In examining the utility of robotic systems within Rapid Dominance, one must first consider that, by any measure, robotic systems have not lived up to the optimistic expectations placed on them in the past. From the overburdening of the Aquilla UAV to the massive and poorly planned investment in robotics made by General Motors in the early 1980s, robotics has been an area of unfulfilled promises. However, the reasons for a string of spectacular failures lie more with planners' faulty attempts to understand and incorporate the technology than by egregious shortcomings of the technology itself. Robots have been seen as replacements for manned systems rather than extremely complicated and capable machines suitable for a set of tightly defined tasks. Robotic systems, or taskable machines as some are beginning to refer to them, hold promise for the future simply because they represent the intersection of a myriad of fast-moving technology areas such as information technologies, communications, microelectronics, micro-electromechanical systems, simulation, and computer-aided design and manufacturing. In some sense, taskable machines are the physical embodiment of information technologies. It may well be that in the future the joke will be, "Never send a robot to do a man's job." But even so, there will be ample jobs for taskable machines and the society that learns to properly design, build, control, and integrate these systems into their force structure will gain significant advantage over any potential opponent.
Conclusion
The technologies and systems presented in this section are not extraordinary nor do they comprise a complete list. Indeed, entire fields such as materials, bioengineering, and microelectronics are left for future consideration, although they are of obvious and vital importance. Also not addressed here are the training, education, and organizational implications required under a regime of Rapid Dominance. Given the overriding importance of information collection and management, these will need to be addressed across the defense community as it is most broadly defined.
Rapid Dominance combines a doctrine and operational concept that challenges the current process of how new technologies invented in the commercial sector are incorporated into defense, and provides an affirmative methodology for research, development, and system integration. We must learn to exploit the potential of these technologies even though, in many cases, this development process in the private sector is profoundly independent from how we conduct the business of defense. It is this environment of innovative upheaval that any useful foundation for strategic and operational thought must address. Rapid Dominance capitalizes on, and may even require, this rapid and chaotic development of technology.
We believe that what will distinguish Rapid Dominance from other doctrines is first that it uses an intellectual construct to drive innovation and innovation to drive exploiting and integrating technology into new and perhaps somewhat differently constructed systems. Second, it is the comprehensive quality of Rapid Dominance in which strategies, doctrine, technology, systems, operations, training, organization, and education are dealt with together that may make the most significant difference. But, as the reader will discern, specific identification and design of Rapid Dominance systems is part of the next step.
[1] CORBA (common object request broker architecture), OLE (object linking and embedding), ALSP (aggregate level simulation protocol), HLA (high-level architecture), DIS (Distributed Interactive Simulation). These are all protocols or the architectures defining protocols that, in part, enable disparate software and/or hardware components to be linked or otherwise share information and logical elements.
Future Directions
At this stage, Rapid Dominance is an intellectual construct based on these key points. First, Rapid Dominance has evolved from the collective professional, policy, and operational experience of the study group covering the last four decades. This experience ran from Vietnam to Desert Storm and from serving with operational units in the field to being part of the decision-making process in the Oval Office in Washington. It also included immersion in technology and systems from thermonuclear weapons to advanced weapons software.
Second, Rapid Dominance seeks to exploit the unique juncture of strategy, technology, and innovation created by the end of the Cold War and to establish an alternative foundation for military doctrine and force structure.
Third, Rapid Dominance draws on the strategic uses of force as envisaged by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz to overpower or affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary for strategic aims and military objectives. But, in Rapid Dominance, the principal mechanism for affecting the adversary's will is through the imposition of a regime of Shock and Awe sufficient to achieve the aims of policy. It is this relationship with and reliance on Shock and Awe that differentiates Rapid Dominance from attrition, maneuver, and other military doctrines including overwhelming force.