World Affairs Council Address at University of North Florida

Very grateful to the Army’s Intelligence Officer and the Operation’s Officer (“HQDA G2 and G3” for those familiar with Army jargon). I’m also very grateful to West Point’s Modern War Institute, who provided a lot of great information in this presentation.

But going back to last night for a second. I had the privilege to talk about reflections of a West Point Superintendent and working with the next generation of leaders in our military.

If I can please divert for a second from my topic of Future War. Frankly, these incredible men and women are inspiring. Our Nation has been at war nearly their entire life, and contrary to the vast majority of their peers they count themselves among the generations who have stormed the beaches of Normandy, fought in the jungles of Vietnam, and dodged IED’s on the streets of Baghdad. They all could have chosen a safer existence, but despite all their warts and fears, they elected to stand in the gap between the evil our Nation faces every day, and the safety and security of us all. Some refer to them as the next Greatest Generation. I call them the 9/11 generation because they have seen their Nation at war mostly their entire life, and they want to do something about it. They are truly an inspiring group of men and women and it was an honor to stand among their ranks.

So back to our topic. This evening I want to talk about future war. What I’ll do is first talk about the perceived future threats to our Nation and our national interests, what the Department of Defense and the Department of Army’s strategies are to deal with these threats, how we will modernize to engage and defeat them, and what we think the future battlefield will look like. As a hint, we are getting a glimpse of it already in the Russia – Ukraine standoff, and I’ll talk about that as well. I then want to address some of the technological advances we can expect, to include a short video of one autonomous tank killer system. And finally, I’ll be glad to take whatever questions you may have – even those that do not address future war – like what is my opinion of leaving Syria, and/or my thoughts on Secretary Mattis’ resignation? Or anything else you want to talk about.

So let’s show the first slide if we could please. I want to apologize for the busyness of some of these slides and I know you cannot read what’s up there. It is my intent to talk to the main points, and if you want, you can obtain a copy of these slides so that you can study them in more detail, as you chose.

Security Environment

This slide shows some of the global trends that will impact future hot spots and those that will risk our national security.

If you look at the red-green-blue diagram on the upper left. In the area of political-military, we’ll see a rise of competing powers, a decline of traditional allies, and degenerating collective security. The risks to NATO and its collective alliance are an example of that.

Economically, we will see a rise of protectionism, and a stagnation of global economic integration. Look at the tariff war as an example. We will also see an increase in food prices due to shortages, and the challenges to feed an exponentially increasing world population.

In the category of justice and human rights, we’ll see an increase in nationalism, a rise in corruption, declining tolerances and freedoms, and rising socialism.

Along the bottom you’ll see some key global trends over the next 17 years. Principally, the world population will increase to 7.9 billion in 2024, and 8.7 billion by 2034. 60% of that population will live in urban environments, principally in megacities – many of whom will be unable to provide essential services – like clean water, sewage, and power. A megacity has more than 10 million residents. Today there are three dozen megacities, and by 2030, there will be 48. Most of these are within 100 miles of a coastline.

Looking at revanchist Russia over the next 5 years -- their military spending will remain a priority, and although struggling to gain strategic allies, they will continue to work on forming alliances in the Middle East (see Syria), North Africa, and South America (see Venezuela) in order to offset US-Western alliances.

If you look at NATO’s continued expansion (Next Slide – Slide 2), Russia sees that as a western encirclement (and the last time they saw an encirclement like that was what the Axis powers did in early WWII. – they do not forget very easily).

In addition to its conventional weapons, Russia has employed Cyberspace Operations, Electronic Warfare and Information Operations to great effect in Georgia, the Balkans, and, most recently, in the Crimea and Ukraine.

Russia also has a degrading population which will continue to hamper their attempts to grow economically and sustain their armed forces. Finally, their economy will continue to remain reliant on energy resources instead economic diversification.

The 5-year outlook for China is equally challenging. The Xi regime will intensify and modernize its efforts to control not just the behavior but also the minds of the Chinese people. The PLA reform will continue to focus on the Air Force and Navy, as well as setting up their Rocket Forces as an independent service. They will also continue to exercise low-intensity coercion to advance territorial claims in the East and South China Sea. And of note, they are showing a more public willingness to take actions in this arena.

Iran continues to see itself as the vanguard of Shia Islam, particularly against the encroachment of an antagonistic Sunni Islam, led by Saudi foreign policy. As a result, Iran may increase its aggressive activity, only to intensify the Iran-Saudi rivalry. Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq will link up along the common border, establishing an Iranian "land bridge" across both countries. And the Iranian Republican Guard Qods Force will be a cornerstone of Iranian foreign policy. Iran will continue to develop its missile capability, establishing a higher level of accuracy for short and mid-range ballistic missiles and as you know, restraints on nuclear enrichment ended with the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear treaty, thus providing a potential crossroads for Iran to rebuild its nuclear program in the future.

Continued uncertainty of a North Korean agreement or treaty, including additional nuclear and missile tests, will continue to insert instability in the region and prompt neighbouring countries to take actions, sometimes unilaterally, to protect their security interests. As a result, growing tensions around the Korean Peninsula remain very possible with the possibility of a serious confrontation in the coming years.

Speaking of nuclear weapons, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are not members of any nonproliferation treaty.

And border disputes are always a threat: Russia-Ukraine // Lebanese Hezbollah & Lebanon-Israel // India-Pakistan // India-China // China-Bhutan // South China Sea (which involves the 6 nations of -- China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines)

Part of this current threat environment is a snapshot of the most fragile states highlighted in red and those categorized as highly unstable, which are highlighted in yellow. These places are fraught with problems that can easily spill over to neighboring states or which may require international intervention.

Lastly, the homeland is under constant bombardment through the Cyberspace Domain. From outright cyber-attacks, to directed fishing campaigns; from impacting gaming networks over Christmas to the radicalization of US persons to carry out lethal attacks on US soil -- the Cyberspace Domain is an avenue of approach to the homeland. The bottom bar lists some of this disruptive technology, which includes robotics, photonics, artificial intelligence, hypersonics and human enhancements. More on that shortly.

Security Environment (Cont)

We also see adversaries who are simultaneously employing non-kinetic capabilities across multiple domains delivering real-time effects in public opinion and international media with the intent to interfere with our national decision processes, our infrastructure, and our support to and from strategic partners.

ISIS. As you know ISIS is not dead. It may not have the land presence in the Levant it once claimed to have had, but its ideology still exists, and it still attracts numerous disenfranchised and radical Sunni Islamists. ISIS media activities and their aligned supporters have waged a successful information and propaganda campaign to strike fear around the world and rally others to their cause.

Changing Character of War

This slide is busy and goes into how war will change given the changing security environment. I don’t want to read the slide to you -- and as I mentioned, these will be available later on -- but let me cover a few of these evolving changing dynamics.

First, rising powers become more capable and as a result, will seek greater regional to global influence.

Second, warfare will become more violent, lethal, fast, ambiguous, and expanding in scope and scale.

Next, all domains (air, ground, space, sea, and cyber) will be contested and we will be fighting in them all.

Battlefields will be congested, and we will fight in dense urban terrain.

Technological advances including autonomy and robotic augmentation will be a part of the fight. I’ll go into this in more detail in a few minutes.

The interesting assessment though is that the present situation and emerging future show that the last 25 years is a poor lens through which to view today and the coming decades of war.

National Defense Strategy 2018

The first strategic objective is to: Compete, Deter and Win alongside Allies and Partners. What this means is:

• We will Compete in regional and global areas of influence

• We will Compete where adversaries are attempting to increase influence

• We will Deter, which means we will Deter with both capacity and intent

• We will win. When America puts us in harms way, they do not expect us to do our best or to look good, but to win and to win IAW our national values

• We will fight with Allies and Partners. We cannot be the world’s policeman. Allies bring strength, capacity, diversity, and a sharing of ideas.

The second objective is to “Prevail in conflict and preserve peace through strength”. Really, this is the same as first bullet, said another way

The third objective is to Improve lethality by prioritizing preparedness and readiness for war and modernizing key capabilities. The history of U.S. warfare is that we were unprepared for war. There are books written about this citing several tragic stories in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. We must reverse this and be prepared, and in order to be prepared, we must have the latest and most lethal equipment (which is what the Department of Defense refers to as “modernization”). This, of course, costs money. It comes from discretionary funds in our budget. And with a huge deficit that continues to grow, the defense budget continues to be the target of budget reductions all the time.

The fourth objective is to “Prioritize long-term strategic competition with China and Russia” – which both are near peer competitors with global ambitions.

The fifth objective is to “Deter and counter the destabilizing actions of Iran and North Korea”. The strategic concern here is nuclear capability and nuclear proliferation in two explosive areas – the Korean peninsula and the Middle East

The sixth objective is to “Degrade terrorists militarily while building an enduring Middle East Coalition to achieve lasting political-military defeat”. As I mentioned before, this is an ideological fight. The strategic objective here is to enable moderate Islam to reject violent extremism.

Last, and probably most important is to “Defend the homeland,” although you know as well as I do, that the best defense is a good offense – which you have observed in action over the last 17 years. We don’t often talk about the fact that we have not had another 9/11 attack on our homeland over the last 17 plus years, but the truth is that the offensive element of our strategy has played significantly in that outcome – to all of our benefits.

Army Strategy

Given the background and framework of the National Defense Strategy, in a period of constant confrontation and conflict which is intended to revise the post-WWII international order, the Army has to ask itself how it will advance the Nation’s interests and fight and win against increasingly existential threats that are capable of waging high-end conventional and hybrid warfare, terrorism and military competition?

The Army’s vision is focused 9 years from now. The vision is for an Army in 2028 that is ready to deploy, fight and win decisively against any adversary, anytime and anywhere, in a joint, multi-domain, high-intensity conflict, while simultaneously deterring others and maintaining its ability to conduct irregular warfare. The Army will do this through the employment of modern manned and unmanned ground combat vehicles, aircraft, sustainment systems, and weapons, coupled with robust combined arms formations and tactics based on a modern warfighting doctrine and centered on exceptional leaders and Soldiers of unmatched lethality.

The way they will do this is to:

Fight the current fight, as articulated by North Korea, Iran, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Hezbollah.

Next is to deter the next fight, defined by a regional peer military power (think of Russia and China today) and the stated strategy is to focus deterrence through 2030.

And finally to set the conditions to deter future fight: Potential emergence of global peer military powers (ie China). They see the future fight from 2030 on.

Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World

The Army Mission: To deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt, and sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the Joint Force.

The Central Idea is that when the Army fights in the future, it will be part of a joint, interorganizational, and multinational team, and will provide multiple options to the Nation’s leadership. It will also integrate multiple partners and operate across multiple domains to present adversaries with multiple dilemmas in order to win and to win with a sustained outcome.

In addition, there are some unique defense terms that further describe how the Army will fight:

- The fight will be executed through Joint Combined Arms Operations. In other words – the Army will fight integrated with the Air Force, Navy and Marines

- The Army’s fight will achieve Decisive Action – which means they will mass combat power to destroy enemy forces and to seize key terrain.

- The Army will achieve decisive action by means of the its core competencies. In the world of joint doctrine, core competencies are “key tasks”, and the key tasks assigned to the Army include:

o shape the security environment (which means to set conditions),

o set the theater (think logistics),

o project national power,

o combined arms maneuver (think how the Army fought in DS/DS),

o wide area security (think Afghanistan),

o cyber operations,

o special operations

Multi-Domain Task Force

If we have to go up against a near peer competitor in a multi domain fight (which means that we must fight in all domains, which as previously stated, includes ground, air, sea, space and cyber), then this is how the fight would likely occur.

The first task the Multi-Domain Task Force will execute is to neutralize enemy anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities by opening windows, that the Joint Force can exploit. The Task Force will also defend critical assets and set the conditions for follow on operations.

The Task Force has several key capabilities

• Long Range Strike capability out to 499 kilometers or about 300 miles

• Long Range Surveillance

• Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS) for surveillance and also for strike capability

• We will have to learn how to defend and attack in space

• We will have to defend and attack in cyber systems

• And we will have to do what we’ve been doing for years:

• Defend our systems

• Shoot, move, and communicate

• Provide logistics and sustainment

For those of you who are really into this, and want to stay up on all the latest terminology, you’ll start to hear more and more of words and concepts like:

Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft

Future Long Range Assault Aircraft

Advance Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Long Range Precision Fires

Next Generation Combat Vehicle

Future War

One of the best ways to look at war in the future is to see how a near peer enemy is fighting a war today and the best example is what we can learn from the new Eastern Front – the Russian War in Ukraine.

The Modern War Institute at West Point has been studying this war and written quite a bit about it. Their Director – COL Liam Collins – actually has accompanied former CENTCOM Commander GEN John Abizaid in his capacity as the US Dpt of Defense Mentor to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense. His first-hand view of what is going on is a great window so that we can see what we can expect war to look like in the future.

Many think eastern Ukraine is best described as “WWI with technology”, because the two greatest threats facing Ukrainian soldiers on the front line are snipers and Russian artillery. But unlike 1915, soldiers on the 2018 “Eastern Front” will receive text messages on their phones telling them their cause is hopeless. And they are constantly concerned about unmanned aerial vehicles, because if they are spotted, they can expect to receive mass artillery within moments of being spotted.

Those of us who were in the military during the Cold War were fortunate to know an enemy, how he would fight, what his weapon capabilities were, and how we would defend against it. That is not the case today.

Although the Russian threat remains, it is in a completely different form and combines with an array of other threats to create a challenging global operating environment. Things like explosive technological growth, information dimensions, and long-range reconnaissance and fires, have eroded the military edges we used to enjoy.

In the area of electronic warfare, Russia will use a wide range of electronic warfare systems to jam communications, locate headquarters and then target them with long range artillery. During a recent US/NATO training exercise, a senior Ukrainian officer observed a US tactical headquarters with an antenna farm only a few meters from the command post. His comment was only, that while pointing to the antenna’s, he said it means “aim here” to the Russians, and it would immediately evaporate with indirect fires.

This has significant consequences on how we will command and control. No longer can we talk forever, and no longer will we have situational awareness of our units’ status as we have learned over the past 20 years. In addition, our GPS technology will be at risk and we will have to learn how to navigate as we did 40 years ago – with a map and compass.

The United States and NATO divested its information capabilities (“foolishly” divested its info capabilities – I might add) after winning the ideological debate during the Cold War. But Russia, learning what happened to them during the Cold War, has invested heavily into their information warfare. For example, Russia’s strategic information and disinformation campaign in its annexation of Crimea, created sufficient paralysis within NATO. We literally stood by and watched it all happen without taking any action at all. And what Russia has done in our own internal election process illustrates not only what their intentions are, but what their capabilities are as well.

Tactically on the eastern Ukrainian front, Russia targets individual soldiers, commanders, and their families using cellphones and social media to undermine their war efforts.

I mentioned that the multi-dimension task force relies on neutralizing enemy anti-access and area denial capabilities with long range strike capabilities and long-range surveillance. That reads well. The Russian air defense system is extensive and capable and has completely grounded the Ukrainian Air Force, to include their tactical rotary aircraft used for medevac, intelligence and fires. The air superiority we have become accustomed to over the past 30 years is gone.

Russian UAV’s are prolific, and as soon as something is identified, it is targeted almost instantaneously with massed long-range artillery. To respond to this capability, Ukraine has had to learn how to camouflage. Whenever vehicles stop, camouflage netting goes up. They’ve become camouflage experts. Their vehicle formations look like giant, mobile vegetation clusters. We think our speed alone will secure our movement. That’s not going to cut it in a conflict with Russia.

In the Ukraine Cyber domain, Russian hackers have seemingly penetrated just about every one of their networks. They have spoofed GPS signals and captured video downlinks of unencrypted transmissions from Ukrainian UAVs to view the feeds as the aircraft are overflying Ukrainian positions during takeoffs and landings. They have penetrated the cellular network for locational data and information operations, sending targeted messages to individual soldiers showing them nearly real-time pictures of their families and asking if they know whether their families are safe. On other occasions they have sent messages after an artillery strike telling soldiers to go home; their corrupt government officials aren’t worth dying for. In yet another case, the Russians tracked Ukrainian artillery units using a malware implant on Android devices. Placed in this context, the U.S. Army’s desire for perfect information brings real vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a sophisticated enemy.

Russia brings an entirely new perspective on how to fight in urban terrain. The Second Battle of Donetsk Airport demonstrated these challenges. At one-point, Ukrainian military forces controlled the first and second floors of the international airport while Russian-led separatists occupied the basement tunnel system and the third floor. Two dimensional maps don’t work in this environment. Likewise, they aren’t afraid to fire artillery from populated areas knowing Ukraine is hesitant to return fire into their own populated areas and risk mass casualties of their own citizens.

Crimea

Crimea creates an equally challenging situation and another revelation into how future war will be conducted. Russia’s strategic objective in annexing Crimea was their ability to create ambiguity and non-attribution without drawing global powers, like the US or NATO into the conflict. Their goal was to maintain plausibility and deniability with intent to limit international responses. The tactical ways and means to accomplish this were to create a threat against ethnic Russians living in Crimea, and that Russia had to protect them. In addition, they claimed the Russian Naval fleet was at risk, and it had to be protected. Then the ethnic Russians led a vote to succeed from Ukraine, creating a legitimacy for Russia to go in and protect them and to enable their liberation. And the bottom line is that roughly 3 weeks after the Crimea President’s ouster, Russia had successfully annexed Crimea without firing a single shot while the Ukrainians and the rest of the international community stood by and watched.

Adapting to Tomorrow’s Hybrid Threats

There are a host of things the US, NATO and our Dpt of Defense are doing to deal with this increased complex hybrid threat, not only from Russia but from other near-peer adversaries as well. First and foremost, we must understand the nature of the adversary and create a common understanding across all US agencies and Departments, and then across our Allies and partners. In order to do this, all intelligence agencies will need to be on the same sheet of music.

Next, we have to develop the right doctrine to address this, then to organize ourselves to implement that doctrine, and finally to create the right training programs as we have before.

TECHNOLOGY

I want to spend the last couple of minutes focusing on how technology will change how we fight wars in the future. Take a look at this video and you’ll get a glimpse of some of the autonomous capabilities of the future.

Technology today is more connected, more cloud, more artificial intelligence, more downloadable, more morphable and more adaptable. It has exponential convergence - just look at your iPhone and see the integration of Aps. For example, someone called me the other day, and their ID was displayed based on an email that I received 2 weeks earlier. And then after the call, it asked me if I wanted to create a new contact, that also included their address – and I have no idea how they came up with that – but the doggone phone was able to do that. Probably it makes sense to all you digital natives, but for us old digital immigrants, it was pretty amazing to say the least.

Innovations are arriving faster than we can imagine. Drones that can fly for up to 30 minutes and carry 3 times its weight are less than $60 each. Within 5 years, our Artificial Intelligence will fight adversary AI in both cyber and real space. Autonomous weapons and forces with grow at exponential rates. Conceivably, wars will be started and finished with autonomous units operating on artificial intelligence.

Technological advances are emerging in the hacker’s world that we’re not yet in touch with. Criminal terrorist organizations are thriving in the dark web. What this means is that individuals and small group non-state actors can create regional and national effects. If we are to defeat the dark network adversaries, we must be experts within these dark networks. We cannot be rigid in our policies. And we must have policies that give us the agility and adaptability to be able to engage in the domains are adversaries are expert in.

The future force will include drone warfare, autonomous drone forces for resupply and evacuation, 3D printing for parts and pieces, even nuclear components, and drone insertion of communication systems.

Technological Keys to Success

The keys to successfully integrating technology into the fight require us to get out in front of it and understand how we would use it and how the threat will use it. We have to engage with the tech communities; relate to them and see how their work translates to battlefield weaponry. There are pockets of innovation out there that we must identify and exploit. We will have to create agile platforms, and then expeditiously, to find ways to integrate them into the force.

The Under Secretary of the Army, Honorable Ryan McCarthy, has a picture of General Buford at Gettysburg in his office. If you’re familiar with Buford and what he did at Gettysburg on Day 1, as a Calvary leader, he created an Infantry skirmish line with his few cavalry troopers to buy time in order for follow on Union forces to secure the high ground, which proved to be formidable over the next two days of the battle. Buford recognized the opportunity and he acted. So, McCarthy thought, if we are going to counter tomorrow’s threats, we have to constantly be looking for the opportunities today. In order to fight a near peer competitor in all domains, we must modernize in all domains of the conflict.

Future’s Command

As the Army thinks about the future, and to have the agility to take advantage of opportunities, it must organize itself to produce concepts, doctrine, and material as fast as or even faster than technologize can produce this for us.

In order to do this, the Army recently created the Army’s Future’s Command, with that specific mission – to produce concepts, doctrine, and material as fast as technology can produce it, and then integrate it into the force.

The Future’s Command is focusing its operations under 6 Portfolios, and after our discussion this evening, hopefully these will make sense to you. The portfolios are:

1. Long Range Precision fire

2. The next generation Combat Vehicle (think of the new armor platform or the next generation “tank”)

3. Vertical Lift (think of helicopters)

4. A Network that will provide redundant, and secure communications

5. Integrated Air Defense

6. Soldier Lethality

I personally think there should be a 7th, which is to develop the leaders who will be intellectually agile and adaptable enough to not only integrate technology into the force, but to use it to create the lethality necessary to achieve our national interests. Regardless of the technology, regardless of the autonomy, regardless of the complexity, and regardless of what future war will look like there is one key differential that will always remain constant. And that is that we must have the best leaders, who are disciplined, who are operating in a culture of empowerment and trust (as compared to our adversaries who are centrally controlled). Technology can and will be transferable because it is easily hacked. Leadership and discipline cannot be stolen.

What are your questions?