Latest news with #NationalDefenseIndustrialAssociation
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
These are the 5 critical technologies the US needs to fight future wars, a top defense lawmaker says
A top lawmaker identified the five capabilities he believes the US military needs to innovate in. Those areas are missiles, missile defenses, drones, counter-drone systems, and secure comms, Rep. Smith said. Special operations forces lead the charge on experimenting with some of those, he added. There are five critical technologies needed to fight future wars, a top lawmaker on military and defense matters said recently. Those areas are missiles, missile defenses, drones, counter-drone systems, and secure communications, Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat and the ranking member of the US House Armed Services Committee, said at a recent symposium in Washington, DC. He said these are the areas where the US needs to innovate and develop game-changing capabilities. Having the best weapons within those areas, he said, is key to winning future wars. The war in Ukraine is showing just how crucial these capabilities are. Smith pointed out that the development of countermeasures demands a constant cycle of modifying these systems. That's been seen especially in the mass use of electronic warfare to jam drones; in response, both sides of the war have developed ways to evade frequency jamming. Beyond drones and counter-drone tech, the importance of missiles and missile defense are increasingly hot topics among military leaders as US rivals and adversaries, from Russia and China to Iran and North Korea, invest in missiles. The US has seen interceptor stocks strained by Iranian bombardments and lower-end threats like the Houthis in Yemen, who terrorized ships in and around the Red Sea. In a great-power conflict, such as a potential war with China in the Indo-Pacific region, air defenses could be more critical to shield naval bases, air bases, and other installations, as well as ships. The US military is also developing and fielding certain offensive missile capabilities, like the Typhon Mid-Range Capability, which is a land-based launch option for Tomahawk cruise missiles, and hypersonic missile systems. Likewise, another key development area has been secure communications and assured navigation. Vulnerabilities in these spaces can be costly in a high-end fight. For the US military, special operations forces can be seen leading the way in innovative iteration. "They're going to iterating on a day-in and day-out basis, and we need to learn from that and expand it," Smith said at the National Defense Industrial Association US Special Operations Symposium. US special operators testing out uncrewed systems in different environments against different threats, for example, are at the front lines of figuring out what could be needed for a future fight. They are often among the first to get their hands on new technologies, and they work closely with the defense industry to develop new systems, leading to real-time adaptations and rapid evolutions. As special operations leadership said at the recent symposium, operators are going to need cheaper, more expendable weapons, like drones, in a potential future fight. While this doesn't mean that other systems — such as F-35 Joint Strike Fighters or Ford-class aircraft carriers — aren't needed, it does raise questions about where the US Department of Defense's priorities are. "We are spending a ton of money at DoD right now that isn't in those five things," Smith said. The Pentagon is reshuffling the Defense Department's budget. It is still a bit murky, with submarines being among the few clearly articulated priorities, but it's moving roughly $50 billion from legacy programs to new priorities, which do appear to include missile defense and drone-related technologies. Big challenges for the department in fielding new capabilities can be contracting issues and slow acquisition processes. Military officials and industry partners at the NDIA special operations symposium spoke about the challenges facing the US military's acquisition process, including requirement and funding hurdles that have hindered the adoption of new weapons and capabilities. Some speakers highlighted the agile and flexible acquisition process used by US special operations forces as a model for how the Department of Defense can better implement new technologies, especially drones and other uncrewed systems. They said that having a process able to produce a variety of systems could be vital in a longer, protracted conflict. Others noted that a future, high-speed, highly digitized war could be even more demanding with the rise of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Questions were raised, too, about whether decision-making will occur at such a pace that humans can't keep up. The technological space is evolving fast. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The US military's elite special operators need a lot more 'truly cheap' weapons to fight the next big war, general says
US special operators need cheap weapons for future conflicts, and they need a lot of them. The war in Ukraine has shown the value of having lots of cheap weapons, such as drones. Operators and industry will need to work closely together to develop the right capabilities. US special operators are going to need a bunch of cheap, expendable weapons to fight a fast-paced, high-intensity, and materially demanding future war, US military leaders said recently. And those weapons are going to need to be able to be rapidly modified to adapt to ever-changing battlefield threats. At the National Defense Industrial Association's US Special Operations Symposium last week, special operations leadership and other military officials spoke about the shift from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to great-power competition and the challenges and opportunities that presents for the US military's elite special operations forces, or SOF. Looking at a potential future conflict between the US and a major military power, like China or Russia, officials said a war like that would be fought across a range of contested domains, such as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Dominating these warfighting domains will be decisive, they said. Preparation for this fight has led to increased demand for innovation and the acquisition of new weapons and combat technologies. Lt. Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, the director for Joint Fore development, pointed to Ukraine's success in crippling Russia's Black Sea Fleet with uncrewed surface vessels as an example. There are lessons to learn from the Ukraine war, he said, especially when it comes to drones. The general said "there are a lot of cheap things you can do to have an asymmetric advantage." US special operators are often among the first American troops to get their hands on new technologies, and they work closely with the defense industry to develop new systems. Anderson said that he wants to see "technologies that are truly cheap in the hands of the operators" so that they can "experiment" with them and offer feedback. The key to developing these capabilities, he said, is rapid-cycle iteration. Industry and operators should work closely to develop new systems, edit them based on observations, and switch out capabilities quickly for different missions, he suggested. But these systems need to be affordable, Anderson said, capable of being bought on a large scale for relatively low cost. That's been important in Ukraine, where soldiers burn through thousands of drones and where new drone companies are constantly building newer, cheaper hardware and updating software based on current battlefield challenges. In recent years, the Pentagon has been moving to achieve mass through drone warfare, as seen in Ukraine. The Replicator Initiative, announced in 2023, is the Department of Defense's effort to streamline the development of uncrewed systems with key industry partners, with the goal of deploying thousands of multi-domain drones at speed and scale. The biggest challenges, though, lie in how DoD obtains new systems and works with the defense industry. Similarly, technologies related to artificial intelligence, autonomy, uncrewed systems, and electronic warfare are moving at breakneck speed, meaning what is innovative today may be obsolete tomorrow. Chris Brose, the chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries, said that a potential solution to this problem is the creation of flexible systems that can be updated quickly. Brose said that Anduril's work with DoD on countering drones with US Special Operations Command largely began with trying to solve problems that operators were experiencing on the field. "It started with units that were deploying," he said, with "capabilities that were not working, with threats that were outpacing them, with technology that was rapidly getting better but they were incapable of incorporating." Those challenges led to an understanding that operators and industry need to work together and quickly, adjusting in real time in different locations against different threats. While much can be learned from the war in Ukraine, there are still unanswered questions, especially about how AI will evolve and what humans will actually be needed for in certain combat roles. SOF leadership said that autonomous capabilities and AI may potentially change what roles operators play on the battlefield, such as flying drones. Read the original article on Business Insider
