Technology and Prioritization The United States is operating in a climate where any discussion of the role of technology in offsetting force cuts has to be based on a broad understanding of the trade-offs involved. Technology does not work miracles, and the wrong kind of effort to use technology to offset force cuts can often weaken forces rather than strengthen them. Over-commitment to advanced projects, and over-ambitious development and deployment goals often make technology the natural enemy of military effectiveness-particularly in a development dominated culture like the Department of Defense where the checks and balances necessary to integrate technology into effective force planning are often lacking. He who dies with the most toys simply dies, he does not win. Technology will only be valuable to the extent it is integrated into an effective overall force structure. This requires a constant reassessment of every dollar spent on R&D and procurement against dollars spent on the other aspects of military capability. Technology must be tied to a systematic appraisal of every aspect of force effectiveness, and to the understanding that every dollar spent on technology means the sacrifice of some other aspect of deterrent and war fighting capability. Understanding the True Meaning of "Force Multiplier" The iron laws of the effective use of technology are straightforward and unbreakable: An effective concept of operations for employing the technology on a force-wide basis, and in effective combined arms and combined operations; Proper training both in operating the individual technology and integrating it into full scale combat operations. Funding effective munitions for sustainability in combat, and the necessary C3 I/BIVI, targeting and damage assessment assets. Suitable power projection, logistic, service support, and combat support capability. Suitable maintenance, repair, and recovery capability for the specific contingency where the technology is to be employed. Immunity to cost-effective countermeasures, and unexpected obsolescence within the required service life of the technology. Adequate skilled manpower to use the technology from the operator to the high command level. Reorganization, retraining, and adjustment of the to suit the specific contingency, threat, and allied forces. There is no such thing as a "force multiplier" in the sense that a given technology or weapon has a real world military value that is independent of these eight requirements. In a period of sharply declining resources, it is frighteningly easy to buy glamorous or high profile technologies and underfund the effort to make them effective. This means that the United States must make hard trade-offs as to which technologies to preserve or acquire that are founded on as comprehensive an analysis of force-wide capabilities in a wide range of contingencies as possible. In an era of declining resources, technologies must either be funded for the purpose of mothballing them for the emergence of undefined high intensity combat contingencies--an extraordinarily high risk approach-or funded on the basis of clear plans to fully integrate them into forces the United States can actually afford. The United States no longer has the resources to pursue technologies and weapons on an incremental basis, and because they offer marginal improvements over existing systems with similar capabilities. It can only take advantage of the benefits of technology if it is far more ruthless in insisting that development and acquisition be coupled to effective force structure, deployment, and readiness plans to use that technology. The problems involved become clearer the moment one examines the term "force multiplier" in terms of its real world meaning. All investments and choices in force planning involve "force multipliers." It is all too easy, however, to create force multipliers of less than 1.0. This can be done by funding programs that are over-ambitious, undermanaged, or undercosted. The B-1 B, A-1 2, DIVAD, and Tacit Rainbow are all examples of real world cases where the search for incremental improvements in technology wasted badly needed resources on undeployable and unaffordable systems. No one can determine whether they should be awarded a force multiplier of 0.1 or 0.9, but it is all too clear that the proper multiplier was less than 1.0. These examples may also be only a warning of the shape of things to come. Partly because of the end of the cold war, and partly because of a procurement system that systemically undercosts major programs, while exaggerating performance and delivery schedules, all four services are currently committed to a wide range of programs that are either undeployable or deployable only at the cost of cuts in force structure or readiness. Possible examples include the B-2, AX, F-18F, the new family of Army armored vehicles and artillery, V-22 and many lower profile programs. While any such estimates are speculative, at least some experts in the Department of Defense feel that the current R&D and procurement budget is undercosted by 10-20 percent, and is filled with programs that cannot be deployed at even 60 percent of their currently planned procurement numbers and within years of their planned deployment times. The need to honestly appraise the opportunity cost of every technology, however, is only part of the story. One-on-one assessments of weapons or technology-particularly against an idealized enemy or target-grossly inflate the value of that technology. In the real world, even technologies with force multiplier values of more than 1.0 rarely approach the goal of radically changing the need for other forces and capabilities. Even when major new technologies like stealth, the MLRS, thermal sights, and JSTARS are successfully introduced into combat against forces that have no similar weapons or countermeasures, they tend to affect a relatively restricted spectrum of operations. These problems will grow with time for two reasons. First, the United States will face more and more situations where it will have to deploy limited numbers against mass. Second, with the end of the cold war, many contingencies are likely to involve fundamental political asymmetries in the ability to wage war. The United States will only be able to fight and win in many LIC and MIC contingencies if it can do so with very low casualties. Third World threats will often be able to absorb major losses. The current climate of resource limitations also will allow such threat nations to improve their forces faster than the United States can improve its mix of deployed technologies. Over time, technologies inevitably breed countermeasures. For example, theater nuclear weapons, antitank guided weapons and attack helicopters were once seen as force multipliers that favored the West. The West did enjoy such an advantage for a few years, but it was ultimately the Warsaw Pact that deployed far superior numbers of each weapon system. Third World nations can be expected to fund countermeasures such as improved surface-to-air missiles, antiship missiles, AC&W aircraft, UAVs, GPS, thermal sights, and a host of other relatively low cost countermeasures. These are unlikely to achieve technical parity at any time in the foreseeable future, but they are likely to correct at least some of the technical weaknesses found in Iraqi forces, and few contingencies are likely to allow the United States to commit forces with a similar freedom of action in either political or military terms. Compensating for Smaller Forces: Selecting the Right Emphasis on Technology These arguments are not arguments against technology per se. They are rather warnings that the United States may have to massively restructure its current plans and management systems to use technology to compensate for smaller forces. It is not easy to operate in a climate where every dollar spent on any weapon comes at the direct expense of some other aspect of war fighting capability, and every dollar spent on R&D and future procurement comes at the direct expense of present war fighting capability. If the United States is to be successful in compensating for smaller forces and declining defense spending, it must tailor its use of technology to accomplish the following goals:  Deal with the most likely contingency requirements; Exploit the weaknesses of the most likely threat forces; Compensate for major and long-standing weaknesses in U.S. forces and power projection capabilities; Establish effective force-on-force priorities; and, Institutionalize improved methods of integrating technology into force planning. At the same time, the United States must meet these goals with the understanding that technologies generally have a far more positive force multiplier effect when they interact synergistically. While individual technologies rarely achieve real world force multipliers, a broad mix of new technologiesintegrated into an effective concept of operations-can achieve "force-on-force multipliers" that are far more decisive. This force-on-force multiplier effect was demonstrated in World War II when a Germany with inferior numbers of aircraft, tanks, and artillery--and qualitative inferiority in tanks, artillery, army logistic vehicles, and bomber range-payload--used a combination of new technologies and a new concept of operations to overwhelm Belgium, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. It was demonstrated again in DESERT STORM when a wide range of deep strike, air-land battle, and air defense suppression technologies were used in unison in an effective concept of operations against an enemy that failed to properly prepare or react. Compesating for Smaller Forces Continued Introduction Diminished Technology Technology and Prioritization Technology and Future Contingency Requirements Establishing Effective Force-on-Force Priorities Back to Table of Contents Compensating for Smaller Forces Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by US Army War College. 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