Technology and the Future of Warfare

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TR: In short, smart, precision-targeted weapons like cruise missiles are going to become increasingly cheap and available to any government or group that can afford them. The Falklands War between Britain and Argentina gave early indications of the vulnerability of big platforms, didn't it?

JA: I think so. The lessons there include: how many British submarines did it take to pen up the entire Argentine navy? Two. Simultaneously, the Exocet missile proved the slow-moving capital ship's vulnerability. Today, the Chinese aren't developing aircraft carrier battle groups, but brilliant sea-going mines that know how to maneuver, supersonic anti-ship missiles -- which means the Falklands War on steroids -- and super-cavitation torpedoes, which create a bubble of air in front of the torpedo, letting them move at hundreds of knots per hour. The Chinese have an explicit "swarming" doctrine that can best be characterized as sea power without a navy. In this new naval antagonism that's emerging, our potential enemies are not trying to emulate what we're doing. Instead, they're innovating in very thoughtful, effective ways.

TR: What could twenty-first-century naval conflicts look like? You've said that the submarine realm awaits its Battle of Jutland [the major sea battle in World War I, fought between the British and German fleets in 1916].

JA: The biggest problem with having a submarine Jutland is the command and control of undersea fleets. But even that's beginning to be solved -- and is a sensitive area I can't go into. What I would say is, in terms of twenty-first-century naval warfare, expect the rise of sea power without a navy. The point that was emerging in sea warfare even 24 years ago in the Falklands War was that these smart new weapons with great range and high accuracy would allow one to fight at greater distances, not closer distances. Given that, it beggars the imagination that the U.S. Navy has a fleet of ships that will burn to the waterline when hit, and yet their doctrine today calls for them to go in and fight at eyeball range. The whole thing is driven by the idea that the U.S. Navy has no big, "blue-water" opponent out there, so we have to learn to fight in close.

TR: It's the Navy justifying its big platforms and new toys?

JA: Without question. It's a terribly wrong-headed doctrine.