Military tactic of the 21st century: make the enemy believe he's at peace

Posted by John Keller

I ran across a new study about "hybrid war," which would combine elements of conventional nation-on-nation conflict, as well as non-state terrorism, insurgency, and even crime. At the heart of hybrid war is a merging in the forms of conflict such that it would blur the distinction between war and peace.

The first thing I thought of is a question: what would be the best strategy in hybrid warfare? Then it came to me: go to war, yet convince the enemy you're still at peace. Keep the enemy believing you're still at peace until you reach your core objectives. Win, in other words, before the enemy even knows he's in the game.

In that context, it doesn't require a look farther than today's headlines to cause concern. Take a poll of all the people in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Ask a simple question: are we are war? I think a third would say yes, a third would say no, and a third would say I don't know.

Are we at war today? If so, with whom? Where is the enemy? Is it Radical Islam, a belligerent China, inner-city street gangs, drug dealers, organized crime, illegal immigrants, multinational corporations, militant labor unions, Republicans, Democrats, the rich, the poor?

Does everyone agree? No? Sounds pretty blurry to me. I don't think hybrid warfare is something sometime in the future; I think it's here with us right now. The lack of resolution in Western culture today pretty much illustrates the point. If anyone has declared war on us, it's probably in their best interests to keep mum about it.

The study that got me thinking is entitled Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, from the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va. The author is Research Fellow Frank Hoffman.

I think it's easy to dismiss and ignore potential signs of hybrid war merely as civil unrest, random crime, restive and misunderstood religions, or regional conflicts that don't concern us. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is the biggest threat of hybrid warfare -- the possibility that we might not be in the game until it's too late.

The kinds of technologies we all know well also play a big role in hybrid warfare, but not in the ways you might think. Hybrid warfare strikes at an enemy's weaknesses and bypasses its strengths. We're not talking about tank warfare in Europe or the Middle East here. We're talking about computer networks and power grids right here at home.

Hybrid warfare wouldn't be all about high-technology weaponry, either. As Hoffman points out in the study, it could combine Microsoft with machetes.

People talk about the possibility of a dirty bomb detonation in the middle of a populated metropolis. Few talk about the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon that could disable every electrical system within a hundred miles. Think about that: computers, cars, light bulbs, TVs, radios, electric crock pots -- all dead.

I think a dirty bomb attack on New York City would make us mad. An EMP bomb that delays dinner and cancels evening television all along the Eastern Seaboard would be downright demoralizing.

About 2,700 years ago military strategist Sun Tzu said basically that the best military victory is where the enemy gives up without fighting. Just to provoke a thought, I'll ask again ...

Are we at war?

Brrr ... Bring on the Spring!

Posted by Courtney E. Howard

I was naive. Having lived three decades in New England, I thought New England weather was as crazy as it could get. Then I moved to the Northwest. My first summer in Spokane was marked by record temperatures in the triple digits. The autumn brought with it record rainfall and, just when I thought Washington winters were mild, 17 inches of snow dumps on Spokane Sunday night. As if that weren't bad enough, the 10-day forecast calls for snow storms off and on flanked by zero-degree temperatures.

Snoqualmie Pass has logged five feet of snow in just five days. Closure of such passes has detrimentally affected the state's commerce, says Governor Christina Gregoire, who has declared a state of emergency in the state. One county is even asking for assistance from the Department of Homeland Security!

I never thought I'd long for New England winters, but I've learned to never say "never."

I'm holed up in the house for now, but I'm making my reservations for the Military & Aerospace Electronics Forum in sunny San Diego. Are you also planning to soak up some California sun, and some great industry and technology information, at the Forum in March?

Electromagnetic railguns and high-power electronics: you ain't seen nothin' yet

Posted by John Keller

There's just no way to understate the military's future need for high-power electronics. Electric-drive vehicles, all-electric aircraft, and aircraft carrier catapults are just some of the potential applications.

Yet the emergence of electromagnetic railguns has raised the bar dramatically for high-power electronics. The U.S. Navy plans to use these weapons aboard future surface warships to shoot non-explosive shells at a speed of March 8 -- eight times the speed of sound, or roughly 6,000 miles per hour.

At that speed you don't need explosives; the kinetic energy alone is enough to make vehicle-size objects disappear in balls of fire. Forget artillery shells and missiles. Fire an electromagnetic railgun at a target 10 miles away and the projectile gets there in less than six seconds. That's not much time to react. You'd never hear it coming; you'd be lucky even to see it.

Now get this: the Navy wants electromagnetic railguns with ranges of hundreds of miles. Shot a target 200 miles away and the projectile gets there in about two minutes. A Harpoon anti-ship missile would take about 22 minutes to fly that far. It's not hard to see how batteries of electromagnetic railguns -- especially those that could fire rapidly -- might be able to overwhelm enemy air defenses very quickly.

Believe this is science fiction? Think again. The Office of Naval Research has taken delivery of a functional, 32-megajoule Electro-Magnetic Laboratory Rail Gun from BAE Systems, and the gun will be demonstrated this week at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va. The Navy envisions 64-megajoule electromagnetic railguns for future shipboard use.

The difficulty of deploying future electromagnetic railguns might not lie in the technology necessary to build these weapons, but in producing the incredibly large amounts of electricity necessary to operate them.

Think of the kind of electromagnetic railgun the Navy wants for future warships. It takes 64 megajoules to shoot it. That's equal to about 18 kilowatt hours, or about the same amount of power an average American household uses in an entire day. Those future warships carrying these kinds of weapons are going to need amazing power plants.

Think of the generators that will be necessary to operate the electromagnetic railgun. This requirement for electricity production is likely to have a profound influence over future ship design.

It looks like the designers of high-power electronics and components have their work cut out for them. Ready or not, industry, the Navy is going to need a lot of electrical power, and very soon. We wouldn't want those electromagnetic rail guns to be all dressed up and have nowhere to plug them in.

Defense spending: the economic beacon of hope?

Posted by John Keller

The U.S. economy has run through nearly every powerful business sector to lean on to keep itself upright. Commercial technology seems to be played out. Housing -- long the mainstay -- is on its back. Consumer spending is staggering. What's left?

Defense spending, that's what. It's come to this.

With most business sectors at the end of their ropes, U.S. defense profits, sales, or both, apparently are on the upswing, according to an Aviation
Week and Space Technology blog by Joe Anselmo entitled Downturn? Not in Defense Profits. Writes Anselmo:

It certainly is a good time to be working in aerospace and defense, as opposed to banking or housing. The fourth quarter and full-year 2007 earnings results that companies are rolling out this week illustrate the degree to which military contractors are buffeted from the sputtering U.S. economy.

Anselmo points out that Lockheed Martin in the fourth quarter had flat sales but a 20 percent increase in net income. General Dynamics posted net income at the same time that is up 42 percent. Northrop Grumman had flat sales, yet a 10 percent gain in net income. Northrop Grumman over the full fiscal year had a 16 percent increase in net income and a 6 percent increase in sales. More good news is likely to come soon.

Contrast that with the dismal news we have been reading about the banking and housing industries. The defense industry, again, is looking like a winner.

It's funny, though. Defense spending only seems to be really great when most commercial industries have hit the skids. I sense from conversations this past week at the Photonics West trade show that electro-optics companies usually focused on commercial endeavors are giving surprisingly strong consideration to the military.

What this tells me is commercial technology might not be the best bet these days, and technology companies are looking for a safe harbor. When they do this they usually turn to the stable, predictable, and large defense budgets.

When's the last time they did this? It was in the wake of the telecom and dot.com busts and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Some newcomers to the defense business will make it, and some won't. Those with experience with the military business have a big advantage. Those without experience are likely to be disappointed.

But watch. Most of the newcomers will toss defense aside like an old shoe once commercial technology comes back. Defense systems integrators have seen this before -- and they have long memories.

Sick of the COTS acronyms yet?

I reported a story last year on the benefits of using custom-designed electronics over COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) products. Since Secretary Perry issued that COTS initiative in the 1990s many different acronyms have entered our vocabulary as defense suppliers tried to get a handle on how they and their products fit under COTS.

The intent was to eliminate excessive spending that brought about those infamous $600 toilet seats and $400 hammers. While that has been accomplished it seems we have also tortured our language with excessive acronyms.

When COTS was first introduced, many companies created marketing synonyms such as MOTS (military-off-the-shelf), ROTS (rugged-off-the-shelf), and GOTS (government-off-the-shelf). This was mostly marketing mumbo jumbo and all the terms were basically COTS. Some new terms include MOTS, now called modified-off-the-shelf, NOTS (NATO or niche off-the-shelf), KOTS (kinda-off-the-shelf) and the all encompassing other COTS (custom-off-the-shelf).

Many COTS vendors say that their customers typically choose a product from parts list and ask for it to be tweaked for their specific application. This is where the term custom off-the-shelf is coming from. Another way to describe it would be value-added COTS.

Basically everyone has a different definition of COTS from the military program manager all the way down to the component vendor. Maybe it is as one defense supplier says, "COTS is whatever my customer says it is."

What I'd like to know is how do you define COTS?

Is there an acronym I missed in my research?

Is it possible to write an entire paragraph entirely with military acronyms?

I dare you to try.

-John McHale

The elusive laser target designator spot; are filters the answer?

Posted by John Keller

Here's an interesting dilemma: how can people see the spot of light produced by a laser target designator in broad daylight? The answer is they often can't, and that isn't good.

The problem has little, if anything, to do with potential weapons malfunctions. Laser-guided munitions are extremely good at following a laser beam to the target, and have been for nearly decades. The problem is making sure the laser is illuminating the right target.

The U.S. Air Force uses forward-observers on the ground to confirm to combat pilots by radio whether the aircraft are illuminating the correct targets. It can happen that laser designators light up the wrong targets in the confusion of battle and complicated city skylines.

Now consider this: broad daylight can overwhelm even visible laser spots, not to mention eye-safe lasers not visible to the naked eye. When that happens, ground observers can't help the pilots, and that could lead to politically devastating collateral damage, especially if allied munitions hit schools, hospitals, or wedding receptions.

This is a dilemma that the military and the electro-optics industry are coming to grips with right now. Those involved in the electro-optics industry reported at the Photonics West trade show this week that military officials have been contacting them lately with this problem. Although it doesn't look like formal programs are in progress yet, plenty of smart folks are thinking about ways to deal with it.

For some, the solution may simply be an easy modification to night-vision devices that ground observers use. By adding some filtering, these goggles and binoculars might be able to eliminate all light except the wavelength of the laser in use. No sunlight, no reflections, just a nice clean laser spot.

That might not solve the entire problem, however. Some ambient light has to make it through the filter so ground observers can see the target as well as the laser designator spot.

Other people are looking at aircraft-based forward-looking infrared sensors to extend focal plane array sensitivity to a broadening light spectrum to let in just the right amounts of light, and ignore the kinds of light that cause confusion.

Any way they slice it, this is a big problem. It looks like solutions, however, might be on the way.

Thanks, Raytheon: radar technology applied to enhanced oil recovery

Posted by John Keller

I gotta hand it to Raytheon Co. They sure know how to spin off technology for a surprising number of uses.

Look at everything Raytheon has done with its pioneering radar technology. First the company -- with help from its famous engineer Percy Spencer and his candy bar -- figured out how to use microwave energy from radar signals to heat food from the inside. Voilà! The microwave oven.

Microwaves also are the basis of nonlethal directed-energy weapons to control crowds. Some folks are even thinking up ways to use microwave energy to heat homes, although this approach has a lot of things to work out before it could be made feasible.

Now it gets even better. Aviation Week and Space Technology reports that Raytheon is starting to sell RF technology to help with crude oil extraction. Reports Av Week:

Raytheon is getting in on the oil boom. The defense electronics company has sold a radio frequency (RF) technology to multinational oil services giant Schlumberger Ltd., which hopes to use it to extract hard-to-reach oil deposits. The technology, developed jointly by Raytheon and CF Technologies, uses RF waves to heat shale underground and cause it to release deposits of thick crude that are known as "heavy" oil.

You realize what this is? Raytheon has found a way to wrap a massive virtual microwave oven around underground oil deposits to heat and liquify the gooey, tar-like crude enough to pump it easily out of the ground. Sure, they also use a lot of interesting chemicals to aid with enhanced oil recovery, but shoving a microwave oven down the well hole is a new one.

This gives a whole new meaning to the term Radarange. Thanks, Raytheon.