There Will Be War Volume II

by Jerry Pournelle

  A power that is determined not to end the Technological War by destroying the enemy must constantly maintain superiority and continuously modernize its forces. At all times, the defending nation in the Protracted Conflict must maintain sufficient forces in being to assure that the enemy does not end the conflict by coup de main, an overwhelming surprise blow. These forces must have the modern weapons they require, and must know how to use them; must have operational familiarity with them.

  The result is a highly dynamic process, requiring careful judgment. We certainly cannot depend on our traditional strategy of mobilization, relying on overseas allies to bear the initial brunt of the war while we convert from a peace to a war economy. We must have a force in being which cannot be destroyed by the enemy, and which can quickly move to counter the enemy’s aggressive actions.

  (A recent example is the Falkland Islands conflict: Britain had sufficient forces in being to reverse the initial advantages held by Argentina. Had Britain scrapped its nuclear submarines and surface ships (as was indeed planned for the following year) then there would have been no possible response to the Argentine occupation of the Falklands; certainly no response short of all-out war and actions against the Argentine homelands. This could have been very dangerous. JEP 1983)

  Secondly, the force in being must be a modern force. It is unimportant if we surpass the enemy in capability to conduct horse-cavalry conduct, or even guerilla war, if we do not have a force that can fight successfully with modern high-energy weapons. The situation is not symmetrical; if we possess superiority or supremacy, we need not end the conflict by destroying the enemy, and will not do so because of our essentially defensive grand strategy. However, we cannot afford to allow the enemy superiority or supremacy, because he could use it to force so many concessions—particularly from our then-unprotected allies—that the contest would be decided in his favor even if he did not employ his decisive weapons to destroy us.

  Finally, we must assure that the technological base from which our force in being are derived is truly modern and creative. We must be certain that we have missed no decisive bets in the Technological War, that we have abandoned no leads which the enemy could exploit for a decisive advantage over us. For every weapons system he has, we must have a counter, either through defending against the weapon or riposte against him if he uses it. More important, we must keep a sufficient technological base to allow us to generate the counter-systems to any new weapons he constructs or may suddenly invent.

  Dimensions of the Technological War

  The dimensions of the Technological War range farther than any conflict previously known in human history. They include the aerospace, from ground-level to trans-lunar space; the ground and the underground deep within the earth; and the surface of the seas and the underwater world we call inner space. The battlegrounds of the Technological War could include every conceivable area in which military conflict can occur. Yet, this is merely the final aspect of the Technological War. Actual military battle may never take place. The dimensions of the war also include the nonmilitary struggles, psycho-political warfare, ideological warfare, economics and trade, and the educational process. A college campus with students shrilly screaming obscenities at the police, and a quiet laboratory populated with soft-spoken men armed with chalk and blackboards are equally important battlegrounds.

  Technological Warfare in its decisive phase will aim at bypassing the other forms of military conflict and striking directly at the will to resist. Military power may be used, and thermonuclear warfare may be necessary to consolidate the victory, but the true aim of the Technological War is the denial, paralysis, and negation of all forms of hostile military power. Often this may be achieved through psycho-political pressure employing tactics of demonstration, terror, despair, and surprise, conducted in concert perhaps with other forms of warfare. Specifically, genuine Technological War aims at reducing the use of firepower in all forms to a minimum.

  An Overview of the Nature of Technology

  Before we examine the strategy of Technological War, it is necessary to understand the nature of technology. Contrary to what people have often been encouraged to believe, it is not necessary to be a scientist or technologist to comprehend the general nature of technology, or to employ technology in a strategic contest. Indeed, sometimes specialization on one aspect of technology and strategy prevents understanding of technology in its broader sense.

  The following discussion is a nontechnical introduction to the general nature of technology and strategy. Later sections of this book develop each of these themes more fully, but because of the interdependence of strategy and technology in modern warfare, it is not possible to organize this book into discrete sections and chapters.

  Modern Technological Warfare is a mixture of strategy and technology, and their interrelationships.

  The primary fact about technology in the twentieth century is that it has a momentum of its own. The stream of technology flows on endlessly, and it is impossible to dam it. There remain only three choices. You may swim with the stream, exploiting every aspect of technology to its fullest; you may attempt to crawl out on the bank and watch the rest of the world go past; or you can attempt to swim against the stream and “put the genie back in the bottle”.

  Since nearly every nation, and certainly both superpowers, swim in more or less the same technological stream, only the first course of action makes sense. To continue the analogy for a moment, there is a fog over the surface of the water, so that you cannot know exactly what and how your opponents in the race are doing. An opponent may tell you he has crawled out on the bank and is enjoying the view, while in fact he is either treading water or racing away from you. If you do not intend to lose, you have little choice but to swim with the current as long and as hard as you can.

  The impersonal nature of technology makes meaningless the gunpowder era phrase arms race. It is fashionable at present to speak of the action-reaction arms race, in which each power constructs weapons for fear that the other has done so. According to this theory,[4] the primary reason nations arm themselves is that they react to others. In fact, in the Technological War, opposing powers essentially react to the impersonal stream that carries them along. They really have no choice and never will have so long as the current flows and there is asymmetry of information between them.

  The fog of war is made denser by confusion caused partly by deliberate deception and partly by self-deceptions. Only when the Communist states have transformed themselves into open societies and there is a complete exchange of information—that is, when the fog has lifted from the stream of technology—can meaningful efforts to arrange the contest on a more economical and less risky basis be successful. Until that time we must engage in the Technological War. It is fairly obvious that rationalization of the conflict will not come in our lifetimes. We would do well to expect that even if the U.S.S.R. were to change its character, other threats might arise in its stead.

  Arms races in the nuclear era differ from those in the gunpowder era in one fundamental way: they are qualitative rather than quantitative. In the gunpowder era, numbers of divisions, tanks, battleships, and aircraft gave rough estimates of the strength of the possessor and his capability to defend himself. It was possible to overcome an enemy by sheer numbers of weapons alone. In the nuclear era, numbers remain important, of course, but the primary strength lies in quality of weapons and their survivability. Nuclear weapons can destroy an enemy’s entire military power in one strike if the attacker possesses sufficient qualitative superiority. This too is a result of the nature of modern technology.

  One of the most easily observed phenomena of technology is that it moves by “S” curves. Take for example speed; for centuries the speed of military operations increased only slightly as each side developed better horses. Then came the internal combustion engine. Speed rose sharply for a while. Eventually, though, it flattened out again, and each increase took longer and longer to achieve.


  Note that the top of one S curve may—in fact usually will—be the base of another following it. Although the stream moves on inexorably, it is possible to exploit one or another aspect of technology at will. Which aspect to exploit will depend on several factors, the most important being your goals and your position on the S-curve.

  To illustrate the S-curve concept, consider the development of aircraft, and in particular their speed. For many years after the Wright brothers, aircraft speeds crawled slowly forward. In 1940, they were still quite slow. Suddenly, each airplane designed was faster, until the limits of subsonic flight were reached. At that point, we were on a new S-curve. Again, the effort to reach transsonic flight consumed many resources and much time, but then the breakthrough was made. In a short time, aircraft were traveling all multiples of the speed of sound, at speeds nearly two orders of magnitude greater than those achieved shortly before World War II.[5]

  Technology is interdependent: advances in one sector of technology soon influence areas which might naively have been believed unrelated. For example, the development of molecular chemistry techniques led to the art of microminiaturization, which allows development of computer technology beyond the expectations of only a few years ago. The revolution in computer sciences has made possible the development of on-board computers for missile guidance, and thus of accuracies not previously predicted. Increased accuracy has made possible the destruction of missile silos with much greater ease and smaller warheads, and has led to the development of Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRV), each one of which uses on-board guidance computers. The increased kill capability stimulated research into silo hardening techniques, which led directly to the present hard rock silo designs. And that development also made it possible to conduct certain mining operations that were previously financially infeasible. Examples of interdependence can be given without limit.

  Thus, technology influences nearly every aspect of national life. In particular, technology influences strategy, forcing strategic revolutions at frequent intervals. There are those who say that strategy never changes. If they mean literally what they say, they have never appreciated the effects of the airplane and the ICBM, the possibilities for surprise attack created by these radical new weapons delivery systems coupled with thermonuclear explosives, and the effect they have on ground battles. If, however, they mean that the principles of strategy have not changed, they are more nearly correct, as we will discuss below.

  The important fact is that technology paces strategy to some extent, and forces the development of new military strategies which take the new technology into account. As we will show, it is dangerous to regard this relationship as one-sided. Technology and strategy are interrelated, and strategy can and should also pace technology.

  Despite the critical importance of technology, it remains an impersonal force, largely because we have never made an effort to understand it. Although America is the leading technological power—perhaps because we are the leading technological power—we do not really comprehend technology. As a consequence, technology remains largely a matter of individual initiative, and we have failed to develop a strategy of technology, let alone a strategy for winning the Technological War.

  The Decisive War

  The technological contest is a war. It is not a game against an impersonal force, it is a deadly conflict with an intelligent and implacable enemy. We do not suppose that a military commander who conducted his battles as they occurred, understanding neither the terrain nor the enemy and preparing only for the battle that he had already fought, would be properly performing his task. Yet, too often this is precisely what happens in the Technological War, which may be the most decisive engagement in the history of mankind. Technology has grown into the driving force, dictating to strategy; and strategy is conceived of as employment of systems already created by the technologists; that is, strategy is confined to operational decisions. This is akin to allowing the recruiting and supply officers to decide the conduct of a traditional land war.

  The danger in the Technological War is that it is closely coupled with the Protracted Conflict, and a decisive lead in the Technological War can be converted into a decisive advantage in military weapons. Note that military power and technological power are coupled, but are not identical; military technology is not in and of itself a weapon system, but it can be used to create weapons systems. Thus a commanding lead in the Technological War can be achieved before a corresponding lead in military technology has been obtained.

  As an example, the Soviet Union could, through the development of nuclear defense technology, obtain a decisive lead in the Technological War at a time when the United States still possessed a clear superiority in deliverable weapons. This technology could then be used to create defense systems, and if the United States took no countermeasures during the deployment of those defensive systems, we would find ourselves in an inferior military position.

  (What actually happened during the 1970’s was that the Soviet Union achieved spectacular gains in achievable accuracies, and also built large new missiles capable of carrying a dozen and more warheads over intercontinental distances. The United States relied on Arms Control negotiations for security; when these failed, we found ourselves facing a “window of vulnerability.” This increasing strategic inferiority has not been overcome as of 1983.)

  Victory in the Technological War is achieved when a participant has a technological lead so far advanced that his opponent cannot overcome it until after the leader has converted his technology into decisive weapons systems. The loser may know that he has lost, and know it for quite a long time, yet be unable to do anything about it. To continue the above example, if the Soviet Union were able to develop the technology in time to deploy systems of his own before ours could be installed and operational, we would be beaten, even though the U.S.S.R. might spend several years in deployment of his own system. Our only choices would be the development of a penetration system that his defenses could not counter (such as manned bombers of very high capabilities),[6] surrender, or preventive war.

  (Many believe that development of space laser battle stations will be a decisive move in the technological war. The laser battle station could, at least in theory, destroy an entire ICBM force in flight, then burn down the enemy’s bomber fleet for encore. Such a station once in place would give a decisive lead to its owner.

  Space based ICBM defenses have also been proposed, as example by General Daniel O. Graham in his Project High Frontier. If such systems could give us a decisive advantage, they would confer no less on the Soviets if we allow our enemies to develop them without any counter on our part. JEP 1983)

  This is the unique feature of the Technological War, Military superiority or even supremacy is not permanent, and never ends the conflict unless it is used. The United States is committed to a grand strategy of defense, and will never employ a decisive advantage to end the conflict by destroying her enemies. Consequently, she must maintain not only military superiority but technological supremacy. The race is an alternative to destructive war, not the cause of military conflict.

  Proper conduct of the Technological War requires that strategy drive technology most forcefully; that there be an overall strategy of the Technological War, allocating resources according to well-defined objectives and an operational plan, not merely strategic elements which make operational use of the products of technology. Instead of the supply officer and the munitions designer controlling the conduct of this decisive war, command must be placed in the hands of those who understand the Technological War; and this requires that they first understand the nature of war.

  Lest the reader be confused, we do not advocate that the Technological War be given over to the control of the scientists, or that scientists should somehow create a strategy of technological development. We mean that an understanding of the art of war is more important than familiarity with one or another of the specialties of technology. It is a rare scientist who
makes a good strategist; and the generals of the Technological War need not be scientists any more than the generals of traditional military conflict need to be good riflemen or railroad engineers.

  Like all wars, the Technological War must be conducted by a commander who operates with a strategy. It is precisely the lack of such a strategy that has brought the United States to the present low point in prestige and power, with her ships seized across the world, her Strategic Offensive Forces (SOF) threatened by the growing Soviet SOF—and with the United States perplexed by as simple a question as whether to attempt to defend her people from enemy thermonuclear bombs, and unable to win a lesser war in South East Asia.[7] Because we have no generals and no strategy, we must muddle through the most decisive conflict in our national history. We are not doing a good job.

  There have been a few exceptions to this unsatisfactory record of American performance. General Bernard Schriever created a military organization for strategic analysis which was responsible for our early commanding lead over the Soviets in ballistic missiles, despite the fact that the U.S. had allowed the U.S.S.R. many years’ head start in missile development after World War II.[8] The Air Force’s Project Forecast and later Project 75, was an attempt to let strategy react to, then drive, technology; it too was a creation of General Schriever’s. In the navy there have also been notable attempts to allow strategy to influence technology and produce truly modern weapons systems. The long-term results on the careers of the officers involved have been similar to those of the officers identified with General Schriever in the Air Force: failure. Our military organizations have not been geared for commanders who understand the Technological War, even though this is the most decisive of all wars we have fought. Yet in the few cases where the proper actions have been taken, the payoff in the Technological War has been very great. Unfortunately, the men who were involved in making these contributions to the nation have suffered for doing so.