The Defense System of the Future
While we are working on some amazing things for our defense in space, our enemies are working on terrifying things with which to threaten us.
We are currently living through a dramatic transformation in warfare and national defense.
As NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Adm. Pierre Vandier told Fox News this week, the conflicts we are observing in Ukraine and Russia — and sporadically fighting in the Strait of Hormuz — are demonstrating this change in real time.
As Adm. Vandier put it: “Today, the math is not in favor of the West.”
He pointed out that many of our current missile and aerial defense systems are built to defend against smaller numbers of munitions and aircraft. The ever-increasing frequency and size of drone attacks in the Russia-Ukraine war, and those that Iran is deploying in the Strait of Hormuz, are quickly expending our supply of interceptors.
This is a serious, dangerous problem. Our two main air defense tools — Patriot missiles and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems — are exquisite and effective. But they are also expensive and require time to build.
“There is no way to produce 50,000 Patriots a year,” Adm. Vandier told the news outlet. “We don’t have the supply chain, and it’s not worth doing that given the cost of the weapon.”
Adm. Vandier suggested the solution is for America and its allies to develop a modern, multi-layered defense system which can counter drones and other emerging aerial weapons with much cheaper devices. A single Patriot missile costs about $4 million — and a full battery of them costs about $1.1 billion. It makes no sense to counter $10,000 drones with $4 million missiles. That’s a war of attrition we will not win.
We have been through this sort of dynamic change in warfare before. Remember, as radio-equipped German tanks were storming across Europe in early World War II, the Allies were getting destroyed. Most of our tanks were not equipped with real-time communication devices — and in some areas we were still countering German tanks with cavalry. As you can imagine, this did not bode well for the West. In response to this challenge, Gen. George C. Marshall retired the cavalry and urged his commanders to solve the problem.
Within a relatively short amount of time, the U.S. Army had developed the shoulder-fired rocket launcher (based on the early designs of the bazooka out of World War I) as the primary anti-tank weapon. At the same time, America and the Allies implemented their own armored vehicle radio systems — fully equipping our tanks with radios by 1943 — and leveraged our industrial advantages to simply outproduce the German tank-building system.
However, today’s challenge is much more dynamic and dangerous. As I wrote in my upcoming book America’s Golden Age, the advancement of drone technology, combined with artificial intelligence, advanced material science, and advanced manufacturing, will soon lead to weapons which are much cheaper, easier to make, and potentially much more deadly.
Beyond this, space will increasingly become a war-fighting domain against which we will have to defend. I spent most of Monday being briefed at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. While we are working on some amazing things for our defense in space, our enemies are working on terrifying things with which to threaten us.
As Adm. Vandier pointed out, the West must develop a holistic defense system of the future — before the weapons of the future are fully realized and used against us. Otherwise, we may not have the opportunity to play catch-up.
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What went with 'we have the most able, lethal, military on the planet Earth?" It more appears America is 'trailing' in meeting these newer threats on the battlefield, not to mention on our home turf! What element of our R&D organizations FAILED to foresee, much less keep up with, these new threats? More, WHY is America NOT leading in acquiring these new systems, and developing defenses against them? It would appear to be past time to 'wake up' and get this mess under control! As noted, it is comical, if not so ridiculously unsustainable, to continue blowing up $10,000 worth of equipment with multi-million dollar gear! As is said far too often in America today, "You Just Can't Make This Schiff Up."