JHU/APL Rethinking Seminar Series Rethinking Global Security Constructs, Threats and Potential Responses.

Transcription

1 JHU/APL Rethinking Seminar Series Rethinking Global Security Constructs, Threats and Potential Responses March 28 th 2016 Dr. David E. Johnson RAND Corporation Challenges of the "Now" and Their Implications for the Future U.S. Army Notes: 1. The opinions expressed by the speaker are solely his own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 2. Below are informal notes taken by a JHU/APL staff member at the Seminar. 3. Dr. Johnson used an extensive set of slides for his presentations. Links to the presentation as well as video, audio, and bulletized notes for this and past seminars can be found on and the JHU/APL YouTube Playlist. Introduction Dr. Johnson noted that the Army generally talks about its challenges programmatically as being years away. However, some of these challenges are only minutes away. He stated his concern that he could not detect a sense of urgency within the acquisition system and elsewhere in the Army. The Army should be talking about these problems with the urgency that was used with the IED problems in Iraq. His talk would be based on his 20 years of work in the field, which he began by studying Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza in terms of hybrid threats. Future Challenges Russia really isn t a hybrid threat it went into Syria with cruise missiles, an air force and tanks while Hezbollah went to Syria with RPG, MANPADS, and A2GMs. Bottom line: The Army needs to think more about specific adversaries and not about abstractions, but there will be many challenges in the environment Indicators of the challenge: Russia has introduced 4 iterations of armored vehicles in the last 20 years while the US has not done anything serious about its armored vehicles in over 30 years This talk is intentionally provocative to make it clear that the Army and the Marine Corps won t be ready to face these challenges and other services also have problems o Example: New fighters that can penetrate A2AD but are dropping 1970s missiles Three Categories of Adversaries US has been focused on the bottom level of the following slide o In the meantime it missed a lot of what has been happening in the middle and high end Much like after Vietnam when the US was surprised with the appearance of mobile SAMs and ATGMs in the Yon Kippur war which changed the character of the battle o Changed perspectives on stand-off and precision capabilities o Generated the Big-5 (the last time Army had 5 successful big programs) and Air-Land Battle (the model used up until 2003 and is still used in high-end doctrine) 1

2 2003 Crisis Army was designed for high-end battles but was thrust into an insurgency o Low-end adversaries were characterized by their close-in weapons systems: small arms, APGs, IEDs, and occasional rockets, mortars, etc. Low-end adversaries don t have state sponsors to provide them with more advanced weapons o Lack the wherewithal to mass in large numbers o Does allow the US to fight using small formations On-going causalities debate: On only 3 occasions since 2001 has more than a platoon been at risk The US and the Israelis have gotten very good at handling such situations and the US has been innovative in weapons systems in last 15 years including: o Had Manhattan Project-level effort with JIEDDO / Task Force Odin to deal with IEDs o Upgraded thousands of MRAPs and put RPG screens and underbelly armor on Strykers o Loaded a Navy Phalanx system on a tractor-trailer to shoot down an occasional mortar or rocket round o Made huge leaps providing capabilities to brigades that even a corps could not imagine having 20 years ago o Bottom line: The Battle of Sadr City report identified all the capabilities that one colonel controlled for a months-long battle an unprecedented situation Problems with these advances o Adaptations were made to handle problems that differ from what Army is now facing o Upgraded a platform that was the principal weapon for the 82 nd Airborne so much that it can no longer be dropped out of an aircraft o Stryker was designed to be put on C-130s but upgrades have now made that impossible 2

3 o o o MRAP, the principal C2 node for a brigade, cannot be picked up by a helo or carried on a C-130, so it can t support every mission that a brigade may have Large command centers now sprout all kinds of wires and antennas with lots of equipment emitting signals all from a tent that makes a great target Also takes 6-8 hours to set up its NTC Sadr City battle allowed the commander to simply plug into a network that had been building for 5 years can t expect to see such a situation in future expeditionary operations High-End State Adversaries Problem 1: The Army may have forgotten how to handle this level of adversary o Rand Corporation just had exercise about defending the Baltics very dicey o Starting to train for this again but not just a training issue also a material and cultural problem Have a generation that has never thought of anything but counter-insurgency and low-intensity operations Problem 2: Russia has been building different capabilities in the last few years including: o Anti-access and area denial (A2AD) integrated air defenses / advanced MANPADS o Long-range rockets (beyond 100km) with precision and multiple warhead options (antipersonnel, top attack, mines, thermobaric, etc.) o Advanced ground systems (6 km range ATGM for tanks with active protection) 3

4 o Cyber o Special operations Bottom line: World War II is the last time US fought this type of adversary and haven t even thought about fighting such an adversary since the Cold War o Russians have actually used some of these weapons in recent battles including flattening cities from a distance with their TOS-1 MLR US needs to think about preparing for such high-end weapons systems o Must develop credible military capabilities to deter Russia and China and to assure allies can t deter anyone if no one thinks you can win o Russian or Chinese weapons may also be in the hands of state-sponsored hybrid actors See video of TOS-1 MLR, a Russian thermobaric weapon (creates overpressures that cause internal injuries without burning targets) in use by Iraqi forces o Army already has vulnerabilities when facing some of these weapons as documented in a recent Rand report Comparing US Army Systems with Foreign Counterparts o Expect the US to have problems even getting to the fight given adversary A2AD capabilities Study of the 2006 Lebanon War provides examples of existing problems o Showed the proliferation of state capabilities and a more lethal adversary o Israeli army made strategic mistakes and also looked ineffectual when it could not stop the short range rocket attacks Big problem with short-range rockets that were well hidden in difficult terrain rolling hills with dense forests of trees that were not all that tall Terrain issues meant that one could not see the 15,000 rocket launchers from the air and there may be 30,000 now Hezbollah could shoot with impunity without ground action Israeli Army went in unprepared and started taking causalities Commander just stopped the operation and called in medevacs Problem: Israeli troops weren t trained to this type of fighting since 1973 o While the war was not a defeat for Israel, the absence of victory was very problematic and made the IDF look weak for the first time o By 2006 Israel believed it was beyond era of major war and considered the main challenge facing its land forces would be low intensity asymmetrical conflicts Based on Kosovo, OEF, and OIF, Israel believed that standoff attack by fires (principally air power) can deter or defeat state adversaries Israel s army concentrated on stopping return of intifada terrorist attacks in Israel First intifada was just sticks and stones, while the new intifada involved suicide bombers attacking pizza restaurants Israel s strategy made sense at the time but it was wrong o Faced reduced defense budgets while training, etc. costs were going up o Depended on air strike and other ineffectual standoff capabilities o Lebanon War lesson: competent adversaries with good weapons in complex terrain are difficult to handle with existing low intensity conflict skills/mindsets/materiel solutions o Of concern: Libya and the current campaign against the Islamic State show a similar US aversion to committing ground forces o For the US Army now, can see what not employing ground forces leads to Could be debated Once thought they would only expect to face armed squads or little larger units US has talked about these lessons but is not developing solutions needed to address them (highly integrated air-ground ops, active protection, etc.) 4

5 Hezbollah was not 10-ft tall, just fought differently than Israel or the US then expected o US Army was use to fighting close engage when meters away from adversary Would fix enemy with maneuvering fires and then finish with close combat or with indirect fires from battalion resources o Hezbollah used ATGMs and standoff missiles to ensure no way to initiate close combat Would have to fight through 4-5 km before could get to the close fight Getting to the fight requires combined arms, fire-maneuver, suppression all elements that used to be understood in Air-Land Battle and training US Army could no longer do this o Wake-up call forced changes in US training: went from 25% to 75% high intensity, combined arms fire, maneuver combat but still some low end since it would be needed Realized that the Army would have to do it all The problem had been that they were not training adequately for high intensity combat o Key to near future combat operations being able to Isolate the battlespace Find weapons such as well-hidden rocket launchers that might even be unmanned and working on timers o A way to visualize the problem is to consider a commute in Northern Virginia from Fredericksburg to Springfield. Imagine 4,000 adversaries with MANPADS, IEDs, ATGMs, etc. who all want to kill you and are hiding along the way Generally where we will need to fight there will be lots of villages providing both congestion and lots of places to hide Not like Libya or Iraq which are generally flat and open o Dr. Johnson noted that he has been talking about Hezbollah Rocket Launcher this problem for 5 years but nothing has been done to make the necessary changes to improve training for such situations Bottom line: If a regular force is equipped with stand-off weapons and a good supply chain, it creates a radically different problem than an irregular force does o Could see this from ISIS, Chechnya, etc. Historic problems show this situation, too o Russians lost over 300 helicopters in Afghanistan and the US lost over 5,000 in Vietnam o The problem was not that they were losing aircraft, but rather that they couldn t solve the combat problem if they couldn t use air assaults Key problems o Can t use weapons normally used not close air support, attack helicopters, air mobility Creates a stand-off problem that require counters to the adversary s weapons o Current adversaries create qualitative challenges, despite smaller size, because of their: Training, discipline, organization, C2 Stand-off weapons (ATGMs, MANPADS, mortars, rockets) Use of complex terrain natural and urban which is complicated by presence of civilians o Adversaries want to fight and know how to fight and now have useful weapons 5

6 o Suicide bombers grew out of Lebanon War and could be compared to the WWII Japanese Kamikaze pilots Japan knew that they would probably lose most of the planes in any attack on a US target anyway, so it made sense to send some directly into the ships Could be sure of at least some damage o Examples on YouTube of the easy-to-use weapons that are causing problems Antitank Guided Missiles in Syria US supplied these missiles that are also easy to setup Russian Arena Active Protection System Israel, Germany, Korea all have these systems US beginning to test this active system Picks up on first incoming RPG, knocks it down, and gives the targeted tank a chance to react US has nothing to stop this type of weapon currently beyond adding more armor to tanks creating the urgency to find other methods GRAD Rockets in Ukraine Neither US or Europe wants to believe that Russians are operating these weapons in Ukraine so they call it a hybrid or ambiguous situation o If sure about Russian involvement, would have to react Not ambiguous to the Russians they know what they are doing First of three systems that fire in the video are only found in the Russian forces while the other two older systems are available in many countries Starting to use small UAVs with GPS and video to send back very good target location / battle damage assessments used for adjustments System provides lots of ways to find adversaries and carries lots of missiles to use on the adversaries they find Another concern about Russia is tactical nuclear weapons o The US no longer has equivalent tactical nuclear weapons o In escalation, the US can only go from nothing to high end nuclear weapons o Russia has an escalatory ladder could use on own territory or Ukraine if they had to o o Russia has not said that they would not use them and has fielded some new versions US is still not training soldiers to operate in MOP gear for either chemical or nuclear environments Minding the Middle: Hezbollah, ISIS, and Ukrainian Separatists Type of adversary that the US Army and Marines will encounter in the future o Hybrid adversaries rising from ongoing turmoil in North Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine (and could elsewhere North Korea) Their strategy: protracted conflict causing large numbers of casualties, influencing the media, and destroying the populace s will to fight o Compounded by reluctance of Western states to put boots on the ground or cause civilian casualties Not necessarily insurgencies irregular warfare, COIN, and stability operations may be largely irrelevant o Fighters often go to ground in urban areas to hide amongst the people Systems designed to deal with these threats could also be used against state adversaries 6

7 Lessons for Armor in Recent Wars Maneuver Leaders Must Know How to Employ All Arms Joint combined arms fire and maneuver with armor key to defeating dispersed hybrid opponents, particularly in urban fights Must fight through and neutralize stand-off fires (ATGMs, MANPADS, mortars, rockets) to be able to get into the close fight Responsive artillery key for fires attack helicopters and close air support may be limited by MANPADS and ADA Conflict Vietnam Chechnya Lebanon Gaza Use of Armor Hybrid Wars Medium armor (M113s) useful throughout theater Tanks useful as assault guns IEDs/mines: 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (June 1969 to June 1970) lost 352 combat vehicles Russians use armor throughout conflict Grozny s Urban canyons present issues Combined arms and training key; tank infantry coordination key (relearn WWII lessons) Hezbollah stand-off requires combined arms Being good at low end does not prepare force Stand-off fires (air/artillery) do not solve problems posed by Hezbollah s defense and short-range rockets Key IDF lesson: only armor can operate on this type of battlefield Add more Merkava IV tanks and the NAMER IFVs to the IDF Tanks and APCs used throughout the operation Brigade-centric combined arms approach with integrated air power Armor used for battlefield logistics Used modified T-55 IFVs (Achzarit) pending fielding of Namer Chechnya Gaza 20 There is a belief that there is no place for armor anymore o Every war since Vietnam has been bad for armor Ukraine has shown that medium- and thin-skinned vehicles cannot survive To close the gap to stand-off systems, need to do it with heavy systems US forgot how to do responsive artillery for repressing enemy systems o Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) missiles are vulnerable since they are not armored o Can stop the threat fairly easily if you can locate and stop the first one Priorities for Combat Development Joint combined arms fire and maneuver Mobile protected firepower with active protection to maneuver in high-end ATGMs/RPG environment A counter-fire system that can find and destroy rockets beyond 100 kilometers A counter Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and counter rocket defenses A counter high-end MANPADS systems Short-range air defenses in maneuver units Mobile and survivable headquarters Backup to GPS for timing and location 7

8 Cyber/jam-proof communications And there are likely more Recommendations for a Joint Force for the Future Army has a program called the Big Eight Initiatives which detail desired capability areas Army has spent a lot of time in the last 10 years talking about the human domain and human performance There are existing systems that the US is very behind in and would keep the US from operating the way it is used to doing Then add cyber, and electronic warfare (EW), etc. to complicate operations Need to develop a greater sense of urgency since platoons and companies are being put at risk as they have not been since Vietnam QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION Re: Acquisition Issues US has not bought any new systems for many years o Has tried to field new systems with little success o Look how long the F-35 has been in development Problem #1: US has clear capability gaps but Acquisition officers are not aware of what went on in Lebanon and what sort of capabilities that the Russians have, especially active protection 8

9 Problem #2: Federal Acquisition Regulations themselves cause problems o Individual regulations may be there for good reasons, but o Various commissions have recommended changes and all seem to add things to the regulations rather than making them smaller and simpler Much talk about how the system is not agile enough has never been like commercial technology Re: Training Gaps Without having active protection can never even get into the fight Without really responsive artillery can never suppress this type of adversary Army beginning to think about these adversaries Problems go beyond training issues Re: Problems for Higher Echelon Forces Biggest problems now related to cyber and EW Also must worry about not being found while emitting all sorts of signals No longer have area munitions that can take out large arrays of radars for SAMs and may also take out launchers at the same time o Have lost the understanding that some collateral damage is sometimes desired Became enamored with precision targeting which has been very important in recent wars o Issue is you can t just plan to kill one tank at a time need to blanket an area to get a large number of attackers immediately o Widely dispersed enemy now shoots and then quickly moves Bottom line: US no longer has in its inventory capabilities to handle these threats and that could leave open the opportunity for decapitation of a headquarters C2 capabilities Re: Reactive Armor Protection Systems (i.e., Israeli Trophy System) US only recently has recognized that it has a direct fire problem Beginning to work on the solution Can have infantry protecting tanks but only when they are not moving Almost all high end armies moving toward these systems and the US is, too albeit slowly Re: Use of Armor in Afghanistan Marines used armor correctly in Afghanistan o Sent in 14 tanks (2 squads) It was not an escalation Tanks are the most precise anti-ambush system that can be used against low-intensity adversaries, as was done in Vietnam, Lebanon, etc. o Adversary has to be pretty gusty to even contemplate such an ambush o Tanks provide a precise immediate direct fire system that could be used immediately against a threat 1,000m away or wait for close air support or an Apache to come in with a 500lb. bomb o Tanks provide a really good rival to a sniper because they are immediately responsive to the commander o Tanks change the dynamic of what the enemy thinks is possible would have to be serious about not being a fighter and instead becoming a suicide bomber if taking one on US did not rely on tanks in Vietnam because early on we were convinced that tanks did not contribute to a counterinsurgency o However, US found out later that 75-85% of the country was accessible to one or another type of tank 9

10 Re: Mobility Standards A Chinese view of the US: It either underwhelms or overwhelms o Would be really dangerous if it just learned to whelm MRAPs were forced on the services o Created to solve a political, not tactical problem - trying to protect soldiers lives and keep the US populace from losing its will to stay in the fight o Been doing discretionary ops for 15 years if it looks like there will be IEDs there, then don t go there or get more ISR, or conduct the patrol tomorrow, etc. This is not like the invasion of Normandy when all must go at once Stakes are not that high Canada used tanks as recovery vehicles in Afghanistan while the US remained road-bound Must think about who you will be fighting Successful innovation starts with an in-depth understanding of the problem you are trying to solve o In WWII everyone knew what technologies were available and nearly all the forces had the same sort of weapons o Only the Germans managed to develop the combined arms concepts of integrating different elements to create the Blitzkrieg o Everyone else has been using the concepts since then Re: Future of the Big Eight Programs Basic premise is that the Army must have combined arms to fight today s enemies o Some complain that it can t afford combined arms now However, there is still is plenty of funding available, but Army must have a good argument to get a share of the funding o When on Capitol Hill, Army needs to talk about capability gaps in a compelling way If Army leaders don t talk about problems (which they are reluctant to do), they won t get help solving them Chief of Staff of the Army is now talking about these problems Need a professional assessment of what the problems are Re: Korea Problems Problem: N. Korea has had 70 years to get ready to fight Current estimates are that Seoul could be attacked with 40,000 rounds of artillery a day in a war Plus there is no adequate counter-fire capability in place now since the North will be firing from places it has been building for 70 years o The North has stockpiled ammunition there o Will roll out, fire, and roll back into hiding o Air Force says they will take care of the problem but how long will that take? In the meantime Seoul will be destroyed o 28 million people would be at immediate risk o Nuclear attacks also possible with an unstable N Korean leader DoD doesn t like to talk about the issue because there may be no good solution 10