Dakota Wood
America’s military—engaged beyond capacity as well as inwards demand of rebuilding—is at a crucial juncture. Its electrical current “big-leap” approach to preparing for hereafter conflict carries swell hazard inwards searching for revolutionary capabilities through force-wide commitments to major single-solution programs. The Heritage Foundation’s Rebuilding America’s Military Project (RAMP) recommends that the U.S. military machine instead adopt an iterative, experimentation-heavy approach that tin sack accomplish revolutionary outcomes at less hazard through evolutionary improvements that create on each other until transformative tipping points are reached. Critical to this is a military machine civilisation that is immersed inwards the study of state of war as well as a forcefulness of sufficient capacity to prepare for the hereafter spell also treatment electrical current operational commitments.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In preparing for hereafter conflict, nosotros must assume that the hereafter is nonlinear as well as that forcefulness capacity is critical to nearly every training activity.
Military preference for generational leaps inwards capability incurs every bit important risks to ensuring that the forcefulness remains operationally relevant betwixt leaps.
Successful training depends on experimentation, iterative modernization, warfighting-focused education, as well as a military machine civilisation distinct from civilian affairs.
This Special Report is the foremost inwards a serial from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense that addresses the U.S. military’s efforts to prepare for hereafter challenges. This newspaper establishes the framework to live used past times the papers that follow that volition individually address each military machine service.
[The] hereafter is non preordained. This is the primary argue why prediction is so difficult. There are decisions yet to live made, fifty-fifty virtually challenges that are good understood, along with hazard events that volition grab us unawares as well as developments already inwards prepare that receive got been inadequately appreciated.
Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: H5N1 History (New York: Public Affairs, 2017), p. 287.
Introduction
On September 7, 2016, inwards a major spoken language outlining his views on national security, then-presidential nominee Donald J. Trump proposed rebuilding America’s military, noting its modest size as well as unreadiness to bargain with the maturing challenges posed past times major states similar PRC as well as Russian Federation as well as the ongoing threat to U.S. safety interests posed past times terrorist as well as international criminal groups.2
Donald Trump, “Transcript of Donald Trump’s Speech on National Security inwards Philadelphia,” The Hill, September 7, 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/294817-transcript-of-donald-trumps-speech-on-national-security-in (accessed June 14, 2018).
Mr. Trump was non lonely inwards noting worrisome trends as well as conditions. During the 2016 election cycle, nearly every major presidential candidate voiced similar concerns as well as policy objectives.
Since that time, leaders from both political parties inwards both chambers of Congress, as good as senior civilian as well as military machine officials inwards the Department of Defense (DOD), receive got noted the military’s deteriorated readiness, capacity, as well as modernity to shoulder the tasks of defending national safety interests. Such tasks could include missions conducted nether a broad arrive at of circumstances, from conventional state of war betwixt major powers to diverse forms of irregular warfare involving sub-state aggressors or terrorist groups to safety operations conducted inwards partnership with like-minded states.
If the military machine really has important shortcomings inwards its powerfulness to secure the Earth as well as its interests as well as must thence live rebuilt, what should rebuilding mean? To reply that question, The Heritage Foundation suggests an approach to rebuilding America’s military machine powerfulness that holds the best prospects for success inwards the years ahead.
Analysts as well as defense forcefulness pundits consistently say that the hereafter cannot live known, yet they sweat to forecast the hereafter based on observable trends, projecting those trends decades into the hereafter inwards monastic tell to speculate on probable hereafter conditions. In turn, the military machine services purpose those forecasts to inform modernization plans as well as related efforts meant to prepare them for hereafter missions.
The Heritage Foundation’s Rebuilding America’s Military Project (RAMP) volition render a practical approach non solely to reconstituting U.S. military machine power, but also to preparing the military machine for hereafter conflict inwards a way that accounts most effectively for things that tin sack as well as cannot live known. Included inwards the foremost category are advances inwards technology; the realities of defense forcefulness acquisition; military machine service histories inwards experimentation as well as forcefulness development; the nature of competitions involving states, non-state entities, as well as affected populations; as well as historically rooted aspects of military machine affairs. The 2nd category involves the specifics of all of these factors as they interact over time, invariably leading to outcomes as well as weather condition that are impossible to know before they occur.
RAMP volition live published inwards a serial of v papers. This foremost newspaper sets the phase for the papers that follow with an overview of Heritage’s approach to dealing with “futures.” We laid out past times examining the critical importance of replacing the electrical current “big-leap” approach to military machine preparedness with an iterative, incremental approach based on experimentation that would receive got a much greater likelihood of ensuring that the armed forces of the U.S. of A. of America are properly prepared for the hereafter than are those of America’s competitors.
Subsequent papers volition address how such an approach would pertain specifically to each service as well as what opportunities be for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, as well as Marine Corps to develop as well as integrate novel capabilities fifty-fifty as they execute electrical current programs of tape such as the F-35 fighter, B-21 bomber, Ford-class aircraft carrier, as well as Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine as well as undertake reorganization of their operational units as well as formations.
Importantly, RAMP does non sweat to predict specific outcomes, nor does it presume to know the stair at which adjustments to the forcefulness mightiness occur. It also does non predict how competitors mightiness modify their forces as well as approaches to conflict. Rather, this approach recognizes that warfare—preparation for state of war as good as actual combat—is an interactive as well as highly volatile status involving an unpredictable number of participants who act, react, as well as counteract inwards ways as well as for reasons that are unique to specific circumstances at whatever given moment. It is this dynamic nature of conflict as well as contest that makes preparing for state of war years inwards advance of its outbreak such a challenge.
Through RAMP, nosotros suggest a dissimilar prototype for forcefulness training as well as modernization, a prototype that involves an investment strategy for rebuilding America’s military machine that allocates taxpayer dollars to efforts with the greatest potential to generate meaningful combat powerfulness that is relevant to the basis inwards which the military machine must operate. RAMP urges the military machine institution to adopt a dissimilar way of thinking virtually its approach to ensuring that the Joint Force is able to defeat whatever adversary—not solely today or side past times side year, but on the battlefields that inevitably volition materialize xx or xxx years from now. RAMP calls on the U.S. military machine to shift its thinking from the 20-year outpouring approach—in constant pursuit of the side past times side transformative moment—to a to a greater extent than iterative as well as evolutionary approach that volition termination inwards a forcefulness that is to a greater extent than consistently modern, mentally agile, spiritually resilient, as well as culturally confident, regardless of the nature of the enemy or the circumstances of combat.
Challenges to Rebuilding
During the past times few years, a chorus of voices—voices from across the authorities as well as the military machine services as well as including national safety analysts as well as commentators—has noted the deteriorated province of the U.S. military’s readiness for conventional state of war against a major adversary. The U.S. military machine is smaller, older, as well as less ready for large-scale operations today than at whatever other fourth dimension inwards nearly lxxx years or more, spell challenges to U.S. safety interests receive got grown inwards number as well as severity since the terminate of the Cold War.3
Comparisons of military machine forcefulness size vary depending on what is beingness compared. The U.S. Navy possesses the fewest ships since the foremost of World War I. The U.S. Air Force did non formally be as a split upwards service until 1947. The U.S. of A. of America Army Air Service was established inwards 1918, retitled as the U.S. of A. of America Army Air Corps inwards 1926, as well as ane time again retitled as the U.S. of A. of America Army Air Force inwards 1941. Most comparisons betwixt electrical current numbers of platforms as well as units with their before cousins exhibit that the capacity of the forcefulness is real modest despite its modernity.
The military’s weakened status is due inwards large stair out to to a greater extent than than sixteen years of unremitting combat operations inwards the Middle East as well as South Asia, a serial of high-profile as well as real expensive modernization programme failures during the 1990s as well as early on 2000s, mostly apartment or reduced budgets since the terminate of the Cold War, severe cuts inwards defense forcefulness funding imposed past times the Budget Control Act of 2011, as well as full general budget volatility over the past times several years. At the same time, PRC as well as Russian Federation receive got committed to updating as well as expanding their military machine capabilities as well as using their enhanced powerfulness to pursue objectives antithetical to U.S. interests globally, as well as Islamic Republic of Iran as well as Democratic People's South Korea receive got taken bold steps to exert dominant influence inwards their respective regions, working to overturn safety arrangements long underwritten past times the U.S.
To right this situation, U.S. political leaders receive got committed to “rebuilding the military.” But this raises key questions: Rebuild it to do what, with what capabilities, inwards what form, as well as with what capacity?
Finding answers to such questions agency trying to anticipate the weather condition for which the military machine must prepare. Assumptions must live made virtually potential adversaries, the circumstances that atomic number 82 to war, the nature of conflict, as well as its scale as well as scope. Counterinsurgency operations against an enemy that lacks artillery, armor, aircraft, as well as ships is far dissimilar from large-scale conventional operations against a fully equipped major state. The military machine must assess whether diverse emerging technologies, such as artificial news (AI) as well as robotics, enable it to conduct major combat actions with a smaller forcefulness than previously needed or whether capacity volition stay an number inwards spite of novel capabilities.
Forecasting the nature, location, as well as context of battles that may live fought xx or xxx years inwards the hereafter mightiness appear a fool’s errand, but ane cannot prepare for a state of war after the fact. If solely from a cloth standpoint, the services must buy novel equipment to supplant items nearing the terminate of their planned service life. With ships, aircraft, as well as tanks lasting xx to forty years or more, military machine leaders are compelled to brand the most informed determination possible before committing vast sums of coin to programs that must stay relevant inwards as many settings as possible for as long as possible.
That the hereafter is unknowable inwards its details is true, but it is also truthful that facets of the hereafter tin sack live glimpsed because some elements that volition contain it (for example, demographic trends) tin sack live seen today as well as are hard to change. This is likewise truthful for the military, largely because it already has or is inwards the procedure of acquiring many of the tools it volition purpose xx years from now. The “known unknowns,” to borrow from Donald Rumsfeld, that frustrate serious planners contain those things that are known to live highly volatile, the things that are so variable that fifty-fifty though ane knows virtually them, ane cannot predict what volition popular off of them a yr from now, much less xx or xxx years from now.4
News Transcript, “DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld as well as Gen. Myers,” U.S. Department of Defense, Feb 12, 2002, http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636 (accessed June 12, 2018).
Technology as well as specific human behaviors autumn into this latter group.
When dealing with these “known unknowns,” 2 critically of import factors, seldom addressed inwards service documents, come upwards into play: nonlinearity as well as capacity. In The Future of War: H5N1 History, Lawrence Freedman sensibly observes that “the hereafter is non preordained” as well as cannot live predicted because it evolves from the interaction of people with events.5
Freedman, The Future of War, pp. xvii–xix as well as 277–287.
While history as well as statistical modeling tin sack quest to reasonable probabilities, they cannot province with certainty that a specific status volition arise. Because specific individuals volition occupy key positions inwards the hereafter as well as populace reactions to hereafter events as well as weather condition volition live determined past times the specific individuals who contain club at that time, the powerfulness to prepare for the hereafter depends on the powerfulness to adapt to changing weather condition as awareness of them evolves.
The surest way for a military machine to proceed stair with changing weather condition is to experiment constantly to run across what “new” agency inwards practise as well as to hold competence inwards the warfighting skills that history has shown to receive got enduring value. So besides must the military machine stay routinely engaged with the basis to know what as well as how weather condition are changing as well as to live inwards a seat to shape events favorably along the way.
Nonlinearity. Analyzing observable trends as well as using methodologies that explore possible option futures are useful inwards trying to peer into the future. The military machine institution regularly attempts to empathise trends inwards as well as their implications for everything from potential causes as well as probable locations of conflict to the progress of diverse technologies as well as how they may comport on the conduct of military machine operations. Defense planners know that even so skillful whatever weapon, sensor, or platform (ship, plane, or vehicle) may be, novel technologies volition alter weather condition so that targets are harder to find, systems are easier to detect, opposing forces are separated past times greater distances, as well as advanced capabilities are to a greater extent than affordable as well as to a greater extent than widely available. Given finite resources as well as the fourth dimension it takes to develop, field, as well as popular off proficient with novel tools, the military machine services emphasize agreement where trends may atomic number 82 so that the tools of state of war are relevant as well as effective for as long as possible.
Such efforts oftentimes create novel problems, however. In the sweat to ensure that major defense forcefulness programs encompass as many potential challenges as possible, equipment requirements tend to popular off to a greater extent than expansive inwards orbit as well as scale. This leads to complexity inwards design, greater challenges inwards evolution as well as production, extended fourth dimension to field, as well as increased cost. Along the way, everyone involved inwards the process—from the services to manufacturers, supporters inwards Congress, as well as senior Administration defense forcefulness officials—becomes heavily invested inwards the program. Ultimately, a major programme accumulates so much momentum that canceling it is hard fifty-fifty if weather condition plough out to live real dissimilar from those that were originally anticipated.
A similar pattern of nonlinearity occurs inwards tendency as well as threat analysis. Throughout the Cold War, for example, the Soviet Union remained a consistent pacing threat against which the U.S. military machine assessed challenges as well as developed capability as well as work concept solutions.
During the 1990s, with the Soviet Union gone as well as states similar PRC as well as Russian Federation yet to emerge as serious challengers to the U.S., military machine planners adopted a capabilities-based approach to modernization rather than a threat-based approach. This method envisioned capabilities that would live desirable regardless of the opponent, which led to a host of programs premised on the hope of hereafter technological advances that included comprehensive situational awareness as well as assured data telephone commutation with highly distributed forces, widespread purpose of unmanned systems, as well as long-range munitions of swell precision.
Unfortunately, many of these programs were overly aspirational as well as ended inwards cancellation. The technologies of the solar daytime were non sufficiently mature to create usable capabilities inside tolerable budgets as well as timelines.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks refocused the military machine on counterterrorism and, a few years later, counterinsurgency operations. Real-world problems such as detecting, protecting against, as well as neutralizing improvised explosive devices (roadside bombs) as well as identifying militants as well as their back upwards networks inside large civilian populations demanded the total attending of the U.S. defense forcefulness establishment, overriding concerns virtually as well as training for conventional war.
Within this strategic context—the immediate demands of counterinsurgency/counter-terrorist operations as well as the lack of a major province competitor as assessed past times the defense/national safety community—an entire trunk of operate as well as futures forecasting arose that emphasized the nature, likelihood, as well as hereafter challenges of conflict brusque of large-scale conventional war. Futurists predicted that state of war would involve some variation of irregular warfare, variously described as (among other descriptors) hybrid, grayness zone, ambiguous, or asymmetric—anything but large-scale, conventional, state-vs.-state conflict akin to World War II or the Korean War. Or so the declaration went.
To the frustration of many military machine futurists, competitor province powers receive got arisen spell the U.S. has remained fixated on irregular wars. China, Russia, North Korea, as well as Islamic Republic of Iran receive got emerged as serious threats to U.S. interests inwards key regions, throwing the services’ views of what hereafter conflict would live similar into disarray. This is particularly truthful with honor to the Army as well as Marine Corps.
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