FEATURE ARTICLE

November 2006

While more research is directed to irregular combat, war spending could deter advances in military weapons

By Sandra I. Erwin

Not long ago, discussions about the future of defense technology were dominated by a conviction that innovations in science would continue to deliver uncontested military superiority for the U.S. military.

That boundless optimism has been tempered dramatically during the past three years by the realization that a mighty high-tech force — which was designed to ensure the United States would suffer minimal casualties in war — could be challenged by ragtag insurgents and suicide bombers.

These enemies — categorized as “irregular” or “asymmetric” — not only have forced military commanders to rethink their strategies and tactics, but they also have set off a transformation in how defense researchers and scientists think about developing new technology.

To defeat these irregular enemies, there is no time for traditional research and development. The militias fighting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan make bombs with old artillery rounds and store-bought electronics. They hide amidst the civilian population, and they coordinate attacks via cell phones.

At military laboratories today, speed is the name of the game. Defense researchers have adopted a new lexicon, dominated by terms such as “rapid response” and “urgent demands.”

“We want to get the technology out of the laboratories and into the hands of soldiers in the shortest time,” says Maj. Gen. Roger A. Nadeau, head of the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command.

“We put more focus on war fighting needs,” says Rear Adm. William E. Landay, director of the Office of Naval Research.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is sending scientists out to combat zones to get a first-hand look at the technology needs in the field, says the commander of the lab, Maj. Gen. Ted Bowlds.

But while the emphasis today is on putting out fires, much new technology currently is in the works that aims at reshaping the future of the military.

And the outlook is, in many ways, quite bright. Breakthroughs in unmanned aviation, for example, could lead to a force with fewer pilots. Hypersonic weapons research taking place at the Air Force laboratories could revolutionize aviation and space travel. The Air Force also is pioneering the use of synthetic fuels in military aircraft. Advanced sensors and software increasingly are giving troops on the ground access to unprecedented amounts of information. The Navy is pursuing new technologies to detect quiet diesel submarines and is designing an “electromagnetic” gun that could strike targets ashore from 200 miles away.

But no technology forecast is complete without predictions about dollars and cents. How much will the high-tech military cost? More importantly, can the nation afford it?

Analysts now project that military R&D is in for tough times. The thinking is that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — which so far have exceeded $400 billion — will continue to drain funds

from procurement, science and technology, among other things.

Kei Koizumi, director of R&D budget and policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says the Pentagon plans to curtail spending on applied research. Defense R&D budgets show that spending will drop from $72.5 billion this year to $71.2 billion in 2011. Although that is only a 1.7 percent cut, Koizumi says, after inflation is taken into account, it amounts to an 11.6 percent reduction.

Of most concern, he says, is that only a small portion of the R&D money — less than $6 billion in 2007 — would go to basic research. That should worry military scientists, he says, because basic research dollars are the seed money that will lead to ground-breaking technologies decades from now. Much like the investments made in the 1950s ultimately brought about stealth aircraft, global positioning satellites, the Patriot missile and various other landmark technologies of the Cold War.

The decline in spending will continue beyond 2011, Koizumi predicts. “It’s going to become much more difficult for the Defense Department to invest in new ideas for our war fighters … The technologies they will need to fight future wars — say in the 2020 to 2025 timeframe — may not be there.”

Despite this gloomy assessment, the reality is that a $70 billion-plus budget for R&D is quite substantial, and should be enough to sustain the current pace of technology development. Congress, for its part, is pushing the Defense Department to increase R&D spending. In fact Congress has required that the Defense Department invest 3 percent of its overall budget in basic science and technology, which would double the current spending. The Pentagon has yet to meet that target. In this year’s defense bill, the Senate included a provision requiring annual growth of 2 percent per year above inflation in science and technology accounts.

Again, analysts don’t see that happening.

The broader picture of future R&D spending has nothing to do

with artificial goals set by Congress. It’s all about war costs.

The overall defense budget has soared to nearly $440 billion in

fiscal 2007 — $28.5 billion above fiscal 2006. But the story is a bit more complicated, as analysts explained in a Congressional Research Service report published last month. The increase appears so large in part because Congress cut the 2006 request by $8.5 billion. The Bush administration further trimmed the budget by $3.8 billion in 2007. The average increase forecast between 2005 and 2011 is 1.7 percent per year above inflation — far below the 5 percent annual growth between 2001 and 2005.

That said, when additional supplemental appropriations for war are included, total defense spending is continuing to rise, says the CRS study. But the story line might be termed the “tale of two budgets.” The budget is getting “very tight” for programs that are funded strictly within the regular defense budget. That obviously includes R&D. At the same time, CRS analysts say, supplemental appropriations show no signs of slowing down, and money is readily available for programs that are tied to the war effort

Please email your comments to SErwin@ndia.org

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