In addition to answering these and other questions, it seems to me it would be helpful to generate a list of desirable capabilities that would help me select a response option. This list of capabilities would be useful to focus (1) scarce R&D dollars to fill in the holes with technology, (2) intelligence and surveillance collection priorities, (3) innovative thought to further develop the concept (War College papers and Wargaming series), and (4) development of CINC plans and requirements to meet these capabilities. Examples of such capabilities are:
- Deploying highly effective TBMD and Cruise Missile Defense.
- Severing all/selective communications between leadership and field as well as selective elements by call in the field.
- Intercepting and transmitting revised orders to selective threat field units.
- Projecting false radar pictures on selective key threat scopes.
- Inserting fouled fuel in threat storage facilities that generates engine failures.
- Inserting metal/material fatigue to failure attachments on key threat systems.
- Identifying specific location and determining strength and material of protected targets of value.
- Developing dial a setting ordnance capable of destroying all hardened targets.
- Detecting and tracting (destroying at will) all targets of value including mobile targets.
- Detecting and targeting key threat launch systems before launch.
- Detecting plot and simultaneously destroying an employed mine field (land & sea).
- Making threat submarine movements transparent to targeting at will.
Obviously, such a wish list should be prioritized and tailored to the limits of achievable near/mid-term technology and affordability. This may not even be the right type of capabilities one might want. That is, we may need a totally non-standard list. My judgment is that we should develop one or two black "silver bullet" capabilities, if we get too far afield, the system will not be able to digest the recommendations. However, the concept of Rapid Dominance requires stepping to a new level of getting inside the opposition's decision loop. Rapid Dominance at the ultimate level would enable stopping, diverting, or changing the decision process and decision executing machinery/systems either preemptively or reactively in time to ensure core U.S. security requirements are met.
Rapid Dominance Infrastructure
The current direction and speed of downsizing and acquisition reform is adequate for the type of forces and capabilities necessary to implement a Rapid Dominance strategy. I would like to reserve comments in this area until the project is further developed. We do not need to raise reasons to discard the concept as too hard before it is sufficiently defined. I have the feeling that bringing these conceptual capabilities to realities within a system of systems is neither cheap nor easy. There is still too much waste and inefficiency in our defense acquisition process as well as in the overlap between service requirements and capabilities. Rapid Dominance will not be service-unique and requires a synergistic approach from planning to execution.
Final Thoughts
The implications of the ongoing revolution in telecommunications and information processing as it applies to our national security interests dictate that we need new imaginative concepts of operation to ensure the efficacy of our international leadership in a multipolar world. With technology upgrading capabilities by factors of 10 or more every 18 months, we can no longer afford to have concepts of operations wait for the technology to reach the field. The concept of Rapid Dominance requires innovative thought and different directions than that imbedded in our military hierarchy. We need to introduce the concept at all levels of military professional education and training. The best results of this effort will be generated from the younger minds brought up on the leading edge of the information revolution. The challenge is to engage those minds in the solution and to take the risks required to fund priorities enabling the development of this capability now. Such a cultural change is not easy. One thing is certain-business as usual will not get us there. The window of opportunity will close faster than we think.
Appendix B
Defense Alternatives: Forces Required
by General Chuck Horner, USAF (Ret.)