by Tom Clancy
The military operates under far different expectations. Where the financial industry likes to operate in a precise world, down to the fourth decimal point, the military is used to operating in the fog of war, a world of uncertainty, and at levels of efficiency that might reach 5 or 10 percent — that is, a soldier has less than one chance in ten of hitting the enemy when he fires his rifle. Such levels of uncertainty mean that we in the military so overload our capacity to conduct warfare that a hacker who steals our secrets, inserts misleading information, or injects confusion will not cripple a military operation, only lower its efficiency.
Still, if the opposing military forces are somewhat close to parity, then computer attacks might spell the difference between victory and defeat in battle.
This is the good news. The bad news is that the U.S. military has an extensive capacity to fool itself.
We can talk ourselves into believing our own lies.
Imagine the situation I described earlier: We have entered the computer system associated with the enemy’s command and control for air defense, and have depicted a mythical raid in the western part of his country, while our Stealth bombers are in the east. Believing what he sees on his displays, he sends his interceptor forces to the west.
In the meantime, another echelon of U.S. command is secretly pirating the enemy air defense command-and-control data and feeding this information to our air defense units. However, owing to the classification of the computer insertion activity, some good guys don’t know what the other good guys are doing. As a result, the intelligence gatherers believe we are really attacking to the west. As a result, when our attacking force returns to friendly territory after their unopposed attacks, they are engaged by their own friendly air defenses, who have concluded that they are enemy attackers.
This example is simplistic, yet it illustrates how complicated new forms of warfare can become, and how dangerous can be the failure to work as one force, one team. Control must be all-encompassing in every aspect of the conflict, and it must be coordinated both offensively and defensively. Modern warfare’s widespread communications, computer-assisted information systems, and surveillance of the battle space will dictate that the dominant forces have full knowledge of the battle and control of its environment.
They also mean that the victor will be the combatant who can act with the greatest speed.
SPEED
In future wars, the warring parties may not be equal in size or firepower, yet one side’s numerical advantages may be offset by a smaller opponent who acts rapidly, decisively, and accurately. Because any nation or group participating in organized warfare can now access computers, space systems, and commercial communications, any warring party can now act rapidly, decisively, and accurately. They can review and analyze data, decide to act, and then commit with such speed that their opponent is reacting to these actions rather than initiating actions that facilitate his own advantages.
This is the advantage of surprise and initiative: long prized by United States military doctrine, and exemplified by the German blitzkrieg of World War II — but a difficult goal for the regimented military mind and ponderous ground armies.
In the future, rapid movement over strategic distances will be required if our military power is to be deployed in time to prevent a crisis from escalating to war or to halt an invasion. This is why American military forces so highly value our vast strategic fleet of airlift aircraft. Going one step further, imagine conventional-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, based in the United States but capable of delivering a crippling blow within thirty minutes anywhere in the world. Surely, in that future, the words of warning delivered by the United States ambassador to a dictator marshaling his forces on his neighbor’s border would be more carefully evaluated than was the case in 1990.
The essence of modern airpower is rapidity. It is truly the forte of the B-2. Though based in Missouri, it can reach anywhere on the globe in hours, with little preparation or support.
★ For the United States military, “rapidity” has strategic as well as tactical implications.
The United States is blessed with good strategic location, safely tucked as it is between two large oceans on its east and west, and two friendly nations to its north and south. While it is subject to attack from the sea, air, and space, such attacks can be contained, given an adequate navy, air force, and ballistic missile defenses. Since naval, air, and space forces are highly mobile, they can be sized and operated both for domestic defense and warfare throughout the world. U.S. land forces, on the other hand, must expect to engage in faraway parts of the world and not in homeland defense, but their mobility is limited, and it takes time.
Thus, in conflicts far from our shores, the maritime, air, and space forces will either already be on scene or will quickly arrive on scene; the limiting factor will be the arrival of ground forces. Space is on scene at any given time, based on the orbital characteristics of the system. Airpower can arrive in minutes or hours, depending on basing. Sea power may be on scene, or can arrive in days, depending on the location of the ships. But the ever-increasing CONUS basing of land forces means that they will take weeks or months to arrive in strength in a conflict region far from the United States.
It follows that if we are to use military force to deter or resolve conflict in its earliest stages, then we must exploit the rapid strategic mobility of space, air, and naval forces. And if we are to advance the capability of our military forces to deter or resolve conflict, we must increase the rapidity of the land forces’ strategic mobility.
Since we are seldom able to predict the outbreak of hostilities, it is vital that the United States have forces that can reach the scene of conflict as quickly as possible, and then move quickly within a battle space.
★ Any future enemy will surely have precision attack weapons that exploit standoff. This means that our military forces must be able to hide or disguise themselves (control the environment) and to rapidly relocate (to areas where enemy weapons are not aimed). This also means that air weapons systems must have longer range, to allow them to be based under our own defensive umbrellas or at airfields or on ships beyond the reach of enemy missiles. This also means that land forces must be able to mass and disperse rapidly in order to accumulate the decisive power needed to win a battle, while denying enemy standoff weapons large, lucrative targets. Tactical mobility is achieved in the air by high-performance aircraft, at sea by long-endurance powerful turbine engines, and on land by high-speed vehicles and by forces that are not tied to large logistic support lines.
While military forces throughout the world are seeking these capabilities — long range, high speed, and freedom from encumbering supply trains — they are not always training and organizing to exploit the advantages of rapid thinking and acting.
BRILLIANCE
This brings me to the last of the elements needed to attain victory in the future — the “brilliance” with which we employ advanced technology. Brilliance is a code word for initiative, and is therefore nothing more than the decisions produced by humans in a decentralized environment.
This is a revolution, not because it is new but because we live in an age when all the natural tendencies drive us toward centralization.
So, for example, the revolution in computers and communications means that information can be transferred on an unprecedented scale from the battle back to some headquarters. From this, some conclude an increased value in centralized analysis and decision making. Why not, they claim, watch over the battle in the calm, cool environment of some headquarters that is close to the President and far from the agony of war?
Wrong!
This is the false trail that (at least in part) led to our failures in Vietnam, where targets were picked in the White House by leaders with immense knowledge of the politics of the war and little comprehension of battle. We must accept the reality that the closer we come to the battle, the more we are likely to know what it takes to fight effectively
.
Though each succeeding higher headquarters will — rightly — have a role in determining goals and objectives, we must keep in mind that those who are closest to the action are the most important participants in the action. They are the ones the so-called higher echelons are there to support.
SPACE
Any discussion of Desert Storm cannot ignore the immense contribution made by our space forces. Even less will we be able to ignore their contributions in the future. In Desert Storm, the primary role of space was to provide knowledge. Space, of course, has many other military uses.
Space operations fall into one of two areas — information or combat. Information operations provide data, either as a medium (such as communications satellites) or as a source (such as ballistic missile launch warning, imagery, GPS navigation, and time data). Combat operations include weapons that pass through space (Scuds and ICBMs arrive through space), weapons that defend against such weapons (either lasers, target trackers,[71] or kinetic impact devices), and weapons that shoot down satellites (in the 1980s, the USAF shot down a satellite using a missile launched from an F-15).
The Air Force has been an able steward of space. The ballistic missile programs of the fifties, sixties, and seventies have matured into the space lift of today, and now upward of 95 percent of our military space assets and operations are acquired and operated by USAF programs and organizations. Blue suits dominate the military cooperative programs with NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office, and Patrick, Vandenberg, and Falcon Air Force Bases have become the core of our military space launch and on-orbit operations.
This situation is not without problems. For starters, our reliance and ability to exploit space grew from support of Cold War deterrence operations. Some of these mind-sets still remain. Second, space is often seen as a subset of air operations.
In fact, as Desert Storm has shown, space has become a pervasive influence in almost every aspect of military operations.
Take GPS.
The GPS system not only tells everyone where they are, it provides everyone the same time (which is vital to such things as the synchronization of encrypting devices on radios), and it is everywhere accessible to all.
Take reconnaissance.
We can watch the enemy nation and adjacent seas anytime in any condition.
Take global broadcast.
We can beam two hundred channels to our forces deployed in any country. The Army can watch updates of battle maps; the Air Force can get target information; the Navy can get weather reports; the chaplain can air his message for the day; and the commander can brief the troops on the upcoming offensive. Anything that is classified will require a decoder box for that channel; no problem.
In other words, space has become too big, too important, to be treated as a subset of air operations or of the Cold War.
Airmen now face a difficult choice: either to define space as air operations at a higher altitude, or to develop doctrine that describes space operations in terms as different from air as air is from land or sea. For the time being, the Air Force has crafted a course of action that defines itself as an “air and space” force that could become the “space and air” force. But that may not be enough.
Our space force is the servant to all our military services. The Army and Marine Corps rely more heavily on global positioning satellite information than do their comrades in the air or on the sea. The Navy requires satellite communications to coordinate the activities of their far-flung fleets. As a result, the land and sea forces are deeply concerned that they rely almost exclusively on the USAF to satisfy their space needs. The problem here is that the Air Force has its own needs (many of which have little to do with space), and these needs have to be funded. As long as each service is funded at an artificial rate almost equal to one-third of the defense budget, the Air Force will be hard-pressed to fill its core air responsibilities while growing its role in space.
All of this means that our space force may need to become a military entity in its own right, equal and apart from our air, land, and maritime forces. At some point the nation must ask itself if we should artificially limit our space and air capabilities with the present budgeting methodology, when both are growing in importance to our defense strategy.
CINCSPACE
I have a particular interest in space because, after the war, from 1992 to my retirement in 1994, I was commander of the U.S. space forces.
Space people are interesting. By that I mean that most of them don’t seem very much like most of us — not X-Files different, but definitely leaning toward strange.
For one thing, you’d think space people would be the most flexible, daring, and future-oriented individuals you’re likely to meet. In fact, that is not usually the case. Most of them are incredibly cautious. Many bad things can go wrong in their world; and when they do, the results can be catastrophic. Even a little glitch can be a big problem when the glitch is 22,500 miles above the surface of the Earth. Each space launch is a unique event (just as it was forty years ago). Every time space folks put a satellite on tons of explosive fuel, their memories retain the scars of huge explosions on the launch pad or shortly after liftoff. We all saw the Challenger tragedy on our television sets.
In other words, space folks are the most conservative group you will find. They make Swiss bankers look like druggy surfers. They agonize over every aspect of their trade. The design and construction of satellites can take many years. There are inevitable delays — often measured in years. Nothing is left to chance.
Once the bird is in orbit and functioning, it is turned over to the satellite flyers, men and women who work in windowless rooms in front of flickering computer screens. They are backed up by the men and women stationed around the globe (usually at lonely, faraway locations such as island atolls and Arctic wastelands) who operate the radio net that communicates with the orbiting vehicles.
In the control rooms, you’ll find computer geeks, people who are among the most highly trained, motivated, educated, disciplined, and competent professionals in our military.
When you enter the room, you notice the hush. The hum of air conditioners is about the only sound present, until you begin to realize there’s also a click, click, click of computer keys. That’s the noise the space pilots make when they fly their vehicles.
Occasionally, there’ll be an anomaly that the operator cannot fix — say, an overheating transmitter as the sun bakes the side of the bird facing its rays. The operator desperately tries to coax the bird to turn so more heat-dissipating material will protect the affected part, but to no avail. When the operator finally realizes he (or she) can’t resolve the anomaly on his (or her) own and turns to the supervisor on duty for help, they don’t yell “Help” or “Mayday” or “SOS”; they look up from their screens and wave their hand to beckon their leader to their station. The expert then quietly rises from his/ her own computer station, walks to the unhappy operator, and bends down to look at the flashing red numbers to which the operator is pointing on the computer screen. These are code for the problem occurring halfway around the world and thousands of miles out in space. The supervisor reaches over and moves the computer keyboard where he or she can tap the “backspace” key to clear the command column, then types in a series of numbers and letters to command the bird to take healing action. Both watch the numbers on the reporting display change as the action takes effect and the bird is saved. Then both go back to their normal work.
The battle was fought without anyone speaking a word. Welcome to the silent world of space.
Is it surprising that such people have made little impact on the guys with guns and bayonets, or that the warriors have had little understanding of how space can support their operations?
When I arrived at SPACECOM, I very quickly found the reason for this. It was fear. The space people were afraid that the mean, ugly warriors would laugh at them for being geeks, and the warriors were afraid the space geeks would laugh at them for being st
upid. I knew I had to do something.
First, I accused the space people of doing “a war dance in their own tepees.” That is, they were busy creating systems to support military operations, but they were not out marketing their wares, for fear they’d get laughed at or rejected. Then I publicly announced that I was Geek Number One and that I was going to learn all I could about their black art. Since I had some experience getting shot at, I figured this was one geek the warriors would not reject. Then I started marketing the wares space could provide the warriors.
At the same time, I made sure that the often hobby-shop efforts of the space people actually related to the needs of the folks pulling triggers in anger.
Soon it became fun for everyone, as the warriors began to realize more and more the immense contributions space systems and products could make to their efforts; and the space geeks began to gain confidence, not only because of the excellence of their work, but because national heroes thought highly of them and their work.
We are not there yet, but I long for the day when a space geek walks into a fighter pilot bar and announces, “You boys better get out of here. I’ve had a bad day flying my satellite, I intend to get drunk, and if that happens I may get mean and hurt one of you.” At that point, the space pilots will have earned their spurs. “Every man a tiger” applies to all the skies, those above the air included.
These are some of the first things I learned as Geek Number One:
To start with, keep in mind that when you enter space, nothing is there. That’s good if you want to fly without drag, or if you want to use a laser without the attenuation problems one gets in air, or if you want to see without clouds or dust getting in the way. But living and breathing don’t come as easily as down here.
