The Pentagon will focus investment in the areas of science and technology in the years ahead to increase capabilities for countering area access denial efforts by potential adversaries, senior defense officials said yesterday.
“This is where I see areas of growth,” said Al Shaffer, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering.
China and Iran have been developing access denial capabilities such as improved missile technology and electronic and cyber warfare intended to degrade the U.S. ability to project power. It could prove difficult to overcome if the military does not keep pace with the threat as it winds down a decade of counterinsurgency operations, he said.
“At the same time, nation stakes like China, nation states like Iran are developing very, very exquisite capabilities, asymmetric capabilities to counter some of the things that we have to be able to do,” he said, adding they are designed to “confuse the battlespace.”
Maj. Gen. Craig Franklin, the vice director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, said even impoverished countries with limited budgets will be able to acquire access denial technologies on the open market, a notion that should drive the United States “to find more innovative solutions.”“We have to put the enablers in place to be able to use the great weapon systems we’ve developed,” Shaffer said at a gathering hosted by the Precision Strike Association.
In the future the military must be able to operate in an electronic warfare environment, at longer ranges, against complex air defense systems, and under the possibility that GPS-guided weapons could be jammed, he said. Possible solutions could be more networked weapons, alternative guidance systems, and more autonomy and speed, he said.
“We’re all aware this could be a challenging proposition,” Franklin said. “I would anticipate increased investment over the next several years to tackle this problem. And with the rapid proliferation of technology and processing power, it won’t be long before what are now isolated areas of A2AD will begin to grow and spread across the globe.”
Increasing Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) capabilities was a key component of the latest strategic review released by the Pentagon earlier this month, Shaffer said. Improving A2AD involves developing innovative ways to penetrate air and sea space, Shaffer said. That would include “enablers” like sustaining an undersea presence, developing a new stealth bomber, improving defenses against missiles, and enhancing space-based capabilities, electronic attack and protection, and cyberspace.
“We have to put the enablers in place to be able to use the great weapon systems we’ve developed,” Shaffer said at a gathering hosted by the Precision Strike Association.
The military oin the future must be able to operate in an electronic warfare environment, at longer ranges, against complex air defense systems, and under the possibility that GPS-guided weapons could be jammed, he said. Possible solutions could be more networked weapons, alternative guidance systems, and more autonomy and speed, he said.