The report, titled “The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare,” says the technological margin of difference separating the U.S from potential rivals is expected to get much smaller. This is requiring the U.S. to re-think the role of manned submarines and prioritize innovation in the realm of undersea warfare, the study says.
Known as the Suwalki Gap, a 64-mile strip of Poland’s eastern border has become a growing focus of U.S. military planning.
Even before it was formally submitted as the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2016, a draft of the Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan was floating around Washington and being seen by defense commentators as likely to have a short shelf life.
IOC “can’t come soon enough” for the Marine Corps, said Jesse Sloman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Today, nearly all voice and Internet traffic, including essential military and financial transmissions, travels through undersea fiber-optic cables. Even temporary damage to these lines of communications can have serious consequences, which is why their future security depends on how well nations understand and exploit the next wave of submarine technology.
If China ever attacked Taiwan, psyops—and, more specifically, the Gaoxin-7 planes—would probably play a major role in the fighting. The PLA “would likely seek to broadcast disinformation and propaganda across Taiwanese military networks, spreading confusion and encouraging Taiwanese troops to desert or surrender,” Jim Thomas, John Stillion, and Iskander Rehman wrote in a 2014 report for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
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