Analysis

The Military and the Academy: Overcoming the Divide
  • May 18, 2016
  • Thomas Mahnken
  • Foreign Affairs

Christopher Sims’ “Academics in Foxholes: The Life and Death of the Human Terrain System” contributes to the ongoing debate about the U.S. military’s performance in Iraq and Afghanistan and, more specifically, the relationship between the U.S. government and the academy. As the authors point out, there is much that both scholars and practitioners can learn from the successes and failures of the Human Terrain System (HTS), which brought together civilian academics and military personnel. Even more broadly, however, the experience reveals much about the relationship between the U.S. armed forces (primarily the army) on the one hand and academic social scientists (primarily anthropologists and sociologists) on the other.

Analysis

America Needs an Air and Missile Defense Revolution
  • May 17, 2016
  • Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark
  • The National Interest

Over the last 15 years, the Department of Defense spent more than $24 billion to procure a mix of surface-to-air interceptors that lacks the capacity to defeat large salvos of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other guided weapons that America’s adversaries are now capable of launching. As a result, enemy precision strikes in future conflicts could overwhelm the U.S. military’s air and missile defenses. In peacetime, an inadequate air and missile defense architecture will reduce the credibility of American assurances to its allies and its ability to deter aggressors.

In the News

U.S. Navy’s EP-3 Replacement Plan Still Raises Concerns
  • May 12, 2016
  • Michael Fabey
  • Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

“The Navy’s plan has been to replace the EP-3 mostly with the MQ-4 Triton,” says Bryan Clark, defense analyst for the Center of Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. “There are some situations, however, where the need for immediate processing and response requires a human analyst to be monitoring the data in real time. An MQ-4 could be equipped to gather much the same information, but would have to send it home to be processed and analyzed. On a manned aircraft, the analyst can be on board and listen to the incoming signals. This may enable the operator to change the sensor settings to get different information, or recommend a course of action to commanders.” Also, he says, “The MQ-4 may not have enough payload capacity to carry all the sensors an EP-3 can carry, which may require multiple MQ-4s to cover the same mission, or may limit the kinds of data that could be gathered.”

In the News

Ongoing Italian Legal Spat Over MUOS Network Puts Africa, Middle East Coverage at Risk
  • May 12, 2016
  • Sam LaGrone
  • USNI News

Without the ground station, users of MUOS radios could probably still talk to each other by bouncing their messages off the satellite. They could also use one of these MUOS-equipped ships or aircraft as a ground station, but this would significantly reduce the bandwidth of the system, said Bryan Clark, naval analyst Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)

In the News

Navy’s New Jammer Passes Critical Design Review: SEWIP Block III
  • May 9, 2016
  • Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
  • Breaking Defense

In contrast to traditional systems designed to operate in a narrow range of frequencies against known threats, “SEWIP Block 3 brings active electronic attack across a wider frequency range…with digital processing that will facilitate new ‘intelligent’ EW processing that will enable the system to react to signals it has never seen before,” said retired Navy commander Bryan Clark, now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “SEWIP Block 3’s AESA array enables it to be a passive sensor, communication array, or a radar,” he added. “It could also confuse or obscure aircraft and ship radars” as part of the Navy’s new “electromagnetic maneuver warfare” concept.

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