The Drone Overreach is Nigh

This technology, only a POM away, is the answer to all our problems. If we only invest a bit more and trust this one braintrust, the future will be ours to dominate with fewer units, fewer personnel, less bloodshed, with more power and flexibility. All we need to do in to close our minds and trust our seers of the future who know. They just know, dontchaknow.

What we need to do is to throw away all that oldthink, embrace the Tommorowland of Our Betters, ignore the reality of the conflict and operational reality all around us and focus on the vignette. Focus on the presentation. Focus on our pristine, exquisite, transformational vision of what will be.

We just need to recapitalize, redirect funds, retire oldthink platforms early and hold out hands together is the only way smart, visionary, right thinking, and - ahem - promotable people think. The post-retirement jobs are all going to be here for those who, well, you know. We don't need to get in to specifics about that right now, now do we?

We have seen this movie before. An experienced and slightly world weary matron is once again seduced by the handsome flatterer who tells a story clear to all but the matron that is is little more than the usual over-promise and under-deliver sweet talk that she has fallen for in the past. What follows is a roller coaster of great expectations followed by excuse laden disappointment that in the end leads only to painful recriminations and prenury.

Unmanned systems will continue to provide incremental additional utility if we are smart with our money, humble with our ambitions, and harsh in our evaluations. But no, that is not good enough. Once again we are seeing slick aspirational ideas that we are all supposed to embrace - in spite of the reality of what we see around us tells us what is actually needed, regardless of what the last few conflicts have tried to teach us - indeed, what centuries of solid military experience has taught us. 

Like the push for the A-12 prevented us from having a viable and much needed replacement for the capabilities of the A-6, this snake-oil pushing may lead us to miss what unmanned systems have to really offer us by mid-century.

The industry overreach never ends, they never stop. There is always a new group of thinkers who think they have, like those cute teenagers who think they have discovered s3x, discovered something that no one else ever has. They have an insight in to a new way that no one else. They have an idea, a technology, a concept that they are sure - if only everyone trusted them and showed the same enthusiasm they had - will transform, offset, or generation jump their way in to the future where enemies fall away before their dominance while everyone is quickly victorious and makes it home for supper.

Sorry, it never works that way. In spite of a few thousand years of people trying to convince their leaders it really will this time - after all, they are smarter and more insightful than previous generations. It. Never. Works. That. Way.

And so it is for drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) - or whatever we are calling it this FY.

Drones have been with us for decades and technology holds the promise of their greater utility in the future. They key is "promise." We should continue to build a little, test a little, learn a lot - but that isn't good enough for some. Those "some" need to be challenged at every step or they will put us right were we are now; the A-6 to A-12 debacle; the loss or organic tanking; the myopic victory of the Light Attack Mafia that left our multi-billion dollar CVN with decks full of short ranged strike fighters and little more; the LCS who seems to only be able to combat the effort to build a functional fleet; and the white elephant DDG-1000 who, I am willing to bet, has only begun to build on its record of transformationalist under-performance.

Where there are solid, sane, and defensible developments in the drone world, such as the decision to focus the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program on Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) - that doesn't keep the drone good idea fairy from pushing. They will always push as their product is the push.

We're going to unpack something, and it is going to be painful - at least for me. From the 11 July Defense News, retired Air Force Generals John Loh and Ronald Yates ask, "What Next for Drone Warfare?" The executive summary is, "Not this." - but what fun would that be? Let's pull apart the juicy center, a mini-Fisk if you will;

There is no shortage of scenarios well suited to this next generation of combat RPAs. Obviously, their current effectiveness can be improved with all-weather stealth technology, longer endurance, better sensors, larger payloads and connectivity to the global "info-sphere". With these improvements, they can cover targets in other regions where terrorists congregate, such as North Africa, Yemen, Somalia and Southwest Asia. Further, with an optimized vehicle, RPAs can be incorporated into war plans against aggressive nation-state adversaries.

Next-generation RPAs can also be the foundation for enforcing international truces and treaties. They can provide continuous, high-resolution surveillance of important facilities to detect activity that could violate agreements, and immediately strike targets.

Establishing no-fly zones over contested areas is a viable alternative to nation-building. The continuous no-fly zones over Iraq for twelve years after the First Gulf War in 1991 demonstrated their effectiveness as a deterrent to further warfare. No-fly, no-drive zones patrolled with RPAs and manned aircraft can detect and strike any air or ground target, obviate the need for "boots on the ground", and maintain air dominance over the area.

In the same vein, new, optimized RPAs would be the best choice for tracking activity and exerting U.S. influence in hot spots such as the Ukraine, Taiwan Straits, North Korea, Spratley Islands and Central America.

A new fleet does not require new infrastructure. Today's RPAs have capable ground-based flight and mission-control facilities, and robust, jam-resistant data links. Fortunately, programs are already underway to upgrade them such that fielding a new force of RPAs would require little, if any, additional capabilities. And, the global info-sphere of space-borne, networked communications already exists to link RPAs in any region of the world.

Goodness. What a start;

There is no shortage of scenarios well suited to this next generation of combat RPAs.

Of course, if you carefully design your vignette to remove the enemy's vote, assume your dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum and low-Earth orbit, and you can keep the JAG/LEGAD hogtied and ball-gagged in some fan room with two MA's securing the door. No problem.

Obviously, their current effectiveness can be improved with all-weather stealth technology, longer endurance, better sensors, larger payloads and connectivity to the global "info-sphere".

There, in a nutshell, is how we got ACS, A-12, LCS, DDG-1000, FCS etc etc etc - we just assume all challenges away and all good things to happen as a result of just saying so. Additionally, on the back of a cocktail napkin, I think the drone in the above paragraph will need to be something between a G4 and a 737. Good luck hiding that from anyone. It would also help having a vertically challenged contractor in the back room spinning hay in to gold.

With these improvements, they can cover targets in other regions where terrorists congregate, such as North Africa, Yemen, Somalia and Southwest Asia. Further, with an optimized vehicle, RPAs can be incorporated into war plans against aggressive nation-state adversaries.

How many years lost to "making do with what legacy systems we have left after we retire others to capture the cost" will that take? What opportunity cost for those hundreds of millions? What of the conflicts we will be in that - as history tells us - this brave new world capability will be useless in? I assume "optimized" means that whatever you have is covered with fairy dust and will even cure the Heartbreak of Psoriasis?

Next-generation RPAs can also be the foundation for enforcing international truces and treaties. They can provide continuous, high-resolution surveillance of important facilities to detect activity that could violate agreements, and immediately strike targets.

Will someone check the fan room? I am sure I heard the JAG screaming through the ball gag. Also, we are pretty much already doing that, minus the AI implied "immediately." But, yeah.

Establishing no-fly zones over contested areas is a viable alternative to nation-building. The continuous no-fly zones over Iraq for twelve years after the First Gulf War in 1991 demonstrated their effectiveness as a deterrent to further warfare. No-fly, no-drive zones patrolled with RPAs and manned aircraft can detect and strike any air or ground target, obviate the need for "boots on the ground", and maintain air dominance over the area.

Wait, did someone just come out of a coma? I'm sorry, but I don't think the Shia or the Kurds agree all that much and - in the end analysis - that the NFZ in Iraq prevented any conflict. Sure, prevented one unknown possible conflict, but conflict came anyway. Any air or ground target? No need for "boots on the ground?" My Buddha, it is almost as if nothing has happened in the last decade.

In the same vein, new, optimized RPAs would be the best choice for tracking activity and exerting U.S. influence in hot spots such as the Ukraine, Taiwan Straits, North Korea, Spratley Islands and Central America.

"Best choice" under what terms? Define how you exert U.S. influence via something that no one sees, interacts with, or knows what it is doing? That is ISR, not presence of influence operations. Oh, and if they can see or interact with it - then you won't have that asset any more to do your subliminal influencing - or what ever this means.

A new fleet does not require new infrastructure. Today's RPAs have capable ground-based flight and mission-control facilities, and robust, jam-resistant data links. Fortunately, programs are already underway to upgrade them such that fielding a new force of RPAs would require little, if any, additional capabilities.

So, no new hangars? No new facility to support troops and contractors? No new simulators or repair facilities? No new bandwidth requirements?

And, the global info-sphere of space-borne, networked communications already exists to link RPAs in any region of the world.

"Info-sphere" - is that a new term I need to add to BS-Bingo? Will we see that more? Again, I assume that all the bandwidth we are using right now is fully under military control, robust against jamming, can avoid hacking or ASAT, and can operate against a hostile EW environment against peer and near-peer operators? Scaleable and secure? Redundant with ready spares?

Really?

Read it all. It all sounds so clear, easy, and doable - and of course it does. This is the classic problem of choosing the "all assumptions are green" nested best case scenario thinking that has set us back time and time again. This needs to be challenged at every step of the way or we will once again find ourselves passing up "good" evolutionary products that were doable for ethereal "generation jumping" ideas that just never wind up making a shadow, or are produced in such small numbers that they have little use.