A well-regarded national security think tank on Dec. 10 presented its version of an “offset strategy” to counter the growing threats to U.S. power-projection capabilities, which calls for increased investments in longer-range and stealthy strike and reconnaissance platforms, unmanned systems and lower-cost defense weapons such as the electromagnetic railgun and lasers.
To carry out the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments’ strategy in the face of continuing defense funding reductions, the Navy would have to shift the focus of its modernization funding away from large surface combatants and the current carrier air wing’s dependence on short-range F/A-18s and F-35s to more submarines and unmanned air and underwater systems with extended range and endurance.
The strategy was endorsed, with some exceptions, by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, who said the nation was “either in or close to a crisis in national security” partly due to a failure to develop a strategy for the current security environment.
The author of the study, Robert Martinage, who has served as undersecretary of the Navy and assistant defense secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, said the U.S. military faces a capacity gap, because it does not have the forces to fight and win in two major conflicts at once, and a capabilities gap, because its forces are not prepared to counter the growing anti-access, area denial (A2AD) threats from China, Iran and Russia.
Potential adversaries’ development of long-range precision weapons, such as ballistic and anti-ship missiles, has made key overseas facilities and forward-deployed naval forces more vulnerable to attack, Martinage said. Adversaries also are more capable of shooting down non-stealthy aircraft and unmanned surveillance UAVs and some can threaten space-based reconnaissance and communications satellites, he said.
To counter those threats, he proposed an offset strategy that would “exploit U.S. long-term advantages” to restore the power-projection capabilities.
Martinage listed those advantages as unmanned systems, automation, extended-range and low-observable air operations, undersea warfare and complex systems engineering and integration.
Release of the CSBA study at a Capitol Hill briefing follows Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent call on the Defense Department to develop a similarly technology-based offset strategy. Both anticipated the continuation of reduced defense funding because of sequestration.
Forbes also acknowledged the funding constraints, saying, “We simply cannot build our way out, or buy our way out of the current crisis.”
He noted that Martinage’s proposal was not the “broad national defense strategy” the nation needed, but a focused counter to the A2AD threat.
But any strategy cannot be effective “if you don’t have the funding needed,” Forbes said.
Forbes repeated his persistent call for an end to sequestration, and said, “I think we have a greater opportunity” with the new members who will serve in the next Congress.
The primary focus of Martinage’s strategy was adding long-range strike capabilities, such as the Air Force’s proposed new bomber and the Navy’s developing unmanned carrier-based strike and surveillance aircraft, both of which have radar-evading stealth characteristics, and underwater systems, including manned submarines with increased weapons loads and unmanned submersibles with extended range and advanced sensors and weapons payloads.
And, to reverse the current condition in which the missiles U.S. ships would use to counter enemy missiles cost much more than the threat, Martinage urged accelerated fielding of the electromagnetic railgun and power lasers, which costs much less per shot.
His strategy also called for tying all the capabilities into an integrated global intelligence and communications network that could overcome an adversary’s attacks on space-based assets.