Navy R&D;

We are big fans of Sharon Weinberger, she is consistently insightful in regards to military technology, and uses keen observation skills to highlight the 'fine print' that is often missed in defense reporting. While her writing on Danger Room normally sticks to the details, her sharp wit comes through in her commentary by leveraging sarcasm when appropriate. Sharon published a piece last night in Foreign Policy called The Pentagon’s Doomsday Men, and we really liked it.

Sharon is continuing the discussion we recently highlighted as the Paradigm Shift in the DoD, the debate over future force structures in the military services regarding how the military should evolve into a force for nontraditional threats and/or stay focused on building forces to counter major power war.

Sharon takes an interesting approach with this piece, rather than discussing the shift the services are struggling with, she observes the lack of shifts in the research and development community within the DoD, a community that now spends a budget that exceeds $75 billion annually.

The Pentagon, for its part, frequently speaks about investing in “high-risk, high-payoff” efforts—research that might well fail, but could lead to significant breakthroughs if it pays off. The Pentagon counts stealth aircraft, unmanned aircraft, and the Internet as successful examples of this strategy. Defense officials often employ a similar justification when addressing threats that may have a low probability of occurring, but pose a devastating consequence if they occur.

The problem with this approach to risk is not the underlying philosophy, but the frequent lack of willingness to either qualitatively or quantitatively address the actual risks. At the extreme, we know an attack by aliens from outer space is theoretically possible, but improbable. On the more conventional side, we know that a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland is more likely than another country’s sudden development of a fighter that can match the F-22.

Sharon goes on to highlight some of the more high profile DoD R&D projects, specifically ballistic missile defense and the much discussed hypersonic aircraft. We don't claim to have credibility on judging the merits of hypersonic aircraft, but her points on missile defense, specifically the risk of a ballistic missile attack from Iran or North Korea vs a nuclear bomb from a terrorist is one we agree with.

We have discussed this subject before. Considering R&D, we consider the question where the focus should be for the Navy.

The Navy has low balled its R&D budget the last several years, intentionally, only to see Congress boost the budget above what was requested. This is a well known budget tactic by the Navy, specific to the Navy cutting R&D in its base budget for more ships, specifically the DDG-1000. Congress doesn't appear fooled by the technique, particularly evident with the current DDG-1000 discussion in Congress and the expectation of a boost to the R&D budget again in FY09.

As we think strategic about what the R&D project the Navy should be going all in on, one item in particular rises to the top. As we look at the technology focus, we believe the Navy needs to go "all in" on a research effort to develop and produce the technologies that would focus on and eliminate the threat of AIP submarines.

The AIP submarine is the rising modern threat to the global system. As an inexpensive weapon system it is one of the most lethal technologies at sea, being produced at a fantastic rate not only for major powers like Russia and China, but also on the export market for a several small nations.

As the Yuan class submarine becomes full scale production, we expect to see production levels hit an average of at least 4 per year, which during a ~10 year run that also includes nuclear ballistic and attack submarines for China could arm China with well over 100 modern submarines by 2025.

Wouldn't be nice if at the 2025 time frame, just as China is fielding this incredible underwater force, the US Navy is deploying technologies that made the AIP submarine obsolete? From a "risk management" perspective, the perspective Sharon takes in her article, the risk of failure would still likely produce several useful technologies towards either the detection or destruction of submarines, even if it fell short of its goal for making the submarine obsolete. Success in such an initiative would also have the nice side effect of eliminating the threat of the quiet, inexpensive export conventional submarine as a viable weapon to be utilized against the US Navy.

If the program was very successful, one potential side effect would be the impact such a research program would have on MIW. Imagine a world where naval mines were easily detected and neutralized threats.

A maritime domain protected by the threat of submarine or maritime mine would indeed be a legitimately safer world.