Congressional Testimony - Excerpt

Program Manager, May, 2000

EXCERPTS FROM STATEMENT OF

THE HONORABLE

DR. JACQUES S. GANSLER

Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

DR. DELORES M. ETTER

Deputy Director

Defense Research and Engineering

BEFORE

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE

DEFENSE-WIDE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

March 21, 2000

Editor's Note: The following text contains excerpts from testimony by Dr Gansler and Dr. Etter before the Senate Armed Services Committee March 21. To download the entire testimony visit AC&Web at http://www.acq. osd.mi/acqweb/usd/.

M. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: We appreciate the oppurtunity to appear before you today to report on a wide range of research and development issues. However, before taking your questions, we would like to spend a few minutes giving you our perspective on where we are today in providing our forces with the best equipment and support possible, and where we want to be -- both in the near future and within the next 10 or 20 years -- and how research and development plays a key role in that future.

Responding to New Threats

The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review outlined the prospect of continued global dangers and established our strategic goals for meeting projected threats in the early 21st century It is our strategy to promote regional peacekeeping efforts; to prevent or reduce conflicts and threats; to deter aggression and coercion; and to respond to the full spectrum of potential crises. In order to carry out this strategy, the U.S. military must be prepared to conduct multiple, concurrent, contingency operations worldwide. It must be able to do so in any environment, including one in which an adversary uses asymmetric means, such as nuclear biological, or chemical weapons. Our combat forces must be organized, trained, equipped, and managed with multiple missions in mind.

The security environment in which we live is dynamic and uncertain, replete with a host of threats and challenges that have the potential to grow more deadly We are not facing a few disorganized political zealots armed with pistols and hand grenades. Rather, we must defend against well-organized forces armed with sophisticated, deadly weapons and access to advanced information and technology. They represent a different and difficult challenge to forces organized and equipped around traditional missions (particularly when we must also continue to expend significant resources to be equally prepared for potential, more traditional missions).

Future, hostile forces are unlikely to attempt to match overwhelming U.S. superiority on a plane-for-plane, ship-for-ship, or tank-for-tank basis, but are more likely to use asymmetrical strategies against us -- including weapons of mass destruction, information warfare, and large quantities of relatively low-cost cruise and ballistic missiles. They can also utilize commercial navigation, communications, and imagery satellites.

The Defense Science Board, in its 1998 Summer Study Task Force Report on our response to transnational threats, warned that, today, even an adversary with a relatively small defense budget can become a significant regional threat and, increasingly, can project (or threaten to project) this threat worldwide. It noted that this smaller adversary could present a nontraditional military force as deadly and destructive as large conventional forces. Military conflict is being dramatically transformed by the rapidly changing nature of modern technology.

Of course, this is nothing new. Throughout history, advances in technology have directly and indirectly transformed the course of warfare. From spear and longbow, to the invention of gunpowder and dynamite, to the use of aircraft and the machine gun, and on to chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, as well as the current information age, we have seen how revolutionary advances in weaponry have influenced the nature and extent of combat.

The Revolution in Military Affairs and Business Affairs

How do we counter these changing threats and keep ahead of accelerated modernization by the new adversaries facing us in the early 21st century? Clearly, we must perform better than they do and retain our vast superiority in the quality of our personnel and in our forces' mobility, global projection, and weapon technology. These, combined with information superiority, will assure our nation's future security posture.

REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS

Our vision for the 21st century is a warfighting force that is fast, lean, mobile, and prepared for battle with total battlespace situational awareness and information assurance. Our military strategy, as stated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Vision 2010 posture statement, is to be based on Information Superiority -- real-time intelligence from "sensor to shooter." When combined with precision weapon delivery, this is the backbone of the "Revolution In Military Affairs" that will allow us to achieve total battlefield dominance.

Dominance of the 21st century's digital battlefield will come only to those able to "see" clearly across all intelligence disciplines and maintain a constant stream of information to decision makers, warfighters, and to a new breed of "brilliant" weapons. Modern, so-called "reconnaissance/strike" warfare (often referred to as the essence of the Revolution in Military Affairs) is based on real-time, all-weather, accurate, and secure information systems, combined with long-range, unmanned, "brilliant," highly lethal weapons designed to achieve precision kills. Put more simply, we must be able to find, follow, and engage the enemy with lethal force, using weapons that allow us the flexibility to quickly modify the mission parameters. The digitized battlefield will provide commanders at all levels the information needed for complete situational awareness, and it will allow the acquisition, exchange, and employment of information to support planning and execution in a joint network-centric battlespace. Moreover, t he cornerstone of this network-centric warfare is the use of satellites, ground terminal equipment, and modern radios that provide the sensor-to-shooter links so vital to future warfighting.