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Future War Fiction Week 30 Dec – 3 Jan: Call for Articles

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For New Years, looking into the future through fiction.

Heinlein, Heller, Macdonald Fraser, Clancy, Haldeman, Drake. The list could go on of great military, science, and strategic fiction. Some of those authors had foresight that now takes on the patina of genius, other had an ability to better convey the emotional history of a moment than those that lived it- all of them raised the collective ability of military thinkers and strategists by leaps and bounds. Whether they inspired you to become an officer, or helped you to understand your experience at war, all  of them gave us  part of our intellectual kit.

Johnson Ting: Oct 24, 2014
Johnson Ting: Oct 24, 2014

In the spirit of those great minds, CIMSEC is hosting a Military Fiction week. Maybe you want to write something forward looking that hopes avoid future tragedy or ensure yet to be won victory. Perhaps you seeks to better describe the what if counterfactuals which could have led to a different world. Either way, fiction provides a wider canvas for strategists to paint their minds onto. The only criteria is that you write an original piece of military fiction, it can be historical or futuristic, that seeks to provide other strategic and security thinkers better context of the problems we did, do, or may face.  Short stories of 1000-5000 words are what we are seeking but, who knows, if something turns out to be gold we can turn it into the next Flashman series.

Read, Think, Write- just this time make sure you pull the stories from inside your head.

SEND ARTICLES TO: nextwar(at)cimsec.org
Length: 1000-5000 words, unless you can reasonably justify otherwise.
Due Date: December 26th
Cyber War, Future War, Tactical Concepts

Maritime Cryptology at the Crossroads

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After more than a decade of land war and a desire to rebalance to Asia, America’s Navy finds itself smaller, and in many ways weaker in certain respects. One area that should be of great concern is the current practice and future of maritime cryptology.

Cryptology at sea was proven decisive during World War II, beginning with the battle at Midway and the breaking of the Japanese naval code “JN25.”[i] Equally important was the allied program that cracked the German Enigma machines, “Ultra,” especially those used by the German Navy. Winston Churchill famously remarked to King George VI that, “It was thanks to Ultra that we won the war.”[ii]

museum
(A selection of seven Enigma machines and paraphernalia exhibited at the USA’s National Cryptologic Museum. From left to right, the models are: 1) Commercial Enigma; 2) Enigma T; 3) Enigma G; 4) Unidentified; 5) Luftwaffe (Air Force) Enigma; 6) Heer (Army) Enigma; 7) Kriegsmarine (Naval) Enigma—M4.)[iii]
Throughout the ensuring Cold War until the fall of the Berlin Wall, naval cryptology played a vital role in meeting national and tactical intelligence requirements. America gained deep insight and understanding of Soviet and Warsaw Pact allied naval operations and was able to obtain priceless strategic intelligence through collection missions operated by the U.S. Navy. The end of the Cold War, ensuing strategic drift and drawdown was shattered by the terrorist attack of 9/11, yet even in the midst of a worldwide “Global War on Terror,” the pressure remained to cut the naval force. Today, the Navy is at its smallest point since World War I. For the Navy to conduct its maritime cryptology mission, it must have presence in the littorals, especially in key strategic areas of the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean and elsewhere. A smaller Navy with fewer platforms means the Navy is not always where it needs to be and when it needs to be there.

The hope was that through force shaping, automation and remote operations, maritime cryptology could continue to thrive in an ever more complex electromagnetic (EM) environment. Adversarial communications have become far more challenging to detect, exploit and prosecute. The Radio Frequency (RF) environment of today is incredibly complex, with tactical, strategic and data communication links operating in all areas of the spectrum and often at frequencies with a very low probability to intercept. Modern encryption techniques have evolved from mechanical electronics to the use of quantum mechanics.[iv]

crypto

The effects of force shaping, automation and remote operations are beginning to take their toll on the tradecraft of maritime cryptology. Today’s junior Sailors and officers have had their training time cut in order to meet growing operational demands on a shrinking Navy. To be successful in the art of cryptology – and it is a practiced art – one must have a deep understanding of the fundamentals of radio signal transmission as well as more than a passing familiarity with the collection equipment. A junior cryptologic technician and junior officer should be able to draw a basic transmitter-receiver diagram and trace the origin of a signal from its original state, such as voice or data, through the transmitter, across a medium and into the collection gear and the operator’s ears. Foundational knowledge required that the basic operator have a working knowledge of the equipment and be able to perform diagnostic and troubleshooting tasks in the event of a malfunction. Finally, operators and junior officers must understand the process of signal intelligence reporting to the tactical unit at sea (indications and warning intelligence) as well as to the national signal intelligence system.

spectrum

At the same time, emerging cyberspace communication networks place entirely new pressures on maritime cryptology. Modern communication, command, control and information sharing are a “network of networks,” an “Internet of things” that require new skill sets and new acquisition and exploitation technologies. Yet the complexity of data systems and volume of data being passed is growing exponentially, outpacing our acquisition and procurement capability. The Navy has tried to mitigate this by relying on commercial off-the-shelf technology (COTS) but this entails its own set of problems. COTS technology must be compatible with legacy systems – some more than twenty years old and built on architecture and code from the late 1980s and early 1990s – and it relies on bandwidth levels that are not always available and reliable. We often find out the hard way that equipment which works well in the sterile lab environment is not up to the task of performing reliably at sea under arduous conditions.

Maritime cryptology is at a cross roads. We must return to the fundamentals of signal intelligence at the same time we are trying to realize the potential of cyberspace operations at sea. This will require a renewed commitment to recruitment and training, and for many middle grade and senior enlisted cryptologic technicians and officers, it means new formal training. Right now, senior enlisted and officers are being asked to take leadership roles in an emerging cyberspace operations field for which they are receiving inadequate or no formal training. We must reconsider recruitment of new junior Sailors and officers who have the background skills, education and knowledge and provide them a career path that emphasizes cryptologic expertise across the spectrum, from “traditional” signals intelligence to modern wireless exploitation. This career path must be grounded in recognizing that maritime cryptology is more art than science, and to become proficient and experienced, one must practice.

The author would like to thank CDR Kevin Ernest who kindly provided his thoughts on the challenges of modern maritime cryptology.

LT Robert “Jake” Bebber is an information warfare officer assigned to the staff of U.S. Cyber Command. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy or U.S. Cyber Command. He welcomes your comments at jbebber@gmail.com.

[i] http://www.navy.mil/midway/how.html

[ii] http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-ww2/code-breaking

[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine#cite_note-9

[iv] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/20/quantum-cryptography-at-the-end-of-your-road/

Asia-Pacific, Capability Analysis, Future Tech, Future War

China’s Conventional Strikes against the U.S. Homeland

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Bruce Sugden brings us this dour scenario, representing the last of our “Sacking of Rome” series.    

With its precision-strike complex, the United States has conducted conventional strikes on enemy homelands without fear of an in-kind response. Foreign military developments, however, might soon enable enemy long-range conventional strikes against the U.S. homeland. China’s January 2014 test of a hypersonic vehicle, which was boosted by an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), suggests that it has designs on deploying a long-range conventional strike capability akin to the U.S. prompt global strike development effort.[1] If China pushes forward with deployment of a robust long-range conventional strike capability, within 20 years Americans could expect to see the U.S. homeland come under kinetic attack as a result of U.S. intervention in a conflict in the western Pacific region. With conventional power projection capabilities of its own and a secure second-strike nuclear force, China might replace the United States as the preponderant power in East Asia.

The implication of Chinese long-range strike is that U.S. military assets and supporting infrastructure in the deep rear, an area that is for the most part undefended, will be vulnerable to enemy conventional strikes—a vulnerability that U.S. forces have not had to deal with since the Second World War. Furthermore, China would be tempted to leverage its long-range strike capabilities against vital non-military assets, such as power generation facilities and network junctions, major port facilities, and factories that would produce munitions and parts to sustain a protracted U.S. military campaign. The American people and the U.S. government will have to prepare themselves for a type of warfare that they have never experienced before.

Emerging Character of the Precision-Strike Regime

            What we have become familiar with in the conduct of conventional precision-strike warfare since 1991 has been the U.S. use of force in major combat operations. The U.S. precision-strike complex is a battle network, or system, of intelligence surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors designed to detect and track enemy forces and facilities, weapons systems to deliver munitions over extended range (e.g., bombers from the U.S. homeland) with high accuracy, and connectivity to command, control, communications, and computers (C4) organized to compress the time span between detection of a target and engagement of that target.[2] Since the 1990s weapons delivery accuracies have been enhanced by linking the guidance systems with a space-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) system.

            China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has studied the employment of the U.S. precision-strike complex and has been building its own for years. Since the 1990s, China has been increasing the number of deployed short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, many of which U.S. observers tend to believe are armed with conventional warheads.[3] China has also been improving the accuracies of its missiles by linking many of them to its space-based PNT system, Beidou. In addition, the PLA has been deploying several types of land-attack and anti-ship cruise missile systems.[4] These weapons systems are part of a layered defense approach that the PLA has adopted to keep foreign military forces, mainly U.S. forces, outside of China’s sphere of interest.

There are indications that China is expanding its precision-strike complex to reach targets further away from Chinese territory and waters. First, as the most recent DOD report on Chinese military power notes, China is developing an intermediate-range (roughly 3,000-5,000 kilometers) ballistic missile that could reach targets in the Second Island Chain, such as U.S. military facilities on Guam, and might also be capable of striking mobile targets at sea, such as U.S. aircraft carriers.[5] Second, the PLA Air Force has developed the H-6K bomber, which might have a combat radius of up to 3,500 kilometers and be able to carry up to six land-attack cruise missiles.[6] Third, as mentioned above, China has tested a hypersonic vehicle using an ICBM.

China’s Interest in Hypersonic Vehicles

            In the previous decade, one American observer of the Chinese military noted that the Chinese defense industry was showing interest in developing long-range precision strike capabilities, including intercontinental-range hypersonic cruise missiles.[7] Drawing from Chinese open-source literature, Lora Saalman believes that “China is developing such systems not simply to bolster its regional defense capabilities at home, but also to erode advantages of potential adversaries abroad, whether ballistic missile defense or other systems.”[8] Moreover, compared with the Chinese literature on kinetic intercept technologies, with “high-precision and high-speed weaponry, the Chinese vision is becoming much clearer, much faster. Beyond speed of acquisition, the fact that nearly one-half of the Chinese studies reviewed cover long-range systems and research low-earth orbit, near space, ballistic trajectories, and reentry vehicles suggests that China’s hypersonic, high-precision, boost-glide systems will also be increasingly long in range.”[9]

            China’s attraction to hypersonic technologies seems to be related to U.S. missile defenses.[10] As many U.S. experts have believed since the 1960s, when the United States first conducted research and development on hypersonic vehicles, such delivery systems provide the speed and maneuverability to circumvent missile defenses.[11] These characteristics enable hypersonic vehicles to complicate missile tracking and engagement radar systems’ attempts to obtain a firing solution for interceptors.

How a Future U.S.-China Conflict Might Unfold

            Although we cannot be certain about how a future military conflict between the United States and China might develop, the ongoing debate over the U.S. Air-Sea Battle concept suggests that alternative approaches to employing U.S. military force against China could persuade the Chinese leadership to order conventional strikes against targets in the U.S. homeland. On the one hand, in response to PLA aggression in the East or South China Seas, an aggressive forward U.S. military posture would include conventional strikes against targets on the Chinese mainland, such as air defense systems, airfields and missile operating locations from which PLA attacks originated, C4 and sensor nodes linked to PLA precision-strike systems, and PLA Navy (PLAN) facilities and ships.[12] These strikes would threaten to weaken PLA military capabilities and raise the ire of the Chinese public and leadership. Even assuming that China opened hostilities with conventional missile strikes against U.S. forces at sea and on U.S. and allied territories (Guam and Japan, respectively) to forestall operations against the PLA, the Chinese public and the PLA might pressure the leadership to respond with similar strikes against the U.S. homeland.

            A less aggressive U.S. military posture, on the other hand, such as implementation of a distant blockade, would focus military resources on choking off China’s importation of energy supplies and denying PLA forces access to the air and seas within the First Island Chain.[13] While this approach might play to the asymmetric advantages of the U.S. military over the PLA, the threat of being cut off from its seaborne energy supplies over an extended period of time might convince Beijing that it needed to reach out and touch the United States in ways that might quickly persuade it to end the blockade.

Targets of Chinese Long-Range Conventional Strikes

            Although many recent PLA doctrinal writings point to the use of conventional ballistic missiles in missions to support combat operations by PLA ground, air, naval, and information operations units, a stand-alone missile campaign could be designed to conduct selective strikes against critical targets.[14] Ron Christman believes that the “goals of such a warning strike would be to display China’s military strength and determination to prevent an ongoing war from escalating, to protect Chinese targets, to limit damage from an adversary’s attack, or to coerce the enemy into yielding to Chinese interests.”[15]

            The PLA’s ideal targets might include low density/high demand military assets, major power generation sites, key economic and political centers, and war-supporting industry.[16] More specifically, with U.S. forces conducting strikes against PLA assets on mainland China, sinking PLAN ships at sea, and blocking energy shipments to China, PLA military planners might be tempted to strike particular fixed targets to weaken U.S. power projection and political will: Whiteman Air Force Base, home of the B-2A bombers; naval facilities and pierside aircraft carriers at San Diego and Kitsap; facilities and pierside submarines at Bangor; space launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral; Lockheed Martin’s joint air-to-surface stand-off missile (JASSM) factory in Troy, Alabama; Travis Air Force Base, where many transport aircraft are based; and major oil refineries in Texas to squeeze the U.S. economy.

Effects of Conventional Strikes against the U.S. Homeland

            It is plausible that Chinese conventional precision strikes against targets in the U.S. homeland would set in train several operational and strategic effects. First, scarce military resources could be damaged and rendered inoperable for significant periods of time, or destroyed. Whether at Whiteman Air Force Base or the west coast naval bases, such losses would impair the conduct of U.S. operations against China. Furthermore, damaged or destroyed munitions factories, logistics nodes, and space launch facilities would undermine the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a protracted war by replenishing forward-deployed forces and replacing lost equipment. The U.S. military might have to re-deploy significant numbers of forces from other regions, such as Europe and the Persian Gulf.

Second, the American people, if they believed that fighting in East Asia was not worth the cost of attacks against the homeland, might turn against the war effort and the politicians that supported it. Even if a majority of Americans were to remain steadfast in support of the war, however, public opinion would not protect critical assets from being struck by Chinese conventional precision strikes.

Third, the operational effects might sow doubt in the minds of U.S. allies about the survivability and effectiveness of the U.S. power projection chain, while American protests in the streets against the U.S. government would undermine allies’ confidence in the resolve of the United States. If the allies judged that the United States lacked the capability or the will to wage war across the Pacific Ocean against China, then they might accommodate China and cut military ties with the United States. The loss of these military alliances, moreover, could result in the disintegration of the international order that the United States has built and sustained with military might for decades.[17]

Fourth, facing damage from strikes against the homeland and perhaps lacking the conventional military means to defend its allies and achieve its war aims, the United States might have to choose between defeat in East Asia or escalation to the use of nuclear weapons to fulfill its security guarantees. U.S. nuclear strikes, of course, might elicit a Chinese nuclear response.

Measures to Mitigate the Effects of Conventional Strikes

            Three approaches come to mind that might mitigate the effects of conventional strikes and, perhaps, dissuade China from expending weapons against the U.S. homeland. The development of less costly but more advanced missile defense technologies that could be deployed in large quantities could protect critical assets. The technologies might remain beyond our grasp, however. Directed energy weapons, for example, would still need to find and track the incoming target for an extended period of time, and then maintain the laser beam on one point on the target to burn through it.[18]

            If missile guidance systems remained tied to space-based PNT in the 2030s, then ground-based jammers might be able to divert incoming hypersonic vehicles off course. Without accurate weapons delivery, the conventional warheads would be less effective against even soft targets. Future onboard navigation systems, however, might enable precise weapons deliveries that would be unaffected by jamming.[19]

            The final and possibly most effective approach takes a page from China’s playbook: disperse and bury key assets and provide hardened, overhead protection for parked aircraft and pierside ships.[20] Because burying some facilities would be cost prohibitive, another protective measure might be to construct hardened shelters (including top covers) around surface installations like industrial infrastructure and munitions factories (though this measure might be cost prohibitive as well).

            This preliminary discussion suggests that cost-effective remedies are infeasible over the next few years, yet the threat of distant conventional military operations extending to the U.S. homeland will likely continue to grow. Therefore, more comprehensive analysis of active and passive defenses as well as other forms of damage limitation is needed to enable senior leaders to make prudent investment decisions on defense and homeland security preparedness against the backdrop of a potential conflict between the United States and China.

Bruce Sugden is a defense analyst at Scitor Corporation in Arlington, Virginia. His opinions are his own and do not represent those of his employer or clients. He thanks Matthew Hallex for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

 

[1] On China’s January 2014 test of a hypersonic vehicle, see Benjamin Shreer, “The Strategic Implications of China’s Hypersonic Missile Test,” The Strategist, The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Blog, January 28, 2014; on the U.S. prompt global strike initiative, see Bruce M. Sugden, “Speed Kills: Analyzing the Deployment of Conventional Ballistic Missiles,” International Security, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Summer 2009), pp. 113-146.

[2] For a broad overview of the evolving precision-strike regime, see Thomas G. Mahnken, “Weapons: The Growth and Spread of the Precision-Strike Regime,” Daedalus, 140, No. 3 (Summer 2011), pp. 45-57.

[3] Ron Christman, “Conventional Missions for China’s Second Artillery Corps: Doctrine, Training, and Escalation Control Issues,” in Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2011), pp. 307-327.

[4] Dennis Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, “China’s Cruise Missiles: Flying Fast Under the Public’s Radar,” The National Interest web page, May 12, 2014.

[5] Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2014), p. 40.

[6] Ibid., p. 9; and Zachary Keck, “Can China’s New Strategic Bomber Reach Hawaii?” The Diplomat, August 13, 2013.

[7] Mark Stokes, China’s Evolving Conventional Strategic Strike Capability: The Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Challenge to U.S. Maritime Operations in the Western Pacific and Beyond (Arlington, Va.: Project 2049 Institute, September 14, 2009), pp. 33-34.

[8] Lora Saalman, “Prompt Global Strike: China and the Spear,” Independent Faculty Research (Honolulu, Hi.: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 2014), p. 12.

[9] Ibid., p. 14.

[10] Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, p. 30.

[11] William Yengst, Lightning Bolts: First Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles (Mustang, Okla.: Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC, 2010), pp. 111-125.

[12] Jonathan Greenert and Mark Welsh, “Breaking the Kill Chain,” Foreign Policy, 16 May 2013; and Department of Defense, Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) Version 1.0, January 17, 2012, p. 16.

[13] T.X. Hammes, “Offshore Control: A Proposed Strategy,” Infinity Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring 2012), pp. 10-14.

[14] Christman, “Conventional Missions for China’s Second Artillery Corps,” pp. 318-319.

[15] Ibid., p. 319.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Stephen G. Brooks, G. John Ikenberry, and William C. Wohlforth, “Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Jan-Feb 2013), p. 130.

[18] Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “The Limits Of Lasers: Missile Defense At Speed Of Light,” Breaking Defense, May 30, 2014.

[19] Sam Jones, “MoD’s ‘Quantum Compass’ Offers Potential to Replace GPS,” Financial Times, May 14, 2014.

[20] Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, p. 29.

Beans Boots Bullets, Capability Analysis, Future Tech, Future War

Print, Plug, and Play Robotics

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William Selby is a Marine Officer who previously completed studies at the US Naval Academy and MIT researching robotics. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own.

In September 1999, NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a contracted engineering team used English units of measurement while NASA’s team used the metric system for a key spacecraft operation.[i] In everyday life we are forced to choose between differing formats with the same function. What was once VHS vs. Betamax became Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. A lack of component standardization can reduce the operational effectiveness of a system as shown by the NASA orbiter. More commonly, the end user may waste resources purchasing multiple components that serve the same purpose, as was the case for DVD players in the late 2000s. These same issues are occurring in the development, procurement, and operation of our unmanned systems. Over the last decade, the US military has amassed large numbers of unmanned systems composed of highly proprietary hardware and software components. However, future unmanned systems designed with interoperable hardware and software and constructed utilizing advanced manufacturing techniques will operate more effectively and efficiently than today’s platforms.

 

Advances in manufacturing techniques as well as efforts to standardize software and hardware development are being pursued in order to diminish the negative effects caused by proprietary components in unmanned systems. These new technologies focus on speed and customization, creating a new and evolving research, development, and production methodology. Modular designs increase the rate of production and upgrades while new manufacturing techniques enable rapid prototyping and fabrication on the front lines. Replacement parts can be stored digitally, produced on demand, and swapped between unmanned systems, reducing the system’s logistical footprint. This organic production capability will enable units to tailor manufacturing needs to match operational requirements. The resulting unmanned systems will operate with interchangeable payloads making them quick to adapt to a dynamic environment while common software will enable easier control of the vehicles and wider data dissemination.

 

Complementary Technologies

 

The concept of interoperable hardware and software is more formally referred to as open architecture (OA). DOD Directive 5000.1, “The Defense Acquisition System,” outlines the DOD’s goal to acquire systems that can be easily swapped between unmanned systems similar to the way different types of USB devices can be swapped out on a personal computer. [ii] This ranges from swapping sensor payloads between platforms to entire unmanned systems between services and countries.[iii] Establishing standards and creating policy for OA are the responsibilities of multiple organizations. For unmanned aerial systems (UASs), the Interoperability Integrated Product Team (I-IPT) drafts UAS System Interoperability Profiles (USIPs). Similarly, the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office (RS JPO) creates Interoperability Profiles (IOPs) to identify and define interoperability standards for unmanned ground systems. Several of the IOP standards have been adopted for unmanned maritime systems by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.[iv]

 

Advances in manufacturing techniques complement and leverage the OA concept. In general, these techniques focus on converting a digital blueprint of a component into its physical form. The advantages of additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, have been recently publicized as well as potential military applications.[v],[vi],[vii],[viii] 3D printing creates the desired object in metal or plastic by converting liquid or powdered raw materials into a thin solid layer, forming a single layer at a time until the piece is completed. Less mature technologies include Printed Circuit Microelectromechanical Systems (PC-MEMS) uses 3D printing to create a flat object of rigid and flexible materials with special joints that are later activated turning the flat object into a three-dimensional object much like a children’s pop up book. [ix],[x] A final technique inspired by origami involves etching crease patterns into flat sheets of metal allowing them to be quickly folded and assembled into complex components. [xi]

 

Lifecycle Impacts

 

Production of future unmanned systems will be altered by these technologies beginning with the initial system requirements.[xii] Standard capability descriptors minimize the need for a single, large business to create and entire unmanned system. This will allow small businesses to focus research and development on a single capability that can be integrated into multiple platforms requiring that capability thereby increasing competition and innovation while reducing initial procurement costs.[xiii],[xiv] These unmanned systems will be easily upgradeable since payloads, sensors, and software are anticipated to evolve much faster than the base platforms.[xv] Open hardware and software ensures that upgrades can be designed knowing the component will function successfully across multiple platforms. Advanced manufacturing techniques will enhance the development of these upgrades by allowing companies to rapidly prototype system components for immediate testing and modification. Companies can digitally simulate their component to verify their design before mass producing a final version with more cost effective traditional manufacturing techniques. The final version can then be digitally distributed enabling the end user to quickly load the most recent version before production.

 

These technologies also have the potential to significantly impact supply chain management and maintenance procedures required for unmanned systems. Since components can be swapped across multiple platforms, it will no longer be necessary to maintain independent stocks of proprietary components unique to each platform. If a component can be created using organic advanced manufacturing techniques, only the digital blueprint and raw materials need to be available. While the strength of components created using additive manufacturing may not be enough for a permanent replacement, temporary spare parts can be created in a remote area without quick access to supplies or depot repair facilities while permanent replacements are delivered. This reduces the logistical footprint and maintenance costs by limiting the number of parts and raw materials required to be physically stored for each system.

 

Most importantly, these technologies will produce unmanned systems with the operational flexibility necessary for the unknown conflicts of the future. Components ranging from power systems to sensor payloads can be quickly and easily swapped between platforms of varying vendors, selected to fit the mission requirements and replaced as the situation develops.[xvi]Standardizing the sensor’s data transmission format and metadata will generate timely and accurate data that is more easily accessed and navigated by all interested parties.[xvii] An early example of these advancements, the Army’s One System Remote Video Terminal, allows the user to receive real time video footage from multiple platform types as well as control the sensor payload.[xviii],[xix] Digital libraries will close the gap between developer and user ensuring the most recent component design is manufactured or the latest software capability is downloaded and transferred across platforms.[xx] Standardized communications protocols between the platform and the controller will enable a single controller to operate different platforms, as recently demonstrated by the Office of Naval Research.[xxi] Further into the future, the operator may be able to control multiple unmanned systems across various domain simultaneously.[xxii],[xxiii] The ability to create heterogeneous “swarms” of unmanned systems with varying sensor suites in different physical operating environments will give the commander the flexibility to quickly configure and re-configure the unmanned system support throughout the duration of the operation.

 

New Technologies Create New Vulnerabilities

 

As these technologies are implemented, it is important to keep in mind their unique limitations and vulnerabilities. The stringent qualification process for military components, especially those with the potential to harm someone, is often described a key limitation to the implementation of modular components.[xxiv] However, without people on board, unmanned systems have lower safety standards making it easier to implement modular components in final designs. Compared to traditional methods, additive manufacturing is slow and produces parts limited in size. The materials have limited strength and can be 50 to 100 times more expensive than materials used in traditional methods.[xxv] While future development will decrease prices and increase material strength, traditional manufacturing techniques will remain more cost effective means of producing high volume items into the near future. Additionally, open designs and digital storage can create vulnerabilities that may be exploited if not properly secured. Militants in Iraq purportedly viewed live video feeds from UASs using cheap commercial software while Chinese cyberspies allegedly gained access to many of the US’s advanced weapons systems designs.[xxvi],[xxvii] Further, digital blueprints of parts have the potential to be modified by nefarious actors to create counterfeit or falsified parts.[xxviii] As the price of manufacturing equipment quickly drops, anyone can create the products when given access to the digital copies.[xxix]

 

Future technological innovations have the ability to modify traditional supply methodologies allowing the end user to manufacture parts on demand for use in a variety of unmanned systems. Proprietary hardware and software can be minimized, resulting in unmanned systems with smaller logistical footprints condensing vulnerable supply chains while reducing overall system cost. These benefits are tempered by the unique vulnerabilities that arise when standardizing and digitizing unmanned system designs. Despite these potential vulnerabilities, the ability to equip a force with increased capability while reducing costs and logistical requirements is indispensable. While the locations of the next conflicts will remain hard to predict, unmanned systems able to complete a variety of missions in remote areas with limited logistical support will become an operational necessity.

 

[i] Lloyd, Robin, Metric mishap caused loss of NASA orbiter, accessed athttp://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/index.html?_s=PM:TECH, 30 September 1999.

[ii] U.S. Department of Defense, DOD Directive 5000.1 – The Defense Acquisition System, Washington D.C., 12 May 2003.

[iii] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[iv] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[v] Llenza, Michael, “Print when ready, Gridley,” Armed Forces Journal, May 2013.

[vi] Beckhusen, Robert, Need Ships? Try a 3-D Printed Navy, accessed at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/3d-printed-navy/, 04 May 2013.

[vii] Cheney-Peters, Scott and Matthew Hipple, “Print Me a Cruiser!” USNI Proceedings, vol. 139, April 2013.

[viii] Beckhusen, Robert, In Tomorrow’s Wars, Battles Will Be Fought With a 3-D Printer, accessed at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/military-3d-printers/, 17 May 2013.

[ix] Leung, Isaac, All abuzz over small pop-up machines with Printed Circuit MEMS, accessed at http://www.electronicsnews.com.au/news/all-abuzz-over-small-pop-up-machines-with-printed-, 22 February 2012.

[x] Wood, R.J., “The First Takeoff of a Biologically Inspired At-Scale Robotic Insect,” Robotics, IEEE Transactions on , vol.24, no.2, pp.341,347, April 2008.

[xi] Soltero, D.E.; Julian, B.J.; Onal, C.D.; Rus, D., “A lightweight modular 12-DOF print-and-fold hexapod,” Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1465,1471, 3-7 Nov. 2013.

[xii] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2011-2036, Washington D.C., 18 September 2012.

[xiii] Real-Time Innovations, Interoperable Open Architecture, accessed at

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