www.defensenews.com
www.defenseone.com
www.c4isrnet.com
www.militarytimes.com
taskandpurpose.com
www.rferl.org
www.defenseone.com
www.defenseone.com
www.airforcemag.com
www.defensenews.com
Work's purposed missiles prevent defeat.Defeat Is Possible - War on the Rocks
If the United States is to have a reasonable hope of winning a war, it needs to think very seriously about what it would be like to lose. For severalwarontherocks.com
Thinking about defeat is not merely taboo in U.S. strategic culture. It is illegal in some cases. In August 1958, Sen. Richard Russell expressed outrage that he had heard on the radio “that some person or persons holding office in the Department of Defense have entered into contracts with various institutions to conduct studies to determine when and how, and in what circumstances, the United States would surrender to its enemies in the event of war.” Russell proposed an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill then under consideration that “no part of the funds appropriated in this or any other act shall be used to pay” for studies of this kind. While the Eisenhower administration (which protested that Russell misrepresented the studies he was condemning) and some senators pushed back against the amendment, it ultimately passed with 88 votes for and only two against.
But, in the present, when near-peer adversaries are increasingly capable of defeating U.S. conventional forces on a theater level, U.S. decision-makers can no longer afford to pretend that defeat is not a real possibility. And, so long as policymakers do not take losing seriously, they are unlikely to take the difficult steps needed to prevent such a defeat.
Robert Work contends that the capability to “Sink 350 Chinese navy and coast guard vessels in the first 72 hours of a war, or destroy 2,400 Russian armored vehicles” would have this effect. Work also suggests that, with some relatively affordable investments (about $8 billion per year for three years), the U.S. military could actualize such capabilities in the near term.
Should an adversary invasion appear underway, it may become necessary to launch the campaign against it as quickly as possible. But, with feints, provocation, and deception, the adversary may obscure whether an invasion has begun, sowing uncertainty and undermining U.S. decision-makers’ willingness to take the fateful step of attacking Russian or Chinese forces. If adversary leaders come to doubt U.S. resolve, then deterrence could fail. If strategic partners come to doubt it, they may feel compelled to appease their neighbors rather than entrust their security to Washington.
Even if planners make the optimistic assumption that the capability to sink Chinese ships and destroy Russian armor can be made a reality at modest cost, as argued by Work and others, this does not mean that the associated denial strategy is a sure bet in case of war. Firstly, one or more necessary enablers of the capabilities may prove more technically challenging than anticipated or even impossible. Secondly, even if the requisite capabilities could be realized quickly and cheaply in the abstract, this does not mean they necessarily will be in practice. The history of U.S. defense procurement in the post-Cold War period is littered with examples of technologically ambitious systems that consumed huge development budgets without becoming operational realities.
Implementation of the new capabilities may simply be flawed or delayed for all-too-familiar mundane reasons. The denial strategy also hinges on presidential resolve, as Montgomery pointed out. Even if the capability works, if the United States fails to use it promptly, the effect could be the same as if it didn’t exist. Finally, defining the problem in narrow operational terms simply invites the adversary to devise an alternative mode of attack. Explicitly signaling that U.S. leaders think of the problem this way makes it makes it clear for the other side how to begin planning accordingly.
Because of these considerations, the national security establishment may need to contemplate some kinds of near-peer conflict that it would rather not think about if it is to minimize the chances of defeat. If a near-peer conflict is not terminated on terms favorable to the United States and its allies in its opening phase, then there are two basic possibilities. The first of these is that the adversary managed to accomplish some or all of its goals in the opening phase of the war, but that the United States and its allies have refused to give up the fight. This presumably means a transition to a protracted war, possibly one of attrition. Even if the status quo ante could not be restored, Washington decision-makers might still feel it necessary to pursue such a conflict. Rationales for this could include a desire to shore up the faith of other allies in U.S. security guarantees and to impose costs on adversaries to deter them from further aggression. Unfortunately, U.S. strategy has not planned seriously for protracted near-peer conflict since the early Cold War. Being prepared for this contingency could demand considerable preparation and significant opportunity costs, but these may prove the best defense investment budget planners could make in the case of high-level conflict.
The second way that a protracted near-peer conflict might begin would be if the United States and its partners successfully parried an initial assault but the adversary refused to retire, initiating a protracted war on their own terms instead. While it seems like Western analysts have neglected this scenario, it seems all too plausible in some of the contingencies of interest (such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan). Such a campaign might allow an aggressor to attain their goals even if these eluded them at first. For example, if a U.S. denial campaign depended upon an inventory of some hard-to-replenish resource (such as precision-guided munitions) and these assets were depleted in the opening phase of the war, the adversary might be able to regroup and mount another more successful attack before the United States could reconstitute its denial capability. Moreover, the failed initial attempt would also provide learning opportunities that might be exploited to neutralize U.S. advantages in the rematch. And, even if an adversary campaign of attrition fails to achieve its objectives, the United States and its partners might have to deal with its consequences.
It is much more unpleasant to envision losing than winning — but this does nothing to change the fact that defeat is an increasingly plausible possibility in a war with Russia or China. Brad Roberts has argued forcefully that the United States should have clearer “theories of victory,” but, in addition to “theories of victory,” defense planners need to have “theories of defeat” in order to turn those theories into self-negating prophecies. In order to forestall defeat, the Pentagon may need to envision how it could lose. Defense intellectuals could contemplate all the diverse ways U.S. forces might be defeated instead of one or two specific ways in which they would prefer to win. At the very least, planners could begin formulating contingency plans to continue the fight should the opening phase of a near-peer conflict fail to go as desired. An essential first step could be to start taking the prospect of protracted near-peer conflict seriously. Whether or not U.S. policymakers want such a conflict, one may be imposed upon them — and at present, America is woefully underprepared for it.
www.airforcemag.com
www.defensenews.com
www.airforcemag.com
www.militarytimes.com
www.airforcetimes.com
www.defensenews.com
Former Air Force Acquisition Chief: DOD Should Leverage ‘Revolving Door’ in New Ways | Air & Space Forces Magazine
Will Roper, former Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition, thinks the Department of Defense should let innovators serve "limited tours of duty."
Indeed, the divide between commercial cyber and technology companies and the military is so severe, Roper said, that the two are “annexed.” His solution is to lower the barriers to entry—and exit—into the Pentagon workforce.
“If there were opportunities to come into the government for limited tours of duty, where [innovators] could solve significant challenges and then easily go back to the private sector where their skills are refreshed, I think we would see a completely different dynamic within the government,” said Roper, now the CEO of drone logistics company Volansi.
While the military cannot hope to offer the same pay and benefits as a private company, “innovators and entrepreneurs gravitate to problems,” Roper added, and government should work to make itself an attractive, flexible place where those people can go to wrestle with those problems.
Roper isn’t the only one pushing for changes in how civil and military service are understood. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond and other leaders within the U.S. Space Force have touted the benefits of a new approach that will allow part-time service among individuals who are already working in the space industry.
The importance of flexibility in the workforce to leverage talent isn’t just a theoretical benefit, added Mark Sirangelo, a member of the Defense Innovation Board and a former executive vice president with Sierra Nevada Corp. Speaking alongside Roper at the virtual forum, Sirangelo pointed to how China handles its workforce.
“If we don’t look at how … we bring the best of the best to the upcoming issues and potential fight that we might have, we’re going to have a challenge here,” Sirangelo said. “And I think one of the things that at least I’ve seen that China has been doing is, they have significant human capital—that’s not news to anyone—but I think the other piece of that, though, is career tracking that capital, so that the experience and longevity and understanding gets to be maintained.”
Between the Defense Department and private industry, Sirangelo said, the U.S. has to develop its own human capital plan to leverage its strengths.
That plan will feed into a larger strategic approach in competing with China—and just like it should emphasize flexibility and collaboration between industry and government, the broader strategy can’t be too rigid, Roper said.
“If we have the fastest and most agile system in the world, then we can deal with the most uncertainty, and that will have a deterrent factor for the U.S.,” Roper said. “And we don’t have that today. So we’re on the losing side of the strategy, and we must get to the winning side. The answer is not going to be airplanes, ships, [or] ground vehicles. The answer is going to be the fastest and most agile system, to build whatever. The future is too uncertain to say, ‘We know how to beat China in 2030, 2035.’ … If you don’t know what the future is, be agile.”
www.c4isrnet.com
www.defenseone.com
www.defenseone.com
www.cbo.gov
www.defensenews.com
www.airforcemag.com
www.defensenews.com
www.c4isrnet.com
www.defensenews.com
