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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/...s-of-grave-erosion-in-US-military-superiority
Defense strategy report warns of grave erosion in US military superiority
By Ellen Mitchell - 11/14/18 04:33 PM EST 685
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U.S. military superiority “has eroded to a dangerous degree,” with “grave and lasting” consequences if Washington doesn’t act quickly to reverse the damage and adequately fund the Pentagon, according to new report ordered by Congress.
Released Wednesday by the independent National Defense Strategy Commission, the report warns that America has reached a “crisis of national security,” due to a combination of political, financial and international issues and might struggle to win if faced with numerous conflicts at the same time.
“The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” the report states. “It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.”
The report’s authors also write that it would be “unwise and irresponsible not to expect adversaries to attempt debilitating kinetic, cyber, or other types of attacks against Americans at home” while also fighting the U.S. military overseas.
“U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe,” they write.
The commission — a bipartisan committee put together in July 2017 as ordered in the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — consists of up of 12 individuals. House and Senate Armed Services Committee leadership, two Democrats and two Republicans, hand-picked three individuals each to the commission.
The group was led by Eric Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador and undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005 to 2009, as well as Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations from 2007 to 2011.
The authors found that a swirling combination of issues led to what some leading voices in the U.S. national security community have dubbed an emergency.
Competitors, especially China and Russia, “are pursuing determined military buildups aimed at neutralizing U.S. strengths.”
Threats from Iran and North Korea have also worsened as the nations have “developed more advanced weapons and creatively employed asymmetric tactics,” such as using intimidation and coercion.
In addition, dangers posed by transnational threat organizations such as radical jihadist groups have evolved and intensified, with the proliferation of advanced technology around the world “allowing more actors to contest U.S. military power in more threatening ways.”
“The United States thus is in competition and conflict with an array of challengers and adversaries,” the authors write.
The report also blames “political dysfunction and decisions made by both major political parties” for shortfalls, particularly the creation of the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), which led to reductions in planned defense spending.
The commission was also charged with formally reviewing the National Defense Strategy (NDS), released by the Trump administration in January. That document is meant to drive future defense spending requests and lays out the Defense Department’s future strategy.
The NDS is expected to greatly influence the FY-20 defense spending bill, which will likely fund modernization efforts that focus on potential conflicts with China and Russia and less on the Middle East.
While the commission found that the NDS “is a broadly constructive document that identifies most of the right objectives and challenges,” the authors are “deeply concerned that the Department of Defense and the nation as a whole have not yet addressed crucial issues such as force sizing, developing innovative operational concepts, readiness, and resources with the degree of urgency, persistence, and analytic depth that an increasingly dangerous world demands.”
The commission also warns that the NDS “too often rests on questionable assumptions and weak analysis,” and is not adequately resourced.
“We believe that the NDS points the Department of Defense and the country in the right direction, but it does not adequately explain how we should get there,” the commission writes.
Overall, the Pentagon simply needs more resources to push back on an impending crisis and fund the NDS, it says.
“Available resources are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy’s ambitious goals, including that of ensuring that DOD can defeat a major-power adversary while deterring other enemies simultaneously,” the authors write.
The funding now available is not enough to take on nuclear and conventional modernization simultaneously and fix long-accumulating readiness shortfalls.
The report is particularly critical of the Pentagon’s often-touted plans to fill resource gaps through savings found by organizational reform. They say it is “unrealistic to expect that such reforms will yield significant resources for growth, especially within a time frame appropriate to meet the challenges posed by China and Russia.”
The administration last month requested that the Pentagon plan for a national defense budget of $700 billion for FY-20, down from $716 billion this fiscal year.
The new plan is a cut from the $733 billion the department had expected to request in the NDAA for both Pentagon and non-Pentagon defense items such as the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, meanwhile, has talked about the need for 3 percent to 5 percent budget growth each year in order to successfully repair readiness, a rate that the commission recommends.
“Without additional resources, and without greater stability and predictability in how those resources are provided, the Department will be unable to fulfill the ambition of the NDS or create and preserve U.S. military advantages in the years to come.”
The report has already received attention on Capitol Hill.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) praised the release as it “makes clear that our nation confronts a stark choice.”
“To address our present national security crisis and restore America’s eroding military advantage, we must fully resource and implement the National Defense Strategy. If we fail to do so, the cost will be measured in American lives lost fighting wars that might have been avoided and may very well be lost,” Inhofe said in a statement.
Inhofe also said the NDS was “a good start,” but the United States needs to put the strategy into action.
He also agreed with the finding that there must be greater urgency in funding national defense to make sure the United States can “undertake essential nuclear and conventional modernization while rectifying readiness shortfalls.”
“That is why I believe the $733 billion defense budget originally proposed by President Trump for fiscal year 2020 should be considered a floor, not a ceiling, for funding our troops."
“We aren’t there yet, and we have a lot of work left to do,” he added.
Tags China Russia Pentagon Donald Trump James Inhofe James Mattis Defense spending Military Terrorism
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your...up-to-russia-and-china-on-missiles-artillery/
Here’s how the Army is trying to catch up to Russia and China on missiles, artillery
By: Todd South April 12
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While senior officials admit that the Army is currently outgunned and outranged in its artillery and missiles programs, the service’s secretary and top general told Congress that fixing that problem at every level is their top priority.
“Both China and Russia have passed us up in terms of range and rapid fire,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma during the Army posture hearing Thursday.
So, what’s being done about it?
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/UGZCNPSTY5G6RBGLTAOVFLCM54.jpg)
Army wants missiles, rockets and artillery that fire farther and deliver more punch
Army researchers expect to deliver cannons and missiles that can shoot farther, more accurately and with more lethality, beginning with extended-range projectiles, next year.
By: Todd South
At the top of the list of six major areas of focus for the Army is long-range precision fires, said Army Secretary Mark Esper.
During his recent tours of the combatant commands, Esper told the Senate that each of those commanders “conveyed the importance” of long-range precision fires to their respective missions.
He and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley laid out the levels of programs that are getting attention:
At the tactical level is the Paladin Integration Management program.
On the operational level is the Extended Range Cannon Artillery program.
At the strategic level are hypersonic projectiles.
The Army is playing catch up at all levels of fires with China and Russia. The service's secretary and top general update the Senate on how. (Sgt. Aaron Ellerman/Army)
For the PIM program, as of December, more than three dozen sets of M109A7 Self-Propelled 155mm Howitzers and M992A3 ammunition carrier vehicles had been delivered with 60 more a year for the next three years scheduled, according to Military Times’ sister publication Defense News.
The PIM takes the Howitzer gun, adds an on-board power system, digital displays and lets the Army use the same undercarriage as the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
The cannon program seeks to double the range of the modified howitzer. At the annual Association of the U.S. Army symposium last year Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins commanding general of the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command said that the extended range projectiles will be demonstrated this year.
The program includes developing long-range weapons that can operate with or without GPS. Demonstrations on those systems are expected by fiscal year 2021, Michael Richman, an RDECOM researcher said at the same event.
The program is also working on improvising the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System used by both the Army and Marine Corps. Demonstrations are expected in fiscal year 2023.
Hypersonic projectiles, or missiles flying at five times the speed of sound to avoid missile and air defenses, recently grabbed headlines when Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missile that he claimed could travel at 10 times the speed of sound.
Esper noted that hypersonics development will benefit the Army but much of the work will be done jointly, relying on other services.
The X-51A Waverider has successfully shown hypersonic flight is possible. But Russia may have passed the U.S. in this crucial technology. (U.S. Air Force graphic)
The hub for that research is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
DARPA Director Steven Walker told Defense News in March that the systems are just around the corner.
“We’re going to start flying these systems in 2019, you’ll see lots of flight tests, and we’re excited that these will be systems that will be very capable that we can use from standoff” range, Walker said. “These are not going to be just flying propulsion concepts through the air.”
Funding for hypersonics has gotten congressional attention as well. They put aside $85.5 million for the programs in fiscal year 2017, which jumped to $256.7 million in the most recent budget request, according to Defense News.
Esper also noted that on the missiles front, the mobile Short-Range Air Defense, or SHORAD, system will be ready to deploy within two years. The Army has already decided on a chassis and certain effectors but they’re pushing developers to build in extra capacity for lasers.
https://www.livescience.com/62082-hypersonic-weapons-defense.html
US Can't Stop Hypersonic Weapons, Air Force General Says
By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | March 21, 2018 08:31am ET
Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile flies during a test in southern Russia on March 11, 2018, shown in this image made from footage taken from the Russian Defense Ministry. The Russian military says it has run a successful test of the Kinzhal missile.
Credit: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP
Missiles that spit out warheads traveling up to 20 times the speed of sound and with the ability to perform elusive acrobatics may be too much for U.S. defenses to block.
That's according to the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday (March 20).
When asked by Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., what kind of defenses the U.S. has against hypersonic weapons, Hyten replied: "We have a very difficult — well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat," Military.com reported. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]
Hyten is referring to the triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers, which are bomber aircraft designed to fly into enemy territory and destroy strategic targets. Ballistic missiles, both hidden underground and in secret submarines, can travel huge distances at whirring speeds.
But weapons that can travel well above the speed of sound seem to be a real threat, as both Russia and China are "aggressively pursuing" such hypersonic weapons, Hyten also said, as reported by CNBC.
On March 1, during an annual address, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a new class of weapon delivery systems designed to evade NATO's ballistic missile defenses. Speaking on Russian television, Putin indicated the country was building a new hypersonic missile and a cruise missile with "unlimited range" that could avoid adversaries' detection technologies.
This nuclear-powered cruise missile could travel unlimited distances, and, unlike ballistic missiles, it could cruise low to the ground where it would be obscured by other objects — meaning it would evade radar detection, Live Science previously reported.
"In theory, a cruise missile carrying a nuclear bomb could slip under American defenses and detection systems, and detonate before Americans could mobilize a response," Live Science reported. [Could the US Stop Nuclear Weapons?]
Modern technology available today wouldn't be able to stop such an attack, nor could it defend against missile-deploying warheads at hypersonic speeds, Philip Coyle, a nuclear weapons expert, previously told Live Science's Rafi Letzter.
Even so, Gen. Hyten assured the Senate Committee that U.S. defenses are prepared for such a battle. "The first, most important message I want to deliver today is that the forces under my command are fully ready to deter our adversaries and respond decisively, should deterrence ever fail. We are ready for all threats," Hyten said in his opening remarks, according to a Department of Defense statement.
Other generals have suggested supplementing the U.S. defense arsenal with low-yield nukes, or those that pack less power. In addition, space-based detection systems could theoretically detect and track hypersonic missile threats, Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said on March 6, according to Military.com.
"To maintain military superiority in this multipolar, all-domain world, we must out-think, out-maneuver, out-partner and out-innovate our adversaries," Hyten said. "Deterrence in the 21st century requires the integration of all our capabilities, across all domains, enabling us to respond to adversary aggression anytime, anywhere."
Just this week, President Donald Trump said the U.S. needs a "space force," Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.
Originally published on Live Science.
Defense strategy report warns of grave erosion in US military superiority
By Ellen Mitchell - 11/14/18 04:33 PM EST 685
213
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© Getty Images
U.S. military superiority “has eroded to a dangerous degree,” with “grave and lasting” consequences if Washington doesn’t act quickly to reverse the damage and adequately fund the Pentagon, according to new report ordered by Congress.
Released Wednesday by the independent National Defense Strategy Commission, the report warns that America has reached a “crisis of national security,” due to a combination of political, financial and international issues and might struggle to win if faced with numerous conflicts at the same time.
“The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” the report states. “It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.”
The report’s authors also write that it would be “unwise and irresponsible not to expect adversaries to attempt debilitating kinetic, cyber, or other types of attacks against Americans at home” while also fighting the U.S. military overseas.
“U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe,” they write.
The commission — a bipartisan committee put together in July 2017 as ordered in the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — consists of up of 12 individuals. House and Senate Armed Services Committee leadership, two Democrats and two Republicans, hand-picked three individuals each to the commission.
The group was led by Eric Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador and undersecretary of defense for policy from 2005 to 2009, as well as Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations from 2007 to 2011.
The authors found that a swirling combination of issues led to what some leading voices in the U.S. national security community have dubbed an emergency.
Competitors, especially China and Russia, “are pursuing determined military buildups aimed at neutralizing U.S. strengths.”
Threats from Iran and North Korea have also worsened as the nations have “developed more advanced weapons and creatively employed asymmetric tactics,” such as using intimidation and coercion.
In addition, dangers posed by transnational threat organizations such as radical jihadist groups have evolved and intensified, with the proliferation of advanced technology around the world “allowing more actors to contest U.S. military power in more threatening ways.”
“The United States thus is in competition and conflict with an array of challengers and adversaries,” the authors write.
The report also blames “political dysfunction and decisions made by both major political parties” for shortfalls, particularly the creation of the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), which led to reductions in planned defense spending.
The commission was also charged with formally reviewing the National Defense Strategy (NDS), released by the Trump administration in January. That document is meant to drive future defense spending requests and lays out the Defense Department’s future strategy.
The NDS is expected to greatly influence the FY-20 defense spending bill, which will likely fund modernization efforts that focus on potential conflicts with China and Russia and less on the Middle East.
While the commission found that the NDS “is a broadly constructive document that identifies most of the right objectives and challenges,” the authors are “deeply concerned that the Department of Defense and the nation as a whole have not yet addressed crucial issues such as force sizing, developing innovative operational concepts, readiness, and resources with the degree of urgency, persistence, and analytic depth that an increasingly dangerous world demands.”
The commission also warns that the NDS “too often rests on questionable assumptions and weak analysis,” and is not adequately resourced.
“We believe that the NDS points the Department of Defense and the country in the right direction, but it does not adequately explain how we should get there,” the commission writes.
Overall, the Pentagon simply needs more resources to push back on an impending crisis and fund the NDS, it says.
“Available resources are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy’s ambitious goals, including that of ensuring that DOD can defeat a major-power adversary while deterring other enemies simultaneously,” the authors write.
The funding now available is not enough to take on nuclear and conventional modernization simultaneously and fix long-accumulating readiness shortfalls.
The report is particularly critical of the Pentagon’s often-touted plans to fill resource gaps through savings found by organizational reform. They say it is “unrealistic to expect that such reforms will yield significant resources for growth, especially within a time frame appropriate to meet the challenges posed by China and Russia.”
The administration last month requested that the Pentagon plan for a national defense budget of $700 billion for FY-20, down from $716 billion this fiscal year.
The new plan is a cut from the $733 billion the department had expected to request in the NDAA for both Pentagon and non-Pentagon defense items such as the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, meanwhile, has talked about the need for 3 percent to 5 percent budget growth each year in order to successfully repair readiness, a rate that the commission recommends.
“Without additional resources, and without greater stability and predictability in how those resources are provided, the Department will be unable to fulfill the ambition of the NDS or create and preserve U.S. military advantages in the years to come.”
The report has already received attention on Capitol Hill.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) praised the release as it “makes clear that our nation confronts a stark choice.”
“To address our present national security crisis and restore America’s eroding military advantage, we must fully resource and implement the National Defense Strategy. If we fail to do so, the cost will be measured in American lives lost fighting wars that might have been avoided and may very well be lost,” Inhofe said in a statement.
Inhofe also said the NDS was “a good start,” but the United States needs to put the strategy into action.
He also agreed with the finding that there must be greater urgency in funding national defense to make sure the United States can “undertake essential nuclear and conventional modernization while rectifying readiness shortfalls.”
“That is why I believe the $733 billion defense budget originally proposed by President Trump for fiscal year 2020 should be considered a floor, not a ceiling, for funding our troops."
“We aren’t there yet, and we have a lot of work left to do,” he added.
Tags China Russia Pentagon Donald Trump James Inhofe James Mattis Defense spending Military Terrorism
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your...up-to-russia-and-china-on-missiles-artillery/
Here’s how the Army is trying to catch up to Russia and China on missiles, artillery
By: Todd South April 12
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While senior officials admit that the Army is currently outgunned and outranged in its artillery and missiles programs, the service’s secretary and top general told Congress that fixing that problem at every level is their top priority.
“Both China and Russia have passed us up in terms of range and rapid fire,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma during the Army posture hearing Thursday.
So, what’s being done about it?
Army wants missiles, rockets and artillery that fire farther and deliver more punch
Army researchers expect to deliver cannons and missiles that can shoot farther, more accurately and with more lethality, beginning with extended-range projectiles, next year.
By: Todd South
At the top of the list of six major areas of focus for the Army is long-range precision fires, said Army Secretary Mark Esper.
During his recent tours of the combatant commands, Esper told the Senate that each of those commanders “conveyed the importance” of long-range precision fires to their respective missions.
He and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley laid out the levels of programs that are getting attention:
At the tactical level is the Paladin Integration Management program.
On the operational level is the Extended Range Cannon Artillery program.
At the strategic level are hypersonic projectiles.
For the PIM program, as of December, more than three dozen sets of M109A7 Self-Propelled 155mm Howitzers and M992A3 ammunition carrier vehicles had been delivered with 60 more a year for the next three years scheduled, according to Military Times’ sister publication Defense News.
The PIM takes the Howitzer gun, adds an on-board power system, digital displays and lets the Army use the same undercarriage as the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
The cannon program seeks to double the range of the modified howitzer. At the annual Association of the U.S. Army symposium last year Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins commanding general of the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command said that the extended range projectiles will be demonstrated this year.
The program includes developing long-range weapons that can operate with or without GPS. Demonstrations on those systems are expected by fiscal year 2021, Michael Richman, an RDECOM researcher said at the same event.
The program is also working on improvising the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System used by both the Army and Marine Corps. Demonstrations are expected in fiscal year 2023.
Hypersonic projectiles, or missiles flying at five times the speed of sound to avoid missile and air defenses, recently grabbed headlines when Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missile that he claimed could travel at 10 times the speed of sound.
Esper noted that hypersonics development will benefit the Army but much of the work will be done jointly, relying on other services.
The hub for that research is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
DARPA Director Steven Walker told Defense News in March that the systems are just around the corner.
“We’re going to start flying these systems in 2019, you’ll see lots of flight tests, and we’re excited that these will be systems that will be very capable that we can use from standoff” range, Walker said. “These are not going to be just flying propulsion concepts through the air.”
Funding for hypersonics has gotten congressional attention as well. They put aside $85.5 million for the programs in fiscal year 2017, which jumped to $256.7 million in the most recent budget request, according to Defense News.
Esper also noted that on the missiles front, the mobile Short-Range Air Defense, or SHORAD, system will be ready to deploy within two years. The Army has already decided on a chassis and certain effectors but they’re pushing developers to build in extra capacity for lasers.
https://www.livescience.com/62082-hypersonic-weapons-defense.html
US Can't Stop Hypersonic Weapons, Air Force General Says
By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | March 21, 2018 08:31am ET
- 0
- 0
- MORE
Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile flies during a test in southern Russia on March 11, 2018, shown in this image made from footage taken from the Russian Defense Ministry. The Russian military says it has run a successful test of the Kinzhal missile.
Credit: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP
Missiles that spit out warheads traveling up to 20 times the speed of sound and with the ability to perform elusive acrobatics may be too much for U.S. defenses to block.
That's according to the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday (March 20).
When asked by Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., what kind of defenses the U.S. has against hypersonic weapons, Hyten replied: "We have a very difficult — well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat," Military.com reported. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]
Hyten is referring to the triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers, which are bomber aircraft designed to fly into enemy territory and destroy strategic targets. Ballistic missiles, both hidden underground and in secret submarines, can travel huge distances at whirring speeds.
But weapons that can travel well above the speed of sound seem to be a real threat, as both Russia and China are "aggressively pursuing" such hypersonic weapons, Hyten also said, as reported by CNBC.
On March 1, during an annual address, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a new class of weapon delivery systems designed to evade NATO's ballistic missile defenses. Speaking on Russian television, Putin indicated the country was building a new hypersonic missile and a cruise missile with "unlimited range" that could avoid adversaries' detection technologies.
This nuclear-powered cruise missile could travel unlimited distances, and, unlike ballistic missiles, it could cruise low to the ground where it would be obscured by other objects — meaning it would evade radar detection, Live Science previously reported.
"In theory, a cruise missile carrying a nuclear bomb could slip under American defenses and detection systems, and detonate before Americans could mobilize a response," Live Science reported. [Could the US Stop Nuclear Weapons?]
Modern technology available today wouldn't be able to stop such an attack, nor could it defend against missile-deploying warheads at hypersonic speeds, Philip Coyle, a nuclear weapons expert, previously told Live Science's Rafi Letzter.
Even so, Gen. Hyten assured the Senate Committee that U.S. defenses are prepared for such a battle. "The first, most important message I want to deliver today is that the forces under my command are fully ready to deter our adversaries and respond decisively, should deterrence ever fail. We are ready for all threats," Hyten said in his opening remarks, according to a Department of Defense statement.
Other generals have suggested supplementing the U.S. defense arsenal with low-yield nukes, or those that pack less power. In addition, space-based detection systems could theoretically detect and track hypersonic missile threats, Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said on March 6, according to Military.com.
"To maintain military superiority in this multipolar, all-domain world, we must out-think, out-maneuver, out-partner and out-innovate our adversaries," Hyten said. "Deterrence in the 21st century requires the integration of all our capabilities, across all domains, enabling us to respond to adversary aggression anytime, anywhere."
Just this week, President Donald Trump said the U.S. needs a "space force," Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.
Originally published on Live Science.
