The Contemporary Defense Transformation Debate

 

By Michael O’Hanlon

Brookings Institution

 

Due to the excellent performance of American high-technology weapons in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, as well as the phenomenal pace of innovation in the modern computer industry, many defense analysts have posited that a revolution in military affairs (RMA) is either imminent or already underway.  The RMA thesis holds that further advances in precision munitions, real-time data dissemination, and other modern technologies, together with associated changes in Warfighting organizations and doctrines, can help transform the nature of future war and with it the size and structure of the U.S. military.  RMA proponents believe that military technology, and the resultant potential for radically new types of Warfighting tactics and strategies, is advancing at a rate unrivaled since the 1920s through 1940s, when blitzkrieg, aircraft carriers, large-scale amphibious and airborne assault, ballistic missiles, strategic bombing, and nuclear weapons were developed.

 

In the abstract, it is unobjectionable to favor innovation.  But the prescriptions of some RMA proponents would have major opportunity costs.   RMA proponents tend to argue that more budgetary resources should be devoted to innovation—research and development (R&D), procurement of new hardware, frequent experiments with new technology—and, to the extent necessary, less money to military operations, training, and readiness.  To free up funds for an RMA transformation strategy, some would reduce U.S. global engagement and weaken the military’s deterrent posture.[1] For example, in its 1997 report, the National Defense Panel dismissed the current two-war framework as obsolete (without suggesting what should replace it, however).  The NDP also suggested that U.S. military retrenchment from forward presence and peacekeeping operations might be needed simply to free up money to promote the so-called revolution in military affairs.[2] These suggestions, if adopted, would have important effects on U.S. security policy; they should not be accepted simply on the basis of vague impressions that an RMA may be achievable.

 

Some have argued that a radical transformation of the U.S. military will save money.[3]  But that argument is unconvincing, at least for the short to medium term.  Transformation means accelerating replacement of existing equipment, and while it is theoretically possible that doing so could produce smaller, less expensive units wielding highly advanced and effective weaponry, there is little practical evidence that such an outcome is achievable in the near term. 

 

Given the budgetary and opportunity costs associated with rapidly pursuing a revolution in military affairs, and the popularity of the RMA concept in the contemporary defense debate, some caution is in order.  Before developing a modernization agenda, it is worth remembering what can go wrong with a rush to transform—and what innovations can occur even if no RMA is formally declared or pursued.

 

Reasons not to Rush an RMA

 

History provides ample grounds for caution about pursuing major defense transformation.  Most contemporary RMA enthusiasts make reference to the interwar years and claim that we are in another period of similar potential, promise, and peril today.  However, military technology advanced steadily and impressively throughout the twentieth century, including its latter half.  Helicopters radically reshaped many battlefield operations after World War II.  ICBMs and space-launch vehicles followed.  Satellite communications were first used militarily in 1965 in Vietnam, where aircraft-delivered, precision-guided munitions also made their debut in the early 1970s.  Air defense and antitank missiles played major roles in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.  Stealth fighters were designed in the late 1970s.[4] Infrared sensors and night-vision technologies made their debut in this period as well. 

 

History also tells us that radical military transformations only make sense when technology and new concepts and tactics are ripe.  At other times, targeted modernizations together with vigorous research, development, and experimentation make more sense.   A good analogy is the period of the 1920s, when major military vehicles and systems such as the tank and airplane were not yet ready for large-scale purchase.  In addition, advanced operational concepts such as blitzkrieg and carrier aviation had not yet been fully developed in a manner that could guide hardware acquisition or the reshaping of military organizations.  As such, research, prototyping, and experimentation were the proper elements of a wise innovation and acquisition strategy.  In the 1930s, new operational concepts were better understood, technologies better developed, and geostrategic circumstances more foreboding.  Under these circumstances, large-scale modernization made sense, and those countries that did not conduct it tended to perform badly in the early phases of World War II.  Because most RMA proponents cannot clearly specify what a near-term transformation should consist of, I am inclined to liken today’s situation to the 1920s rather than the 1930s.

 

It is far from obvious that military technology is now poised to advance even more quickly than it has in the last half century.  Yet RMA proponents assert that it will when they call for a radical transformation strategy for current U.S. armed forces.  No such DoD-wide transformation strategies were necessary to bring satellites, stealth, precision-guided munitions, advanced jet engines, night-vision equipment, or other remarkable new capabilities into the force in past decades.[5]

 

RMA proponents are certainly right to believe that a successful military must always be changing.  But the post-World War II U.S. military has already taken that adage to heart.  The status quo in defense circles does not mean standing still; it means taking a balanced approach to modernization that has served the country remarkably well for decades.  Indeed it brought on the very technologies displayed in Desert Storm that have given rise to the belief that an RMA may be underway.[6] It is not clear that we need to accelerate the pace of innovation now.

 

Moreover, radical innovation is not always good.  If the wrong ideas are adopted, transforming a force can make it worse.  For example, in the world wars, militaries overestimated the likely effects of artillery as well as aerial and battleship bombardment against prepared defensive positions, meaning that their infantry forces proved much more vulnerable than expected when they assaulted enemy lines.[7] Britain’s radically new all-tank units were inflexible, making them less successful than Germany’s integrated mechanized divisions in World War II.  Strategic aerial bombardment did not achieve nearly the results that had been expected of it; airpower was much more effective as close-air support for armored formations in blitzkrieg operations.[8] Later on, the U.S. Army’s Pentomic division concept, intended to employ tactical nuclear weapons, was adopted for a time and then abandoned in 1961.[9]

 

But these are only historical arguments, uninformed by the realities of today’s world. Current trends in defense technology, and the potential for corresponding innovations in tactics and doctrine, are what will really determine the prospects for a near-term RMA.  These trends suggest that the technological case for a patient, targeted approach is much more compelling than that for a radical remaking of the U.S. armed forces more generally.

 

One type of evidence to support this argument is that, despite their haste to push the revolution along, radical RMA promoters tend to lack clear and specific proposals for how to do so.  In that light, even if they are right that an RMA may be within reach sometime in the foreseeable future, they may be quite wrong about what should be done about it in the near future.  In practical terms, there is a major distinction between the early stages of a possible RMA and the later stages.  As Stephen Rosen writes: The general lesson for students or advocates of innovation may well be that it is wrong to focus on budgets when trying to understand or promote innovation.  Bringing innovations to fruition will often be expensive.  Aircraft carriers, fleets of helicopters, and ICBM forces were not cheap.  But initiating an innovation and bringing it to the point where it provides a strategically useful option has been accomplished when money was tight...Rather than money, talented military personnel, time, and information have been the key resources for innovation. [10]

 

Some individuals feel that the above arguments notwithstanding, the United States really has no choice but to rebuild its equipment inventories and combat units from first principles.  They believe that future adversaries will make greater use of sea mines, cruise and ballistic missiles, chemical or biological weapons, and other means to attempt to deny the U.S. military the ability to build up forces and operate from large, fixed infrastructures as in Desert Storm.  As a result, they consider major changes in the way U.S. armed forces deploy and fight to be essential. 

 

However, many of the solutions to these problems may not be in the realm of advanced weaponry.  True, long-range strike platforms, missile defenses, short-takeoff aircraft, and other such advanced technologies may be part of the appropriate response.  But so might more minesweepers, smaller roll-on/roll-off transport vessels useful in shallow ports, concrete bunkers for deployed aircraft, and other relatively low-tech approaches to hardening and dispersing supplies and infrastructure.  (Likewise, here at home, enhanced Coast Guard patrols and more rigorous, systematic use of existing screening technologies at airports may do more to improve homeland security than new technologies or exotic concepts.)  The military services already are biased in favor of procuring advanced weaponry at the expense of equally important but less advanced hardware.  By emphasizing modernistic and futuristic technology, the most ambitious RMA concepts could reinforce this existing tendency, quite possibly to the nation’s detriment.

 

Most centrally, one should be skeptical about the revolution in military affairs hypothesis because many of its key technical underpinnings have not been well established and may not be valid.  Proponents of the RMA concept often make passing mention of Moore's Law -- the trend for the number of transistors that can fit on a semiconductor chip to double every eighteen to twenty-four months--and then extrapolate such a radical rate of progress too much different realms of technology.  For example, in its 1997 report the National Defense Panel wrote: The rapid rate of new and improved technologies--a new cycle about every eighteen months--is a defining characteristic of this era of change and will have an indelible influence on new strategies, operational concepts, and tactics that our military employs. [11] However, conflating progress in computers with progress in other major areas of technology is unjustified.  To the extent RMA believers hinge most of their argument on advances in modern electronics and computers, they are at least proceeding from a solid foundation.  When they expect comparably radical progress in land vehicles, ships, aircraft, rockets, explosives, and energy sources--as many do, either explicitly or implicitly--they are probably mistaken, at least in the early years of the 21st century. 

 

A survey that I carried out in 1998 and 1999 suggested that progress in these latter areas of technology is, and will likely remain, modest in the years ahead.  As such, the case for aggressively modernizing electronics, munitions, sensors, and communications systems is much more compelling than that for replacing the main vehicles and large weaponry of the armed forces. 

 

The Bush administration appears to have reached somewhat similar conclusions about innovation as well.  Early talk of skipping a generation of weaponry has been replaced by an emphasis on R&D and experimentation—and preservation of virtually every traditional modernization program in the services’ plans.  The latter fact is regrettable, given budget constraints.  After excessive rhetoric about the desirability of radical change during the presidential campaign and early days of the new administration, the Bush Pentagon then swung too far in the other direction and elected to become a champion of the status quo in many ways.  But the notion of skipping a generation of weaponry, motivated in large part by the U.S. RMA movement, was never a serious proposition and had to be dropped, as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has now rightly done.

 

Promoting Innovation with the Defense Budget

           

What would it cost to adopt a defense modernization strategy that emphasized research, development, and experimentation, as well as advanced sensors, munitions, and other technologies that take maximum advantage of the modern electronics revolution?  The strategy would correspondingly place less emphasis than the services now intend on expensive modernization of traditional weaponry such as large combat platforms.

 

A good starting point for answering this question is the Pentagon’s existing acquisition agenda.  Much of the Pentagon’s plan consists of a traditional approach to procurement.  Major platforms such as combat aircraft, helicopters, submarines, and surface ships constitute the core of the plan.   If there is a greater relative emphasis on munitions, sensors, advanced communications, or other key defense technologies that are advancing most rapidly today, that fact is not obvious from an examination of standard Pentagon budget documents.  The latter still tend to focus on major weapons platforms, and do not present any new categories of technology investment that allow the external observer to see the evidence of a shift in basic investment approach.[12]  Revealingly, in their budget presentations to Congress for the 2001 budget, all four-service chiefs began with and highlighted platforms—rather than advanced munitions, or new types of reconnaissance assets, or infrastructure for command, control, communications, and computers—in their discussions of procurement and modernization.

 

Joint-service experimentation is a higher priority than it once was, but still a small budget element.  Research and development budgets are expected to decline, even in the relatively inexpensive and critical areas of basic science and technology, in the years ahead.  Strikingly, the outgoing administration’s budget proposal for 2001 envisioned cutting total spending on basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development—the three parts of the RDT&E budget that are essentially DoD’s “seed corn”—from their combined $8.4 billion level in 2000 to $7.5 billion.  Congress wisely reversed that proposal for 2001, but the concern remains.[13]  While some reductions may follow naturally from the end of several high-price advanced development programs, cuts of the magnitude now foreseen may adversely affect basic research accounts as well.  These proposed cuts came on top of a decade of reductions that, in the case of the Air Force at least, had reduced research accounts by roughly one-third in real terms.[14]  The results of these reductions are anything but hypothetical; high-level review panels have recently castigated the Pentagon for allowing major science and technology areas such as laser and propulsion research to atrophy.[15]

 

In fairness to the Pentagon, it should also be noted that the current acquisition plan includes a large number of systems that, while frequently derided by critics as “legacy” capabilities, can be justified using the rhetoric of the RMA movement.  Stealthy aircraft, for example, use advanced technology to evade defenses; tilt-rotor planes are intended to use speed and range to outflank prepared enemy positions; new destroyers will reduce their detectability while also reducing crew size and packing large numbers of smart munitions.  The simple fact that the military services have invented most of these systems in traditional ways does not automatically make them bad ideas, even in a purported RMA era.  But the longevity of traditional ways of doing business does raise warning flags about whether the services really have committed to the rhetoric of Joint Vision 2010 and the 1997 QDR.

 

The Pentagon’s current program will probably drive annual procurement spending to the vicinity of $90 billion a year.  The reasons for this expected increase are essentially twofold.  First, modern weapons systems, particularly larger platforms, continue to grow significantly in cost, with every reason to expect that their costs will keep climbing in the course of development programs and production runs.  Recent evidence is provided by the increasing unlikelihood that the Air Force’s F-22 program will remain within cost goals.[16]  Second, the so-called post-Cold War procurement holiday must end.  After a decade of having large stocks of new equipment that did not generally require immediate replacement, the Pentagon soon needs to begin procuring systems at sustainable rates.

 

            An alternative acquisition strategy could emphasize weapons platforms less, while devoting top priority to R&D, experimentation, and technologies heavy in modern electronics—sensors, advanced munitions, advanced communications systems, and so on.  Platforms would still have to be in good enough condition, and exist sufficient in number, to fill out the needed force structure.  But in many cases, existing types of weaponry could be purchased rather than next-generation systems, ensuring adequate supplies of ready hardware at more modest cost.  Small numbers of next-generation weapons such as F-22s and joint strike fighters could be purchased in modest, “silver bullet” quantities.  Otherwise, modernization would depend largely on improvements in sensors, munitions, and real-time information networks—in other words, electronics-heavy and computer-heavy technologies that are advancing at prodigal rates today, and that often provide greatly improved performance at modest cost.

 

Experimentation would be an important part of this philosophy as well.  It would focus not only on new concepts for joint operations, but also on concerted efforts to learn to cope with enemy countermeasures and possible enemy use of weapons of mass destruction—which are often not adequately incorporated into service training regimens today.[17] Budgets for joint-service experimentation would grow to several hundred million dollars a year and remain there.  Costs of that magnitude would be comparable to what is spent annually at the service’s individual training centers today.  Over time, experimentation could grow even further to include the efforts of dedicated units not otherwise deployable—perhaps a fighter squadron, brigade of ground forces, and a group of ships as well—with associated annual costs exceeding $1 billion. 

 

This approach to military innovation would not offer a clear endpoint.  Transformation would be seen as an ongoing process.  The most likely immediate benefits would be in areas of C4ISR and advanced munitions.  Only over time would large weaponry such as ships, combat aircraft, and armored vehicles be replaced.  The U.S. military would become lighter, more deployable, more survivable, and more lethal—but do so only gradually, in recognition of the simple fact that vehicles, engines, and large weapons are unlikely to experience radical rates of technological change in the immediate years ahead.[18]

 

There is considerable potential for improvement in areas of defense technology such as munitions and sensors.  Consider for example precision-guided munitions.  The sensor-fuzed weapon, which has had substantial development problems in its past, has done better of late, achieving good results on the test ranges.  It still has its limits, requiring delivery at low altitudes in a manner that leaves bomb-dropping aircraft vulnerable.  It may or may not prove capable of identifying targets interspersed with civilian assets or purposefully designed to resemble such nonmilitary equipment.[19]  But overall trends for these types of weapons are clearly positive.  Bombs depending on GPS and inertial guidance are also showing growing promise.  JDAM performed very well in Operation Allied Force in 1999, with typical miss distances of several meters; other munitions in research and development are promising even greater accuracy.[20]  New types of munitions in development promise greater lethality at lower weight—with some analysts arguing that future 250 pound bombs will be capable of destroying 85 percent of the targets that now require 2,000 pound weapons.  That means a given plane will be able to effectively attack considerably more targets in the future than is the case today.[21] 

 

Leaving aside new capabilities, there is also a strong argument for adding more of certain types of so-called high-demand/low-density assets.  They include electronic warfare and reconnaissance assets, which the U.S. military appears not to have in sufficient numbers today.  Notably, a restoration of the JSTARS buy to 19 aircraft, and an increase in the EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft fleet of at least one additional squadron, are both sensible ideas.[22]

 

Potential adversaries can take steps to deny the United States intelligence on their operations and their capabilities.  They can, for example, make use of the increasing availability of robust encryption technologies and of fiber-optic cable communications.[23]  As serious as these problems are, however, they are of lesser concern for tactical warfighting purposes, where mobile enemy forces would generally need to communicate by radio.

 

Lighter tanks, combat-capable unmanned aerial vehicles, and perhaps arsenal ships would be bought in modest quantities to serve special purposes or to be thoroughly tested as prototypes.  However, large numbers would not be purchased until the case for doing so was strong on technological grounds.  At present, it generally is not.[24] 

 

Organizationally, this agenda would not necessitate fundamental changes in the Pentagon’s main combat structures.  It would, however, require that their joint-service integration be improved.  Some new units would be established for experimentation and prototyping; others might be created to serve specific C4ISR roles.  But otherwise, the Army might well retain divisions, the Air Force air expeditionary forces, and the Navy carrier battle groups under this approach.

 

 


[1] For an argument in favor of taking a large part of the active force structure ‘off line’ so as to devote it to experimentation and acceleration of the RMA, see James R. Blaker, “The American RMA Force: An Alternative to the QDR,” Strategic Review, vol. 25, no. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 21-30; for a similar but more general argument, see also Richard K. Betts, Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1995), pp. 35-84.  For the view of a conservative critic of the RMA concept, see Frederick W. Kagan, “Wishful Thinking on War,” Weekly Standard, December 15, 1997, pp. 27-29.  Kagan argues that the country may need to spend more on technology--but must not do so at the expense of its present engagement and deterrence strategies.

[2] National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century (Arlington, Va.: Department of Defense, December 1997), pp. vii, 2, 23, 49, 59, 79-86.

[3] See, most notably, Admiral William A. Owens with Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000).

[4] Lawrence Freedman, The Revolution in Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 318 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 21.

[5] Martin Van Creveld, Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present (New York: The Free Press, 1989).  Trevor Dupuy uses yet another categorization scheme, different from those of Krepinevich, Van Creveld, and others, to understand the history of military innovation.  He groups all progress since 1800 together under the title of “the age of technological change.” See Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare (Fairfax, Va.: HERO Books, 1984).

[6] For sound warnings about both dismissing the RMA and jumping on the bandwagon too enthusiastically, see Colin S. Gray, The American Revolution in Military Affairs: An Interim Assessment (Camberley, England: Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, 1997), pp. 5-7, 33-34; for a reminder that militaries must always be innovating and changing, see Jonathan Shimshoni, “Technology, Military Advantage, and World War I: A Case for Military Entrepreneurship,” International Security, vol. 15, no. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 213-215.

[7] John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), p. 20; Dan Goure, “Is There a Military-Technical Revolution in America’s Future?,” Washington Quarterly (Autumn 1993), p. 185;  and Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, pp. 218-220, 258-266.

[8] Robert Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 87-136, 254-313; and Brian Bond and Williamson Murray, “British Armed Forces, 1918-1939,” in Allan R. Millet and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, vol. II (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988).

[9] Stephen Biddle, “Assessing Theories of Future Warfare,” Paper Presented to the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 1997, pp. 37-38; Andrew J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era: The U.S. Army between Korea and Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1986); John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), pp. 362-379; Van Creveld, Technology and War, pp. 193-195; and Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 13-18, 37-38.

[10] Rosen, Winning the Next War, p. 252.

[11] National Defense Panel, Transforming Defense, pp. 7-8.

[12] See for example, Lane Pierrot, A Look at Tomorrow’s Tactical Air Forces (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Budget Office, January 1997), pp. 31-35.

[13] George I. Seffers, “Drop in Research Spending Worries Analysts, Industry,” Defense News, February 21, 2000, p. 24.

[14] Science and Technology Committee, Air Force Association, “Shortchanging the Future: Air Force Research and Development Demands Investment,” AFA Special Report, January 2000, p. 2.

[15] Robert Wall, “U.S. Laser Weapons Industry Shrinking,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, April 10, 2000, pp. 30-31; and Daniel G. Dupont, “OSD Tells Air Force to Find Money for Critical Propulsion Research,” Inside the Pentagon, January 13, 2000, p. 1.

[16] David Mulholland, “Cost estimates show F-22 breaking cost caps,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August 23, 2000, p. 3.

[17] Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry with David Aidekman, “Countering Asymmetric Threats,” in Ashton B. Carter and John P. White, eds., Keeping the Edge:  Managing Defense for the Future (Cambridge, Mass.:  MIT Press, 2001), p. 123.

[18] See Commander James R. Boorujy, “Network-Centric Concepts Can Guarantee Access,” Proceedings, May 2000, pp. 60-63; and Robert Holzer, “U.S. Shifts Antimine Strategy,” Defense News, March 13, 2000, p. 1.

[19] David Mulholland, “Upgraded Sensor Fuzed Weapon Aces First Test,” Defense News, April 24, 2000, p. 8.

[20] Mark Hewish, “Smart and Smarter,” Jane’s International Defence Review, January 2000, pp. 49-55; on JDAM, see David Mosher, Options for Enhancing the Bomber Force (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Budget Office, 1995), pp. 28-31.

[21] David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, “Mini-Bombs Dominate U.S. Weapons Plans,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, September 25, 2000, pp. 86-87.

[22] Robert P. Haffa, Jr. and Barry D. Watts, “Brittle Swords:  Low-Density, High-Demand Assets,” Strategic Review, vol. 28, no. 4 (Fall 2000), pp. 42-48.

[23] See Michael A. Caloyannides, “Encryption Wars:  Early Battles,” IEEE Spectrum, April 2000, pp. 37-43.

[24] For  more specifics about one interpretation of what such a modernization/transformation agenda would entail, see Michael O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, D.C.:  Brookings Institution Press, 2000), pp. 168-191.