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Begin New Search Topic Military Affairs Author Timothy A. Walton

1. Regaining the High Ground Against China: A Plan to Achieve US Naval Aviation Superiority This Decade

Author:
Bryan Clark and Timothy A. Walton
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps face growing challenges ranging from China and Russia to regional threats such as Iran and North Korea, all of whom seek to undermine their neighbors’ stability and revise geopolitical relationships in their favor. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn, each of these potential adversaries continued to improve its military capabilities, especially the number and reach of precision missiles able to strike U.S. allies and slow or prevent intervention by U.S. naval forces. Supported by commercial and military surveillance networks in every domain, weapons located on adversary territory are capable of threatening U.S. and allied ships, troop formations, and aircraft hundreds of miles away. U.S. naval aviation risks sliding into irrelevance unless Navy and Marine Corps leaders embrace organizational and investment changes that would enable more effective operational concepts against peer adversaries. To support the approaches, naval air forces will need greater reach, adaptability, and capacity, which this study proposes to address by changing the composition of carrier air wings and repurposing aircraft based ashore or on surface combatants and amphibious ships. Rebalancing naval aviation primarily involves force management, supported by additional procurement or modification of existing aircraft and payloads. This contrasts with prevailing Navy and Marine Corps plans, which sustain the existing force with minimal improvements while prioritizing development of next-generation capabilities. Not only does this approach fail to address the urgent nature of Russian and Chinese threats, but it also perpetuates the Navy’s expectation that revolutionary new capabilities will fix problems that demand tactical, organizational, or adaptive technical solutions. That strategy failed to deliver in the cases of the Littoral Combat Ship, Zumwalt-class destroyer, and Ford-class carrier. The F/A-XX program for a sixth-generation air superiority fighter-even if successful-is unlikely to transform naval aviation but could consume resources needed to address peer adversaries during the next decade. The shortfalls facing naval airpower against the People’s Republic of China are significant, but not insurmountable. Analysts have pronounced the death of the aircraft carrier several times since the end of World War II, but by exploiting its adaptability and mobility U.S. naval forces could remain relevant against peer opponents despite the emergence of long-range sensor and precision weapon networks. However, achieving the reach and capacity necessary to counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific will depend on carriers focusing on the mission only they can do sustainably and at scalelong-range counter-air and strike warfare. Navy and Marine Corps leaders have an opportunity to substantially improve the ability of maritime airpower to influence events in the Indo-Pacific. However, rebalancing naval aviation will require overcoming cultural, organizational, and programmatic hurdles. As described in this report, the necessary changes are possible and affordable, but only if naval leaders embrace the urgency of their challenges and do not continue to hope they can continue to push their problems-and solutions-out into the future.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Navy, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

2. Implementing Decision-Centric Warfare: Elevating Command and Control to Gain an Optionality Advantage

Author:
Bryan Clark, Dan Patt, and Timothy A. Walton
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Since the Cold War ended, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has developed doctrine and capabilities predominantly for the most stressing campaigns it could face against opponents such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and North Korea. These worst-case scenarios are intended to ensure US forces can address “lesser-included” cases as well. This approach, however, favors concepts and systems designed for large-scale, high-intensity military conflict, and intelligent US adversaries are unlikely to present US forces with confrontations where DoD could leverage its strengths in missions such as power projection or precision strike. America’s rivals have evolved approaches during the past decade to circumvent US military strengths, such as PRC and Russian gray-zone or hybrid operations, that obtain objectives at lower cost and escalation—albeit over longer timeframes—than traditional military combat. DoD should therefore revise its planning to raise the priority of new scenarios that stress the US military in different ways than theater-wide high-intensity combat such as through protraction, varying levels of escalation and scale, and the use of proxy and paramilitary forces. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) concept of System Destruction Warfare and the Russian military’s New Generation Warfare are representative of the new approaches being employed against the United States and its allies. Although they are very different in their theory of victory and methodology, both concepts share a focus on information and decision-making as the main battlegrounds for future conflict. They direct attacks on an opponent’s battle network electronically and physically to degrade its ability to obtain accurate information while introducing false information that erodes the opponent’s ability to orient. Simultaneously, military and paramilitary forces would present dilemmas to the opponent by isolating or attacking targets in a manner that neutralized their combat potential and controlled the escalation of a conflict.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

3. The Invisible Battlefield: A Technology Strategy for US Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority

Author:
Bryan Clark, Timothy A. Walton, Melinda Tourangeau, and Steve Tourangeau
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is a uniquely challenging environment for military operations. Unlike objects physically moving through the air or along the ground or sea, electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light and cannot be easily contained by walls, boundaries, or exclusion zones. As a result, military EMS activities such as sensing, communications, and electromagnetic warfare (EW) are difficult to separate from one another or from civilian users. The constraints on military EMS access will only grow with the need to allocate spectrum to 5G mobile communications, expanded Wi-Fi coverage, and ubiquitous sensing and communications on vehicles and consumer products. Adversaries, most prominently the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation, are also countering US military operations in the EMS. They are using passive sensors and jammers to exploit the dependence of expeditionary US forces on active radars for air defense and long-range radio frequency (RF) communications for command and control (C2). As the “home team” in most likely military conflicts, US adversaries can rely to a greater degree on wired communications, multistatic and passive sensing, and their understanding of local conditions to gain an advantage in a highly contested electromagnetic environment. Addressing challenges to US EMS operations will become more difficult as defense budgets come under pressure from costs to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, respond to economic recession, and service the growing national debt. Given the growing variety of adversary countermeasures and diverse demands for commercial spectrum, attempting to modify or replace Department of Defense (DoD) EMS systems so they avoid specific threats and civilian encroachments is likely to be unaffordable and continually late to need. DoD’s forecast-centric planning approach, embodied in the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS), is ill-suited to identify capabilities that solve DoD’s EMS challenges in a fiscally constrained and technologically dynamic environment. Forecast-centric planning bases new requirements on the anticipated gaps between capabilities needed to execute desired concepts in future operations and a military force’s current or projected capabilities. This analytic approach depends on assumptions regarding the scenarios in which conflict is likely to occur, the capabilities and tactics to be used by opponents, and the probable actions of US allies and partners. The need to make multiple, interdependent assumptions reduces the accuracy of forecast-centric planning, and when assumptions prove incorrect, budget constraints could reduce the force’s ability to adapt. To regain enduring EMS superiority under today’s conditions of technological and fiscal uncertainty, DoD will need to adopt a decision-centric planning approach in which adaptability is a more important metric than predicted performance against a particular threat in a specific scenario. In contrast with forecast-centric planning’s mobilization of resources to efficiently develop a single solution, decision-centric planning would seek to preserve options for as long as possible within a mission or over a competition. Within operational timeframes, the optionality afforded by a more adaptable force could allow commanders to make faster and more effective decisions, while the complexity imposed on the enemy would degrade its decision-making process. Over strategic and industrial timescales, increasing the adaptability of military systems speeds responses to adversary innovations or enables capability developers to leap ahead of an opponent’s advancements. Adaptability, however, is not sufficient to gain an advantage if the option space is not centered on advantageous capabilities. For example, high-power broadcast radios or scanning search radars can be made highly adaptable using artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled controls, but their risk of counter-detection makes them a poor choice for operations against revisionist powers like the PRC that can deploy numerous distributed passive radiofrequency (RF) sensors in areas where they intend to initiate conflict. This study will use the technique of net assessment to center the option space for new EMS technologies on areas that exploit fundamental asymmetries between the US military and its main competitors.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
United States of America

4. Sustaining the Undersea Advantage: Transforming Anti-Submarine Warfare Using Autonomous Systems

Author:
Bryan Clark, Seth Cropsey, and Timothy A. Walton
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Submarines have posed a challenge to naval forces for more than a century, enabling weaker maritime powers to launch surprise attacks ashore or cut an opponent off from the sea. But submarine threats, and the difficulty of countering them, increased substantially for the United States and its allies during the past decade. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is modernizing its fleet with conventional air-independent propulsion submarines (SSPs) that support its broader sensor and weapon networks. It is also fielding nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN) and ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) capable of longer or more distant deployments. New generations of Russian Federation Navy (RFN) SSNs are difficult to track and could be employed for conventional or nuclear strikes during a conflict. Both countries are augmenting their submarine fleets with large autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) incorporating submarine like capabilities. Modern submarine technology has also proliferated, with the North Korean and Iranian navies using submarines and AUVs to level the playing field with their larger regional competitors and the United States. Unfortunately, the current US and allied approach to antisubmarine warfare (ASW) is unlikely to cope with the probable scale of undersea threats in a crisis or conflict. US Navy ASW concepts rely on fixed seabed sensors such as the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) or Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) ships to detect and initially track submarines. Multiple maritime patrol aircraft and guided missile destroyers (DDGs) then track each adversary submarine before potentially passing it to an SSN for longerterm surveillance. This approach works when opposing submarines deploy infrequently but is likely to break down during a large-scale submarine deployment or as submarines become quieter and harder to track. When manned platforms and expendables such as sonobuoys or torpedoes run out or are needed elsewhere, ASW operations will necessarily collapse to a defensive strategy protecting high-value targets, instead of suppressing enemy submarine operations closer to the adversary’s waters. This may result in unlocated adversary submarines operating in the open ocean, where they could threaten US and allied shipping and maritime operations.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Maritime, Automation, and Submarines
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America