Investing in the Right Kind of Technology

If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taught our military one lesson about defense transformation, it's that technology has limits. No amount of firepower, stealth, or precision munitions will achieve complex political objectives like building effective governance in shattered countries, or convincing insurgents to lay down their arms. Still, we need to be careful not to take this lesson too far. Technology can still be a powerful instrument in both war and peace--if it's the right kind of technology and is used wisely. The F-22 may symbolize a bygone era of warfare (depending on who you ask), but the Predator and Reaper--to name two examples--have emerged as crucial technologies in the dizzying world of counterinsurgency. In today's world, good Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) programs are among the Air Force's most vital contributions to modern warfare.

The Air Force tends to view technology through a cyclical process of designing, procuring, and employing "major weapon systems" like aircraft and missiles. Maintaining a cutting-edge fleet of aircraft is essential to the Air Force's mission, but I worry that equally important (or, arguably, more important) technologies are being neglected because they don't fit into these categories or processes.

For example, acquiring aerial imagery of a battlefield is only part of the ISR mission. The Air Force also needs technologies and processes to filter, analyze, and distill a torrent of raw data; it needs to put essential information into the hands of warfighters on the ground or in the air; and it needs to design organizations that facilitate the rapid and organized flow of information. What will these technologies look like?

One example I've already mentioned, and which I will continue to mention, is Google Earth and other geospatial products. By geotagging information, and allowing users in the field to collaborate in one online environment, the military could potentially build a dynamic, real-time "virtual battlespace" that represents an entire theater. Air Force pilots planning low-level ingresses could see the Army's active firing ranges. Perhaps with a few clicks, they could talk directly with the range controllers. Army troops planning a patrol could see real-time Predator feeds. A fresh unit swapping into the theater could access overlays of Baghdad or Mosul, tagged with unit-produced maps, intelligence reports, and notes from their predecessors. A virtual collaborative battlespace could be an incredibly powerful tool for all its users.

But that's not all... the technology will soon be even more powerful. The military would be wise to keep an eye on Augmented Reality. Imagine that in five years the virtual battlespace mentioned above actually exists. Now imagine that every soldier and Marine has a pair of glasses wired with a heads-up display, GPS, and Internet connection. When the soldier looks at something--a bustling market in the middle of Baghdad, for example--his HUD overlays geotagged information from the virtual battlespace, informing him that an IED detonated here three weeks ago, and that a suspected insurgent lives above the butcher shop across the street. Half a country away, a Special Forces tries to identify a convoy rumbling along the main road. It sees real-time tracking information from the Red Cross/Red Crescent, which identifies the convoy as an authorized humanitarian delivery. Hopefully we won't still have US soldiers battling IEDs in Iraq in five years, but you get the point.

These are the kinds of technology that will transform tomorrow's battlefield. They are unconventional, and they don't fit neatly into major-weapon system planning cycles. The good news is that, compared with an F-22 or a C-17, they're relatively inexpensive; the private sector is doing most of the innovation, and at a blistering pace. The bad news is that takes incredible vision and leadership to embrace such unconventional technologies. I hope our military leaders have the wisdom and foresight to rise to the challenge.


Example of Augmented Reality from How Stuff Works.