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Sept. 11: US defense strategy post-911

By DENNIS LEWIS

(Part of UPI's Special Report on Sept. 11)

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Has 9-11 changed the national defense strategy? No, rather it has provided clarity and support for defense programs required to implement this strategy.

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The war in Afghanistan has underscored the need for precision weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles and other surveillance assets. It also has demonstrated the synergy of such technologies in the hands of well-trained, networked and agile ground forces. These and other lessons are defining the requirements necessary to provide for the national defense now and in the future.

The overall national defense strategy goes beyond fighting the current war on terrorism or any pre-emptive strikes on Iraq. It is overarching, complicated and based on four policy goals that are supported by a set of strategic tenets.

Key among these strategic tenets is transformation. The Department of Defense views transformation as an ongoing process to adapt its organizations, operational concepts and equipment to address future threats. The department further defines transformation by six operational goals and several specific transformational activities.

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A year ago, the biggest news in defense was the status of the Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR process addresses U.S. strategy, force structure and long-term resource management, and is used to develop the DOD's budget request.

The first of these congressionally mandated reviews was due in 1997 and was used to justify force structure within the Defense Department. The essence of the QDR submitted to Congress last year --- on Sept. 30, 2001 -- is transformation, the action behind the strategy.

DOD outlined four defense policy goals in its 2002 Annual Report to the president and Congress, providing the basis for a strategic framework to defend the nation and secure a viable peace:

--Assure allies and friends that the United States is committed to them and global stability through security cooperation to help create favorable balances of power in critical areas of the world.

--Through an aggressive science and technology program and well-targeted strategy and policy, dissuade other countries from initiating future military competition.

--Deter threats and coercion against U.S. interests by providing the president with a wide range of military options including global intelligence, forward deployed and rapidly deployable forces, and precision strikes.

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--If deterrence fails, decisively defeat the adversary.

These defense policy goals were stipulated in the 2001 QDR and have not changed.

Additionally, to support its four policy goals, DOD established a set of strategic tenets: a capabilites-based approach; defending the United States and projecting U.S. military power; strengthening alliances and partnerships; enhancing U.S. global military posture; developing a broad portfolio of military capabilities, managing risks, and transforming defense.

The U.S defense strategy changed from the 1997 QDR of being able to fight and win two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies to a capabilities-based approach. This approach emphasizes "how" an adversary might fight rather than "who" the adversary might be and "where" the war might occur. Given the asymmetric and unpredictable nature of future warfare, this approach focuses on existing and future capabilities required to deter, fight and win.

The attacks of Sept. 11 clearly demonstrate that adversaries are developing both low-tech and high-tech means to threaten the United States, and underscore the No. 1 defense priority: defending the nation from attack. This tenet emphasizes the security of U.S. land, sea, air, and space approaches. It also recognizes the need to be able to project decisive military power overseas as both a deterrent and a means of defense.

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Strengthening alliances and partnerships is the next tenet. Strong security cooperation among a community of nations committed to a common purpose assures allies and deters adversaries. To accomplish this, the Defense Department plans to increase peacetime training exercises and efforts to improve coalition command, control and communications.

The department also plans to enhance U.S. global military posture in critical geographic areas to serve as a deterrent, and, if deterrence fails, to provide a quick response option for the president. Forward stationed forces, worldwide rapid deployable forces, and global reconnaissance, strike, and command and control assets could combine to rapidly defeat an emerging threat.

To accomplish its strategic goals, DOD recognizes the need to develop a broad portfolio of military capabilities by creating and sustaining technical advantages in space, information, situational awareness, power projection and joint military operations.

The current war on terrorism, threats to our nation and world stability create a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for allocating resources. Do you spend them on the current force fighting the war on terrorism or spend on transforming this force for future threats? The fact is you must do both and the Defense Department has established a framework for managing these risks.

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In its 2002 Annual Report, DOD lists four categories of risk that impact its ability to achieve its defense goals:

--Force management risk addresses recruiting, retention, training, and equipping in sufficient numbers and quality to sustain warfighting readinesswhile also accomplishing its many other operational tasks such as firefighting, peacekeeping and training.

--Operation risk is a function of the department's ability to achieve its immediate military missions.

--Future challenges risk is a measure of the department's ability to invest in new concepts, technologies, and capabilities needed to address mid to long-tem military threats.

--Institutional risk stems from DOD's ability to develop better business practices to more effectively use resources and facilitate effective operations.

Transformation is the heart of the new defense strategy. It includes both advances in technology and re-thinking the department's culture. Existing equipment, established personnel, acquisition, and budgeting bureaucracies are all becoming cost-prohibitive to maintain and incapable of responding to rapid changes in the defense environment. Change is required now!

This framework provides a systematic process to consider tradeoffs in resource allocation to the competing demands of near, mid, and long-term readiness requirements and provides the basis for any changes in major transformation acquisition programs.

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DOD states in its 2002 Annual Report that "transformation lies at the heart of our efforts to reduce risks posed by future challenges," and its approach to transformation is based on six operational goals:

--Protect critical bases of operations both at home and abroad and defeat nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their means of delivery.

--Project and sustain U.S. forces in anti-access and area-denial environments.

--Deny sanctuary to enemies by providing persistent surveillance, tracking and rapid engagement with high-volume precision strikes, through a combination of complementary air, ground and naval capabilities, against critical mobile and fixed targets at various ranges and in all weather and terrains.

--Leverage information technology and innovative concepts to develop a joint command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture and capability.

--Assure information systems in the face of attack and conduct effective information operations.

--Enhance the capability and survivability of space systems and supporting infrastructure.

Clearly, these transformation operational goals were derived from lessons learned since Sept. 11 and already are being resourced and initiated.

DOD has renewed its emphasis on missile defense against a growing missile delivery threat.

It has projected power in a variety of ways. In Afghanistan, these have included long-range bombing, armed and unarmed unmanned aerial vehicles, coalition operations, and multiple and timely deployments of ground forces.

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Soldiers on horseback leveraged technology as they coordinated air-delivered guided precision munitions to enemy positions. While accomplishing these innovations, DOD has protected its military bases, ensured the continuity of its own information and space systems, and compromised much of the computer network of the al Qaida.

DOD considers transformation a process and not an end state. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said: "Transformation is not a single thing to be trotted out and looked at and inspected. Simply put, transformation is change. It's change in the way we fight, in the way we train, in the way we exercise, but especially, it's change in the way we think and how we approach our jobs -- changes in doctrine, in training, in organization, in the way we develop leaders, and most important, in the way all of the services work together."

To help ensure the continuation of this process, several transformational activities have been identified to focus support for the operational goals.

The first is the emphasis on joint war-fighting capabilities that include strengthening joint operations and organizations, and establishing a joint multinational command and control system. The object is to significantly improve the ability of joint forces to organize, rapidly deploy, integrate with coalition partners, project power and win.

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Recently, the U.S. Joint Forces Command tested a prototype of the Standing Joint Task Force Headquarters. Once the analysis of this exercise is complete, DOD may establish Standing Joint Task Forces to test and employ new networked capabilities and concepts. Additionally, DOD recently established the Northern Command that is being organized as a joint command without the traditional individual service component commands.

DOD believes joint and service level field exercises that incorporate experimentation is the best way for developing and solving emerging challenges. The QDR authorized Joint Forces Command to draw up to 5 percent of the U.S.-based forces each year for exercise experimentation.

A key part of its transformation activities is to foster innovation and experimentation in search of new concepts of operations. To help achieve this, DOD recently established the Office of Force Transformation to ensure the linkage of transformation efforts with broad elements of national and departmental strategy.

Retired Navy Adm. Art Cebrowski has been appointed as director of the office. He will provide oversight of service transformation activities and ongoing experimentation, recommend steps to ensure integration, assess risk, and make recommendations. Cebrowski reports to the deputy secretary of Defense and will work closely with the under secretaries of Defense for policy and acquisition, technology and logistics, and with the Joint Staff.

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Since Sept. 11, DOD also has made some key decisions on equipping forces for the challenges of the 21st century -- and more changes are on the way. According to Cebrowski, "it is a truism that there will be divestitures to pay for transformation."

DOD increased its 2003 investment in science and technology to $9.9 billion to keep transformation on the forefront of technology advancement.

Additionally, DOD transformational programs will account for about 17 percent or $21 billion of its procurement and research, development, testing and evaluation budget in 2003. This includes acceleration of a number of programs: missile defense, unmanned systems, conversion of four nuclear ballistic missile Trident submarines to carry 150 land attack cruise missiles and special operations forces; advanced communications networks; advanced intelligence systems, long-range bombers, and precision attack munitions.

Maj. Gen. William Bond, director of Army Force Development, was quoted in Jane's Defence Weekly on July 24 as saying, "There is very little money in this (five-year spending plan) for other than precision." This was shortly after the Defense Department unexpectedly terminated the Army's newest cannon fire support system, the Crusader, with the explanation that it was not transformational.

Elaine Grossman reported in an Aug. 15 article in "Inside the Pentagon" that a "trusted lieutenant of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld" indicated that the fiscal year 2004 Pentagon budget will serve as the "crossover point" between procurement plans developed in the 1980s and future transformational technologies. This review will likely includean assessment of "(Army) force structure, the Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter, the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey troop transport, and the Army's RAH-66 Comanche attack and reconnaissance helicopter."

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Staying within the boundaries of its overall strategic framework and risk management construct, DOD will leverage lessons learned in its war on terrorism to justify tough resourcing decisions regarding the best transformation activities to support the national defense strategy. We should expect that its decisions will be tempered by those who have worn the uniform for three-and-a-half decades, and that technology will never supersede the initiative and cleverness of man.

As DOD proceeds, it should be guided by a June 10 National Review Online article by M.T. Owens, who said:

"One does not have to denigrate the importance of air power or technology to believe that the strategic pluralists have a far stronger argument than either the strategic monists or the technophiles. To pursue airpower or technology at the expense of a robust, balanced force structure is to invite strategic failure."

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(This column is part of UPI's Special Report on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Dennis Lewis is a retired colonel who served 27 1/2 years in the Army, including service as an Army legislative liaison to Congress. He also served in Germany, Turkey, Kuwait, and commanded through brigade level in the 82d Airborne Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps. He also served on the Joint Staff operations directorate, coordinating military operations in the Western Hemisphere, including military support to domestic authorities. He now works for an information technology company in the Washington area).

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