On 21st Century Warfare

by Majs John E. Kivelin III & Travis C. Onischuk

2016 Lt Col “Pete” Ellis Essay Contest: 1st Place

Our enemy is not stupid; to the contrary, he employs cunning, innovative, and often wicked tactics. Nor are we describing the enemy we faced during the previous 15 years. Our past enemy adapts, while our future enemy innovates. Currently, our future enemy prepares for a significant shift in the character of war unwitnessed in several generations. An adversary who effectively adapts during combat has a slight advantage, but the adversary who innovates and prepares prior to conflict has a tremendous advantage if he correctly recognizes patterns likely to grip future conflict.2 In this article, we argue that conflict will be characterized by the hyper-decentralization of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets combined with both air- and ground-launched nonline-of-sight precision-guided munitions (NLOS-PGMs). Consequently, the survivability of detected conventional military equipment-tanks, artillery, aircraft, etc.-drops to zero. Absent supporting arms, infantrymen will engage each other in close combat within terrain that offers concealment from ISR. Accordingly, the Marine Corps must innovate by procuring NLOS-PGMs, reorganizing the light infantry tables of organization and equipment, and shifting heavy conventional equipment to the reserves. Within this article, we discuss the evolving problem set that will necessitate innovative change, recommend updates to light infantry tables of organization and equipment, and discuss necessary changes in minor tactics.

Our potential adversaries have already proliferated ISR capabilities. Moreover, they continue to develop these capabilities at alarmingly exponential rates. Frankly, our infantry Marines operating on the ground already do so at a disadvantage to our enemy. This is unacceptable. The tactics enabled by improved ISR remain unchanged-find the enemy, fix the enemy, finish the enemy. A revolution in technology combined with adjustments in minor tactics, however, will ensure the devastation of our most depended upon forms of combat power, namely armor, motorized platforms, artillery, aircraft, air bases, and littoral shipping. With the proliferation of affordable, compact, and user-friendly ISR platforms, our Nation’s enemies will “soak” the battlespace with ISR, attempting to locate our high-value targets. Once detected, the adversary will engage highvalue targets using NLOS-PGMs with devastating effect.3

More sobering still, our current equipment and organization are nearly defenseless to such a threat. Military history reveals the necessity of recognizing the likely effect of such innovation, however minor it may seem technologically. During the American Civil War, the trench was the natural response to the Minié ball. J.F.C. Fuller observed, Not understanding the powers of the rifle, the tactics of this war were not discovered through reflection but through trial and error. Thus, over a year of bitter fighting was necessary to open the eyes of both sides to the fact that the trench was a by-product of the rifle bullet, and like so many by-products, as valuable as the product itself.4

In contrast to this adaptation, the U.S. Navy implemented new technology during the inter-war period through the adoption of innovative technologies. What we propose is a result similar to that of U.S. naval innovation of weaponized ship-borne radar systems prior to World War II. Developing, training, and fielding ship-borne radar systems prior to and during the onset of war gave the U.S. Navy a distinct advantage over the far superior Imperial Japanese during the earliest naval campaigns- an advantage from which the Japanese never recovered.5 We must invest in the proper current and emerging technologies now, otherwise our adversaries promise to continue outpacing us.6

How might the battlefield look if the enemy arms itself with this capability? A brief look across three warfighting functions-intelligence, fires, and command and control (C2)-reveals the decisiveness of this technology.

Intelligence

Utilizing unchanged tactics from past and current warfare, adversaries will blend their ISR assets across different mediums.

Sensor employment. Initially, combatants will utilize both active sensors (which both transmit and receive signals) and passive sensors (which only receive signals). However, commanders will soon replace active sensors that radiate signals with passive sensors to prevent signals surveillance teams (SSTs) from detecting, locating, and targeting active sensors. SSTs easily locate units that use active sensors because a sensor’s transmissions compromise both the sensor location and the controller location. Modern telecommunications compounds the challenge. An undisciplined unit’s use of personal electronic devices, which generate electro-magnetic negligent discharges (e.g., smartphones), paint a target for astute SSTs.6 Unwittingly, Marines also provide adversaries information through embedded GPS data in photographs posted on social media. A rudimentary hacker navigating a social media site can collect valuable targeting information with little recourse by the Marines he is targeting.8

Active sensors. Commanders will use active sensors, such as counter-battery radars or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), to detect adversary activity and determine target locations. Commanders may use three techniques to increase the survivability of our forces and infrastructure by disrupting SSTs from collecting information about assets. In the first technique, operators will utilize faux emitters that create false signal emissions on the battlefield, thereby increasing the adversary SST workload.

In the second technique, commanders will utilize on-call active sensors that do not emit electro-magnetic radio-wave energy until a time of the operator’s choosing. Unfortunately, both of these techniques are subject to enemy pattern analysis, which can quickly detect different signals and analyze how they correspond to each other. In due time, analysts will separate the legitimate patterns from “chaff” using computer programs with complicated algorithms.

Finally, in the third technique, operators will limit SST collection capabilities by using directional antennas and appropriate power settings. In all three techniques, the transmitting unit will immediately displace to increase survivability each time the active sensor is activated.

Passive sensors. Commanders will use sensors that absorb information and transmit data to command posts without creating radio-wave bursts of energy vulnerable to enemy SSTs. Reconnaissance teams using optics will be the most effective passive sensors. Reconnaissance elements may hard-wire sensors or use weak electronic signals, such as Bluetooth, to transmit data short distances to information collection systems. Upon detecting enemy activities, they will utilize high frequency or satellite communications radios to report the adversary positions. To avoid being targeted, Marines will use offset antennas and immediately leave any listening post/observation post once they compromise the position with a detectable transmission.

The increased sophistication and proliferation of sensors-whether UAS, reconnaissance teams, or SSTs-merely shapes the battlefield. The concept only becomes decisive when ISR is integrated with a non-line-of-sight, precision-guided firing platform that does not requiring a static, detailed target location.

Fires

PGMs. Commanders will use airto-ground and ground-to-ground fired PGMs to target enemy threats detected by their ISR. 7’he Marine Corps currently possesses outstanding PGMs in its arsenal, yet we lack non-line-of-sight (XLOS) ground-to-ground and airto-ground PGMs that do not require controllers from another unit in visual contact with the target.

Contemporary systems. Currently, missilemen can achieve devastating effects on mechanized forces at moderate distances with TOW and Javelin missiles. Assaultmen and infantrymen, concealed within 350 meters of a target, can also attain shocking effects utilizing rockets. Artillery forward observers can reach out to extended distances with indirect fire weapons and target with precision-guided rounds such as the Excalibur round or HIMARS. However, each of these weapons systems possess the same weakness: the observer is limited by what he can physically see. Rockets are limited to the line-of-sight and optics capabilities. Javelin and TOW missiles are limited by the observer to target line-of-sight, observing through the command launch unit and M41 Saber sights. Even artillery forward observers require good observation and fair weather conditions to detect and prosecute targets. A further limitation of artillery is its limited effectiveness against a mobile target.9

Unmanned drones are excellent tools to engage armor threats, yet they are also vulnerable to the SST triangulation problem presented earlier in this text. Manned or unmanned aircraft also must be “on station” with appropriate ordnance and fair weather conditions to provide responsive support. Likewise, they also provide valuable information to enemy SSTs utilizing even the most modest technology through transmission interception between the aircraft, the controller, and airfield control groups. In the future, a commander will strike and destroy targets with NLOSPGMs soon after ISR confirms the target location-static or moving-with a high level of confidence.

NLOS air /ground-to-ground PGMs. Thus far, we have addressed technology that already exists within the Marine Corps’ tables of equipment. Yet what makes this article relevant is the answer to the following question: is there existing or forthcoming technology that can generate “destructive innovation’in the way our Nation fights?10 The answer is, unequivocally, yes. Enhanced fiber optic guided missiles (EFOGM) deliver precision-guided strikes at extended distances with real time high definition observation. The missiles do not emit any electro-magnetic radiation to be jammed or detected by SSTs. Missiles will defeat enemy counter-battery radar by designing casings that produce small radar cross-sections and utilizing terrain to screen the missile by controlling the flight pattern. The missile is a completely enclosed system, invulnerable to jamming, cyber-attacks, and counterbattery radar. These characteristics result in a missile that is nearly impossible to detect; thus, operators can fire these missiles with near impunity.

C3

The kill chain11 of EFOGMs will be greatly reduced as compared with current fire support platforms. Unlike HIMARs, artillery, and most aviation ordnance, EFOGMs are not fire and forget. Therefore, the positive identification required before launching an EFOGM will not be nearly as restrictive. The EFOGM enables a collocated commander to make a positive identification of his target through its sophisticated high definition optics during its approach to target. If the target is not identified as hostile or otherwise inaccurate, the missile operator can redirect the missile into an uninhabited area. Therefore, C2 of devastating fire support will be decentralized to the lowest commander possible.

Furthermore, mission tactics and commander’s intent will be more than a preferred doctrine. These principles of C2 will be the only means of controlling widely distributed units without exposing forces to SST detection. Any combatant who attempts to employ C2 systems will be swiftly targeted by his adversary through the use of SST triangulation followed by a near-simultaneous volley of EFOGMs.

Missile Design Characteristics

The most important feature of the EFOGM-the missile-integrated optic-gives it key advantages over other PGMs. Unlike the TOW and Javelin missiles, the EFOGM is an indirect fire weapon, giving the missile a remarkable advantage over line-of-sight missiles. An EFOGM will assist in avoiding fratricide while providing responsive fires for light infantry commanders. Each operator receives high-definition, real time imagery from the camera. The operator reconnoiters along the flight path with the high definition optic, increasing the clarity of the target as the missile approaches. EFOGMs aid in the reduction of fratricide incidents because operators gain target clarity as the missiles approach the targets.12 However, the integrated optic increases the cost of each missile.

In recent years, an Israeli helicopter employed an EFOGM to kill Hussam al-Ámin, a guerrilla leader in southern Lebanon. The pilot used the missileintegrated optic inflight to read the license plate of the car prior to guiding the missile onto the target. Perhaps most impressive: This was done with technology from over two decades ago.13 These missiles are especially suited for the current operating environment, which is characterized by adversaries who take refuge amongst civilian populations. Commanders will use EFOGMs to engage these time-sensitive, high-value targets when collateral damage considerations outweigh missile costs.

EFOGMs do not disclose missile launcher points of origin because the missiles do not fly in ballistic trajectories. Instead, the operators guide the missiles in flight via fiber optic cables that feed out the back of the missiles inflight. Furthermore, the fiber optic cables transmit data at approximately 200 MBits/s allowing the operator to receive and store real time high-definition video. This information is critical for immediate analysis and follow-on targeting.

Currently, EFOGMs range approximately 25 kilometers. However, Serbia designed a missile variant for the Advanced Light Attack System (ALAS) missile that extends the maximum range to 60 kilometers.]H Despite these considerable distances, the unclassified circular probability of error for an EFOGM is equivalent or better than current missile and PGM inventories.

Military personnel will request that engineers either redesign the missiles to enhance capabilities for increased lethality or decrease capabilities to make proliferation more affordable. Skeptics should not ponder if this technology is possible. The technology has existed for over two decades with approximately 25,000 missiles proliferated around the world. Instead, the question that we should ask is, “How can I make the missile better against our enemies and more affordable?” The implications of this technology are far reaching. Other countries with far lower military budgets likely have conducted wargames to determine how a few batteries of entrenched EFOGMs would perform against an armored regiment. Imagine an enemy section of EFOGM armed vehicles within 60 kilometers of an airfield, amphibious landing area, armored unit, or combat logistics support area. The EFOGM section could deliver long-range precision-guided munitions on static and moving targets with impunity.

The technology exists, so we must leverage it and be ready to face it. We must accept this will change our heavy conventional combat formations of the past and greatly favor the defender. We must create variants with specified performance characteristics required for the modern battlefield. Here are our recommendations for specific warhead types:

Anti-tank variant. Operators would use this variant as the primary method of defeating mechanized/motorized columns utilizing shape-charge or explosively formed penetrator warheads. Anti-helicopter/personnel variant. Operators would use this variant to conduct follow-on attacks on dismounted personnel attempting to withdraw from destroyed mechanized/motorized columns or to engage helicopters flying in support of dismounted infantry.

Dual-purpose variant. Operators would use this variant to conduct follow-on attacks on fleeting opportunities or when the target is uncertain.

Cratering-charge variant. Operators would use this variant to neutralize airfields prior to or during attacks to neutralize enemy air support capabilities. Reconnaissance variant. Operators would use this variant to collect data, leveraging the high rate of data transfer in the fiber optic cable, which is secure from jamming. Design engineers would equip this variant with more sensors and possible jamming or faux signal capability.

Faux-missile variant. Operators would use this variant either as a counterpart to an actual missile salvo or to conduct a “reconnaissance by fire.” SSTs can collect on enemy signal positions as soon as an enemy begins transmitting communications following the detection of friendly missile launch. This variant would be inexpensive and present a more “detectable” radar cross-section. It could be volley fired alongside more expensive missiles to defeat countermeasures by saturating the enemy missile defense system.

The missile design cost was approximately $150,000 per missile in 1998.15 The current estimated cost of the missile is between $200,000-5500,000 per missile based on previous costs for similar designs. When compared to the cost of main battle tanks, APCs filled with personnel, and aircraft, the cost of the missile is negligible. In fact, the cost of a single missile is equal to a typical rounding error when discussing the cost of tanks and aircraft. Countries with much smaller defense budgets will engage and destroy our expensive equipment on the battlefield with relatively inexpensive EFOGMs.

The New King of Battle

Through modest adjustments in both organization and minor tactics, our adversaries will achieve decisive results. In the early days of the Yom Kippur War, the Egyptians tactically routed the Israelis in large part by acquiring Sagger missiles, rocket propelled grenades, and surface-to-air missile defense from the Soviet Union. They employed this new equipment within infantry battle and ambush positions, turning the Israeli preference of the armored offensive to their advantage.16 EFOGMs will have a similar impact on the battlespace. Adversaries will not require significant modification to be more lethal. Ironically, it was the results of the devastation inflicted on the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War that generated the needs request by Israeli forces to acquire a NLOS-PGM, leading to the technology now available. With this technology, light infantry will be the king of battle, rendering heavy conventional formations a thing of the past. Adversaries will rapidly reduce detected motorized, mechanized, or assault support-borne units in favor of their dismounted light infantry forces. Tactically, light infantry will prefer the defense to the offense. Reconnaissance units will stymie offensive movements by observing avenues of approach and targeting attacking units with EFOGMs. Ambush and skirmisher teams will logistically attrite dismounted units along the adversary’s attack route and lines of communication.

The current solution proposed by and integrated into our MAGTF for providing remotely located light infantry with fire support is the expeditionary fire support system (EFSS). The EFSS, as compared to EFOGMs, provides little bang for your buck. It requires 13 MV-22 Ospreys to lift the EFSS system, which includes 13 internally transportable vehicles, 4 M327 120mm mortars, and associated ammunition trailers.17 This requires several deck cycles over the course of several hours. Absent any infantrymen, this single, full squadron lift provides the ground commander with only 120 rounds of high explosive, non-precision fire support. Contrast that with light infantry equipped with EFOGMs. A single rifle company, reinforced with mission enablers, requires 13 MV-22s for insertion in a single lift. This lift could be augmented by a dismounted EFOGM variant-similar to the command launch unit that fires the Javelin. Depending on the mission, the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) commander may augment the landing team with as many as 40 long-range variants of the missiles integrated into the same initial lift. The 40 missiles would provide precision-guided fire support at ranges of up to 60 kilometers. That is up to 40 enemy tanks destroyed, to say nothing of how this would alleviate the frustration of timely deck cycles, troop-to-task limitations, and other challenges facing MEU commanders when task organizing proper fire support to the ground commander for an airborne expeditionary landing team.

The threat to bases of support will greatly increase lines of communications in order to limit the exposure of static positions within the threat ring of EFOGMs. Logisticians will make position hardening and concealment, a reality of war that atrophied during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a primary concern. Poor concealment from enemy ISR platforms will result in observation followed by near-simultaneous targeting. The only force capable of defeating such a threat is the persistent, close in fighting of light infantry forces. Only the concealed will survive.

Infantry Organization

The Marine Corps is already well aligned for this problem, given its existing doctrine, leadership training, and focus on the light infantry mindset. However, some refinement is needed to best address the new threat. HQMC should examine the following rifle company task organization:

a. Company headquarters. No change.

b. Three infantry platoons. No change.

c. Reconnaissance platoon.

(1) Platoon headquarters.

(a) Platoon commander-0203

(b) Platoon sergeant-0231

(c) Company-level intelligence cell-4X Marines-0231

(2) Forward scout section-4X teams (4X Marines per team)

(3) Signals and surveillance section-4X teams (4X Marines per team)

(4) Counterbattery/UAS section- 2X teams (3X Marines per team)

(5) UAS section-3X teams (2X Marines per team)

d. Weapons platoon.

(1) Fire support team (FiST). Add missile representative.

(2) Machinegun section. No change.

(3) Missile section. 5X delivery platforms18 (40 missiles total)

(4) Mortar section. No change.

(3) Assault section. No change.

Resistance to Innovation

The nature of the human condition is to resist change. People are affected by several psychological biases that prevent us from changing our behavior. The three biases that cause us to resist innovation are the availability bias, the substitution bias, and the sunken cost bias. The availability bias states that we are affected by our previous experiences and that these experiences provide us with examples of success or failure. History is crucial in our assessment, forcing us to isolate ideas to reflect on, so we can ask the right questions and consider events in our present under proper context.19 Yet we must guard ourselves from seeking future solutions from past experiences alone; the past teaches us we must change because the opportunities of war wait for no man.20 The substitution bias states that when presented with a complex problem or question, people will subconsciously create a simpler question in a mental sleight of hand. Question A: “How will ground-to-ground missiles and persistent ISR affect the character of war?” might translate to Question B: “Do I believe that warfare will change in a way that relegates our military table of equipment and tactics to antique relics in my lifetime?” Answer: “I don’t think that will ever happen. The technology is just not there.” The sunken cost bias states that people are prone to continue to invest in any asset they have already spent time and resources on. The sunken cost bias is probably the greatest bias our national economy would have to overcome.21

A dramatic, innovative shift in our tactics and procurement of equipment is unlikely and nearly impossible for a myriad of contracting and economic reasons. Instead of innovation, military institutions typically implement change in the form of adaptation following tactical defeats.22 In his book on adaptation in combat, Dr. Williamson Murray writes:

Most military organizations and their leaders attempt to impose prewar conceptions on the war they are fighting, rather than adapt their assumptions to reality. In this case they adapt only after great losses in men and national treasure.23

Murray illuminates the human condition, highlighting our inability to rationally cope with any change that attacks concepts our leaders hold to be true and enduring. All military and civilian leaders should be concerned by this notion. A reader may ask, “Why have we not invested in this technology?” We are not privileged to these decisions, but we suspect they follow the sentiment of the British Admiralty’s memorandum of 1828 that stated:

Their Lordships feel it is their bounden duty to discourage to the utmost of their ability the employment of steam vessels, as they consider that the introduction of steam is calculated to strike a fatal blow at the naval supremacy of the Empire.2^

Just as the British had much to lose with the advent of steam engines, the United States has much to lose in the acceptance of EFOGM dominance because the concept negates most of our offensive technological advantages and greatly favors the defender. Consider the implications if this technology is improved and proliferated greatly over the next 20 years. We will likely see the end of tanks, artillery, and other equipment, which generate an emotional connection for many.

The Marine Corps should innovate by investing in EFOGMs or other NLOS air-to-ground and ground-toground missiles and by emphasizing light infantry capabilities as the future, not mechanized combat formations. Force protection technology, such as the Trophy system, should be developed in parallel; however, leaders who ignore the combined arms ofTSR and NLOSPGMs do so at their own peril. The implications of this technology are clear. An adversary with the ability to affordably deliver over-the-horizon precisionguided warheads capable of reducing armor, neutralizing ships, destroying aircraft, and eliminating combat logistics support areas should compel us to take action now, lest we accept the trend Dr. Murray describes and are forced to adapt later at a far greater cost in blood and treasure.

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