Nowadays, though, the US is on the losing end of most “cost-imposition” competitions, with threats like roadside bombs and naval mines costing far less than the countermeasures America is forced to buy to protect its forces. So what are today’s equivalents of smart bombs and stealth in the seventies, military technologies with a potential long-term payoff that could swing the balance in America’s favor?
“Robotics,” Krepinevich said immediately in an interview with AOL Defense, prior to the report’s release. (“Strategy In Austerity” itself is relatively silent on such recommendations). What’s killing us today — sometimes literally, sometimes just financially — is the difficulty of defending our troops against relatively cheap attacks, he said: “To the extent you can take people out of the vehicles, then the requirements for force protection are dramatically reduced.”
Energy efficiency is another area of research that can save both money and lives, Krepinevich continued. The current force burns huge amounts of fuel, not just for vehicles on the move but for generators to power sensors, radios, and computer networks on base. Getting all that gas to forward bases was a big burden even in oil-rich Iraq, let alone in remote, rugged Afghanistan. Fuel convoys not only cost money to run but put lots of military and contractor personnel on the roads in unarmored vehicles full of an explosive substance, a recipe for casualties. Fuel efficiency and alternative power sources take some of those vulnerable tankers off the road.
A slightly longer shot still worth pursuing, Krepinevich added, is materials science: A breakthrough in new, lighter, stronger forms of armor could rebalance a tactical and budgetary context which currently requires bulky, expensive protection — an MRAP for example — against cheap forms of attack like IEDs. And CSBA has already put out a whole report on what it sees as the near-term potential for laser weapons to protect US forces by shooting down incoming missiles.