By Joe Pappalardo
What will tomorrow's wars be like, and is the United States prepared to win them? PM canvassed experts to glimpse military trends to find answers.
More than 1000 US and Philippine Navy participate during a mock beach assault as part of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training.
Sherbien Dacalanio/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The next war will expose our gaps.
There is no doubt that the U.S. military is the best equipped, trained, and experienced force on the planet. Pundits like to point out that it’s better funded than any 10 other nations combined. But just because a nation spends more money than its adversaries doesn’t mean it will win a war, especially far from home.
As the U.S. cuts defense spending, other nations like China and Russia have increased theirs. Their focus is on areas such as air defense and ship-killing missiles—the exact places where they can blunt America’s ability to project power. That’s why, despite a half-trillion dollars in spending, the United States military might face gaps in its capabilities during the next war.
"The United States has relied on a Department of Defense that has had technological superiority for the better part of the post-World War II era," says Lan Shaffer, principal deputy for the assistant secretary of defense for defense research and engineering. "[That] technological superiority is now being challenged." The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, a review of Department of Defense strategy, acknowledges that a leaner U.S. military will see some of its advantages eroded. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, wrote in the document: "Our loss of depth across the force could reduce our ability to intimidate opponents from escalating conflict … Nearly any future conflict will occur on a much faster pace and on a more technically challenging battlefield."
Some gaps are already appearing. Adm. Samuel Locklear III, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told Congress this year that he does not have enough landing craft to conduct amphibious operations. The Marine Corps will shrink to 175,000 if the law that mandates 2016 sequestration is kept in place. If not, that number will dip to 182,000, a loss of 8000 Marines. The Army is shrinking its active-duty members by about 22 percent, shedding 125,000 soldiers. Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told Congress that, by 2016, he "doubts that we could even execute one prolonged, multiphase operation that is extended over a period of time."
It will vindicate the Pentagon’s focus on tech over troops. Or not.
The trend is to replace manpower with automation. Fewer warplanes will fly, and many of those that do will be unmanned. There will be fewer warships in the Navy’s fleet, and new ships will carry fewer crewmembers. Proven aircraft like the A-10 close-air-support warplanes and F-16 fighters will be retired, and replaced with fewer numbers of (untested) F-35 Lightning IIs.
Faced with mandatory spending cuts, the Pentagon is doubling down on the assumption that advanced weapons will enable fewer troops to win a war. "We chose further reductions in troop strength and force structure in every military service in order to sustain our readiness and technological superiority," Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said.
The direction introduces risk. "The Army’s initiative to reduce manpower and increase dependence on improving is a double-edged sword," says Cadet Brandon Swank, a senior at West Point. "It may show us how increased reliance on technology makes it more difficult to replace the highly trained individuals required for maintaining it." He adds that it will be harder to train forces on complex gear "when we choose to increase our Army’s size again."
It will highlight the weaknesses of our allies.
The U.S. military, for all its prowess, cannot police the world. Having capable allies is vital, especially in some of the world’s most volatile hotspots, where military might must deter aggressive moves. When there’s a severe imbalance, such as between the Ukraine and Russia in Crimea, tensions can escalate into military action.
American allies around the world have slashed military spending to offset economic woes, to the point where they cannot face regional challenges. Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Yen Ming told the national legislature last March that the heavily armed nation could hold out alone for only a month against an invasion by the rapidly rearming Chinese. In Europe, things are even more grim. NATO nations have steadily underfunded militaries. Just four of 27 member nations dedicated defense spending above the treaty-mandated 2 percent of GDP.
These shortfalls become apparent during a crisis, as when the European-led campaign against Libya in 2011 quickly became dependent on U.S. hardware. In his autobiography Duty, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates described the reality of fighting with ill-equipped partners: "Just three months into the campaign we had to resupply even our strongest allies with precision-guided bombs and missiles—they had exhausted their meager supply."
9 New Tools That Will Change the Future of War
It will be the war we haven’t finished.
Washington, D.C., may have abandoned the name, but the Global War on Terror rages on. Osama bin Laden is dead, but al Qaida has morphed into five franchises in 12 countries. Some, such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, have plans to launch attacks on the U.S. homeland. The most powerful of them, ISIS, have captured major cities in Syria and Iraq, destabilizing the region and overshadowing al Qaida as a major risk.
"What’s called the Long War, we don’t see that changing any time soon," says Maj. Bryan Price, the director of the counter-terrorism center at West Point. "Counterterrorism and counterinsurgency were around long before September 11, but we found ourselves going back to earlier insurgencies in Southeast Asia and Vietnam to relearn them. Maybe we don’t make that mistake moving forward, even if we have to bring back conventional [military] training."
It will reach home in unexpected ways.
Technology has made the world a smaller, more interconnected place. As Gen. Dempsey wrote in his 2014 review: "In the case of U.S. involvement in conflicts overseas, the homeland will no longer be a sanctuary either for our forces or for our citizens.” Where will these threats come from?
Economic Weapons: Embargoes, blockades, frozen assets, and shipping harassment are potent tools in a globalized world. For example, Iran blockading or releasing mines in the Strait of Hormuz could raise the price of oil 50 percent in a week. Economic warfare could take the form of selloffs of U.S. Treasury notes that ruin the value of the dollar, intentional hedge fund manipulation, or crippling cyberattacks aimed at trading floors.
Cyberattacks: U.S. infrastructure—including water-treatment facilities, refineries, pipelines, dams, and the electrical grid—relies on industrial control systems patched into computer networks. These can be manipulated to shut down or even destroy key equipment, causing domestic havoc and delaying a military response during a crisis. The more experts look, the more evident the danger: In 2014, cyber researchers discovered widespread software vulnerabilities in Centum CS 3000 software, which is used worldwide to run oil refineries, rigs, and power plants.
Psych Ops: Feeding false information aimed at populations and political leaders has never been easier. Faked photos, deliberately altered phone conversations and hacked social media sites —tactics used by both sides of the Syrian civil war, Russia during the Crimea annexation, and the U.S. in Cuba—can shape opinion faster than an official rebuttal. A generation raised with social media may find this battlespace easier to handle than experienced veterans do.
"The cadets are really attuned to social media, just as we find our terrorist groups the younger generation that’s joining terrorist groups," Maj. Price says.
It will use tech to augment human beings.
Robots may not replace people anytime soon, but enhanced soldiers are coming.
"I don’t think that it’s hard to imagine monitoring or surveying devices being implanted directly into a soldier’s vital systems," West Point cadet Ryan Polston says. "Contact-lens video recording, in-ear communications and heart-rate, hydration, and oxygen-saturation reporting will provide commanders with more information." However, he says, "all of these possible improvements are dangerous in the sense that they detract from the humanity of the soldier."
It will see robots that are part of human teams.
Robots are finding a place in every branch of the military, but they provide little advantage if someone has to operate them directly. The solution is autonomy.
"Networked and autonomous systems allow for the Army to decentralize its formations, making its actions less predictable and less vulnerable to asymmetric efforts," says Lt. Col. John Burpo, an advisor at West Point’s Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences. For example, a unit on a long-range patrol could be resupplied with an unmanned helicopter, rather than by a truck that follows predictable routes.
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