Hypersonic speeds greater than Mach 5.5 may be in the future, but developing the propulsion technology and materials that can withstand the extreme heat is most likely twenty years or more down the road. The Air Force Research Laboratory and Boeing have been working on an emerging hypersonic test platform called the X-51A WaveRider. Once success is realized, the technology promises to be a next-generation game-changer.
Perdix mini-drone
Attacks through cyberspace and evolving electronic warfare technologies threaten to neutralize some of the advantages of our strike platforms, our command and control systems, and our ISR networks. To meet these challenges, our military will need to work with the scientific community and our industry partners so that we may have the capability to secure and protect the commons. It’s that model that led the Department of Defense Strategic Capabilities Office to work with MIT on a unique semi-autonomous mini-drone that functions within a swarm of fellow mini-drones in an embryonic approach that might usher in the next generation of ISR RPAs. Think of a swarm of tiny electronic honeybees, independent, yet navigating in a perfectly synchronized choreography—each transmitting its observations back to the hive in real time, or collectively jamming or overwhelming an enemy radar station.
In January 2017, 60 Minutes profiled the autonomous “Perdix mini-drone,” a swarming UAV capable of low-altitude ISR and other missions. Originally developed at MIT with a 3D-printed airframe, the DoD Strategic Capabilities Office successfully upgraded the foot-long aircraft using all-commercial components. The Department of Defense details the technology:
In one of the most significant tests of autonomous systems under development by the Department of Defense, the Strategic Capabilities Office, partnering with Naval Air Systems Command, successfully demonstrated one of the world’s largest micro-drone swarms at China Lake, California. The test, conducted in October 2016, consisted of 103 Perdix drones launched from three F/A-18 Super Hornets. The micro-drones demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive formation flying, and self-healing.
“Due to the complex nature of combat, Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature,” said SCO Director William Roper. “Because every Perdix communicates and collaborates with every other Perdix, the swarm has no leader and can gracefully adapt to drones entering or exiting the team.”
The demonstration is one of the first examples of the Pentagon using teams of small, inexpensive, essentially autonomous systems to perform missions once achieved only by larger, more expensive ones. Roper stressed the department’s conception of the future battle network is one where humans will always be in (or at minimum “on”) the loop. Machines and the autonomous systems being developed by the DoD, such as the micro-drones, will empower humans to make force application decisions faster.
Our Air Force maintains the world’s most advanced systems for detecting, identifying, and targeting an adversary. We are currently the sole provider of the worldwide communications and precision navigation and timing capabilities that are increasingly required to conduct operations in all domains. Our challenge extends far beyond merely maintaining this edge, as new adversaries emerge with unique and often unforeseen threats to our security. All across the Air Force, committed partners like the five-thousand-plus men and women of the Air Force Research Laboratory work in tandem with NASA, Department of Energy National Labs, DARPA, and other DoD research organizations to discover, develop, and integrate inventive and affordable air and space warfighting technologies that promise to ensure that our air, space, and cyberspace forces have the tools they need to stay well ahead of the curve. Inside these walls, success is fueled by imagination and dreams, and the most rewarding journey propels flights of fancy into the bold systems and trailblazing technologies that will keep our adversaries at bay and safeguard our freedom.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will require that we increase our ability to monitor and detect technology transfer and weapon movements, while at the same time ensuring that our own weapons retain their dominance over those of our adversaries.
B61-12
Since the late 60s, various versions of the B61 nuclear bomb have been a staple of the United States’ thermonuclear arsenal. The variable yield bomb is designed to withstand the rigors of high-speed aircraft carriage in both strategic and tactical nuclear weapon scenarios. Until now, the B61 has been an unguided weapon that required at least an intermediate yield to ensure an effective strike. The Mod 12 replaces the tail section with a new guided tail kit (the Tail Subassembly or TSA) that converts it to a smart weapon, improving accuracy and potentially lowering its nuclear yield—two desired military capabilities. A lower yield means potentially less collateral damage and less radioactive fallout that civilians might encounter, with no sacrifice to target accuracy.
It will all fall into place in Europe, once the F-35A stealth fighter bombers replace the F-16s and Tornado PA-200s assigned to NATO and U.S. nuclear-capable bombers, providing platforms modified to handle the first guided nuclear bombs deployed by the United States in Europe.
We are pursuing the means to rapidly place our nation’s satellites into operational orbits essentially on call so that we can detect the threats and provide warning necessary to protect our nation and our allies from ballistic missile and rocket attacks and from other hard-to-attribute threats in the commons. Our ability to operate in air, space, and cyberspace gives our nation a clear advantage in speed, range, and flexibility.
X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle
The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is taking the RPA concept into the realm of low Earth orbit with the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). A reusable space plane that looks like a miniature space shuttle, at twenty-nine feet in length with a wingspan of fifteen feet, it’s about a quarter the size of the shuttle. All four OTV missions flown to date began with vertical launches from Cape Canaveral atop Atlas V rockets. After a total of 1,367 days in orbit, the first three successfully concluded with autonomous horizontal landings onto the landing strip at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the fourth mission landed on May 7, 2017, surpassing OTV-3’s 674 days in orbit.
These capabilities are what makes the United States Air Force vital to our national security. No other institution on earth provides the range of capabilities in the air, in space, or the global command and control to integrate their use. This is our unique and enduring contribution to the joint team, and yes, it was my calling.
Common to our heritage is the relationship between the aviator and the machine. Alone together in the vastness of sky or space, the relationship is etched into our very psyche. It is so powerful an idea that it has attracted the best and the brightest that the world has to offer to our nation’s service. It is these people who made us the service of technological innovation. But today the evolution of the machine is beginning to outpace the capability of the people we put in them. We now must reconsider the relationship of man and woman, machine and sky. We must ask and ultimately answer if we will perform manned or unmanned combat. While there is legitimate concern about autonomy in military systems, sensationalized by Hollywood among others, there’s one overriding principle that will never change: airmen will always perform the essential role of consenting to the application of lethal force, and lethal authority will never be delegated or relinquished. That’s exactly how it should be.
For the next thirty years or so, I believe there will continue to be a combination of both—a mix of manned tactical aviation and remotely piloted aircraft required to achieve air dominance. The expectation is that by 2022, paired warplanes will be capable of conducting ground strikes in hostile, well-defended environments, while pilotless cargo helicopters deliver supplies to troops on the battlefield. We must continue to evolve and embrace the culture of technological innovation that has been our hallmark. We have always use
d and will continue to use this technological innovation to provide for the security of our nation. Technology will allow us to better execute defense when in the past only offense was truly viable.
CONTROVERSY
On August 10, 2012, I stepped down after four years as Air Force Chief of Staff. That morning, I was on NPR’s Morning Edition speaking with Pentagon reporter Tom Bowman about my tenure. Tom talked about how I got the job after my predecessor was relieved for—among other things—clashing with the SECDEF over how many fighter jets the military needs. Then he went on to posit that I am most likely to be remembered for my staunch advocacy for the use of drones. Notwithstanding his choice of the word “drone,” I couldn’t disagree with him. Nine times out of ten, it’s the first topic that is raised when I am interviewed, or answering questions at a post-lecture Q & A. Depending on the audience, I can often predict the question:
“Do you think that’s a fair way to fight? Killing people by pressing a button from thousands of miles away?” There’s far more involved than merely “pressing a button,” but yes, I believe it’s an excellent way to take out a terrorist before he takes more innocent lives.
“Do you have any idea of how many innocent civilians you’re killing when you try to sterilize it with terms like ‘collateral damage’? You murder entire families, sometimes entire huge wedding parties—just to get one supposed terrorist. Are you not bothered by that?” The best information we have is that there is one civilian casualty for every seven legitimate combatants in the Afghan theater. In Yemen, the ratio was one to five. This is according to one of the best sources, Long War Journal. I would argue that any civilian loss of life is not what uniformed personnel strive for. They strive mightily to avoid that outcome.
The fact is remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, permit more considered, more accurate, and more proportionate application of lethal force than any other comparable weapon system. Because they can spend longer time over the target than equivalent manned aircraft, they give their operators the time to maximize the certainty that they are engaging the right enemy combatants, and they have the time and the means to confirm whether there are noncombatants in the vicinity of the intended target.
It is the ability of remote systems to maintain target area surveillance—long enough for their remote operators to carefully and deliberately evaluate potential targets against the criteria that allow them to shoot—that makes this system so discriminating and effective.
Soldiers and airmen under fire on the ground are far more likely to shoot back at the sources of fire aimed against them, possibly causing much greater danger to noncombatants, than are remote operators whose safety and lives are not at immediate risk.
There were about 150,000 Air Force flights during the surge period in Afghanistan in 2011. Sadly, about three thousand of those flights were medical evacuation sorties of our wounded and our dead. Compare that total to 25,000 close air support sorties and support of ground forces, of which 1,400 had at least one weapon release. So what this means is that out of 25,000 sorties, 1,400 actually released a weapon. There were many sorties that flew with no weapon release at all. That’s what a professional Air Force does. Ready, finger on the trigger, but extremely careful and deliberate about applying lethal force in practice and in principle.
Less than a quarter—333—of those 1,400 weapon releases were by remote systems, with the other 1,067—three-fourths—from manned aircraft. Were those 1,067 weapon releases from manned aircraft somehow more practical, less immoral, less unfair than those 333 that were released by unmanned aircraft? I think not.
The bottom line is this is all about discipline. Are mistakes made from time to time? Yes, but that is not the policy, nor is it the training, nor is it the ethos or supervision of the personnel who perform the demanding missions.
* * *
Today, my meetings take place in corporate conference rooms instead of the Cabinet Room, but I’ve tried my best to make the time I spend in the private sector as worthwhile as my years in the military. Subsequent to my Air Force retirement, I became president and CEO of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a fiercely nonpartisan and nonprofit entity that supports the U.S. government by bringing best business practices and business expertise to bear on the problems that government faces, specifically in the national security sector. We try to elevate the performance of our government and its efficiency and effectiveness.
Founded in 1982 by business executive and entrepreneur Stanley A. Weiss, we currently have about 450 members, and these are all accomplished people who want to give back. The real purpose is to connect government need for business-driven problem solving with the capabilities of our members who have the time, the passion, and the particular skill required to deliver an effective solution. We don’t take direct corporate contributions and we are very scrupulous about conflict of interest. All of our resources are from individual donations, and all of our members’ work is pro bono. For those reasons, as well as many years of working together, we’re trusted by government partners that know we won’t embarrass them. It is a good fit for Suzie and me and it’s about giving back—a continuation of a career of public service.
It has also provided me with a forum to share some of my thoughts on various national security issues as they continue to evolve:
How To Boost Domestic Intelligence and Privacy To Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack
By Norton A. Schwartz
April 14, 2015
January’s attacks in Paris sparked debates about our civil liberties, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but also discussions about the use of intelligence to combat the terrorist threat at home and our expectation of privacy. In February, the Senate Intelligence Committee marked its first open hearing since June that provided the public insight on how the United States collects and disseminates intelligence data. Given recent events and debates, it should come to no surprise that the focus of the hearing was the National Counterterrorism Center, the clearinghouse for our country’s terrorism information.
Our nation views intelligence collection with apprehension and the sentiment is understandable. An Associated Press-GfK poll in January noted almost 60 percent of respondents disapproved of the Obama administration’s handling of intelligence surveillance policies, and 61 percent favor protecting civil liberties over keeping the country safe from terrorist attacks.
There appears to be a perceived dichotomy between counterterrorism activities and civil liberties—a belief that intelligence efforts and civil liberties stand in opposition to one another. Support one and you run afoul of the other.
Like most things, the issue is not black and white nor is it zero-sum, but the perception exists nonetheless. It is therefore incumbent upon our policy makers and the intelligence community to be transparent in the activities we are pursuing and to better articulate how those efforts are in line with our civil liberties and Constitutional principles. Indeed, bolstering our intelligence community and strengthening civil liberties can go hand and hand, and the former can sustain the latter.
In a recent report that I co-signed with eighteen other security and intelligence leaders, Business Executives for National Security, or BENS, embraced the importance of our civil liberties and transparency within the intelligence apparatus. And we specifically recommend steps that ensure protections are in place.
The report, “Domestic Security: Confronting a Changing Threat to Ensure Public Safety and Civil Liberties,” makes several recommendations that include calling for the establishment of better integrated fusion centers in high-threat areas within the U.S. Fusion centers serve as coordination mechanisms for federal, state, and local authorities, and are meant to provide efficient sharing of threat-related data. Better integrated, fusion centers would maximize the quality of information shared and the speed with which we can respond to threats. But also, importantly, they centralize oversight. This step helps us, as citizens, to have greater confidence that counterterrorism
efforts are consistent with our laws and expectations.
We also recommend standardizing rules for domestic intelligence analysts that would make it clear what type of information is appropriate to collect, review, and disseminate. Currently, the level of training among analysts in different departments and agencies is uneven, weakening our civil protections and allowing for potential, albeit unintended, mistakes.
We also call for strengthening the coordination and oversight of our law enforcement and public safety agencies, while empowering the 800,000 eyes and ears of state and local law enforcement professionals in a manner that reinforces our civil liberties. The terrorist threat to our nation is evolving and is increasingly characterized by homegrown and self-radicalized individuals like the ones that attacked in Paris. As the threat evolves, so too must our country’s efforts to counter and manage such threats.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the intelligence committee’s chairman, is making strides to gain public confidence in our intelligence policies by holding open hearings. The Obama administration is furthering the effort with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s release of principles to provide transparency in intelligence, and by declassifying thousands of documents pertaining to secret intelligence programs.
Further steps like the ones outlined in BENS’ report should also be taken. Our intelligence efforts and civil liberties are intertwined. We cannot pursue one without the other. Bolster one and you bolster the other.
By Norton A. Schwartz // Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, ret., is president and CEO of Business Executives for National Security. He was the 19th chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force.
Enlisting the Private Sector
AUGUST 26, 2015 | GENERAL NORTON SCHWARTZ
The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere … the front line runs through the factories.
Journey Page 39