The Risk of Preparing Tomorrow's Wars With Yesterday's Mindset

There are countless reasons why a defense strategy can miss its mark, ranging from the time it takes to upgrade equipment, to the fact that every opponent changes in its nature. The 20th century still casts a large shadow on how we prepare our defense, as it is the last era of heavy warfare, be it hot or cold. And that, in many ways, is a dangerous thing.

“The Pentagon is preparing to dust off a Cold War-era warfighting concept and upgrade it with new weaponry to thwart a potential shock assault by rival powers. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research and development arm, is working to revive its decades-old "Assault Breaker" concept to help the U.S. military achieve and maintain offensive superiority in the face of emerging threats from Russia and China. The Soviet plan for achieving victory in Europe called for rapid breakthrough strikes on NATO's forward defenses, clearing a path for overwhelming waves of Soviet mobile armor formations.”

Russia has indeed advanced armor technology and is once again a force to be reckoned with, especially alongside a potential Chinese ally, whose tanks are no longer to be laughed at either. But that’s a somewhat superficial look at the situation.

This failure to understand the true and deep nature of the strategic shift of the West’s security situation is embodied by the German industry. The thriving of the German defense industry may be outstanding in technological terms, but it’s also increasingly irrelevant. The Leopard main battle tanks, while remarkable pieces of kit, are basically World War 2 designs which have been continuously upgraded, layer above layer, and never re-engineered to address modern threats. Strategic milestones in tank history have been missed, such as the reduction of crew thanks to automatic loaders. In itself, the mere concept of mobile fire should have warranted an entirely new platform to be created, which never happened in Germany.

Because the strategic situation “looks like” one we knew in the past doesn’t mean strategies can be recycled. That would be a great mistake. Even in the highly unlikely case where direct confrontation with Russia would occur, we would be facing highly mobile, connected and coordinated units. Their agility and capacity to operate in a network-central strategy would place simple firepower in a state of irrelevance. Indeed, the Carnegie think tank evaluated the new nature of Russian forces, writing:

“based on the experience of Syria, plans were also floated for highly mobile “super-light” brigades designed to provide small subunits with wheeled transport that can “slip between enemy formations and deliver quick strikes.” Therefore, Atlantic allies have collectively engaged in the transformation of their forces. As reported by Defense expert Nathan Strout, “The Department is well underway in transforming and developing new concepts for the conduct of future joint military operations to achieve full spectrum dominance," defense leaders wrote in documents laying out the Pentagon’s FY2021 budget Feb. 10. "This overarching goal to defeat any adversary or control any situation across the full range of military operations is achieved through a broad array of capabilities enabled by an interconnected network of sensors, shooters, command, control, and intelligence.”

Recent battlefields have provided countries who roamed them with ample clues as to the new nature of the enemy.

Indeed, it is unsurprising to find conflicting strategic views within U.S. ranks. In many European countries, little or no debate is to be heard within the ranks, where officers are expected to take policies and guidelines at face value from the political level, and implement them. In the U.S., for instance, there was heated debate for decades around the question of nuclear deterrence, and whether the A-bomb vector of choice should be airborne or submarine. Today again, ranks are divided: should the U.S. abandon the old model and reinvent its strategic stance towards the new enemy, or should it maintain and upgrade the system which has worked for them until now?

Certain industries, such as Germany’s, haven’t even considered the question at hand in American ranks, and business continues as usual in the preparations for defense against the Warsaw pact, which no longer exists. One explanation can be found in Germany's monolithic industries. Indeed, Berlin's military activity is residual, at best, and the few German soldiers who do some soldiering are generally interspersed within allied formations. Industrials, therefore, have no users to address, for feedback, experience, and checking that the equipment is adapted to modern-day combat zones. Regardless of actual operations, Berlin could favor and foster interactions between military users and industrial engineers, which would be better than nothing. But Germany's military is unpopular, and a wide gap remains between the nation and its soldiers, which Berlin has done nothing about. The French neighbor, however, has taken broad steps in ensuring industrials and soldiers are in regular contact, exchanging feedback, and making sure equipment is on target.

Paris has understood that military equipment and units need to operate as one, and not in a haphazard flurry of fire running erratically on the battlefield - and has therefore set up various organizations to help information flow freely between people who strive towards a common security goal. The “Battle-Lab Terre” (Land Battle Lab) is to create links between the different innovation stakeholders (Land forces’ organizations, government agencies, industries, start-ups, research centers, so-called “grandes écoles," universities...). (link here, article in French). French newspaper La Tribune writes:

“one of the most emblematic objectives of this innovation effort in 2019 will be the creation of the "Land Battle Lab," a structure dedicated to short-term technical and operational innovation, which will be at the heart of an innovation pole of the 'Land Force. This "Land Battle Lab" will bring together in the same place (Satory field), army structures, such as the “technical section of the army” (STAT) or the integrated structure for the maintenance in operational condition of equipment terrestrial (SIMMT), industrial players such as Nexter and Arquus - whose research offices are present on the Satory field - or members of the scientific and technological pole dedicated to innovation at Paris-Saclay: business incubators, large schools - such as the École Polytechnique - or research laboratories.”

In close connection to this overarching development, the Scorpion program is a French interoperability program aimed at enabling all tactical echelons within a battle group to work together with increased coordination and fluidity. With agility as one of the top priorities for French armies and military industries, Paris firmly engaged in the program, aiming at pushing their battle apparatus into the new era of network-centric warfare. As such, France is one of the most energetic modernizing forces in the Atlantic alliance, a driver for the integration of European defense, and the U.S.’s most advanced ally on the old continent. The Scorpion program, which ensures that all elements have access to the same, up-to-date, tactical information, whatever their level, in real-time, is the most advanced embodiment of the "Network Centric Warfare" concept, to this day. Given the sustained pace of French operations, and the development of the program, it will also probably be It is also the most broadly deployed solution in the near future.

The Scorpion program embodies the shared strategy among allies, aiming at the development of participative innovation and the adaptation of armed forces to modern threats. With this strategic architecture, France will undoubtedly be seen by the rest of Europe as the leader for NATO-oriented transformations around network-centric warfare. No doubt either will Americans keep an eye on the conclusions reached by the French Land Battle Lab, as military-civilian cooperation is no stranger to them. The most telling example of this tradition on the American side is the MIT Lincoln lab, which brings together servicemen and civilian engineers, early on in their educational paths.

Asymmetric warfare has proven sufficiently deadly to large conventional forces, for large armies to worry: as insurgencies around the world showed how they could systematically evade and confuse mechanized forces, they are likely to generate emulators. Neither France nor any other NATO member, have much interest in increasing firepower or mobility: they already have the best equipment in the world. Understanding that the next enemy, Russian or other, will not be massive and bulky, but nimble and fast, is the real point. And then, matching the opponent's level of coordination and fluidity is the real challenge.

Donald Ramsay is an Independent organizational consultant. Specialised in Defence and Security sectors, by passion and by profession.