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Experts Discuss Transformation and Future Wars

 

Gen. Ronald E. Keys, USAF, commander, Air Combat Command, explains how small steps can lead to big changes in the military.

Agile Enemies Require New Thinking

Gen. Ronald E. Keys, USAF, commander, Air Combat Command (ACC), led off Wednesday’s full day of Transformation Warfare activities. In his opinion, innovative technologies must earn their way onto the battlefield by proving their worth. For example, while many speculated that U.S. Air Force pilots hated unmanned aircraft, in reality the service just insisted that they improve conditions for the warfighter.

Some technologies that will have truly transformational effects on the battlefield are still out of reach, but others already in use in the commercial sector are both immediately available and what the general calls “game changing.” He pointed to chat rooms and text messaging as capabilities that are ubiquitous in the civilian world and now just as omnipresent in military command centers. However, commercial success alone does not necessarily prove military usefulness, Gen. Keys added, pointing to blogging and wikis as examples.

The general said that transformation at the ACC means that some problems require the command to discard old solutions totally and start from scratch. First, ACC personnel determine if the task needs to be done at all. Then, if the answer is yes, they explore if it can be done differently. They also must examine what adversarial actions could “put them out of business” by bringing down the technologies the military depends on.

Transformation requires that the military think about alternative futures because there is more than one right possibility, the general said. “We face changes today that we never conceived of, so we have to be more adaptive not only in theater but also in how we operate,” he stated.

The military must analyze how transformation is progressing and whether it is being effective, Gen. Keys noted, but sometimes the traditional methods of assessment lead to the wrong conclusions. For example, buying more systems or sending more aircraft does not necessarily solve problems such as combating improvised explosive devices. A more effective solution appears to be examining where and how the devices are being made and stopping it at the source.

 

 

Gen. John P. Abizaid, USA (Ret.), former commander of U.S. Central Command, says that networked systems offer great capabilities, but the U.S. military is not yet as networked as it needs to be.

Different Tactics Call for Different Responses

Speed and agility are two primary elements in warfare against an enemy that adapts quickly, wages war without national support and fights for an idea rather than land or power. These were the thoughts Gen. John P. Abizaid, USA (Ret.), former commander, U.S. Central Command, expressed during his luncheon address on Wednesday.

The general shared several concepts, which he called “bin Ladenisms,” that characterize the fight in the Global War on Terrorism. First, Osama bin Laden has been able to convince not just a few individuals but whole groups to believe in his idea of domination. This new enemy has been able to fight with the unity of a nation yet without a national military infrastructure. In many ways, this is a matter of cultural differences that Americans have yet to understand. One role of the press is to educate the public about these cultural influences that are affecting the war, he said.

Another cultural difference is the abundant patience of the adversaries. They do not aim their tactics at capturing five-minute sound bites on the evening news but rather at achieving effects over a long time period, even several hundred years. This strategy will lead to success if the U.S. and coalition forces make the wrong steps along the way and bin Laden takes the right ones, Gen. Abizaid said.

“The enemy is more networked than we are and his commander’s intent more broadly known that ours,” Gen. Abizaid stated. Fighting this will take both a military approach as well as an integrated effort by economics, diplomacy and political experts, he said.

The general also offered other recommendations to fight the long war. Operations and intelligence must be viewed as single actions not only in the special operations forces but also throughout the military services, the general noted. Networks also must be integrated to share data among the services, agencies and multinational personnel, a capability that is not available currently.

Gen. Abizaid also called for beefing up the fight in cyberspace where the enemy is using today’s communications technologies to conduct psychological operations against the American public as well as spread its message to recruit new members.

 

 

Rob Carey, chief information officer, Department of the Navy, calls for more speed and agility from both the military services and the information technology corporate sectors.

Military Has Need for Speed

Rob Carey, chief information officer, Department of the Navy, rounded out the presentations of the day with his assessment of the current state of information systems and the requirements for the future. The information technology industry must increase its speed of its development and production cycles to meet the needs of the military, he said. In addition, spectrum management issues are once again emerging as new capabilities that require bandwidth are introduced into the field.

The U.S. military’s adaptation to changes in the battlefield also must speed up in light of the way the enemy operates, Carey said. While the adversary can adapt in a week, U.S. and coalition forces can take weeks or even months and years to change its strategies to combat new tactics.

In terms of interoperability, some U.S. Navy and U.S. Army systems still cannot talk to each other, so asking that U.S. equipment interoperate with other nations’ devices is a real stretch. This must change, the CIO said. Systems that do not interoperate should not be allowed into the field.

One asset that should be allowed greater freedom in the field is the young military professionals who are extremely comfortable using Web 2.0 technologies. Carey shared how he watched as many of these young people in the command centers communicated with their peers in the field using the chat capability on the nonsecure Internet protocol network. “Command and control is taking place on six open chat windows,” he quipped.

Another of the U.S. Navy’s concerns is privacy and the security of personal information. Not only will the service be adding encryption to portable data devices such as thumb drives and laptops, but it also will be instituting a set of consequences for losing equipment.

Carey also called for an increase in the speed for doctrine to support new capabilities. As it now stands, new capabilities are arriving in theater before the doctrine has been designed and distributed. This affects how the users at the tip of the spear conduct their missions with the new capabilities that may or may not be deployed as intended.