The Future of Air Power?

Military technology is driven quite a bit by the "last war" and tradition, particularly when we aren't fighting a "hot war". Actual combat has a tendency to make the military face brutal realities.

For many decades, we've had the luxury of being able to control the air - a significant strategic advantage. Today's reality is that unmanned aircraft are cheaper in both dollars and political consequences (no downed pilots to recover).

The use of UAVs or RPVs is unrewarding & emotionally difficult for the pilots, but if we're to maintain our advantage, we'll be doing much more of it. Manned aircraft won't be phased out for a long time, but unmanned aircraft are going to become much more common - we better get used to it.

Fighter Pilots Face A Dismal Future
"Many people, including some generals in the air force, believe that its next generation fighter will not have a pilot on board. Many air force generals admit that the F-35 is probably the last manned fighter. But some believe that the F-35 will be facing stiff competition from pilotless fighters before F-35 production is scheduled to end in 2034.

UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) are not particularly popular with many U.S. Air Force leaders, but that is not the case in many other countries. Air force generals around the world see the unpiloted jet fighter as a way to break the monopoly the U.S. Air Force has had on air supremacy for the last sixty years.

Most Americans don't even think of this long domination of the air, but potential enemies of the United States are well aware of it, and that domination has a profound effect on how those nations do their military planning. In effect, if you think about going to war with the United States in the immediate future, you take for granted that American aircraft will control the skies above. Robotic jet fighters could change that. And this is forcing American air force generals to confront a very unsavory prospect; a sixth generation fighter that is flown by software, not a pilot.

It's not just that most of the those American air force generals began their careers as fighter pilots. No, the reason is more practical. American air superiority has largely been the result of superior pilots. The U.S. didn't always have the best aircraft, but they always had the most talented and resourceful pilots. And that's what gave the U.S. its edge. Will that translate to software piloted fighters? Research to date seems to indicate it will."

NSA Doesn't Want to Do Cyber Security Alone

Putting an intelligence (spy) agency in sole charge of all government computer and network security would be a lousy idea. Each agency head needs to run their own program and be held accountable to it by outside audits.

NSA Chief Doesn't Want to Do Cyber Security Solo - PC World | Technology News and Updates
"The National Security Agency doesn't want sole responsibility for running U.S. cyber security, the agency's director said Tuesday.

Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, NSA Director Lieutenant General Keith Alexander said that any effort to keep U.S. and government networks safe would be a group effort, rather than a centrally managed operation.
. . .
The NSA director said that security guru Bruce Schneier was right, when just minutes earlier he had told the audience that "nobody" should be in charge of cyber security. "A top-down somebody's-in-charge model is not the right model," Schneier said.

In an interview Tuesday, Beckstrom said that he was happy to hear the NSA saying it didn't want to run U.S. cyber security, and was encouraged to see a discussion of the question of how much power the NSA actually wields. He said that agencies like the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, even the U.S. Department of Commerce, need to get more funds in order to take an active role in cyber security. "There needs to be a balance of power," he said. "I think the budgets are lopsided.""

Computer and network security needs to become part of the fabric of public and private business, just like proper accounting and personnel are. Policy should be set at the top levels, but it needs to be executed from the bottom up.

Eliminate the Air Force? I think not

I know I should ignore editorials in Big City newspapers, but this one gets under my skin:

Op-Ed Contributor - Up, Up and Out - NYTimes.com:
". . . there are three major changes Mr. Gates should add to his agenda, and they deserve President Obama’s support.

First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Second, the archaic “up or out” military promotion system should be scrapped in favor of a plan that treats service members as real assets. Third, the United States needs a national service program for all young men and women, without any deferments, to increase the quality and size of the pool from which troops are drawn."

Our current volunteer service is the best performing military we've ever had. Conscription may be needed if we face another world war situation, but we're better off without it now. If the federal government wants to create a new volunteer service and force our young people into government service, they can do that without disrupting our military. Young people performing charitable or other benevolent service under government guidance would learn a great deal about the waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency of government programs - knowledge that will serve them well as voters.

"At the moment, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are at war, but the Air Force is not. This is not the fault of the Air Force: it is simply not structured to be in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Ridiculous - the Air Force is involved via flying UAV missions, ferrying troops and cargo, and involved in direct combat in both theaters. If the Air Force can manage it's workload without stressing it's staff, they should be congratulated for that. We certainly don't need to dismantle a strategic asset at a time when Russia among others is rebuilding strategic assets that only missiles and bombers can attack if needed.

"The result is an “up or out” system that demands service members move up the ladder simply to stay in the military. Any soldier passed over for promotion twice must leave or retire.

Treating service members like so many widgets — in particular, the enlisted men and women who make up 85 percent of the ranks — is arbitrary and bad management. I have seen many fit, experienced officers and enlisted Marines arbitrarily forced out because there were only so many slots into which they could be promoted."

This is one of the reasons our military is doing so well - the tendency to create intractable bureaucracies is damped by this promotion policy. In a society where we celebrate companies that fire the bottom 10% of their performers, we certainly shouldn't complain about a military that seeks excellence within it's ranks.

". . . would New Orleans reconstruction have lagged so long if we had had a national service program in natural-disaster recovery?"

Once again the excellent response by our Coast Guard gets overlooked. In the New Orleans tragedy, the entire US government reacted more quickly, with more supplies and more people than at any time in US history. Within just the last few decades, such a disaster was primarily the responsibility of those on the scene, the city and state leaders. The tragedy in News Orleans is that the city & state leaders felt no obligation to do their jobs and just sat back waiting for the federal government to save them.

Another Missile Defense Success

Hopefully this research will continue over the next 4 years and systems will be implemented when possible. Our enemies don't care about the philosophies of the political parties in charge, other than how they can use them to defeat us. We need many different arrows in our quivers - missile (and/or warhead) defense systems are one of them.

Boeing-led Missile Defense Team Intercepts Target in Most Complex Test to Date - MarketWatch:
"VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Dec 05, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The Boeing Company (BA:Boeing Co.) , working with industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, today completed the successful intercept of a target warhead in the most challenging test to date of the United States' only long-range ballistic missile defense system.

'This test demonstrated that the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system can defeat a long-range ballistic missile target,' said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. 'This intercept is further proof that GMD can provide our nation with an effective defense against the threat of long-range ballistic missiles.'
. . .
'Data gathered from multiple sensors gave us a clearer picture of the incoming threat, enabling GMD to achieve the shootdown of a complex target,' said Greg Hyslop, Boeing vice president and GMD program director. 'Integrating sensors separated by thousands of miles is a major engineering challenge, but we overcame this challenge by working together as a team.'"

Our Military Bans USB ThumbDrives, etc.

If you remember "Don't Copy That Floppy!", then you've been through this before. The Viruses, Trojans, and other crud collectively called Malware will get onto computers via any path available. USB Thumbdrives are now very cheap and easy to use as part of a sneaker-net. Unfortunately, they're just as convenient for personal use and this is how malware usually finds it's way into corporate / work / military systems. Scan a computer used by a young adult, and you'll likely find a variety of malware waiting for a chance to spread itself around. In theory, we should all scan our systems before writing files to an external device, but in practice most of us don't even scan our systems on a regular schedule.

In the near future I expect the technology to scan and secure thumb drives will be miniaturized and built into the devices themselves. A few years later, the prices will have come down to the level that we mere mortals consider reasonable, and the hackers will have to find another delivery mechanism. History shows that they will succeed.

Practice Safe Computing!

Under Worm
Assault, Military Bans Disks, USB Drives Danger Room from Wired.com:
"The Defense Department's geeks are spooked by a rapidly spreading worm crawling across their networks. So they've suspended the use of so-called thumb drives, CDs, flash media cards, and all other removable data storage devices from their nets, to try to keep the worm from multiplying any further.

It applies to both the secret SIPR and unclassified NIPR nets. The suspension, which includes everything from external hard drives to "floppy disks," is supposed to take effect "immediately." Similar notices went out to the other military services.

In some organizations, the ban would be only a minor inconvenience. But the military relies heavily on such drives to store information. Bandwidth is often scarce out in the field. Networks are often considered unreliable. Takeaway storage is used constantly as a substitute."

New honeycomb tire is 'bulletproof'

The Humvee was never designed to carry the weight of any armor to protect troops. Fortunately, industry has been working on improvements to make them tougher. Simply replacing all the Hummers is cost prohibitive, and they're very useful vehicles when not under attack.
I wonder how well these tires resist chemicals and fire, but the military needs an SUV in this role, not a tank.

New honeycomb tire is 'bulletproof' Military Tech - CNET News:
"The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Wausau, Wis., company have come up with a 37-inch, bullet and bomb-proof Humvee tire based on a polymeric web so cool looking there's no need for hub caps.

Resilient Technologies and Wisconsin-Madison's Polymer Engineering Center are creating a 'non-pneumatic tire' (no air required) that will support the weight of add-on armor, survive an IED attack, and still make a 50 mph getaway. It's basically a round honeycomb wrapped with a thick, black tread.

The military wants an alternative to the current Humvee 'run flat' tires, which despite the name, still need a minimal amount of air pressure to roll and can leave troops stranded after being shot or blown out."

Note the comments after the article - several readers were concerned with spaces in the honeycomb loading up with mud and throwing the tire off-balance. I'm sure this was planned for, or revealed in testing, and that the production tires will be skinned with a sidewall making them look like ordinary tires.