CSBA "Third Offset" paper

[Grey Havoc]

https://blog.usni.org/2017/03/22/time-to-walk-away-from-the-third-offset

 

[Ian33]

https://blog.usni.org/2017/03/22/time-to-walk-away-from-the-third-offset

technological superiority alone does not win wars, either in general or for the United States in particular. Recent history demonstrates that capabilities aren’t everything: “Davids” beat “Goliaths” nearly two-thirds of the time in the modern era.

If the Vietnam war was fought like we fought WW2, the north would of been crushed in weeks. If Afghanistan had been fought like we did across the Pacific and into Japan, Afghanistan would of been subdued in months. If... I could go on, and on and on. We simply have become a set of nations that lack the stomach for total war. We in the west have capabilities to start, and end wars in matter of months IF, and it's a big if, our leaders had the balls and stomach for a good fight.

We simply have become too soft. Which in turn, has made us very easy targets. David doesn't beat Goliath if Goliath brings his capabilites to bear instead of standing stock still waiting for a shot to hit so he can prove he has the need to fight back.

 

[sferrin]

https://blog.usni.org/2017/03/22/time-to-walk-away-from-the-third-offset

technological superiority alone does not win wars, either in general or for the United States in particular. Recent history demonstrates that capabilities aren’t everything: “Davids” beat “Goliaths” nearly two-thirds of the time in the modern era.

If the Vietnam war was fought like we fought WW2, the north would of been crushed in weeks. If Afghanistan had been fought like we did across the Pacific and into Japan, Afghanistan would of been subdued in months. If... I could go on, and on and on. We simply have become a set of nations that lack the stomach for total war. We in the west have capabilities to start, and end wars in matter of months IF, and it's a big if, our leaders had the balls and stomach for a good fight.

We simply have become too soft. Which in turn, has made us very easy targets. David doesn't beat Goliath if Goliath brings his capabilites to bear instead of standing stock still waiting for a shot to hit so he can prove he has the need to fight back.

This.

 

[bobbymike]

https://blog.usni.org/2017/03/22/time-to-walk-away-from-the-third-offset

technological superiority alone does not win wars, either in general or for the United States in particular. Recent history demonstrates that capabilities aren’t everything: “Davids” beat “Goliaths” nearly two-thirds of the time in the modern era.

If the Vietnam war was fought like we fought WW2, the north would of been crushed in weeks. If Afghanistan had been fought like we did across the Pacific and into Japan, Afghanistan would of been subdued in months. If... I could go on, and on and on. We simply have become a set of nations that lack the stomach for total war. We in the west have capabilities to start, and end wars in matter of months IF, and it's a big if, our leaders had the balls and stomach for a good fight.

We simply have become too soft. Which in turn, has made us very easy targets. David doesn't beat Goliath if Goliath brings his capabilites to bear instead of standing stock still waiting for a shot to hit so he can prove he has the need to fight back.

This.

Exactly, and really in a matter of what 15 minutes using only one Ohio sending 20 D5's...........Although as Ian33 said weeks with our full conventional potential.

 

[bring_it_on]

High-priority 'Third Offset' project aims to counter road-mobile missiles in Pacific region

The Defense Department is seeking to catapult funding for a Third Offset Strategy project to mature a new technology designed to help re-energize conventional deterrence against China and Russia: a potential new way to defeat road-mobile ballistic missiles.

The program is designed to meet a classified U.S. Strategic Command operational need for the Pacific region, according to DOD.

The Pentagon, in mid-March, asked Congress for a $140 million boost in fiscal year 2017 funding, a 300 percent increase above the $40 million the Office of the Secretary of Defense originally requested for the Missile Defeat Project. This request is part of the Trump administration's gambit to raise Pentagon spending by $30 billion in FY-17, a move that does not appear to have a viable path in Congress to become law.

Still, the request sheds new light on a project on which Pentagon leaders are ready to place a big budgetary bet. While Inside Defense reported details of the funding increase for the Missile Defeat Project on March 22, the Office of the Secretary of Defense has since confirmed the project stems from a high-priority, advanced technology development program launched in the summer of 2015.

During that summer, Congress granted the Pentagon permission move funds between accounts in order to launch an unnamed classified project as part of the portfolio of efforts managed by the office of the deputy assistant secretary of defense for emerging capability and prototyping.

"Funds are required to study and enhance a set of existing capabilities to support a classified [U.S.] Strategic Command Joint Emergent Operational Need," the Pentagon's fiscal year 2015 omnibus reprogramming request, which sought $11.25 million for the new project, states. "Additional classified details will be provided under separate cover."

Russia and China, according to DOD, are expanding their inventories of road-mobile ballistic missiles, from short- to intercontinental-range. The U.S. government is keeping a close eye on a potential new road-mobile weapon North Korea has shown off in parades -- the KN-08 -- but which analysts say has not yet flown.

While the Pentagon provided little detail about the Missile Defeat Project during the summer of 2015, broad strokes of the effort emerged in the FY-17 budget request, sent to Congress in February 2016.

The prior-year increase supported "funding for higher Department priorities that support the Advanced Capabilities Deterrence Panel/Third Offset strategy," according to the FY-17 budget request.

The high-level Advanced Capabilities Deterrence Panel, chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, was formed in 2014 to propose important changes to the way the department diagnoses and plans for challenges to the U.S. military’s competitive edge.

"The Missile Defeat [project] addresses an operational need in the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) Areas of Responsibility," the FY-17 budget request states. "These projects included beginning the development of initial, systems engineering, and test/demonstration plans. Initial assessments were conducted and detailed modeling and simulation tools developed. Additionally, several technology development projects were supported or begun."

Also in the Pentagon's original FY-17 budget request, the Pentagon sought advanced component development and prototype funding, a $45 million request for the Missile Defeat Project managed by the director of research and engineering in the acquisition directorate. A DOD spokesman confirmed the projects, mentioned in separate budget requests, fund a single effort.

This is the same budget line for which the Pentagon is seeking an additional $140 million in FY-17 as part of the Trump administration's proposed spending increase.

"Yes, the two projects are indeed one and the same," Lt. Col. Roger Cabiness, a Pentagon spokesman told Inside Defense. "The Defense Department is requesting additional funding to develop key capabilities identified through our testing and analysis to counter the growing global advancement and proliferation of road-mobile ballistic missile threats. Due to the classification of the project we are unable to go into further detail."

"The Missile Defeat Project counters the growing global advancement and proliferation of road-mobile ballistic missile threats," the original FY-17 budget request sent to Congress in February 2016 reads. "This effort develops and integrates new capability and architectures to optimize fielded weapon systems and C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] to defeat these emerging threats."

The project focuses on “measuring the effectiveness of new architectures and revolutionary concepts” against road-mobile ballistic missile threats by working with the intelligence community, combatant commands, government laboratories, program offices, industry and academia, according to the budget description.

The project aims to integrate U.S. military and intelligence community efforts to counter road-mobile ballistic missiles by developing "capability solutions" in five areas: dynamic command and control; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; responsive conventional counterforce; national missile defense; and "an enduring demonstration and experimentation capability to integrate and measure the effectiveness of developed solutions."

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/04/06/from_the_third_us_offset_to_chinas_first_offset_111119.html

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Keeping_Americas_Innovative_Edge_web_0404.pdf

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.c4isrnet.com/articles/ai-that-can-kill-military-takes-a-pass

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/9102/u-s-air-force-is-planning-something-big-in-the-nevada-desert

"We're modernizing the Air Force, so you'll see in the future new aircraft here on the ramps," then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said during a visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada in September 2016. "Then there are other things you also won't see, because we like to have some surprises, also, for potential adversaries."

These comments were squarely in line with the Pentagon's much-touted Third Offset Strategy, a high-technology master plan to push development of revolutionary weapons and associated systems to counter rapidly modernizing near peers.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/comparing-lasers-railguns-and-hypersonic-weapons-as-potential-gamechangers.html

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/20/as-fear-of-a-space-war-mounts-us-air-force-taps-start-up-technology.html

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/competition-revolution-military-space-1091?utm_source=Aggregators&utm_campaign=b3e6908bfb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_05_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b02a5f1344-b3e6908bfb-122460921

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/05/22/fight_survive_win_111431.html

 

[bring_it_on]

Pentagon proposes converting existing vessels into 'Ghost Fleet' and other new FY-18 projects

The Pentagon is seeking funding for a new "Ghost Fleet" project in fiscal year 2018 to launch a prototype, unmanned maritime naval force to fulfill existing combatant commander requirements, one of nine new-start projects the secretive Strategic Capabilities Office seeks in its $1.1 billion FY-18 research and development spending request.

The new FY-18 projects seek $430 million in funding and, if enacted, would expand the portfolio of ongoing technology prototype efforts managed by the SCO to more than two dozen in an effort to outfit U.S. forces with disruptive capabilities by establishing new and unconventional uses of existing systems and near-term technologies.

The SCO, created in 2012 and established last fall as a permanent Defense Department entity, focuses on projects with the potential to bolster conventional deterrence and power projection capabilities against great powers such as China and Russia and find new ways to create surprise and demonstrate overmatch capability.

The Ghost Fleet project is the single largest FY-18 SCO new start, with a proposed $206 million budget.

"SCO will develop and demonstrate fleet integrated, operational prototype unmanned maritime vehicles to fill existing mission requirements for Combatant Commanders," the budget request states. The funding would be used to "build and evaluate unmanned capabilities to support future operational demonstrations" and to begin payload integration efforts.

The Ghost Fleet prototypes "will include platforms, autonomy, command, control and communications and payload integration," the request adds.

"Because of their high-value sensors, weapons, and most importantly people, naval ships must be heavily defended," SCO Director William Roper told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on May 3. "Partnering with the Navy, SCO is converting existing vessels into autonomous, collaborative 'ghost fleets' . . . capable of dangerous missions without putting critical ships at risk," according to Roper's written testimony that foreshadowed the FY-18 budget request.

The second-largest FY-18 request for a new-start project is to create a secure tactical communications network for ground forces operating in anti-access, area-denial environments, an effort called "LiTE Saber." The SCO is seeking $65 million in FY-18 to "develop and demonstrate a commercial-enabled" communications network and use the funding to "establish candidate operating environments" and "conduct analysis to define system characteristics and effectiveness," according to the budget request.

The "Breaker" project is another FY-18 new-start, seeking $47.7 million for a demonstration to integrate "existing systems to provide combatant commanders with long range, surface- and air-delivered area effects," according to the budget request. The Breaker project "will demonstrate the feasibility and utility of launching this modified weapon from existing fires launchers," according to the request. The effort aims to retire risks associated with integrating the candidate munition into an unidentified existing weapon system, including modifications to increase munition lethality, according to the budget request.

FY-18 funding would be used to determine the munition integration design, conduct planning for integration into existing fire launchers, conduct ground-based tests and continue mission analysis for evaluating capability across multiple mission areas, according to the request.

Another project, the "Motley Crew," is an FY-18 new-start seeking $32 million to "leverage near-term technologies being developed to enable interoperability between weapons," according to the budget request. "Motley Crew will enable collaboration among existing weapons to enhance capabilities [in] anti-access/area-denial environments," the budget request states.

In a project similar to Ghost Fleet, the SCO is partnering with the Air Force in a new FY-18 project called "AVATAR" to incorporate expendable unmanned aircraft with fighter aircraft formations to allow pilots to control the drones from a safe, standoff distance. The Pentagon is seeking $25 million for AVATAR in FY-18. "SCO will convert manned aircraft and target drones to avatars in order to develop enhanced combat capabilities," the budget request states.

The "Hornet's Nest" project, also an FY-18 new start, requires $24 million to begin work to "develop a multi-mission Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capable of launch from manned/unmanned rotary and fixed wing aircraft and ground systems," according to the budget request.

"MAVEN" is another FY-18 new-start, seeking $16 million to "leverage advanced commercial technologies to provide advantage to the warfighter in contested environments," according to the request.

"Vanguard" is seeking $8.5 million in FY-18 as a new-start to "provide a capability to detect and track troop and motorized unit movements across the battlefield," and "StormSystem" is also a new start seeking $7 million to "leverage existing capabilities to develop a suite of tools that disrupts the adversary cyber network exploitation," according to the budget request. "This effort will provide low-cost, at-scale obfuscation capabilities to government and industrial base research and development networks."

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/06/02/supercomputers_and_the_third_offset_111508.html

 

[bobbymike]

https://warontherocks.com/2017/06/the-future-of-war-is-fast-approaching-in-the-pacific-are-the-u-s-military-services-ready/

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/navies-must-focus-on-auto-ew-systems-to-survive-hypersonic-missiles-says-expert

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11177/heres-how-hypersonic-weapons-could-completely-change-the-face-of-warfare

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/06/16/preparing-for-war-in-space-air-force-reshuffles-leadership-team/

 

[phrenzy]

Thanks for some truly excellent source material. I'm behind on a few things but I'm going to go through the meatier stuff. Looks like there's is some really interesting stuff on EW ad DEW as a counter to hypersonics and road mobiles.

Great stuff, good to get my head back in the game and it'll help with done other stuff I'm working on. Cheers Bobby.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/house-lawmakers-want-space-based-missile-defense-strategy

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.realcleardefense.com/2017/06/26/the_pentagon039s_new_algorithmic-warfare_team_294362.html

 

[phrenzy]

Space based missile defence is going to break so many treaties... Or is everyone just burning those for warmth nowdays anyway... In which case why did they design the B-21 to SALT II?

 

[bobbymike]

Space based missile defence is going to break so many treaties... Or is everyone just burning those for warmth nowdays anyway... In which case why did they design the B-21 to SALT II?

Listen to Trey Obering (first speaker starting at 5:30) who has been part of missile defense since Reagan's SDI speech say the space based defense contemplated breaks no treaty.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/6/30/pentagon-examining-options-for-space-based-missile-interceptors

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/time-missile-interceptors-space-1091

 

[bobbymike]

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/07/info-ops-officer-offers-artificial-intelligence-roadmap/

 

[bobbymike]

https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/defence-innovation-july2017.pdf

 

[bobbymike]

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/getting-the-pulse-of-future-multi-domain-battle

 

[bobbymike]

At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World

https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1358

 

[bobbymike]

The Army Modernization Imperative A New Big Five for the Twenty-First Century

https://www.csis.org/analysis/army-modernization-imperative

https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/170530_Hunter_ArmyModernization_Web.pdf?230oluRM4PwJBi4XRunDpVRMndOnunc.

 

[bobbymike]

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/07/trump-acts-to-revitalize-americas-defense-industrial-base/

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/07/from-concept-to-combat-making-multi-domain-battle-real/

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/7/26/battlefield-2050-army-prepares-for-future-fights#mainContent

http://www.arcic.army.mil/App_Documents/The-Operational-Environment-and-the-Changing-Character-of-Future-Warfare.pdf

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://blog.usni.org/posts/2017/07/26/cno-richardson-joins-the-anti-transformationalists

 

[bobbymike]

All the stories from Mad Scientist 2017: Visualizing Multi-Domain Battle 2030 - 2050;

http://www.tradoc.army.mil/watch/MadSciStoriesCompendium.pdf

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2017/08/14/darpas-mosaic-warfare-concept-turns-complexity-into-asymmetric-advantage/

"What's your location, over?"

"I'm in the fifth domain of the third offset of the mosaic, over"

 

[bobbymike]

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/08/aerospace-combat-command-instead-of-space-force/

 

[Moose]

The "SOCOM for Space" idea has been floated before, it still faces similar resistance to the "Space Corps" from the services who worry both about the budgetary impact and about their space needs/wants/desires being subjugated to a space-focused command.

 

[sferrin]

The "SOCOM for Space" idea has been floated before, it still faces similar resistance to the "Space Corps" from the services who worry both about the budgetary impact and about their space needs/wants/desires being subjugated to a space-focused command.

Not to mention, it would mean even MORE bureaucracy.

 

[bobbymike]

AI and National Security

http://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/AI%20NatSec%20-%20final.pdf