Russian Hybrid Warfare and Other Dark Arts

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, hybrid warfare has become conversational short form in the West for describing Moscow’s sneaky ways of fighting war. If there’s one thing you’ve learned over the past two years about Russia, it’s that it uses hybrid warfare, a dangerous Kremlin innovation the West must learn to grapple with. In two short years, the word has mutated from describing how Moscow was fighting its war in Ukraine to incorporating all the various elements of Russian influence and national power. The term continues to evolve, spawning iterations like “multi-vector hybrid warfare” in Europe. Hybrid warfare has become the Frankenstein of the field of Russia military analysis; it has taken on a life of its own and there is no obvious way to contain it.

In trying to separate hybrid warfare from the classical bins of conventional or irregular war, I prefer to use Frank Hoffman’s definition, “a tailored mix of conventional weapons, irregular tactics, terrorism, and criminal behavior in the same time and battlespace to obtain [a group’s] political objectives.” There are other definitions out there, but you will find they are not being applied correctly to analysis of Russian tactics. Unfortunately, what Russian hybrid warfare is, and how it works, varies dramatically depending on what article, report, or PowerPoint brief you are reading. The more we have talked about it, the less we understand it as a useful concept or framework for looking at Russian actions.

What’s wrong with a little hybrid warfare?

If you torture hybrid warfare long enough it will tell you anything, and torture it we have. The term now covers every type of discernible Russian activity, from propaganda to conventional warfare, and most that exists in between. What exactly does Russian hybrid warfare do, and how does it work? The short answer in the Russia-watcher community is everything. The church of Russian hybrid warfare has a broad and influential following these days, but finds few worshippers among experts who study the Russian military. There’s a reason for that: Many don’t believe it exists as described. I’m not the first to point out the problems with applying this lens to Russian tactics , and I have criticized itelsewhere, but in this piece I hope to offer a fresh perspective on why the national security establishment continues to do itself a disservice by thinking about Russia through a hybrid warfare lens.

My purpose here is not to engage in an esoteric disagreement over military terms and definitions. It matters less what we call it if there is a common and useful understanding of the subject. The trouble is that thanks to narratives surrounding hybrid warfare, we lack a shared knowledge of how Russia fights and what happened on the battlefields of Ukraine. Without a common understanding of the facts here, the United States cannot hope to successfully counter or deter Moscow elsewhere. It would be one thing for such notions to dominate the world of punditry, but the references to Russia’s dark hybrid arts permeate the conversation among U.S. policymakers and leading generals alike. I have nothing against hybrid warfare as a concept, but in the case of Russia, it has become more of a handicap than an enabler for our decision-makers and military leaders.

Read the Remainder at War on the Rocks

The Rise of the Hybrid Warriors: From Ukraine to the Middle East

The Iraqi Army defenders of Ramadi had held their dusty, stony ground for over a year and become familiar with the increasing adeptness of their opponents waving black flags. At first, these Iraqi Army units simply faced sprayed rifle fire, but then it was well-placed sniper rounds that forced these weary units to keep under cover whenever possible or risk a death that only their comrades — but never the victim — would hear. Tired, beleaguered, and cut off from reinforcements from Baghdad, they nonetheless continued to repulse attack after attack.

The last months witnessed a new weapon — car bombs. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, had long been the masters of using car bombs, but almost always against isolated checkpoints or undefended civilians. But an old tactic found a new situation. Car bombs, now parked against outer walls and driven by suicide bombers, were thrown against the Iraqi Army’s defenses in Ramadi.

The defenders were professional soldiers, and the last decade of war had taught them a great deal about the use of concrete barriers to defend against explosives of all kinds. So while the car bombs created a great deal of sound and fury, they availed little.

Then one bright day in May 2015, the defenders awoke to a new sound. Crawling forward slowly toward the heavily barricaded road was a bulldozer followed by several large cargo and dump trucks. The soldiers began to fire as the bulldozer entered the range of their machine guns and rifles, but it was armored by overlapping welded steel plates. The bullets bounced off the advancing earthmover. The defenders lacked one key weapon system — an anti-tank missile that could penetrate the armor of the tracked vehicle.

So while the soldiers kept up a steady volume of fire, they were helpless as the dozer began to remove the concrete barriers that blocked the road between their positions and the row of large armored trucks. One layer of concrete was removed after another until the road was clear.

And so the trucks begin to pour through. While creating vehicle-borne bombs is an ISIL specialty, the technology is actually remarkably simple, as each truck carried in its five-ton bed the same basic formula used two decades ago by Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City — ammonium nitrate fertilizer soaked in gasoline. As each truck closed on the defenses, its suicide bomber detonated the payload, shocking beyond reason those who were not killed outright. As truck after truck delivered its lethal payload, black-clad fighters poured from behind the trucks to exploit the newly created hole in the defenses. The survivors fell back and tried to maintain some semblance of order, but it was far too late to have any hope of saving this day. Ramadi had fallen.

The explosion of ISIL onto the international scene in June 2014 informed the world that a new type of force had arrived. In some ways, this should have been less of a surprise. ISIL had seized Fallujah the previous January, and there were also several clear precursors of this type of force. The Israelis had experienced a near-defeat in their fightagainst the non-state actor Hezbollah years earlier. And only a month after the fall of Mosul, Russian-backed separatist forces in Ukraine would shoot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

None of these actors — ISIL, Hezbollah, or the Ukrainian separatists — can be classified as traditional insurgent groups, guerrillas, or terrorists. All three groups possess capabilities that take them beyond more familiar non-state actors without qualifying them as full-fledged armies. Whether the bulldozers and social media savvy of ISIL, the missiles and electronic warfare of Hezbollah, or the high-altitude air defense of the Ukrainian rebels, all these forces have deployed capabilities traditionally associated with nation-states. The hybrid warriors have merged these capabilities with traditional insurgent tactics in their fight against nation-state forces.

While the debate rages on about the utility of the concepts of “hybrid warfare” and “gray zone conflict,” this article is not about these debates. This article is agnostic as to whether these types of warfare are best called “hybrid wars” or “political warfare.” It is similarly agnostic as to whether the “gray zone” concept is “hopelessly muddled “or “real and identifiable.” These debates, while important, are not what this piece attempts to settle. Rather than discuss the strategies and operations conducted in these ambiguous physical and legal spaces, this paper is concerned with the new actors emerging in said spaces. This essay maintains that there is something interesting and new occurring, as it relates to the actors operating in this space. While calling them “hybrid warriors” when the larger concept of “hybrid warfare” is still deeply contested may be linguistically problematic, there is no necessary linkage between the terms. That these fighters are a “hybrid” of insurgent and state-sponsored strains seems very clear, and therefore appropriate, regardless of distinct and separate debates over the characteristics of the environment.

Hybrid warriors are new (or at least new to us). These non-state hybrid warriors have adopted significant capabilities of an industrial or post-industrial nation-state army that allow them to contest the security forces of nation-states with varying degrees of success. Retaining ties to the population and a devotion to the “propaganda of the deed” that characterizes their insurgent and terrorist cousins, these non-state hybrid warriors present a challenge unfamiliar to most modern security analysts (though those who fought against either America’s 19th-century native tribes or the medieval Knights Templar, might see similarities).

Hybrid warriors specialize in the ambiguity of the “gray zone,” a term this essay will continue to use despite its definitional issues. While they can both administer territory (at the low end of the spectrum) and fight conventional war (at the high end), it is in the spaces in between that they truly excel. Girded by their relative safety from police forces, immunity from international norms (characteristic of all places where the state and rule of law are weak), and the active or passive support of the population, these hybrid warriors enjoy a low degree of risk, at least when compared to open warfare against Western interests. Within their sanctuaries — so long as they survive the occasional airstrike or commando raid — hybrid warriors face few security concerns, save when local armies probe the boundaries of their loosely controlled terrain. And yet — as the United States clearly learned on 9/11 — non-state groups possess a new ability to launch attacks against the integrated state system. These hybrid warriors live among the insurgents and counter-insurgents, terrorists and counter-terrorists, spies, saboteurs, propagandists, organized criminals, and money launderers — but while they may participate in any number of these activities, they are not limited by them.

Read the Remainder at War on the Rocks

 

Evolving the Marine Corps for Irregular Warfare

 

The concept of an evolution to a new type of warfare has been understood for decades, but the U.S. military, the Marine Corps included, has failed to adapt to the changing methods of waging war. The type of warfare that goes by the names irregular, counterinsurgency, low-intensity, and hybrid, among others, is not new at all. Although the methods used in this type of war may seem unfamiliar or un-warlike to a conventionally trained military, it is war nonetheless. While the Marine Corps still relies solely on the methods of conventional maneuver warfare, or even older ones of attrition and massed firepower, our enemies have adapted other ways of defeating us. Both state and non-state actors have used terrorism, propaganda, recruitment through social media, and combined regular and guerilla tactics to defeat far technologically superior forces. No matter what name we give to the poorly understood methods of irregular war, the fact remains that it is still war, and we must adapt if we are to be successful in it. As our enemies’ methods of war have evolved, ours must evolve as well if we want to remain relevant. It is time for the Marine Corps to change the way it thinks about, trains for, and carries out irregular warfare.

“Light” not “Line” Infantry

The Marine Corps must adopt the capability to fight as light infantry. FMFM-2A: Light Infantry offers some useful insights into what “light” infantry is, and how it differs from “line” or “regular” infantry. Light infantry is “a flexible force capable of operating in austere conditions with few logistical requirements, providing the commander a force ideally suited to complement heavier elements of the army.”² Where line infantry is akin to the heavily armed and armored but rigid phalanx of Greek hoplite warfare, light infantry is more akin to the hit-and-run ambush mentality of Mongol horsemen or Prussian Jaegers. Light and line infantry forces work in mutual support of each other. A combination of the ambushes, raids, and harassment of light infantry, with the overwhelming mass and finishing blow of line infantry and heavier forces creates havoc for the enemy.

Unfortunately, the entirety of the Marine Corps infantry is focused on fighting as line infantry, rather than as the more flexible combination of light and line infantry. Too much concern on armored protection, firepower, and linear drill-like tactics has limited our capability. The United States already has a medium/heavy force, and it is called the Army. Within the Marine Corps, tanks, artillery, attack aircraft, and armored vehicles can deliver heavy firepower, but infantry battalions lack significant training in fighting as a light force.

It is important to note that “light” is not a description of the actual weight of the unit but of its notion of agility and operational versatility.³ With this in mind, John Boyd’s ideas of variety and initiative⁴ are essential elements of operating as light infantry. Light infantry must be adaptable and able to use a variety of assets at their disposal to surprise, harass, and demoralize the enemy. For the modern Marine Corps, this means more mobile vehicles, more flexible and creative tactics, more decentralized execution, less logistical tail, and more methods for physical, mental, and moral warfare. Light infantry Marines must be able to live off the land, strike the enemy when he least expects it, then disappear back into the shadows, all with minimal direction from higher headquarters. They must be “an influence, and idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas.”⁵ Light infantry is not usually the main effort but complements it by keeping the enemy off balance and reactive, allowing friendly forces to maintain the initiative.

The operationally versatile mindset of light infantry can be used not only to demoralize the enemy but to find creative ways to convince other parties to join our cause, as will be discussed later.

No More Drill

“Each new generation has brought a major shift towards a battlefield of disorder. The military culture, which has remained a culture of order, has become contradictory to the battlefield.”⁶ Drill, saluting, crisp uniforms, and rank structure are products of first generation warfare and are irrelevant and sometimes detrimental to operating on the modern battlefield. While armies in the 18th and 19th centuries benefitted from tight formations and instant obedience to orders, these same qualities have caused modern armies to be defeated by numerically and technologically inferior enemies.

Modern fighting units require adaptable and flexible tactics, flattened command structures, and uniforms and equipment based solely on functionality. The necessary mindset of constant change and flexibility is the complete opposite of the rigid and linear mindset that drill instills. It is typically harder to unlearn habits than it is to learn them. With that said, instilling recruits and candidates with a drill mindset from the beginning of their training makes it harder for them to unlearn the bad habits of linearity and rigidity, reducing their effectiveness when operating in ambiguous environments. Luckily, many Marines have been able to unlearn drill habits and have proven to be highly adaptable fighters and leaders, but many struggle to overcome the drill mindset. Adaptability and critical thinking must be the focus of entry-level training through the use of tactical decision games and force-on-force field exercises.

There is still some need for a division of responsibility between leader and led, so some form of rank structure should be retained. But the command structure should be more akin to that employed by LtCol Evans Carlson in the Second Raider Battalion during World War II.⁷ Leaders must be empowered down to the lowest level; Marines of all ranks must display mutual respect and suffer the same hardships and living conditions; and every Marine must be allowed to voice his or her opinion in decision making. Drill and fancy uniforms still have some utility when used for ceremonies, parades, or other formal occasions, but they are useless just about everywhere else. Eliminate our 18th century habits, and the Marine Corps will start adapting faster to the demands of future wars.

Relaxed Grooming Standards and Local Dress

A Marine on patrol in full battle-rattle, complete with rifle, body armor, helmet, goggles, camouflage utilities, radios, and a clean shaven face and living on a built-up base with hot showers, abundant food, TV, and internet sends two clear messages to local observers: “You do not want to mess with me,” and “I am not one of you.” These perceptions can have either a positive or negative influence, depending on what the intended message is. If the objective is to intimidate the enemy and assert American dominance in an area, then they certainly send the right message. However, if the objective is to talk to people and convince them to support our cause, then they only magnify the gap between Marines and the populace.

Read the Remainder at Marine Corps Gazette

Preparing for the Next BIG War

 As a footnote to this this list I would add the ability for our Military and Intelligence Agencies to Operate within the same parameters as the Russian, Chinese and Iranian Military operates; in a “hybrid” 4th Generational Capacity, where war is waged against your adversary in every facet of their society; Financial, Social, Political, Religious etc. Weakening a nation from the inside CONSISTENTLY is something both Russia and China have been doing for a while now (Read Death by a Thousand Cuts) therefore, the United States should be tripling it’s efforts against our adversaries in this regard. -SF

“For almost twenty years we had all of the time and almost none of the money; today we have all of the money and no time.”

Those words were spoken by Army Chief of Staff George Marshall in 1940 as he was facing the imminent entry of the United States into World War II. He was lamenting the fact that when large conflicts suddenly arrive, all the money in the world cannot magically fix military shortfalls overnight. It is not hard to imagine a future Army chief of staff uttering those same words on the eve of a truly big war.

Between 1945 and 1989, the looming threat of global war between the United States and the Soviet Union informed every aspect of U.S. military preparations, from doctrine to organization to weaponry. But since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military has not been sized, organized, and globally postured to fight a large-scale and bloody war.

Today, virtually no one serving below the rank of colonel or enlisted senior chief has ever served in a military facing a powerful peer competitor, nor have they faced a realistic prospect of fighting a global war to protect the nation’s most vital interests and perhaps even its survival. Yes, the United States has been at war for the past decade and a half. But even at their peak, U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan included no more than 171,000 troops and100,000 troops respectively. Compare that with the more than 537,000 troops deployed at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968 — which was considered a small and limited conflict at the time.

The likelihood that the United States will have to fight a really big war — one that requires many hundreds of thousands of troops, with high levels of destructiveness and casualties — remains low, but the consequences would be enormous. And in a world threatened increasingly by disorder, violent extremism, and more aggressive large states, those low odds may be increasing.

What could trigger a big war? A massive, direct attack on the United States certainly would, but other lesser crises could also escalate unpredictably. Imagine, for example, a Russian invasion of another eastern European state; a territorial miscalculation between the United States, China, or a treaty ally in the South China Sea; an explosive Sunni–Shia conflict spilling beyond the Middle East; a regional conflict in South Asia or on the Korean peninsula; or a large deadly terrorist attack in the United States. An initial U.S. military response to any of these scenarios could escalate into a greater, and potentially even global, conflict. The requirements of such a war would greatly exceed current contingency plans for Iraq, Afghanistan, or even the Korean peninsula.

The potentially devastating consequences of the next big war demands that the U.S. military (and the nation as a whole) prepare as much for this scenario as for the range of lesser challenges demanding attention today. Today’s wars, likely contingencies, and simply running the Defense Department all require time, energy, and resources. Choices and tradeoffs must be made. Nevertheless, the Pentagon must identify the gaps that would put the United States at the biggest risk in a large, prolonged conflict against a highly capable adversary, and mitigate those risks to the greatest extent possible.

We believe that there are at least five big gaps that the United States must try to fill — and a sixth that cannot be fixed even though it may be the area of greatest U.S. vulnerability.

1. Precision Munitions and Advanced Weaponry. A large-scale conflict could consume vast quantities of U.S. and allied precision munitions in the opening weeks. Many of these weapons have been bought in limited quantities and would require immediate replenishment. Munitions production lines should be stocked with critical sub-assemblies and parts, and precious scarce materials warehoused to rapidly churn out more of these essential tools of war. Precision munitions will be consumed quickly even in medium size conflicts; upgrading this capability would yield high payoffs across most potential scenarios. Moreover, the Department of Defense and industry must be able to rapidly accelerate and combat test advanced weapons that are still in development (such as rail guns and laser weapons), so they can get into the hands of fighting troops quickly.

2. Platforms. Fighter planes, drones, bombers, even submarines and surface warships could see heavy losses in the first days and weeks of a big war. Other hardware may prove obsolete or vulnerable to enemy action and require immediate replacement or abandonment. Most of these complex platforms require months or years to produce. Warm production lines with readily available manufacturing materials must be available to accelerate production quickly. There may be some lessons to be learned from the rapid production of MRAPs at the height of the IED threat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Further, the services should inventory their boneyards to identify what systems could be rapidly reconfigured for combat use with some advanced preparation.

3. Troops. Defending the United States against potential homeland threats while deploying hundreds of thousands of troops overseas would require a significantly larger U.S. military, even after the National Guard and Reserves are mobilized. A new and massive effort to build, train, lead, and equip new forces may be necessary to generate sufficient combat power quickly and to sustain it over multiple months and even years of combat. All of the services need plans to expand rapidly if required, though this is particularly urgent for the Army and Marines. Since conscription might well be required, U.S. political leaders should ensure that the Selective Service System remains strong (and, as we have written, includes women), and think through what manpower requirements would require instating a draft.

4. Planning and Adaptability. Planning for a big war requires carefully examining vulnerabilities, making sober estimates of casualties and attrition, and realistically appraising how many men and women will be needed. Broad questions need to be asked about how the force might fight, where, and against what adversary; what new equipment and capabilities might be needed; and what current assumptions or constraints (such as relying on a volunteer force) might need to be discarded. Once a big war starts, the services will need to rapidly adapt to unanticipated battlefield conditions. They may need to invent new units and capabilities, either as physical formations or virtual capabilities — think space attack brigades, civilian chem-bio advisory teams, or micro-drone defense units.

5. Technology. Additive printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies all have important military applications — and every combatant will be racing to exploit them first in battle. The U.S. military must therefore maintain its technological superiority, and also find ways to rapidly find wartime applications for non-military technologies. However, the United States is likely to be far more vulnerable to cyber attack than almost any imaginable adversary, since its military, government, and business functions rely so heavily on the cyber realm. The U.S. government may need to mobilize key parts of the nation’s cyber workforce in an online version of the Civil Air Patrol to counter large-scale cyber attacks and defend U.S. public and private networks against hostile disruptions and direct attacks.

6. Stamina. This is a major strategic gap that may not be able to be filled before a big war starts, because it is psychological in nature. The military and the nation must both be mentally and emotionally prepared for large numbers of dead and wounded troops — and possibly civilians, too. Big wars tend to be bloodily indiscriminate toward both. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of killed and wounded may be incurred in hours and days rather than months and years; generals may no longer be able to carry slim packets of index cardswith their names and stories as has become common practice in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Bloody mindedness” among fighting generals and admirals may once again become a necessary war-winning attribute — in stark contrast to recent limited wars. The willingness of the nation to endure a big war is a potentially large vulnerability, especially if the war does not involve a direct attack on the United States. Making the nation and military psychologically more resilient in the face of potential heavy casualties is a challenge that both civilian and military leaders should begin thinking about now.

U.S. political and military leaders face many constraints in addressing these gaps, including limited time, resources, and attention. Nevertheless, one of the most important things they (and their staffs) can do is to foster truly creative thinking in each of these six areas. That can be a very difficult challenge, since a big war would have a much different character and different requirements than the wars and challenges of today. That’s why, for example, we included the novel Ghost Fleet on our professional reading list for the incoming Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. It imagines a big war with China, and shows both the challenges and creative solutions that emerged as the United States filled its considerable pre-war gaps. (No plot spoilers here, but one example is Mentor Crew, which assigns retired military officers throughout the fleet to advise the many brand new crews that had to be formed.)

The United States cannot afford to enter an increasingly dangerous future without a sober look at the most demanding, even existential, military contingencies. The return of aggressive great powers, the diminishment of some allied military capabilities, and the rise of transnational threats all suggest a world in which a large, dangerous, and deadly war could arise unexpectedly. Creative thinking and problem solving must remain a very important part of how the Department of Defense and the services prepare now. As the U.S. military continues to reshape itself for an uncertain future, imagining the unimaginable next big war must become an essential part of its planning for a dangerous future.

About the Author:  

Lt. General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) is a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, and Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence, at the School of International Service at American University. Both also serve as Nonresident Senior Fellows at the Atlantic Council. Their column appears in War on the Rocks every other Tuesday.

Read the Original Article at War on the Rocks

Examining the Future of Ground, Naval and Air Combat

The following are three articles from the Cipher Brief I collated into one big article for the convenience of reading it in one sitting. These are good, relevant and succinct articles with little fluff.-SF

 

Ground Warfare

 

After the United States emerged from the Vietnam War, it witnessed the events of the 1973 Yom Kippur War—a state-level conflict fought against Israel by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. That war underscored how far potential enemies had advanced in terms of weapons and tactics. The U.S. Army responded with a renewed focus on major combat operations, which entailed a combination of doctrine, training, and new weapon systems.

Those changes produced an efficient and lethal ground combat force, as Operation Desert Storm and initial combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom showed. But the focus was on state-level conflict. As such, these operations did not prepare the Army for the full spectrum of operations it has been called on to support.

In the future, the United States may face three types of adversaries—irregular, state-sponsored hybrid, and state adversaries. Non-state irregular forces typically are not well trained, have little formal discipline, and operate in small formations about the size of squads.

Middle adversaries are essentially state-sponsored hybrid forces characterized by capabilities on both ends of the spectrum. Thus, they have the same sorts of weapons that irregular forces have, but they have additional capabilities, such as anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and man-portable air defense weapons (MANPADs), and longer-range, larger-caliber rockets.

High-end adversaries are the forces of a nation state. They are hierarchically organized, ranging from battalion to brigade and larger formations. Their weapons span the spectrum of sophisticated weaponry, including air defenses, ballistic missiles, conventional ground and special operations forces, air and naval forces and, in some cases, nuclear weapons.

The U.S. military, particularly the Army, has been deeply engaged for over a decade in the irregular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has made significant adaptations to these types of adversaries. During the same time, Russia and China have been developing military capabilities designed to overmatch the United States and, particularly, to present challenges to U.S. forces attempting to project power into spaces they consider their privileged domains. While the United States may not fight Russia or China directly as state adversaries, it will surely face their military capabilities in the future, particularly among state-sponsored hybrid adversaries.

Such is already the case in state-sponsored hybrid operations in ongoing conflicts in the Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq. The Ukrainian conflict reflects a closer interaction between a state (Russia) and its proxy (Ukrainian Separatists), and the use of weaponry that the United States has not confronted since the Cold War in theory, and in practice, since the Vietnam War. In Syria, the Syrian rebels are asking for MANPADS to deal with Syrian and Russian air power. The Islamic State also has significant military capabilities, mainly captured from the Syrians and Iraqis, including tanks, a variety of MANPADS and ATGMs, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, and multiple rocket launchers.

All of this suggests the Army needs to pay attention to adversaries in the “middle”—that is, state-sponsored irregular forces. Such groups represent the type of adversary U.S. ground forces are likely to face. Also, capabilities that work against mid-tier adversaries buy the nation a decent start toward dealing with the high-end adversary, who will also use ATGMs and the like, in large numbers. The number of state-sponsored irregular forces is growing, and they employ a strategy focused on causing large numbers of casualties over an extended period of time—one that Western nations find most difficult to counter. In a sense, the United States is facing a situation like it faced after the 1973 war in Israel, except this time, state-sponsored hybrid actors—as well as state actors—are big challenges.

Read the Original Article at the Cipher Brief

 

Naval Warfare

The Cipher Brief:  How has the use of naval power changed since the end of the Cold War?  What adjustments has the U.S. Navy undergone to adapt to these changes? 

Thomas Mahnken:  Surface ships, submarines, and naval aircraft represent large capital investments that are designed to see service for decades.  It should, therefore, not be surprising that many of the world’s navies, including the U.S. Navy, still bear the heavy imprint of the Cold War.  That is less true of rapidly modernizing navies, such as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, a large portion of which was launched after the end of the Cold War.

One major change relating to naval power that has become increasingly prominent since the end of the Cold War, is the growth and spread of so-called anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, which are aimed at blunting the ability of navies to operate close to shore and, increasingly, farther out to sea.  The spread of precision-guided munitions, sensors, and command and control capabilities has rendered aircraft (including naval aircraft) and surface ships increasingly vulnerable.  As a result, submarines are playing, and will continue to play, an increasingly prominent role in sea power.

The U.S. Navy is still addressing the tactical, operational, and strategic implications of its forces becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the increasing A2/AD capabilities among its adversaries.  It is exploring ways to defend against anti-access/area denial threats, as well as operational concepts to negate those threats.

TCB: What have been the most significant technological developments or innovations in naval power since the Cold War ended?

TM:  There are several.  One of the most prominent has been the growth of unmanned systems, both in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but also unmanned surface vehicles (USV) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).  In coming years, we will see unmanned systems performing a growing range of missions, such as reconnaissance and targeting.

Other innovations that may bear fruit are sea-based laser weapons for air and missile defense, and electromagnetic rail guns.  The former, if it proves to be feasible, could transform the balance between missiles and missile defense.  The latter could do so as well but also could magnify the ability of naval forces to strike targets ashore.

TCB: What external and internal factors (i.e. rising powers, budgetary shifts, new leadership, etc.) have driven these changes in technology and use of naval power?

TM:  Changes in the Navy have been driven both by internal and external factors.  The Navy has faced constrained budgets, first during the post-Cold War drawdown, then during the Bush Administration’s buildup to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now still in a period of budget cutbacks.  It has sought ways to field larger numbers of less-capable ships, such as the Littoral Combat Ship, as a way of maintaining fleet size in an era of austerity.

In recent years, foreign military developments have increasingly driven naval technology, particularly as China acquires a more capable military and as Russia has become more assertive.  Whereas the United States has been focused on waging counterinsurgency campaigns in the Middle East, China has been focused on increasing its maritime and air power.  Russia remains a world-leader in missile technology, including sea-launched cruise missiles, as Moscow’s recent employment of sea- and submarine-launched land-attack cruise missiles against targets in Syria demonstrates.

TCB: Many presidential candidates are concerned that the naval fleet has shrunk over the years and indicate the U.S. needs a larger navy, with at least one suggesting 600 ships. Is that a false premise since warfare and ship capabilities have changed dramatically?  You mentioned the Navy has purchased less capable ships because of budget constraints.  What are they lacking?

TM: Both quantity and quality matter in naval warfare, in the 21^st century as in the past.  The size of the fleet matters, because demonstrating presence, deterring aggression, and reassuring allies are key naval missions and ships can only be in one place at a time.

But quality also matters: presence, deterrence, and reassurance rest on the foundation of credible combat power.  Ships, like the Littoral Combat Ship, were designed to be relatively inexpensive, but this has come at the expense of credible combat power, and that ultimately undermines their effectiveness in deterring aggressors and reassuring allies.

TCB: How is the Navy working with the private sector to develop new technology to face future threats?

TM:  I imagine that as long as the Navy faces highly constrained budgets, it will be asking more of private industry in terms of developing new technologies. It is likely that the Defense Department overall will seek more ideas from industry but will also expect industry to put up more of the up-front costs in developing them.

TCB:  How do you see the role of the Navy changing?

TM:  The Navy has not fought a war at sea against a major adversary since 1945, and has not faced a capable competitor since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.  The character of war is changing, and China is rapidly becoming a capable competitor. Both have considerable implications for the Navy: what it buys, the concepts it develops, and how it educates and trains its sailors.

All in all, the Navy faces an exciting and challenging period.

Read the Original Article at The Cipher Brief

Air Warfare

Three dramatic developments have occurred in the employment of U.S. air power in the past 25 years: the vulnerability of air defenses faced, leading to far less attrition of U.S. aircraft than was suffered previously; the ability to strike ground targets with great precision, day or night; and the ability to observe, track and target ground forces nearly continuously.  Each is complementary to the others, and together, they allow American air power to dominate the battlefield to a degree not approached before.  The enhanced capabilities reflect technological advances, limited capabilities of the adversaries faced, as well as adaptations by U.S. air forces that took advantage of the opportunities presented by these conditions.   It is important to emphasize that these were conditions, since trends can change and new conditions can well present new dangers.

Attacks on the Iraqi air defense system at the opening of the 1991 Gulf War exposed the vulnerability of air defenses to the integrated employment of several technologies: laser-guided bombs, anti-radiation missiles, and stealth aircraft, only the last of which was really new.  The United States had used laser-guided bombs and anti-radiation missiles extensively in the war in Vietnam 20 years prior, but their employment put the attacking aircraft in great danger, making their use problematic in highly contested airspace.  Laser–guided bombs on stealth aircraft presented an entirely new and effective attack mode. The stealth F-177s destroyed the Iraqi air defense system, making the radar missile sites vulnerable to the anti-radiation missiles.  As a result, these sites restricted their use of radar except for short periods, and when the severely outmatched Iraqi Air Force elected not to fly in opposition to the Coalition air attacks, the skies virtually belonged to the Coalition air forces.

These conditions occurred again over Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999.   Both Serbs and Iraqis recognized their best option was keeping air defense systems and aircraft protected for another day, or another war.  Over Afghanistan since 2001 and Iraq since 2003, U.S. air power faced negligible air defense threats.  Aircraft have remained vulnerable to heat-seeking missiles and anti-aircraft artillery when flying at low altitudes, but aircraft at 15 thousand feet and above have attained protected positions for conducting bombing or reconnaissance missions.

With medium altitudes protected against air defense systems in the Gulf War, precision bombing with laser guidance extended to the use by non-stealthy aircraft and against a wide range of targets, including aircraft on the ground, in and out of aircraft shelters, tanks, and other targets that required pin-point accuracy (precise to within several meters) to be effective.  The only defenses became smoke or clouds that obscured the targets, as laser-guidance could not penetrate them—a significant drawback to their use.

Within ten years, U.S. weapon development removed that limitation through the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) attachments (known as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits) to what had been free-fall bombs.  These weapons homed in on the GPS target coordinates with no post-launch guidance required.  First employed in the 1999 war over Kosovo and with accuracy similar to laser-guided bombs, both fighter aircraft as well as bombers (B-52, B-1 and B-2) employed JDAMS extensively in this and in all subsequent air campaigns.  With communication systems that tied aircraft together with ground units that could identify ground targets, JDAMs employment allowed an air/ground attack system heretofore regarded as ideal but not practical because of multiple limitations.

The third development, a dramatically enhanced reconnaissance capability, became a crucial factor in the 1991 Gulf War and has continued to improve since.   Two new technologies that made their appearance in the 1991 Gulf War served as the vehicles for change: the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft and the Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).  The JSTARS aircraft provided a wide-ranging view of the ground environment much as radars have provided for years a similar capability of airborne aircraft.  The Pioneer, a short range tactical reconnaissance platform used by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, complemented JSTARS for close-in views of the battlefield.  Quickly building on the success of the Pioneer, the more widely known Air Force Predator UAV took part in the war over Bosnia in 1995, and Predator came to be part of a veritable constellation of UAVs—Reaper, Global Hawk, Shadow, Raven—that have become operational since.  With long loiter time and full motion video of the ground, UAVs add perhaps the most important element of reconnaissance for ground forces.  Both JSTARS aircraft and UAVs can send a common view of ground actions and targets to ground force and command posts, allowing immediate reaction to the situations observed.  And, just as inevitably as reconnaissance aircraft in World War I began to carry bombs and guns, in short order, UAVs added missiles along with cameras, turning reconnaissance platforms into targeting and strike aircraft as well.

Technology alone has not brought these advances in operational capability of air forces.  An effective organization had to tie together and integrate reconnaissance, strike, and air superiority elements of air power.  That organization became a joint and combined air operations center, known by its familiar name, the CAOC (Combined Air and Space Operations Center).  Growing from Air Force-only operation centers, the CAOC had its most direct antecedent in the Gulf War and has served as the heart of planning and conducting air campaigns since.  The Center, housed in a single building with all service elements representatives present, brings a coherent and more total application of air power that previously possible.

With the number of advances described, one may have the temptation to see the dominance of American air power as an automatic U.S. advantage—as a right, not as a conditional situation that requires constant adaptation.  To the degree that perception exists, recall that U.S. experience since the end of the Cold War has faced opponents with air defenses that either were quickly neutralized or were opponents that had no air defense or significant air forces of their own.  Looking forward, the Air Force needs to anticipate less favorable contingencies, ones that could involve losses of bases or operations centers or in situations with far less permissive airspace in which to operate.  Those contingencies would require hardened bases, more stealth, and longer-range air systems, all taking part in a contested airspace environment.

 Read the Original Article at The Cipher Brief