Testimony by Andrew Krepinevich, Executive Director, before the Senate Armed Services AirLand Subcommittee

“Our vision can be characterized in one word: Transformation.”

Secretary of Defense William Cohen Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 5, 1998

• The current military regime is characterized by the U.S. military’s dominance of the air against would-be adversaries possessing air forces that are, in their general orientation, essentially symmetrical to ours. This regime, however, is unlikely to endure beyond the near- to mid-term future. The future conflict environment will present challenges that are dramatically different from those confronted by our armed forces during the Cold War and even in the Persian Gulf War. Consequently, our current concept of tactical air forces will likely have to change dramatically.

• Surprisingly, however, the focus of our current tactical aircraft modernization program — the F-22, F/A-18E/F, and Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft — seems to presume that the future will resemble the recent past; i.e., that:

• an adequate forward-basing structure will exist in future contingencies;

• our tactical air forces will be accorded access (indeed, early access) by prospective host nations in the theater of operations;

• these bases will remain sanctuaries from enemy attack;

• carriers, although operating close to the shore, will remain very difficult to detect and engage; and

• future adversaries will present a symmetric challenge to our air forces by emphasizing manned air forces as opposed to developing missile forces as part of an asymmetric strategy designed — not to engage our tactical fighter aircraft directly — but, rather to defeat them indirectly by placing their forward bases at risk.

In addressing these challenges, I believe we will find air power critical to our overall military effectiveness, and tactical air forces an important instrument of air power. However, I also believe we will require a substantially different mix of capabilities than exist today, or that are called for in the Defense Department’s tactical air force modernization plan, to address both traditional and prospective tactical air force missions.

Our modernization program risks locking us into a single long-term tactical air power posture. To do so is, in effect, to assume away uncertainty and the possibility that future threats may look quite different from those we face today. Put another way, the current program places a strong bet that the challenges we will face over the next thirty years will look very similar to the one we encountered in Desert Storm. Instead of reducing our options for the future, we should be avoiding “lock in” by experimenting with a wide range of capabilities, warfighting concepts, and military organizations to identify those best suited to meet future requirements, while also eschewing large-scale serial production of a few systems. Such an approach would be consistent with Defense Secretary Cohen’s vision of the need to transform the U.S. military, and also with the Department’s contention that we are in the midst of a period of military revolution. In summary, we must develop a strategy to guide the transformation of our tactical air forces, and we must develop it now.

The Emerging Threat to U.S. Power Projection
THE “ANTI-ACCESS” CHALLENGE
The Joint Chiefs of Staff’s vision document, Joint Vision 2010, argues that the future will find the U.S. military operating in an environment of high uncertainty, faced with challenges very different from those encountered in the Cold War or the Gulf War. It notes that

Accelerating rates of change will make the future environment more unpredictable and less stable, presenting our armed forces with a wide range of plausible futures. [emphasis added]

Yet the Joint Chiefs also recognize that future power-projection operations may have to be executed far differently in the future than they have been in the past, declaring

Our most vexing future adversary may be one who can use military technology to make rapid improvements in its military capabilities that provide asymmetrical counters to U.S. military strengths . . . (emphasis added).

• Base access may be denied for political reasons. As the rigid U.S. Cold War alliance structure is increasingly replaced by “coalitions of the willing,” friendly nations may be more reluctant to grant U.S. forces the use of their bases. Recent experience indicates this is already a problem in the Persian Gulf region, and likely to become one in Northeast Asia once the North Korean regime passes from the scene.

• Bases may simply not be available. The problem here is geographic. Simply stated, it is not clear that, in the future, we will find ourselves projecting power into a region that contains the kind of base structure that we developed during the Cold War in Europe, Northeast Asia, or the Persian Gulf. No comparable base structure exists, for example, to support U.S. power projection operations in the Spratlys, Indonesia, or South Asia.

• Most importantly, forward bases will be denied as military technology diffuses and other militaries develop what might be termed “anti-access” capabilities. Competitive military organizations that have the incentive to develop an anti-access capability will not likely be frustrated for long. Today’s space-based military systems, precision-guided munitions (PGMs), and stealth may seem the exclusive province of the U.S. military. But this state of affairs almost certainly will not endure over the long term. Eventually, the ever-increasing engagement envelopes and strike capabilities of major power and rogue state militaries alike will lead to the creation of formidable anti-access barriers to power-projection forces, including naval surface combatants operating in the littoral. Once this transformation occurs, it will alter dramatically our traditional notions regarding the benefits of forward-deployed forces, and of seizing and occupying forward bases.

Saturation ballistic missile attacks against littoral forces, ports, airfields, storage facilities, and staging areas could make it extremely costly to project U.S. forces into a disputed theater, much less carry out operations to defeat a well-armed aggressor. Simply the threat of such enemy missile attacks might deter U.S. and coalition partners form responding to aggression in the first instance. [emphasis added]

Over the past ten years, it has become evident that proliferating weapon and information technologies will enable our foes to attack the ports and airfields needed for the forward deployment of our land-based forces.

I anticipate that the next century will see those foes striving to target concentrations of troops and materiel ashore and attack our forces at sea and in the air. This is more than a sea-denial threat or a Navy problem. It is an area-denial threat whose defeat or negation will become the single most crucial element in projecting and sustaining U.S. military power where it is needed. [emphasis added]

is, by far the trickiest part of the American operational problem. This is the proverbial “Achilles heel.” India needs to study the vulnerabilities and create cover and overt bodies to develop plans and execute operations to degrade these facilities in the run up to and after commencement of hostilities. Scope exists for low cost options to significantly reduce the combat potential of forces operating from these facilities.

As competitors erect anti-access barriers, U.S. tactical air forces, as currently constituted, will find themselves increasingly at risk, whether they are at forward bases, attempting to deploy to such bases, or operating in the littoral.

Land-based Tactical Air Forces. Although great powers have traditionally viewed their forward-based forces both as means to deter would-be enemies and reassure allies and friends, this will likely change markedly in the coming years. Forward bases —those huge, sprawling complexes that bring to mind such places as Clark Air Base, Subic Bay, and Dhahran—seem destined to be increasingly seen as potential liabilities, not precious assets. As General Fogleman, Admiral Johnson and Brigadier Nair noted, the reasons for this are clear: as both great powers and rogue states acquire ever greater numbers of long-range systems (e.g., ballistic and low-observable cruise missiles), highly effective munitions (e.g., PGMs; nuclear, chemical, and biological munitions), and far more sophisticated C4ISR assets (e.g., fiber-optic networks, and access to commercial communication, imaging, and positioning satellites), forward bases will become far more vulnerable than they are today.

Under these conditions, such bases, far from deterring potential aggressors, could have the ironic effect of eroding deterrence. Absent truly heroic advancements in our missile defenses, or effective preemptive long-range precision strike (LRPS) against threatening long-range weapons (or a combination of both), U.S. forward-based forces will find themselves increasingly in the role of hostages to enemy long-range strike forces. Instead of reassuring friends and allies in the region, these bases could be a source of anxiety. Rather than a source of stability in a crisis, forward-based forces may encourage one side or both toward preemptive strikes: either against the base before its assets can be dispersed, or against the potential aggressor in an attempt to disarm it of its long-range strike capability.

Sea-Based Tactical Air Forces. The importance of projecting sea-based air power (to include extended-range missile strikes) early in a conflict will likely grow as access to, and defense of, fixed forward air bases becomes increasingly problematic. However, carriers are likely to become more vulnerable over the next decade or two, a trend that will not likely be easily (or cheaply) reversed. This growing vulnerability has both doctrinal and technological roots. The Navy’s growing emphasis on littoral warfare will see carriers operating less in the broad expanses of the world’s oceans and more along the shores of would-be hostile states. The relatively short range of carrier-based strike aircraft will not ease the carrier’s dilemma, in which greater target coverage ashore is gained at the expense of increased risk to the carrier and its 5,000 sailors, as well as the other ships of the battle group. As the carriers are forced to “belly up” to the coast, they will become increasingly easy to find, while their attack warning time will decrease. Transiting choke points like the Strait of Hormuz will become increasingly hazardous. This situation will likely be exacerbated by the diffusion of advanced targeting technologies (e.g., communications, positioning, and imaging satellites) and weapon technologies (e.g., submarines, anti-ship missiles, anti-ship mines, and longer-range strike systems such as ballistic/cruise missiles and high-performance aircraft), which may combine to increase substantially the carriers’ vulnerability.

Moreover, carriers have, over time, seen many of their unique features eroded by technology. For example, the carrier displaced the battleship as the capital ship in large part because of its strike range advantage. But now that advantage has been eroded by other ships carrying long-range PGMs, and by long-range bombers. Whether it is the strikes on Baghdad during the Gulf War, or retaliatory strikes against Iraq after the Gulf War, or punitive strikes in Bosnia, increasingly the weapon of choice—the Tomahawk Land-Attack Cruise Missile, or “TLAM”—combines long range and precision, qualities not well represented in carrier-based aircraft. To these characteristics one should add stealth.

Meeting the Challenge
Meeting this challenge will be far from easy. Our military will have to exploit fully the potential of new technologies and systems within innovative operational concepts, executed by substantially altered or, in some cases, entirely new types of military organizations.

Establishing command of the air is likely to be less and less a matter of clearing the skies of enemy manned aircraft, and increasingly linked to denying an enemy the ability to employ his long-range precision strike assets (e.g., ballistic and cruise missiles, UAVs and UCAVs), and of suppressing the enemy’s information, air, and missile defenses. Establishing information superiority, or creating a favorable information “gap” between friendly and enemy forces, will likely play an important role in operations designed to establish control of the air. Defeating an enemy’s air and missile forces could be accomplished through a variety of means. For example, it could involve striking the enemy’s fixed air and missile bases from peripheral bases (see below) at extended ranges. Or we might employ a dispersed, distributed ground-based air and missile defense force. We might also employ long-loiter, extended-range combat air patrols to engage enemy aircraft while in the air, or enemy mobile missiles on the ground. More likely, we will find ourselves employing some mix of all of these, and other means as well.

With forward air bases likely to be highly vulnerable, air power may become more diffused. Three force elements may combine to conduct initial long-range precision strike operations (LRPS). A land-based air strike element could employ long-range manned and unmanned stealthy air platforms and cruise missiles (and, eventually, long-range stealthy “arsenal aircraft” employing scores of long-range PGMs and/or deploying and recovering UCAVs). A sea-based strike element might conduct initial LRPS with long-range low-observable cruise missiles, launched from arsenal ships or “stealth battleships” (i.e., converted Trident submarines, or SSGNs). Finally, if friendly ground forces are forward-based in the theater of operations, and if they have dispersed prior to enemy LRPS, these forces might execute strikes with improved successors to the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), along with UCAVs and perhaps even helicopters capable of operating in austere support environments. These initial LRPS elements could also “thicken” the theater reconnaissance architecture simultaneously with the execution of their initial strikes. Long-range manned and unmanned stealth aircraft may dispense UAVs and sensors along with their lethal cargo, as might similar maritime strike platforms.

In an anti-access regime, if traditional tactical air forces—both land- and carrier-based—must be stationed in theater, they will probably be forced to offset their growing vulnerability through a combination of relatively expensive actions, to include increased alert levels, hardened shelters, ever thicker missile defenses, and dispersal. Peripheral basing might also be explored, in which our tactical air forces are deployed initially to bases on the periphery of the theater of operations, outside the range of most, or all, enemy LRPS forces. The viability of an operational concept that relies on peripheral bases will likely be a function of myriad factors, including aircraft range and stealth (i.e., ability to avoid detection), range to target, range of standoff munitions, air refueling assets, number and “durability” of in-theater support bases (the more useable “aim points,” the greater the flexibility in choosing attack options and the more difficult an enemy’s choice of targets), alternative means for carrying out the mission, and their cost.

These prospective options may be most attractive to those military organizations that have failed to transform their strategic power-projection forces. However, they are likely to prove only a “halfway house” option on the way to a very different kind of air power force structure, rather than a long-term solution for projecting air power. In summary, it seems likely that U.S. air forces will, over time, need to decrease substantially their reliance on land- and sea- based manned tactical aircraft while increasing their reliance on unmanned tactical air systems and precision munitions that incorporate stealth and extended range.

Glimmerings of this trend toward increased range and precision are already in evidence, beginning with the Gulf War in 1991. For example:

• During Desert Storm in January-February 1991 the U.S. military fired 297 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and 39 conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCMs), for a total of 336. In December 1998, during Operation Desert Fox, 330 Tomahawks were fired along with 90 conventional air-launched cruise missiles, for a total of 420 cruise missile strikes. In comparing the first four days of Desert Storm with the four days of Desert Fox, one finds cruise missiles expenditure increases from 259 to 420, an increase of over 60 percent.

• Manned aircraft delivered 230 PGMs in Desert Fox, compared with 420 PGMs delivered by unmanned, extended-range systems (i.e., cruise missiles).

• The TLAM has increasingly become the strike weapon of choice for the U.S. Navy. It fired 297 during the Gulf War, 71 in reprisal strikes on Iraq in 1993, 13 in the Bosnia strikes in 1995, 79 in reprisal strikes against Osama Bin Laden in 1998, and 330 last December in Desert Fox.

• Spending on precision-guided munitions has actually decreased over the last eight years as a percentage of the defense budget.

• The arsenal ship, which would have had a magazine capable of accommodating 500 TLAMs, was cancelled.

• The military’s sole long-range strike platform, the B-2 bomber, each of which is capable of carrying 16 2,000-pound PGMs, had its production terminated.

• Funding for converting Trident SSBNs into TLAM-carrying “stealth battleships” remains uncertain.

• Funding for the development of extended-range UAVs and UCAVs may be crowded out by the need to sustain the rapidly expanding tactical air force modernization budget.

• Needed: A Transformation Strategy for our Tactical Air Forces

• The preceding discussion suggests that we should accord substantially greater emphasis to:

• Preparing for the emerging challenges that seem certain to pose substantially greater threats to our security than those we confront today, while accepting increased risk over the near-term future, if need be, while the threats to U.S. security are relatively low;

• Hedging against the possibility that our vision of the future conflict environment will be wide of the mark, a nontrivial possibility given the relatively high level of geopolitical and military-technical uncertainty against which we must plan; and

• Enhancing our organizational flexibility, or agility, in order to adapt quickly and effectively, as necessary, as time passes and the future competitive environment comes into clearer focus.

Moving away from a reductionist approach to planning tactical air force modernization, and toward an integrated, joint approach. Our tactical air forces do not operate in a vacuum. They operate in conjunction with other force elements (e.g., other strike elements, C4ISR elements) within a joint framework. Thus the scale, scope and form of tactical air force modernization should be considered within a broad framework. We should give serious consideration to systems that are not part of the tactical air forces by definition, but which can perform some tactical air force missions. These systems might include missile firing ships (e.g., naval surface combatants with vertical launch system (VLS) capabilities, converted Trident SSBNs, and other submersibles), land-based extended-range precision artillery (e.g., ATACMS follow-ons), long-range bombers, UCAVs, and UAVs, to name a few. These systems and capabilities should be evaluated primarily in terms of their contribution to a joint operational concept designed to meet future challenges, such as projecting power in the absence of forward bases, or achieving air superiority against a missile force (as opposed to an air force).

Engaging in vigorous experimentation, testing and evaluation. Last year Secretary of Defense Cohen, following discussions with key congressional leaders, charged Atlantic Command with the responsibility of conducting joint experiments designed to support his goal of transforming the U.S. military. Aggressive experimentation directed toward developing those new systems and operational concepts that we will need to solve tomorrow’s challenges is needed before we lock ourselves in to a thirty-year-plus tactical air power posture. During previous periods of military transformation, experimentation proved critical in determining whether existing “legacy” systems would function well in post-transformation conflict environments. Experiments also helped to identify what new capabilities were required to succeed in the future, to include their design parameter tradeoffs (e.g., range, armor, speed, etc.). Depending upon the operational concepts derived to address the anti-access problem, this could lead to according higher priority to developing:

• Stealthy long-range UAVs and UCAVs;

• Stealthy long-range “arsenal aircraft” capable of carrying, launching and recovering scores of UAVs and UCAVs;

• Semi-submerged or submerged arsenal ships and “stealth battleships” (i.e., converted Trident submarines);

• Aircraft carriers configured as long-range UAV and UCAV launch and recovery platforms;

• Mobile offshore bases (MOBs) to serve as mobile “peripheral” bases;

• Stealthy long-range cargo aircraft and unmanned aerial cargo vehicles with precision airdrop capability to reinforce forward-deployed extended-range precision strike forces without relying on a fixed base structure;

• Improved information-based capabilities for use on a variety of platforms to include: enhanced stealth, deception, concealment/cloaking capabilities; enhanced electronic strike and electronic defense capabilities, and other related capabilities;

• The integration of military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); command, control, communications, and computers (C4); and LRPS systems into systems architectures; and

• Advanced precision-guided munitions (including extended-range PGMs and PGMs for use against hardened point targets).

This process of experimentation and innovation will be critically important, as military effectiveness is likely to be increasingly a function of the ability to integrate, at high levels of proficiency, systems architectures comprising military systems from all the Services, as well as allied forces. History shows that, in undertaking transformational change, military organizations do not often “get it right” on the first try; rather, a series of experiments and exercises is typically required to perfect the equipment and the operational concept—to find out what works, and what does not. The process offers perhaps the best chance of facilitating an effective transformation to the tactical air force of the future. However, it will not likely be an efficient transformation in the sense that there will almost certainly be some “false starts” and “dead ends.”² In short, it will be, at times, a frustrating process, although it does not have to be an expensive one.

Adopting a “hedging” approach to tactical air force modernization. During the Cold War our tactical air forces were confronted with a major competitor, the Soviet Union, which aggressively pursued improvements in its defense capital stock of aircraft, munitions, satellites, etc. Change was, for the most part, evolutionary. Thanks both to the geopolitical revolution, which has left us without a major immediate competitor, and the emerging military revolution, which promises to depreciate some capital stock at an accelerated rate, this competitive environment no longer obtains.

With uncertainty high and the potential for change great, and where a major challenge, if it appears at all, will only develop over the long term, a different approach to managing our tactical air force modernization is warranted. This is even more true when one considers the Pentagon’s current fiscal situation.

We should pursue a “hedging” strategy in developing a defense capital stock mix for the future, buying strategic “options” that can be exercised should the need arise. The strategy involves:

• Minimizing serial production runs of new systems under all but two circumstances: first, when the new system offers a major boost in military effectiveness that solves a major strategic or operational problem; second, when existing systems have reached the end of their useful lives, and replacements are needed to provide continued capabilities essential to effective future long-term operations. This means scaling back the F-22 and F/A-18 E/F programs to low, slow rate production, and extending the JSF’s development.

• Increasing emphasis on experimenting with limited numbers of a wide range of emerging systems (see above), for two reasons. First, it is unwise to invest any more than necessary in military systems during a period of rapid progression in military-related technologies, when even new systems may experience rapid obsolescence. Rather, it is better to buy a few systems to determine their potential utility, and to hedge against the possibility that a threat may appear relatively suddenly. Second, experimenting with limited (but operationally significant) numbers allows us to examine a wider array of potential capabilities. Among the candidates for additional investment would be the:

• Army’s under-funded Strike Force experimental unit (reconfigured to address the anti-access challenge);

• Navy’s conversion of four Trident SSBNs to SSGNs, expanded experimentation with its Sea Shadow “Street Fighter” strike ship, and upgrade of its existing tactical air fleet to accommodate reduced F/A-18 E/F buys;

• Air Force’s upgrade of its existing tactical air fleet of F-15 and F-16 aircraft, and accelerated development of UAV and UCAVs (with the latter, ideally, to compete with the JSF);

• Accelerated development of precision-guided munitions, both to replenish stocks depleted during recent military operations, and to accommodate future systems (e.g., UCAVs, extended-range ATACMS)

• Accelerated development of C4ISR systems and architectures needed to integrate the increase in extended-range strike operations that will likely be required to project power in an anti-access environment (e.g., remotely deployed unattended ground sensors; space-based radar)

• Preserving critical capabilities that might be foregone. In particular, we should preserve our existing long-range precision strike capability. The objective here is to maintain a “hedge” LRPS capability until the development of other systems (e.g., stealthy, long-range weaponized UAVs, long-range stealthy air-launched cruise missiles), provides superior alternatives to the existing force.

The U.S. military will have to undertake a major transformation if it is to meet emerging challenges and exploit new opportunities in a way that will preserve its current relative advantages, and sustain U.S. national interests. Because military transformation often takes a decade or more, and because our tactical air force modernization will introduce new systems intended to meet the challenges of 2020 as well as the challenges of 2000, it is important that we begin now to develop a transformation strategy for our tactical air forces that can be put into effect in the near-term future.

©1999 Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. All Rights Reserved.

1. A major shortcoming of employing cruise missiles is their relatively high cost. As conceived, UCAVs can be viewed as reusable cruise missiles (i.e., they would deliver precision ordnance without putting a pilot at risk). If stealthy UCAVs had the same high survivability as other stealth aircraft, they could do much to reduce the cost problem associated with cruise missile employment.

2. As employed here, “false starts” refers to fielding prematurely a new military system that will eventually exert a major influence, or even dominate, a post-transformation military regime. Examples of this phenomenon include the U.S. Navy’s early preference for small carriers, and the Royal Navy’s early class of torpedo boat destroyers. “Dead ends” refers to fielding a military system that appears capable of dominating a post-transformation regime, but which proves ineffective in that role. Examples of “dead ends” include Germany’s development of the zeppelin for strategic bombing, Great Britain’s attempt to employ fast battle cruisers as the capital ship following the dreadnought revolution, and the U.S. Navy’s brief love affair with flying deck cruisers.