFSOC between FY04 and FY09. 

Aircraft such as the MH-47 and CV-22 could operate from a large naval platform 
that the DoD is considering dedicating to the SOF mission much as the carrier 
USS Kitty Hawk was employed in the early stages of OEF. The navy "is looking at 
[the Afloat Forward Staging Base concept] very hard", according to Adm Bowler. 
Options include retaining a carrier instead of retiring it, likely the USS 
Constellation, and reducing its crewing requirement, and converting an LMSR or a 
commercial ship for this role. 

The conversion of four Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) to 
conventionally armed SSGNs that can carry up to 154 cruise missiles or 66 
commandos will also boost USSOCOM capabilities. 

There will be many areas of the 'war on terrorism' where the only overt US 
military involvement possible will be the use of USSOCOM personnel, particularly 
SF units, in their training and advisory roles. 

The six-month-long Operation 'Balikatan' involved deploying 160 SF personnel, 
supported by hundreds other US military personnel, to train the Armed Forces of 
the Philippines to combat the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. 

Members of the 10th SFG are in Georgia training the army of the former Soviet 
republic to combat terrorists. The 'war on terrorism' is now overlapping in 
Colombia with the USA's long-running 'war on drugs', where SF teams have long 
been training the Colombian Army in counterinsurgency tactics. 

Networking the army 

The Northern Alliance's role in helping seal the US defeat of the Taliban in 
Afghanistan was a boon for the US Army. 

It appeared to illustrate the important role ground forces play when rooting out 
adversaries hiding among civilians and in difficult terrain. Defence officials 
view these battles as a revelation about what special operations forces (SOF) 
armed with laser designators can do with precision-guided bombs. 

As the 'war on terrorism' and the military transformation accelerates, the army 
asks an age-old question: what is its role in a future military that relies 
increasingly on precise airpower, and serving a public that remains highly 
adverse to casualties? The re-emergence of the question has not changed the 
army's answer, found in its overarching plan to develop a lighter, networked 
force. 

"If you were to say, has our experience over the past year in the global 'war on 
terrorism' refocused army transformation, bluntly the answer would probably be 
'no'," says one army official. "But it would be unfair to suggest that army 
transformation is focused on a particular vision of future war, or a vision of 
who our opponent is going to be. It has to be able to adapt across the 
spectrum."

The army believes its plan to develop an Objective Force of networked, 
deployable weapon systems that will operate in a dispersed fashion on the 
battlefield is well-suited to the unpredictable battlefields of the future. The 
DoD's funding increases appear to have signalled its approval of the army's 
plans. 

A complementary effort is the army's training programme, which aims to produce 
soldiers and commanders capable of delicate diplomacy in one instance, effective 
lethal operations the next. "You really do have to be more than an infantry 
officer, an engineer officer. You have to understand the broad array of tasks 
associated with success. Enduring solutions requires skill sets that don't 
necessarily lend themselves to just blowing stuff up," one officer says. 

There are indications, however, that the army's future plans have not captured 
the imagination of DoD officials like precision strike, networked 
communications, unmanned air vehicles and SOF have. The cancellation of the 
army's United Defense Crusader 155mm self-propelled howitzer is one example. 
Rumours that up to two divisions could be eliminated continue to circulate. 

Army officials, however, say they are confident that regular ground forces will 
be a significant part of any future conflict. "What the army and the marines do 
is always going to be part of the solution. And probably in most cases going to 
be the foundation of the solution," one official says. 

"Prudent heads understand the value of ground combat forces and land power," 
another official adds. "At the end of the day they [the Pentagon] will, but 
their emphasis has to be right now on what has been neglected for over a 
decade."
--Jane's Defence Weekly, Sep. 11, 2002