The Army is making a series of calculated investments in technologies and modernization efforts aimed at countering specific capabilities the Russian military has demonstrated in Ukraine, Crimea and Syria, the according to two of the service’s senior acquisition officials.
On recent trips to Europe to gauge the standoff between Russia and NATO on the alliance’s eastern flank, Lt. Gen Michael Williamson, the military deputy to the Army’s chief weapons buyer, met with Army Europe chief Gen. Ben Hodges and other officers.
“There are things that I am deeply afraid of,” Williamson said Thursday at the Defense Programs 2017 conference hosted by Credit Suisse and McAleese and Associates in Washington, D.C. “Their electronic warfare capacity, their use of UAVs, long-range artillery, the ability to do direction finding. When you take a look at those kinds of threats and then look at the investments that we’re making, I think you’ll find that there is a correlation.”
Lt. Gen. John Murray, who as Army G-8 coordinates the service’s funding, equipping and fielding efforts, shared Williamson’s alarm over Russian capabilities, some of which he said showed up unexpectedly.
“Russian operations in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria have highlighted some alarmingly advanced Russian capabilities,” Murray said.
Russia’s use of long- and short-range air defense, the use of drones in artillery observation and targeting, unexpected advances in electronic warfare and cyber capabilities, T-14 Armata tank “give us reason to be concerned as we review our modernization programs and our current levels of funding,” Murray said.
“For the first time in a very long time, probably in my career at least, our ability to qualitatively overmatch our opponents is being questioned and challenges around the world,” he said.
Because the Army perceives the threat of war with Russia and other adversaries as potentially imminent – Murray said “We don’t know that we won’t go to war tomorrow” – it has bled modernization accounts to pay for near-term readiness. Murray said he has recommended to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley that some funding be restored to specific modernization accounts at the expense of end strength.
“I won’t go into the details of how that went, but it didn’t go well,” he said. “We know we are taking risk in our modernization accounts. It’s not something we just fell into. It’s calculated risk.”
The funding that is available for S+T and new capabilities is being invested in “discreet new capabilities, but only to meet the most critical challenges that we’ve identified.”
Williamson insisted that the Army and other services should become early adopters of existing technologies or at the very least fast followers of the commercial sector and defense industry developments.
“I don’t want to spend my time reacting to what the Russians are doing,” Williamson said. “I want other people to react to what we’re doing. That’s what my big concern is, is that this investment may not be sufficient to allow us to change that paradigm.”
The Army needs to make the choice to invest in specific technologies now so that it remains a leader in those areas in years to come, Williamsons said. He identified precision navigation and timing as a “perfect example.” Others he mentioned are cyber capabilities and active protection systems (APS) for vehicles.
“The reality is, if you want to set the conditions for the future, you have to have an S+T investment,” Williamson said. “You will find, as you look at our budget, that we have drawn the line to ensure that we maintain that capability.”
Williamson likened the current opportunity to the one the Army took in the 1980s to invest in technologies that allowed U.S. soldiers to “own the night.” Significant science and technology funding was funneled toward development of night-vision systems and forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensors 30 years ago that gave soldiers an unassailable advantage during night operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The investment we made in FLIR and low-light technologies gave us such a competitive advantage that no one in the world can touch us,” Williamson said. “It was a substantial investment on our part, but you saw he results of that. We have to do the same thing again and the only way you can do that is to make choices.”