The United States should invest in new technologies, specifically directed-energy weapons, to help its military retain its freedom of action and create favorable cost-exchange ratios, according to a recent think tank report.
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s report, Changing the Game: The Promise of Directed-Energy Weapons, says the proliferation of precision-guided weapons, such as missiles, and a new era of advanced air defense threats, such as anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), has allowed U.S. adversaries to catch up technologically and requires a new approach to warfare.
In addition, the report says relying on “increasingly expensive” kinetic capabilities to counter enemies equipped with precision-guided weapons create a cost-exchange dynamic that does not favor the United States.
To counter this new era of precise missiles and advanced air defenses, directed-energy weapons, such as lasers, microwave weapons and tactical relay mirrors, give the United States an opportunity to leverage new technology to re-establish technological dominance of its adversaries and keep weapons costs down, according to the report.
“Although directed-energy weapons cannot replace kinetic capabilities in the foreseeable future, they have the potential to become powerful new force multipliers and greatly reduce the overall cost of conducting key U.S. offensive and defensive operations,” the report says.
The report cites an instance of countering missile salvos launched by Iran, China or another regional power, could require the use of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles at $3.3 million each, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles at $9 million each, or perhaps Standard Missile-3s (SM-3) at between $10 million to $15 million each. The report says using such expensive weapons, two-to-one in a traditional “shoot-look-shoot” approach to missile defense, could risk prohibitive losses.
Instead, the United States could field directed-energy weapons that could provide nearly unlimited magazines for a negligible cost-per-shot as well as field new constructs like AirSea Battle.
“The end result could be a breakout from an operational stalemate created by capable A2/AD weapons complexes as well as a reversal of the cost-exchange calculus in favor of the U.S. military,” the report says.
The report says the United States should develop an acquisition plan that focuses on transitioning the most promising directed-energy concepts to operational capabilities over the next five-to-10 years.
The report can be found at: http://static.csbaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CSBA_ChangingTheGame_online.pdf