To advance this concept, technology and its infrastructure and application are vital. Here, understanding several facts is important. The U.S. today is graduating through its college and universities system approximately 200,000 American and foreign scientists and engineers per year. This is a great national resource. This technology infrastructure is dimensions larger in number and scope than the aggregate of anywhere else in the world. Through appreciation and exploitation of this potential, a U.S. position of pre-eminence in science and technology could be assured for the foreseeable future.
One adjunct of this technology revolution is in the information and information management areas- which, in the U.S., are heavily commercially oriented. Future military application may well be analogous to the impact of the internal combustion engine and wireless radio on land, sea, and air forces in the 1920s and 1930s. The size of this technological lead between ourselves and the rest of the world, especially in the base for new information products and services, should widen further in knowledge and in application. The "Silicon Valley" revolution is likely to continue increasing computer capacity on an almost annual basis. By the year 2005, computing power should be many fold times today's capacity-perhaps ultimately beginning to close in on the ability of humans to handle data flow as well as the ability to condense and synthesize data.
In parallel to advances in computing power will be the ability to transfer information into and out of the hands of individual users. The addition of virtual reality and other technical aids will enhance and potentially quicken individual decision-making ability. Technologies associated with bioscience and bioengineering are likely to be of particular importance in enhancing these capabilities and are also an area of American predominance. Material sciences, software, and communications are all American strengths, and should remain so well into the next century.
A significant element supporting this explosion in applied information and other technologies is the American free enterprise system and its entrepreneurial character. This drive is needed to translate this technology into military hardware. The nature of the U.S. market and its competitive basis reinforce this element. The largest challenges may be to shape and exploit this commercial potential and then to ensure that its enduring advantages become fundamental in the makeup of our military forces. Unlike the defense industrial base required during the Cold War, this new commercial base is neither heavy nor is it a massive industry relying on producing large things. Indeed, its edge has depended on getting "smaller, smarter, and cheaper."
The fundamental technology thrust for channeling this new American industrial base to support Rapid Dominance must be toward the control and management of everything that is significant to the operations bearing on the particular Area of Interest (AOI). And we mean everything! Control of the environment is far broader than only the objective of achieving dominant battlefield awareness. Control means the ability to change, to a greater or lesser degree, the "signatures" of all of the combat forces engaged in the AOI. With this concept, the operational frameworks in applying force across the entire spectrum of platforms (satellites, aircraft, land vehicles, ships) can be measured (and controlled) from many minus decibels of cross section, to many plus decibels; communications can be entirely covert, i.e., many dB less than the ambient environment, or that approaching "white noise." The location of both the individual and his unit can be measured in real time in meters, if not feet, anywhere in the world. Through virtual reality, movement in three-dimensional grids over hundreds of square kilometers, offer precise location and movement control, both during day and night in conditions of unprecedented confidence. This occurs in real time. Denying or deceiving the adversary, including real-time manipulation of senses and inputs, is part of this control.
A Rapid Dominance-configured force would enter an AOI and immediately control the operational/environmental signatures both individually and in the aggregate. As needed, line and non-line-of-sight weapons of near pin-point accuracy would be delivered across the entire area of operation. Stealthy UAVs and mobile robotics systems, together with decoys, would be deployed in large numbers for surveillance, targeting, strike, and deception and would produce their own impact of electronic Shock and Awe on the enemy. This application of force can be done as rapidly as political and strategic conditions demand.
The effects mean literally "turning on and off" the "lights" that enable any potential aggressor to see or appreciate the conditions and events concerning his forces and, ultimately, his society. What is radically different in Rapid Dominance is the comprehensive system assemblage and integration of many evolving and even revolutionary technical advances in dominant battlefield awareness squared-materials application, sensor and signature control, computer and bioengineering applied to massive amounts of data, enable weapon application with simultaneity, precision, and lethality that to date have not been applied as a total system. Deception, disinformation, and misinformation will become major elements of this systemic approach.
The R&D reality is that technology advances will likely come from the commercial world as the DOD base continues to shrink. It is clear that in certain areas, DOD must remain involved where there is no private R&D or to fill gaps in R&D. Warships, fighter aircraft, tanks, and missile defense are examples. However, advances in commercial technology in the Information Age are unlikely to be matched by DOD.
Of equal importance is how we train, organize, and educate our combat officers and key enlisted personnel. Command must be geared to achieving the best of the best-not the best among the good. Assimilating in real time the vast amount of information and putting information to use will no doubt lead to major changes in the composition, competence, and authority of (even and especially) individual military unit commanders perhaps to the squad or private soldier level.
Of course, even with the most perfect information, an unqualified, inexperienced, or unprepared military commander may not win except with extraordinary luck or an incompetent foe. And, we repeat that there are cases where NO military force may be able to succeed if the objectives are unobtainable. The match of the entrepreneurial individual with the potential of the technology base is key. Optimizing and integrating all elements into a total system is a certain way to exploit the opportunity that we can perceive becoming more visible in the coming years.