Challenging Times Ahead
Are We Prepared To Accept Them?

Contributing Editor Vice Adm (Retd) IQBAL F QUADIR foresees hard times in the future and questions whether we are ready to face the situation

What are these changes? Politically, the emergence of uncertainty while a new world order takes shape after the implosion of Soviet Union together with its aggressive Communism. Scientifically, the technological revolution which has come about in the last half of this century, foremost being electronics, metallurgy, nuclear engineering and information technology. These together with the more recent advent of high speed computers and digitization of information transfer has ushered in a new era for military technology, communications and organization. Entirely new vistas are now open for the thinking and for those willing to accept the challenge of change. The boundaries for these are limitless as those for universe itself.

Admiral Owens, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a nuclear submariner who has commanded the U.S. Sixth Fleet operating in the Mediterranean Sea, recently wrote an interesting article on this subject in the United States Naval Proceedings. For the benefit of readers of the Defence Journal I have reproduced extracts from the same article in the following paragraphs. I hope the readers would find them stimulating - both in thought and action.

While Department of Defense officials often note we live in revolutionary times, we do not always describe what this portends for the kind of military forces the nation should have in the future. They are still reverberating from the collapse of the Soviet Union and how relatively constrained budgets will force tough decisions; and about the promise of advanced technology. Yet, the most profound implication of the new era often goes unremarked: namely, that the basic rationale for defense planning has shifted from threat to capability and from liability to opportunity. The implications of this shift are not easy to grasp. As long as we had an identifiable threat, we could focus on what we required to counter that threat. Now, we are freer to think in term of shaping the future. We must face the issue of the political purpose of military force directly. We must design military forces more specifically in terms of their political purposes. In short, we must rebuild an intellectual framework that links our forces our policy, no small a task in a revolutionary era. Each of the military services has wrestled with these issues over the last several years. Interestingly each points toward the capacity to use military force with greater precision, less risk, and more effectiveness. Each relies on three areas of technology:

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).
Advanced command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (Advanced C4 I).
Precision-guided munitions (PGMs)

Weapons and Systems In or Entering U. S. Military Inventories are :

  Each recognizes that its efforts are part of a broader undertaking. This is revolution in joint military affairs. Requirements to change the Commanders in Chief (Theater Commanders i.e., Commander-in-Chief United States Forces in the Pacific CINCPAC), JROC, and Joint Chiefs of Staff roles in the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). Changing times require changes to planning processes that were built for an era that has passed. By realizing what is emerging from past in the general areas of ISR, C4 I, and PGMs. The interactions and synergism of these systems constitute something new and very important. It is the creation of a new system of systems. As this concept emerges, it will carry with it the new revolution in military affairs and a new appreciation of joint military operations, for this revolution depends ultimately on a common appreciation what we are building, and a common military doctrine.

Battlespace Awareness rests on the sensing and reporting technologies and includes both the platforms and sensors we associate with intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance, and reporting systems, and electromagnetic characteristics of any arena in which we may use forces. Advanced C4 I is the sub-system that rests on technologies associated with transferring information and sifting through data to extract information. It converts the understanding of the battlespace into missions and assignments designed to alter, control, and dominate that space. Concerning Precision Force Use, we perceive it as the domain of precision guided weaponry, which it certainly includes. It also includes, however, other ways of using force precisely - such as offensive information warfare. The framework also offers some guidance on the three core technologies that power the new system of systems: digitization, computer processing, and global positioning. (Hand held Ground Position Indicators with an accuracy of 1 - 3 meters are now commercially available).

Digitization permits information to be manipulated, enhanced, and compressed for transmission: computer processing speeds this up; and global positioning allows precise, real-time location and targeting of anything tangible. These are the driving technologies for locating and identifying targets, transferring that information to shooters , and guiding the precision application of force onto the target. Today, the center of technological acceleration in each of these technologies lies generally in the commercial, non-defense sectors, Our ability to accelerate the fielding of the system of systems, thus depends on our capacity to tap into developments taking place for the most part outside the existing Department of Defense laboratory and development infrastructure.

It is not the kind of conceptual framework that leads immediately into discussions of numbers of Army divisions, or aircraft carriers, or air wings, or the supporting infrastructure for these traditional measures of military capability. Indeed, it does not say much about traditional force structure at all. This is not to discount the importance of such traditional issues, but our conceptual approach focuses on more direct measures of military effectiveness. It is a joint perspective, a framework that frees us from sterile debates about how many divisions or how many carriers - and permits us to focus on far more important issues such as the character of our forces and the manner in which they can work synergistically to increase our military capability. Finally, the illustration gives us a sense of the relationship between force planning and foreign policy. All nations have or can buy many of the core technologies but the US systems in each of these areas are far more capable.

The new revolution in military affairs offers too much not to complete the transition.

The same principle is equally applicable to our region.

Accelerating the revolution is not of course, without costs. I believe that those costs are marginal. Obviously, the budget is not going to increase, and we are faced with what is now a planning dilemma. What can be cut to free the funds necessary to accelerate those programs that are driving the revolution in military affairs? One way to approach this question is to consider the kinds of forces that will become redundant after the transition. When we have the kind of capability to track logistics from supply point to user that we anticipate acquiring, why would we want to hang on to all of todays logistics-handling units? If we can destroy every hostile radar emitter minutes or seconds after it is activated, why would we need jammers? If we know where an opponents ground forces are and can attack them with long-range weapons, would there still be a need for close-air support. It is possible to identify a wide range of current capabilities, forces, and programms that will be less important when the new system of systems is in place, Reducing them marginally now would release the resources necessary to accelerate the acquisition of the new capabilities. The question arises - can we as a nation take this risk? Can we shave down the resources currently committed to systems that ultimately will be needed no longer, in order to acquire more quickly the capabilities that will make them unnecessary. Many may say we cannot, arguing that this is a very risky strategy because it amounts to giving up useful capability today on the bet that we can accelerate the arrival of better capability. We should not lose sight of what can be gained by adopting the perspective General Sullivan, the Chief of United States Army Staff has so aptly noted, Never before have armies been challenged to assimilate the combined weight of so much change so rapidly. In this environment, the payoff will go to organizations which are versatile, flexible, and strategically agile, and to leaders who are bold, creative, innovative, and inventive. Conversely, there is enormous risk in hesitation, undue precision, and a quest for certainty.

The need to restructure and reorganize in line with technological advancements and financial limitations cannot be faulted. Were we not to - would our recalcitrant neighbor fall in line with us and not change too? A moot question indeed. As the Chief of United States Naval Operation has said - this is an exciting time, a time of great promise for those who venture forth, and a time to make bold plans for the future. We stand on the threshold of a new century in an era of almost dizzying technological change. Can we make this change an ally? Let not the future generations of Pakistan say - when the time came those of late twentieth century faltered.