The fourth Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft arrives at the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, April 24, 2013, REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Daniel Hughes/Handout
P.W. Singer and August Cole, Reuters: The weapons the U.S. needs for a war it doesn’t want
Terrorism and Middle East insurgencies are not going away. Yet in the 21st century, the United States must understand it faces a return of a serious national-security concern that shaped the last century: the risk of great-power conflict.
The Defense Department’s new military strategy acknowledges this by noting the implications of the renewed rivalry with China and Russia. The possibility of a major war with great powers, like World Wars One and Two, is “growing,” according to the U.S. National Military Strategy released this month.
WNU Editor: An excellent analysis on how the Pentagons goes about acquiring expensive weapon systems that may now function as advertised. Near the end of this commentary the authors sum it all up accurately with one sentence .... The Pentagon must plan for the worst day of war, not the best. Read it all.
1 comment:
However the article is good and summaries problems, but still not give a solid point on what would be good. F35 truly not designed for close dog-fight, and say it's bad because of that, is not realy correct. The example case with F4 was correct back in 60-70 years ago, but things changed since. Blaming an asset or it's design is not right if it not designied to it, like we don't blame B52s for not intercepting airplanes. I do nto defending the F35 project, I don't like it, but it can be usefull, and effective on it's own way. Say it's "fingers crossed" is true to every new development. Back in when Israel started to develop their own tank the Merkava, they had hopes for it, but that project not really different from the F35's, and turned out to be wasting, yet they kept the tank and started to use it, because it was cheaper to use a bad tank, than buy new ones from others or start a new development from the scrach. At the end it became usfeull even if not perfect.
The article also mention naval warfare assets. The role of such vehicles and weapons are unpredictable, changed and keep changing so much, it's hard to say what is the good or bad way. Back in WW2 some belived in the role of battleships will stand, while others not. The war made the decision. Naval assets and in general the landing part of it is in decline as I see, and the relative cheap anti-ship missiles help this trend. US had a horrible project, to create the so called EFV. The project was bad, I thinkg even worst than the F35, but the final product was really good, yet they still not bought it. I think they made a good decision with this, yet many worry on how the AAVP7s will keep doing their jobs in the next 10-20 or so years, and how it will be replaced (btw, there is a project to replace it, but I do not trust it).
The article also say that US forces had difficulties in Afghanistan or against IS, than how could they fight and win conventional war against a great power. War is complex, for example you can be a good athlet, but you may will have troubles with swimming, or climbing. It's not make you bad, it's just you are not the best in something. Fighting COIN, guerilla warfare, low intensity insurgency on an unknown land, on the other side of the world, if you loose it's not because your army is that bad, but clearly you not perfect in such type of conflicts. The Army itself is not in a bad state, it's clearly have problems, and it's may not see what direction they sould go.
US keep invest money on new technologies which could be game changers in a war, like railguns, laser weapons, drones, different robotic development such as the dog, the self driving or flying vehicles, soldier equipment improvments like exoskeleton suit. Asset replacing programs also running, like the JLTV which seems to have a good outcome, so it's not that bad. However some project seems to be another F35 like scenario, such as the GCV (Ground Combat Vehicle). All in all it's hard to say anything about the future, or about what is the good path that need to be followed. This not going to change the past and the wasted money on many development, it's just the price of developing the future.
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