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The Future, Austerity, BRIC Countries and ‘The Pivot to Asia
Meredith Llewellyn, Lead Contributor
“It’s not clear how the Army plays in the pivot to Asia. It’s not clear what their role would be.’’ Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow, Defense Budget Studies, the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments (2012)
WITH THE pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, the approaching end of the military commitment to Afghanistan in 2014, and deep cuts in current spending and future procurement, it is even more diffi cult than usual to look to the future. This article is written at a time when it is unclear whether Obama will win a second term. If Romney were to win, his commitment to increased levels of defense spending might not survive his arrival in offi ce in 2013. In 2010 former Defense Secretary Gates warned that, in this age of austerity, the Defense Department could not afford to support programs based on overly ambitious or unrealistic assumptions regarding the maturity of key enabling technologies. The result has been that the ground forces now need to extend the service lines of existing systems and acquire off the shelf solutions, but only after spending vast amounts of time and money on overly ambitious programs that failed to meet the development timelines.
Maximising Adaptability How should the Department of Defense in the United States and other European ministries of defence deal with such high levels of uncertainty? Some argue that surprise will not be entirely unavoidable, so defense planners and vehicle makers and industry need to maximize the adaptability of new and recapitalized vehicles. This will enable ground forces to hedge against the possibility, indeed the likelihood that vehicles will need to be modifi ed or upgraded to perform new or altered missions and meet new operational requirements as they emerge.
The Lego Analogy The former Secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig, offers a thoughtful analogy of how both industry and the Pentagon should think about adaptability. In “Driving in the Dark: Ten Propositions about
Prediction about National Security” 25 he argues that, at the simplest level, the ideal is the Lego set with its universal snap-in interface. Lego pieces need to be matched in only three spatial dimensions…while, of course, complex systems require compatibility in many domains. Still, he favours open architecture systems and being counter-intuitive to engineers’ aspirations to add additional features. Indeed, he argues that there is a case for Antoine de Sainte Exupery’s maxim that “perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take-away.” A growth path for platforms and systems needs to be built in to cope with geopolitical and military-technical uncertainty.
Looking to the BRIC Economies – Brazil, Russian, India and China The countries where there is geopolitical uncertainty, but crucially higher defence budgets to meet the challenge are Brazil, Russia, India and China. Some analysts include South Africa in the list. What do they have in common as defence markets? Each is large both in terms of size and population, and each has an expanding economy; and finally, each is undergoing a military modernization effort aimed at preserving their strategic interests. A case in point is Brazil 26 whose economy has continued to grow and, despite a small hiccup during the global economic slowdown of 2009, is expected to expand by 7.5 percent this year. As its economy has grown so too has the recognition by government offi cials that a major military modernization is in order if Brazil is to underwrite its claim to hydrocarbon deposits outside its traditional offshore border and gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Brazil would like to be seen as the pre-eminent power in South America. Since 2005, the Brazilian defense budget has grown by 5 percent per year and the government approved
COBHAM’S VEHICLE INTERCOM SYSTEMS EXPAND COMMUNICATIONS TO OTHER VEHICLES, DISMOUNTED TROOPS AND COMMAND POSTS.
a new national defense policy in 2008 that set aside $70 billion for re-equipping the army. And Brazilian demand is scheduled to continue to rise: Brazil has planned that its annual share of defense expenditure will rise from the current 1.5 percent of GDP to 2.2 percent by 2030. As a result of this defence growth, Thales has been able to sign a contract to sell Vehicle Intercom Systems. Thales’ Brazilian subsidiary Omnisys completed delivery of the fi rst batch of SOTAS digital intercom systems for integration into the Brazilian Army’s Urutu vehicles, VBTP-MR Guarani and M113 armoured personnel carriers. The contract was signed in 2011 September by the Brazilian Centre of Communication and Electronic Warfare (CCOMGEX). The SOTAS system establishes an integrated end-to-end information and communication network for shared situational awareness between crewmembers inside a vehicle and externally with all in-service combat net radios and fi eld cables. The intercom system provides situational awareness capability, and can easily be adapted and expanded at any time due to its modular concept, without interfering with the initial installation. The system delivers multi-media inter-vehicle networking including voice, data, video communications, sharing of radios, sensors and computer resources. The vehicles can be connected in any order.
Adaptability, Familiar Technologies and Off-The-Shelf Plug and Play Capabilities to the Fore Industry is responding fast to the austerity challenge. Northrup Grumman is selling its SIVAN (Smart Integrated Vehicle Area Network) product in a new way. The risk of excess cost and complexity have gone to be replaced by open architecture, plug and play systems, low SWAP products using current legacy hardware. The emphasis is on familiar displays, limits to the amount of training required to operate the new system, and great emphasis on improved readiness and adaptability to confirm to network-enabled capability or network centric warfare (NCW).
