INTRODUCTION
The DoD Science and Technology (S&T) vision is to develop and transition superior technology to enable affordable, low casualty, decisive military capability and enhance economic security. Superior technology and systems have been the cornerstone of U.S. national military strategy since the Cold War began. This edge is even more important today as the size of U.S. forces decreases and high technology weapons are readily available on the world market. It is imperative U.S. military forces possess technological superiority to minimize casualties across the broad spectrum of engagements that may be encountered. DoD will leverage commercial technology and fund industry, academia, or government laboratories to perform the S&T necessary to achieve this vision and protect the readiness of U.S. future forces.
The objectives of the S&T program are to develop technologies critical to maintaining the most capable military force in the world, and to extend the basic sciences to form the groundwork for the next generation of technology. Beyond this, defense scientists and engineers must be expert advisors to the requirements community and smart buyers in acquisition. DoD cannot afford technological surprise. To meet this challenge, DoD maintains a comprehensive, balanced program across the spectrum, from basic science to the development and demonstration of advanced technologies.
The Defense S&T Program is guided by the President's strategy presented in National Security Science and Technology Strategy. The following elements guide U.S. investment:
MEETING THE WARFIGHTERS' NEEDS
While technological superiority remains a guiding objective, the new world demands DoD improve the balance among technology, product, and process and also reduce the time between developing a new concept and fielding the new capability. Lower budgets increase the emphasis on affordability, longer lived weapon systems, and evolutionary insertions of new technology to extend the capabilities of existing systems.
The JROC identified the following five Future Joint Warfighting Capabilities as most needed by the U.S. combatant commands:
Subsequently, 12 important joint warfighting operational capabilities that require DoD S&T investment were identified. Selected highlights of S&T programs directly contributing to meeting these needs are briefly described below.
Dominant Battlespace Knowledge
DoD and all the Services are pursuing systems and policies aimed at enhancing the capability of the Joint Task Force commander to operate inside an adversary's decision loop by obtaining dominant battlespace knowledge. Dominant battlespace knowledge requires the combined capabilities of battlespace management systems; command, control, communications, and computer systems; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems to acquire and assimilate the information needed to dominate and neutralize adversary forces. DoD policies mandate interoperability among the Services. Individual Services fund specific programs such as the Army Digital Battlefield, the Navy Copernicus, and the Air Force Horizon Vision. These programs will increase the situational awareness of commanders by providing them information about friendly and enemy forces as well as the environment. Integrated systems -- surface, air, and space borne -- will provide a high fidelity, interactive picture of friendly and enemy operations directly to the commander, thus achieving dominant battlespace knowledge.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) brings much information technology experience to bear on the difficult problem of providing information dominance. Efforts are concentrated in comprehensive battlefield awareness and planning, replanning, and near real-time command, control, and communications (C3). In the first area, DARPA is working on the tools and technologies necessary to transform sensor and intelligence data into useful information for the warfighter and disseminate it to the right place at the right time. In addition, DARPA's planning and C3 technology developments will enable warfighters to quickly develop, evaluate, disseminate, execute, and monitor courses of action tailored for the particular situation, the types of forces available, and the military result desired. The goal is complete replanning and dynamic retasking in near real-time. The joint Service and DARPA Speakeasy program, to develop the technology and demonstrate an advanced digital radio providing for common communications between Services, provides an important joint and coalition warfare capability.
Combat Identification
Combat Identification requires the assured, reliable identification of friendly versus adversary forces, thus enabling the engagement of targets at weapon range rather than at visual identification range. The Army Combat Identification program uses a millimeter wave interrogation/response system to identify friendly systems on the battlefield and is exploring the advancements offered by improved situational awareness derived from battlefield digitization. Air Force Combat Identification also uses interrogation/response for aircraft targets, and it maintains compatibility with the current Mk 12 and systems used by commercial aviation. Other Air Force and Navy combat identification efforts focus on noncooperative target recognition technologies, including inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging, jet engine modulation, and unintentional modulation on pulse-based specific emitters, as well as improved waveforms for the Mk 12. Success in all three areas -- cooperative systems for ground targets, cooperative systems for air targets, and noncooperative systems -- is needed to achieve an adequate combat identification capability.
Information Warfare and Security
Information Warfare and Security is the capability to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information and systems while protecting U.S. and ally information and systems. As the military comes to rely more and more on information on the battlefield, the underlying technology to permit information to be shared through massive, robust, and mobile battlefield networks becomes paramount. So does the need for technology to assure the survivability of these networks and other U.S. information systems. These two underlying technologies are DARPA and Army investment areas. The Air Force is developing the capability for highly secure, highly directional communications using high power semiconductor laser technologies. In addition, as military information systems increasingly leave fixed command centers and migrate to mobile platforms and the pockets and palms of combatants, the microelectronics devices and systems technologies that enable and pace the migration of small, lightweight, conformal, and mobile information systems become critical developments.
U.S. forces must also be assured access to space while denying the same to adversaries. The Air Force is pursuing a variety of techniques in directed energy from lasers and high power microwaves designed to disrupt the function of enemy space assets, and is investigating the susceptibility of U.S. assets to such attacks. Scientists at the Starfire Optical Range in New Mexico are performing critical experiments in optical beam forming and beam control for illuminating, tracking, and active imaging of satellites. The Air Force and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) are developing high performance infrared focal plane arrays needed to quickly and assuredly detect, classify, and confirm ingressing ballistic missile attacks and to notify defense forces and threatened areas. Space is the ideal base for performing these functions but this requires highly advanced sensors. This capability also benefits counterproliferation and joint theater missile defense.
Precision Force
Precision Force is the capability to destroy selected targets remotely and with precision while limiting collateral damage. The Services are advancing data fusion and automatic target recognition technologies with precision location so weapons can find the type of target specified or even the particular target specified, and guide a weapon to hit the target within a few feet of a designated impact point quickly. Army efforts focus on demonstration of end-to-end, sensor-to-shooter precision strike for location, identification, and elimination of short-dwell targets. The Air Force hyperspectral sensor program is one promising approach, and use of three dimensional information from a laser radar is proving to be especially successful. A Navy initiative to destroy time-critical targets will demonstrate the capability to redirect attack aircraft and cruise missiles while enroute on a mission exploiting real-time retargeting updates.
These technologies and a hardened Global Positioning System are being demonstrated for possible application to existing weapons (e.g., the Tomahawk cruise missile) and new weapons (e.g., the Navy effort to demonstrate an inexpensive cruise missile and the Air Force effort to develop small smart bomb technology). The Army also is exploring precision force with lightweight non-line-of-sight systems for air deployed early entry forces. This system concept uses teleoperation with fiber-optic or radio frequency data links.
Joint Theater Missile Defense
Joint Theater Missile Defense uses the assets of multiple Services to detect, acquire, track, and destroy enemy theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The Air Force Airborne Laser (ABL) program is developing a fully operational, extremely long-range airborne laser system that will destroy enemy theater missiles during their boost phase. The ABL program will be a revolutionary change in the concept of weapons employment for the warfighter. BMDO is conducting research on space-based chemical lasers as an alternative concept for this mission, and Navy S&T is directed toward providing a ship-based component of Joint Theater Missile Defense deployable to nearly all theaters of interest, and achieving Precision Strike with cruise missiles that can locate specified targets autonomously. DARPA has been investing in both infrared and radar technologies for cruise missile defense for a number of years, and now plans to demonstrate these technologies in military scenarios.
Electronic Warfare
Electronic Warfare is the degradation of enemy radars and communications by jamming or electronic deception. For example, tactical aircraft are made more survivable by the capability to degrade or neutralize the effectiveness of enemy air defenses, over the areas and times required, to perform their missions. Advanced signals intelligence (SIGINT) from manned and unmanned aerial vehicles for finding the air defenses and for recognizing attempts to track and engage the aircraft is another critical element in suppression of air defenses. Supplementing the traditional use of electronic countermeasures, the Air Force is demonstrating the capability to damage components of an air defense system using extremely high power microwaves. There are similar programs for protection of land vehicles and ships.
In further efforts to enhance the survivability of both manned and unmanned aircraft, the Air Force is evaluating a powered submunition with a laser radar that can acquire ground-based air defenses within a large search area and destroy them. It could apply to both Joint Theater Missile Defense and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). Also the Air Force/Navy stealth program applied to high performance tactical aircraft is vital both for suppression of defenses and for survival from the air defense threat.
Counterproliferation
The Counterproliferation program is developing the capability for detecting the manufacture, storage, and employment of weapons of mass destruction, and the capability to destroy the weapons and related materials and facilities. Many nations are placing their critical military assets in buried facilities or tunnel complexes. Utilizing its experience in nuclear effects and its field test facilities, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) is assisting the Service laboratories to improve the lethality of conventional weapons for attacking underground facilities. Innovative warhead technologies, not dependent on high explosives, are also being investigated as entirely new ways to destroy chemical, biological, and nuclear materials and weapons; and DNA is developing advanced prediction models for the dispersal of nuclear, biological, and chemical agents released into the atmosphere. The Air Force is exploring hypersonic weapons that, when used with real-time target acquisition and communications systems, can provide a means to quickly destroy the mobile launchers for weapons of mass destruction.
Chemical and Biological Warfare Detection
The Chemical and Biological Warfare Detection program is developing the capability to rapidly detect and assess the threat posed by these agents and to provide adequate warning. U.S. forces need to detect chemical and biological agents remotely and accurately identify the agent. The Army serves as executive agent for the entire chemical and biological defense program for all Services. The Army also serves the Services by developing vaccines and other antidotes for chemical and biological agents, and by developing protective clothing and the technology for filtration systems needed on vehicles so operations can continue even in a contaminated environment. DoD has the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory investigating the use of a laser to remotely detect agents in the atmosphere. Ongoing research by DARPA and the Naval Research Laboratory has developed a biological agent detector that uses sensitive cell surface receptors located on the surface of living neural cells. Another version of this technology uses a set of designer (manmade) receptors that theoretically can identify the specific agent from hundreds of possibilities.
Countermine
The DoD Countermine program seeks to provide the capability for assured, rapid neutralization of land and sea mines to enable amphibious and ground force operational maneuvers and forced littoral entry. The Army and Navy/Marine countermine and littoral warfare programs are directed at the very difficult problems in the land and sea countermine mission. These programs, as well as the Joint Countermine Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD), focus on shallow water, surf zone, and beach areas where acoustical characteristics and visibility are poor.
Additionally, the Army and DARPA are exploring the use of infrared cameras and ultra wideband radar to find mines on land. This radar technology might also be useful for the counterproliferation mission by finding entrances to underground facilities and finding missile launchers hidden in wooded areas. Much of the countermine technology effort is relevant to solving the vexing international peacemaking and peacekeeping problem of identifying and demining civilian areas as in Cambodia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under the Technical Cooperation Program, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are jointly researching the demining problem.
Military Operations in Urban Terrain
Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) require the capability to achieve military objectives with a minimum of casualties and collateral damage in urban and industrial areas. The Army 21st Century Land Warrior program gives individual soldiers the means to communicate soldier to soldier within a squad and to navigate even within the urban environment. Nonlethal weapons technology is being developed including less than lethal means to control individuals or crowds, and a MOUT ACTD featuring a variety of new system concepts and advanced simulation will be conducted.
Real-Time Logistics Control
Real-Time Logistics Control means near real-time visibility into the entire logistics support structure for U.S. forces, including visibility across the Services of material in transit as well as in storage. This can be accomplished only through application of massive databases, high capacity computers, automated data input devices, and advanced software systems. The Army is exploring automated planning tools coupled to real-time databases for its logisticians. The S&T program supports all of these elements, but commercial technology will apply to some of this need and will be exploited for affordability wherever possible.
Joint Readiness
Joint Readiness is the capability to enhance readiness for joint and coalition operations, including the capability for enhanced simulation for training and operation planning. DARPA has focused on realistic advanced simulation to provide a viable synthetic theater of war. The intent is to create technologist/ warfighter interaction in a realistic environment that will enable the innovation and interoperability that historically has only been achieved in real crisis or war. This technology can support joint and Service training and mission rehearsal and provide the capability to examine the contribution of new weapons systems, doctrines, and organizations to the full spectrum of military operations.
TECHNOLOGY
There are always far more opportunities to push the frontiers of science, reduce new knowledge to mature technology, and apply this technology to U.S. needs than this country can afford to pursue. Priorities must be established to guide the makeup of the S&T program. The following concepts are critical to achieving the future joint warfighting capabilities discussed above:
Technologies that will help us realize the full potential of the above concepts follow:
The total DoD technology program is organized by technology area as listed in Table III-6. About 36 percent of the DoD investment is for exploratory development, and 49 percent is for advanced technology development. Performance of the technology program is split about two-thirds by industry, nonprofits organizations, and academia, and one-third by the defense laboratories. Most of the work is managed by the Services, including work performed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Nuclear Agency, and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
| Table III-6 | |
| Defense Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Aerospace Propulsion and Power | Environmental Quality and Civil Engineering |
| Air Vehicles and Space Vehicles | Human Systems Interface |
| Battlespace Environments | Individual Survivability and Sustainability |
| Biomedical Applications | Manufacturing Science and Technology |
| Chemical and Biological | Manpower, Personnel, and Training |
| Command, Control, and Communications | Materials, Processes, and Structures |
| Computing and Software | Modeling and Simulation |
| Conventional Weapons | Sensors |
| Electronics | Surface/Under Surface and Ground Vehicles |
| Electronic Warfare and Directed Energy Weapons | |
RESEARCH
Basic research is the foundation for future technology development. The objective of DoD basic research is to produce knowledge in a science or engineering area that has military potential. This is inherently a long-term investment, with emphasis on future opportunities. Whether a particular scientific discovery will lead to a military application usually cannot be known until long after the discovery. The DoD basic research investment is focused on those disciplines that have a potential relationship to a military function or operation.
Funding decisions for the 12 programs listed in Table III-7 weigh both technical quality and military relevance. Research programs are subjected to rigorous merit review. About 15 percent of defense S&T investment is devoted to basic research. About 60 percent of the work is done at universities while defense laboratories do most of the remainder. Research done at universities pays dual dividends. In addition to producing new knowledge of military relevance, this program has long been a principal source of funding to produce graduate scientists and engineers in disciplines important to national defense and economic security.
| Table III-7 | |
| Basic Research Program Investments | |
|---|---|
| Atmospheric and Space Sciences | Materials Sciences |
| Biological and Medical Sciences | Mathematics |
| Chemistry | Mechanics |
| Cognitive and Neural Sciences | Ocean Sciences |
| Computer Sciences | Physics |
| Electronics | Terrestrial Sciences |
CONCLUSION
These are exciting times in science and technology because of rapid advances in several important areas -- electronic devices, sensors, information processing, communications, simulation, combat identification, target recognition -- areas that open the door for capabilities far exceeding those fielded today. Some of this new technology comes from the commercial world but can be applied to national security. Recognizing the opportunities presented by new commercial and defense technologies is a challenge in itself, and using these technologies to give the warfighters new capabilities while lowering costs is a further challenge. The science and technology program meets these challenges through a balanced program of basic research and technology development responsive to the needs of the warfighter and the acquisition community.
