Wednesday, April 25, 2024

Directed Energy and Electric Weapons Systems (Serial 1)


Nearly a year and a half ago, my colleague Tim Walton and I submitted a study proposal to DoD’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) entitled “The Operational and Strategic Implications of Electric and Directed Energy Weapons for Naval Warfare”.  The study was not funded, but we put a lot of work into the proposal, and it occurred to me recently that 1) it would be a shame to do all that thinking and not have it reach a broader audience than the ONA evaluation committee and 2) that this blog would be a useful venue for raising and discussing some of the many important issues involved in the development and acquisition of Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems (DEEWS).  Additionally, since we submitted the study idea to ONA, we have seen the Navy’s Office of Naval Research release a “Solid State Laser Technical Maturation Program” RFI, CSBA has released a very informative report, and very recently, ONR’s Directed Energy lead predicted in the open press that laser weapons would be at sea in approximately four years.  The time is right for a discussion of the prospects and future of directed energy, and so over the course of the next year, I will post occasional (likely monthly) pieces related to the subject of DEEWS and naval warfare. 

The rapid advancement of DEEWS technology over the last few decades, both in the United States and abroad, hints at a shift in the calculus of warfare similar to that which occurred in the interwar period in the early part of the 20th century.  Armored Warfare, Close Air Support, Carrier Strike Warfare, and Submarine Warfare were all enabled by technological advances, but in each case, the countries that made the greatest strides in these new types of warfare were not the originators of the technological advances on which they were based.

DEEWS such as lasers and rail-guns operate on different physical principals than their gunpowder and high explosive based predecessors.  With unprecedented speed of engagement and nearly surgical lethal effects, they offer potentially revolutionary methods of conducting warfare at sea.  However, military powers that have enjoyed extended periods of preeminence are often prone to forcing new warfighting capabilities into their existing ways of doing business and missing out on their true potential.  It is historically the less mature or less bureaucratic militaries that are the best able to maximize the impact of novel capabilities by forming new organizations and tactics around them.  With several other countries actively pursuing DEEWS technology, the U.S. military may be at risk of suffering technological surprise from the very technologies it originally developed. 

Put another way, I fear that sunk costs associated with current weapons and ways of thinking, bureaucratic inflexibility, and an inability to institutionally embrace disruptive change could stand in the way of the development and fielding of these highly promising technologies.  This series seeks to add to the ongoing discussion in the Pentagon and to raise awareness within the community of navalists as to the future promise and current reality of DEEWS.   

I invite your views and comments as this series matures.  I am not a DEEWS expert, so if I get something wrong or incomplete, call me on it.  I have asked a few friends of mine who are smarter on these systems than I am to look in on the dialogue and offer up illuminating thoughts and comments as their time permits. 

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