Posts

How to sell robots to the military

, ,

Recently, I was asked to answer a question on the social media site Quora.   I was asked, “How does a person get their robot design/prototype bought by the U.S. military?”  Here is my answer:

This is one of those “if you have to ask, forget about it” questions. Selling to the American military is a world in itself, and your best bet is to partner with someone who has direct experience with Defense acquisition.

I work for AMREL (American Reliance). It makes rugged computers that are the platforms for Operator Control Units for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). While I have never directly dealt with military procurement, I have had many conversations with salesmen who have.

Keeping in mind that I am not an expert, this is my general impression of what is involved:

  • Target the specific bureaucracy: What kind of unmanned system you make will determine who you sell it to. ARMY likes Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (TUAV). The NAVY’s Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System (AEODRS) is responsible for IED-detecting UGVs. The AIR FORCE flies the big Predator drones that you hear so much about in the news. (BTW, as you can tell from this paragraph, be prepared to learn acronyms. LOTS of acronyms.)

Keep in mind that the Department of Defense (DoD) is a bit like the universe, i.e. big, mysterious, and mostly invisible. Finding out who might want to buy your robot and who is the appropriate person to contact can be challenging.

  • Ninety percent of sales is listening: Nowhere is this more true than in military sales. I don’t care if your robot can travel backwards in time, and makes non-fattening chocolate cake; if it doesn’t meet their requirements, the DoD is not interested. Find out what THEY want and then make it. From time to time, various elements of military hold public events that vendors can attend. Sometimes it’s just a table-top tradeshow or big-time demos like the Robot Rodeo. These are valuable places to gain info. Do a net search, plan your travel itinerary, print up some datasheets, and above all LISTEN.
  • Be prepared to make changes, LOTS of changes: If the military is interested in your robot, it will go through an enormous amount of testing and approvals. This can take quite a bit of time. Large weapon systems have been known to spend decades in development. With every stage, you will receive feedback about what needs to be altered. End-user feedback is considered especially critical.
  • Be prepared to spend money: Traveling around the country and preparing the appropriate documentation are expensive undertakings. And that’s not even counting the expense of multiple prototypes. AMREL has carved out a niche for itself in customizations of rugged computers for low volume orders with low-to-no NRE. This enables developers to make economical prototypes for the reiterative development process.
  • You may end up selling to a big Defense contractor, rather than directly to the DoD. These guys are called “primes.” If you are making a garlic-sniffing submersible unmanned system, and Fat Cat, inc. holds the contract for this kind of robot, you have to sell to them. Just as you need to learn the intricate labyrinthine ways of the DoD, you are going to have to study the quaint and colorful traditions of Fat Cat if you want to do business with them. There are advantages and disadvantages to selling to primes, which is a whole other answer.
  • Be prepared to spend lots of time. I was at a conference in which about half a dozen representatives of Defense primes were up on a stage answering questions. When asked “How long does it take to get a contract,” the average answer was 5 years.
  • Make your robot cheap. The DoD may have more money than anyone else, but it’s under enormous pressure to be economical. They want solutions that save money.
  • Can you buy parts for your robots off the shelf? The DoD used to spend big bucks on specialty items. Not anymore. They want to buy parts at the local big box store. The magic word is “Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS).”
  • Does your robot work and play well with others? In this case, the magic word is “interoperability.” AMREL has been able to dominate the OCU market, because we came up with an interoperable solution that worked on multiple UGVs. Other companies created proprietary control systems that worked only on one robot. This caused a logistical nightmare for the DoD.
  • Don’t believe the headlines about corruption and incompetence. Yes, the Defense procurement process is a mess. Why is a whole other answer. But it’s not the fault of typical DoD personnel. By and large the people you encounter in the military and Defense are smart, dedicated, and honest. They are haunted by the specter that the equipment they procure may result in the death of American servicemen. If you have a product that can save lives, then you might just have yourself a sale.
/by

Windows 10 Tips & Tricks [VIDEO]

, , ,

I looked at a number of videos that offer the best “tips and tricks” on the Microsoft’s latest operating system. I found that vast majority fell into 3 categories:

  • Ones that featured narrators who spoke with nearly indecipherable accents.
  • Ones that featured narrators that spoke so fast that I couldn’t figure out what they were saying.
  • My personal favorites: ones featured narrators who spoke too fast with nearly indecipherable accents.

After nearly loosing complete faith in the internet, I checked out my old standby CNET.  CNET has a number of videos with clear explanations for Windows 10 as well as narrators with spoke in an understandable manner.

The videos proclaim what you probably already have heard: Windows 10 fixes many of the problems found in earlier operating systems.  After hearing someone yell for the umpteenth time “The start menu is back!” with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for transcendent sports moments, I grew a little suspicious.

Is it possible that Microsoft has deliberately screwed up some features, so that when they fix them later, people feel even more bonded to this OS? This is a classic technique used by domestic abusers and other grand manipulators.  President Lyndon Johnson used to berate subordinates unmercifully and then give them a car.  Of course, for this to be true, we would have to believe Microsoft to be pure evil.  I leave this to your own judgment.

Below are three videos that I found helpful.  You can also find more CNET videos in their How to webpage.

/by

9 policing tips from a chief who got it right

The one city in the San Francisco Bay area that I would expect to have bad police-community relations would be Richmond, California.  I never ever felt safe there.

I don’t scare easily. In the early 90s, when I worked in an Oakland office, my secretaries reported to me that they heard automatic gun fire every night.  Yet, when I walked around Oakland (often stepping over hypodermic needles), I never felt threatened.

On the other hand, Richmond, which is located across the bay from Marin County and north of Berkeley, had a dangerous vibe in those years.  None of my friends would go there (not even the guy who once lived in the slums of India).

Once I stopped at a train station in Richmond and saw a crowd of about a dozen or so middle-school children running. I asked them what was going on. A boy laughed and said, “We stole a gun from a cop.” He looked about 10-years old.

This is why I was greatly surprised to learn that Richmond has had not only a dramatic drop in homicides, but an astoundingly low rate of police officer caused shootings. Common sense measures almost eliminated civilian deaths at the hands of law officers.

I asked Albaro Ibarra, AMREL’s Senior Marketing Manager, and former police officer what he thought of the article that described the low level of police-involved shootings.  He replied,

“Great piece. In my Academy days they taught us to respond with the level of force that was needed. The dangerous thing was that each officer had their own opinion about the level of threat they were in. There were some officers that were more likely to pull out their weapon because they felt there was a threat. Maybe it was because of the officer’s personal strength or their lack of confidence in being able to scale down a situation.

“A good example of this was when we confronted a very upset lady who was wielding a knife. The situation around us was tense and some officers pulled their guns. One of our lead officers was an ex-NBA player and self-defense trainer. He never pulled out his gun. His confidence in his abilities resulted in him disarming her without firing a shot.

“I believe we didn’t get enough or any training on how to scale down a situation. That would have been very helpful to develop greater confidence within the officers to know that they could handle a situation without pulling their side arms.

“The article touches on how there’s a level of trust between Chief Chris Magnus and the Richmond community. I saw this with veteran officers who often worked the day shift. They enjoyed engaging with the community, and built personal relationships. They would often like to do their work on foot, not in vehicles.

“Some of the new officers, who often worked the night shift, were driven by violence and adventure.  They had less community involvement and escalated situations more frequently.

“During those times we lacked the computer technology that AMREL (rugged mobile computing and biometric solutions) today offers to the Public Safety sector. The ability to be more mobile and be amongst the community helped reduce the feeling of US against THEM and develop more a feeling of ALL OF US. Utilizing the modern technologies that are now offered would have made my work more efficient, and engage more with community. It would have increased the feeling that the Police Department is there to Serve and Protect and not just to Enforce.”

The following article was originally published in Vox

You don’t expect to see a police chief at a protest against police brutality. But when Richmond, California held a protest against recent police shootings of unarmed black men, Richmond’s police chief, Chris Magnus, was there on the front lines, holding a #BlackLivesMatter sign.

Magnus was criticized by his local police association for his appearance at the protest — the association claimed that they didn’t have any problem with the message, but it was against California law for him to appear in “political activities of any kind” while in uniform. But Magnus is clearly doing something right in Richmond, a Bay Area town of 107,000. When Vox talked to Magnus earlier this year, the cops hadn’t killed a civilian in five years. (A Richmond police officer fatally shot a civilian on September 14th, 2014.)

Magnus cautions that “policing is local,” and that what works for his department might not be appropriate for others. But here are some lessons he’s learned about leading a department that doesn’t use force as a first resort.

1) Don’t recruit cops by promising violence and adventure

“You have to be thinking, as a police administrator, about what kind of folks you want to attract to your department, and how you do that. You look at some departments’ recruiting materials, and you see guys jumping out of trucks in SWAT gear and people armed with every imaginable weapon. There are clearly situations where that is a necessary and appropriate part of police work. But having said that, that is by far and away not the norm.

“My goal is to look for people who want to work in my community, not because it’s a place where they think they’re going to be dealing with a lot of violence and hot chases and armed individuals and excitement and an episode of Cops or something. I want them tactically capable to handle situations like that, but I want them to be here because they’re interested in building a partnership with the community. They’re not afraid to have a relationship with the residents that they serve, in terms of getting out of the car and talking to people. Those are messages that have to be sent early on, before people even get hired.”

2) Train officers not just in what they can do, but in how to make good decisions

“It’s important that officers have training that involves more than just being proficient in the use of a firearm. Obviously that’s something they need to be able to do, but a big part of our training around use of force, specifically with use of firearms, is training in decision-making under stress. How and when do you consider the use of deadly force? What are the other options that were available to you?

“There are still a lot of police academies in this country, whether they’re through police agencies, colleges, or other institutions, that are probably not as far along as they should be in some of these areas. As a field, we can do better.”

3) Give cops extra training in interacting with mentally-ill people — and teenagers

“We’ve done quite a bit of training, with our school resource officers and our juvenile detectives, about some of the better ways to communicate with youth — what approaches might be most appropriate if you have to use force. Some of that’s really about brain development, and we’re learning that young people really do respond differently than adults do.”

“We do a lot of training dealing with the mentally ill. We have officers on all of our shifts who have gotten even more detailed and involved training — crisis intervention training — dealing specifically with mentally-ill individuals. That covers understanding what the signs are that someone may be in a mental-health crisis, understanding about medications and the impact of those medicines that a lot of folks might be on, understanding what happens when they’re not taking their medication, and getting better knowledge on how to interact or engage with people who are in crisis.”

4) Training doesn’t stop when you get out on the street

“Our officers go through what is anywhere between six and eight months of additional training once they hit the streets. That involves being teamed up with other officers who are trained as trainers, and who provide them with ongoing and regular evaluation about what they’re doing and help them learn from their mistakes in a more controlled setting.”

5) Remember that you can kill someone with a Taser

“Part of the problem with Tasers out in the community is, perhaps, this particular piece of law enforcement equipment has been misrepresented to suggest that it always can guarantee a good, less-than-lethal outcome. And that’s not true. People have complicated health histories which you can’t possibly know, most of the time, when you’re dealing with them. There may be a lot of circumstances that complicate the use of a Taser that you couldn’t know in advance.

“The vast majority of our Taser use involves displaying it and informing the suspect that resisting arrest will result in them being tased. In other words, we don’t even necessarily deploy it. And that’s enough, most of the time.”

6) Be proactive in addressing officers who use a lot of force — before they become a problem

“We have a database in which we track each officer’s history in terms of how they use force. If we see an officer who seems to be using force more than somebody else, we take a more careful look at that. That doesn’t always mean that the officer is doing something wrong or that they’re just predisposed to use force. It might have to do with the area that they’re working, the incidents they’ve been dealing with. But it still never hurts that we look more carefully and try to be as proactive as possible in addressing a situation before it becomes, potentially, a problem.”

7) Don’t be afraid to fire someone who’s not cut out to be a police officer

“It’s hard when you’ve invested as much as a year or more into training somebody. But there are clearly some folks who can’t multitask, they can’t make good decisions under stress, they’re not effective communicators. For whatever reasons, they’re not cut out to be police officers. Part of the challenge of a professional police department is to make sure those folks are separated from service early on. So you have to be willing to do that — and to have the local political support within your city to do that.”

8) When force really is needed, a little community trust goes a long way

“The use of force is something that, when people see it, they’re horrified by it. Even though it may be completely legitimate and appropriate in a larger scheme, it’s not easy to watch, and it’s even more difficult to have to be part of.

“You have to have an underlying relationship with the community so that there’s a level of trust and understanding and people are willing to hear you out about why force was used in a set of circumstances. And the community can trust that when mistakes are made — which sometimes happens — your department’s going to learn from them so they’re not repeated.”

9) Police departments can’t do sufficient training without resources

“It’s totally appropriate and important that we have this national conversation about use of force. But I hope along with that is a commitment to the idea that it takes resources and financial support to do this kind of training. A lot of departments don’t even have the personnel that they need to handle many of these situations. They certainly don’t have the resources to commit to that type of training and equipment. So then you have cops that are really left with a knowledge gap and a resource gap. And I’ve worked in some smaller departments, where I’ve seen that it’s very tough.”

/by

Latin America Defense Market: Hot or Not?

, ,

Americas Society/ Council of the Americas has an interesting infographic on Defense spending by Latin American countries in 2013 (see below). While worldwide Defense spending fell 1.9% in 2013, it actually increased in Latin America by 2.2%. Gangs, drugs, and other transnational criminal activities are driving military expenditures.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Increases vary significantly by country. Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay had the greatest increases, while Brazil (the region’s biggest spender by a very wide margin) had a decrease of 3.9%.
  • Defense spending has dramatically increased everywhere since 2005. So even though Brazil actually cut its 2013 budget, it still much larger than it was just a few years earlier.
  • Everybody wants to sell to Latin America. Chinese and Russian presidents conducted high profile tours of Latin America, specifically to strengthen Defense and security ties. Brazil is expected to accept delivery of Russian anti-aircraft missile systems in 2016.

What about 2014?

Do the 2013 trends illustrated by the infographic hold true today?  Americas Society/ Council of the Americas drew their facts and figures from research by the Stockholm International Peace Institute, so I visited their website to find more up-to-date information.

According to their Trends In World Military Expenditure, 2014 (2015 is not available yet) “….spending in Latin America was essentially unchanged” for 2014.

In fact, “Total military spending in South America was $67.3 billion, down 1.3 per cent in real terms since 2013…” For the second year in a row, Brazil again cut military spending marginally (1.7%). For more details on 2014, see the table below the infographic.

Even with these slight decreases, overall Latin American Defense spending was still higher than 2005 by a whopping 48%.

To make sense of this data, I contacted James Bell, AMREL’s Director of Sales for Latin America. He has many years of experience and is an expert on these markets.  His reply:

“Military spending in Latin America has slowed somewhat due to dramatic changes in the currency exchange rates during 2015 in favor of the US$ — making the purchase of imported products 20% – 30% more expensive.  This has the effect of governments cancelling more expensive military programs in favor of smaller, more highly focused solutions.”

In the case of Brazil, the Stockholm International Peace Institute also cited social protests and a stalled economy as reasons for the flat expenditures.

AMREL has not noticed any significant change in the level of acquisition of our products by Latin America. Interest continues to be shown in our DK tablets and our RK laptops.

If you have questions about this important market, please contact James Bell at jimb@amrel.com

latin america

Source: Americas Society/ Council of the Americas

white bit

latin america 2014

Source: Trends In World Military Expenditure, 2014

 

 

/by

The Future of Robots is China

, ,

 “China could well turn out to be ground zero for the economic and social disruption brought on by the rise of the robots.”

New York Times

 

Last November, the World Robot Exhibition was held in Beijing. It was an opportunity for the media to gawk at cute, dancing automations, and stoke unfounded fears about China’s “advanced armed attacked” robots (“Isn’t that just a PackBot with a rifle strapped to it?”).

It was also time to consider how important China is to the future of unmanned systems, especially those for industrial applications. According the International Federation of Robotics (IFR):

  • China was the biggest market for robots in 2014.
  • In 2014, Chinese factories accounted for about a quarter of the world’s industrial robots (54% increase over 2013).
  • By 2017, China is projected to be home to the most robots of any country.

Substantial_increase_in_China_and_Korea

Source: International Federation of Robotics (IFR):

 

A good example of China’s commitment to unmanned systems is Foxconn, the maker of iPhones. Three years ago it announced that it would install 1 million robots in order to automate about 70% of factory work.  It already has a fully robotic factory in Chengdu. Other Chinese companies are enthusiastically pursuing similar plans.

 [layerslider id=”31″]

Opportunities for Western robot manufacturers

The path to widespread Chinese adoption of industrial robots is not without its obstacles. For one thing, Chinese-made robots have a significant quality problem.

Qu Daokui, chairman of Siasun Robot and Automation, a Shenyang-based industrial robot producer, stated in the South China Morning Post that quality is the number one challenge faced by Chinese robot manufacturers. This industry “lacks core technology,” he is reported to have said and is stuck at “low-end application in a high-end industry. As a result, it is under pressure of being marginalized in Western-dominated markets.”

Evidence for the quality problem is found in Foxconn’s troubled “Foxbot.” Difficulties with this robot forced the manufacturer to scale back its ambitious automation plans.

Some of the sources for poor quality can be tied to the relative newness of the Chinese robot industry. It is estimated that 15% are start-ups less than five years old. Chinese robot manufacturers still have not geared up production to meet demand and lack the latest technologies, such as 3-D printing.

Like everyone else in the world of robot business, AMREL is always on the lookout for new markets (we make Operator Control Units for unmanned systems). The poor quality of Chinese robots offer opportunities for foreign robot suppliers. China relies on imported key parts such as sensors and motors. In fact most robots are imported, as demonstrated by the chart below:

China_2014_more_than_56000_new_robots

Source: International Federation of Robotics (IFR):

Ironically, Chinese industry which has made the world dependent on its manufacturing is itself dependent on foreign imports of industrial robots.

[layerslider id=”31″]

Jobs

However, quality and dependency on foreign imports are not China’s biggest robot problems. By far the biggest concerns are about job loss. Sixteen million factory jobs disappeared between 1995 and 2002, roughly 15% of total Chinese manufacturing employment. Many think that Chinese job loss caused by automation may be faster than it was in the West.

Chinese workers are already having a tough time. One survey states that 43% of Chinese workers consider themselves to be overeducated for their current positions.  China’s dramatic reduction of poverty is historically unprecedented, but it has not translated into middle class lifestyle for most.

Furthermore, no one really understands the Chinese economy; it is a unique combination of wild infrastructure spending, state–directed capitalism, extremely high domestic savings rate, and poor incomes for typical workers. Many economists are hesitant to apply traditional models to the Chinese economy.

Add to the uncertainty about the impact of robotics on the economy and its workers, there is anxiety about basic Chinese social structure. The grip of the Chinese Communist Party is rock solid, but what happens when robot-created job loss hinders China’s extraordinary growth rate? Authoritarian regimes fear their people in a way that democracies don’t.

The whole world will be looking to see how China handles these challenges. Humanity has been dealing with job loss caused by automation for over a hundred years, and has yet to find a good answer.

The problem of robots and jobs can best be illustrated by an anecdote supposedly told about Walter Reuther, past leader of the United Auto Workers. An automobile company executive was showing the legendary union leader around a modernized factory floor. Pointing out the new industrial robots, the executive teased Reuther, “How are you going to collect union dues from all these machines?” Reuther replied, “That is not what’s bothering me. I’m troubled by the problem of how to sell automobiles to these machines.”

Have inside information about this topic? An opinion? Inappropriate jokes?

Send them to editor@amrel.com

/by

Flame-throwing UAV roasts a turkey [VIDEO]

, ,

I lived overseas for several years. When I came back to America, one of the differences that I noticed was that more men were seriously into cooking.

Not just any cooking either – manly cooking.  Guys were deep-frying whole turkeys and even tenderizing meats with explosives (“Well, sure it’s dangerous, but so what?”).

The video below demonstrates part of this manly cooking trend; it shows an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV AKA “drones”) cooking a turkey with a flame thrower.

[layerslider id=”31″]

The same person once posted a video of a UAV with a gun rigged to it. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was not amused.  Attaching weapons to aircraft is expressly forbidden by the FAA.

However, it is an open question about whether or not weaponized UAVs are protected by the Second Amendment. For a detailed discussion on this topic, see this US News article.

My next bumper sticker:

“When roasting turkeys with flame-throwing drones is outlawed,

only outlaws will roast turkeys with flame-throwing drones.”

 

/by

Facts & Figures for Global Defense Spending [TABLE]

,

Strategy Page has a comprehensive article about global Defense spending, full of facts and figures. Whenever I deal with with a report with lots of numbers, I arrange the most salient figures in a table, so I can comprehend them more easily. Below is a table with data pulled from the Strategy Page.

Defense table

Some key take-aways include:

  1. America continues its dominance in the global arms market, despite impressive gains by Russia and China.
  2. Global defense spending as a whole is growing.
  3. If you are an American arms salesman, whose territory includes the Middle East, you are a happy person.
  4. There are people out there in the world who actually want F-35s, and are willing to pay for them.

AMREL makes rugged mobile computer solutions that have been used by warfighters for 30 years.  While we mostly service American Defense needs, we have noticed an increase in international interest for certain products, especially the Flexpedient® AT80 Rugged Tablet.

[layerslider id=”31″]

/by

Why Can’t We Beat ISIS?

,

“What’s the point of having this superb military that

you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State

 

Recent attacks by terrorists have highlighted the issues of ISIS and the eternal mess that is the Middle East. Why does it seem that we have no good options for fighting ISIS? Why can’t we use our enormous resources to exert our will?

Contrary to what you have heard, we are not “doing nothing” about ISIS. The US and its allies have launched 6,700 airstrikes in the last year. Well-known intelligence analyst Jane’s estimated  that ISIS has lost 9.4% of its territory (US estimates are higher).  Indeed, some think that the attacks in Paris were done to bolster ISIS’s image in the face of battlefield losses.

Yet, victory against ISIS still seems far away.  Considering our enormous military budget, shouldn’t we be getting more bang for the buck? What’s wrong with us?  Why can’t our military fix this?

And the problem is not just ISIS. Copious amounts of blood and treasure devoted to Iraq have not yielded positive results. Is our Defense budget a waste of money? Do we need a bigger budget? Why can’t we win?

[layerslider id=”31″]

Incompetence

I asked for the opinion of Robert Culver, AMREL’s Director of Business Development Programs (DOD), who has had a long career in both Pentagon procurement and the Army.  Culver replied:

“The problem is: I think we have lost our doctrine.  By our doctrine, I mean military doctrine. We’ve replaced military doctrine with political doctrine or convenience.  Rumsfeld’s decision to use smaller quantity of forces at the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom was not based on Military Doctrine. It was based on political optics.”

In the lead up to the Iraqi invasion, Army Chief of Staff Shinseki advocated the deployment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Critics charged that Shinseki was forced into early retirement because his views clashed with the Bush administration who wanted minimal levels of troops. This perfectly illustrates Culver’s point about the dominance of political doctrine over military.

Culver holds critical views about certain members of the military leadership, political class, and commercial interests. He feels that there is pattern of suborning national interests to personal political goals and interests. Furthermore, the absence of commitment and realism by the public has abetted the lack of integrity in leadership.

 

Boots on the ground

I asked Culver to assume a perfect world in which our political and military leadership were fully competent and the public had realistic ideas about our capabilities. What would our actions against ISIS look like? Culver drew heavily from the ideas of Leonard Benton, a retired Army NCO, and answered:

“Amphibious Landing.  Establish Beachhead.  Seize port facilities. Move forward. Clear and establish and expand foothold. Invite any of the Syrians that want to be safe to come inside the containment area, employ them to help expand the safe zone/containment area. Continue to expand and also repatriate Syrian refugees from Europe. Eventually the safe zone will occupy most of Syria.  Which means we’ve displaced Daesh and safeguarded Syrian lives at the same time.  And yes, we would be the ‘occupying forces’ for a while, despite the worldwide criticism that would ensue.  The US would bring in civilians (you know, like W.E. Deming) and help train the Syrian people to build their economy. Our military would continue to police and provide security whilst civilian police experts are brought in to establish police academies etc. Eventually we would hand over control of small portions of Syria to the Syrians until all we have are the port facilities. Eventually we would withdraw completely or maybe the Syrians would invite us to stay.”

Students of counter-insurgency will recognize this as a variation of classic oil-spot strategy. It also mirrors fairly closely what retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs (now a military analyst for the media) has said:

“…we’d need several hundred thousand troops on the ground. It would take another commitment of ten years…. you’re not going to be able to do it by dropping conventional bombs on people. Militarily, the only purpose for bombs is to pave the way for people on the ground to seize and hold terrain long enough to create an environment in which there can be a real government to take out the trash. We’re not doing it and it takes a quarter of a million people to do it just in Syria.”

 

The American people

I am sure most of you have spotted the flaw with this strategy. The American public is exhausted of war. We have no appetite for another long, expensive invasion that places our soldiers in harm’s way. This suggests that this really is a problem of politics and leadership, as Culver has said.

Or maybe not. Maybe the American people are right, and ISIS doesn’t pose enough of a threat to warrant sacrifice on national scale. Whatever the wisdom this lack of martial initiative may or may not posses, very few politicians, despite their bellicose talk, are willing to advocate this type of commitment.

If the American people lack the will for overseas operations, is our military worthless?  What’s the point of our military, if as Albright says, we don’t use it?

[layerslider id=”31″]

If you want peace, prepare for war

I always hated the above truism. Arms build-ups frequently precede war. What one side sees as defensive measures, its neighbor sees as offensive threats, which then justify their own war preparations. By and large, history makes a mockery of “arming for peace.”

However, when considering the current state of military affairs, I must admit there may be some truth to this notion. To explain, let me tell you a story about World War II.

Abraham Wald, a Hungarian mathematician was asked by the Allies to determine which areas on a bomber needed additional armor. Observers had examined returning bombers, and had assumed that the planes needed armor where the bullet holes were located. Wald startled his colleagues by advocating the opposite. The bombers needed armor where the bullet holes weren’t.  They were only examining bombers which has survived their missions and returned.  Therefore, the bullet holes were located in non-critical areas.  The planes that had been hit in critical areas didn’t survived. Therefore, the additional armor was needed in areas where the surviving planes had no bullet holes.

I think we may be facing a similar situation on a global scale. ISIS and terrorists in general, are fighting a kind of war we can’t respond to, because our strength has eliminated all the other kinds of military actions. In other words, they have learned to shoot where the bullet holes are not.

US dominance has shaped and defined the world’s battle space. National wars are relatively rare and tend not to last long.  There have been comparatively few all-out traditional nation-state wars since World War II, because the US military superiority, as well as its extensive network of alliances, has made them pointless.

While it is easy to focus on the few national wars that have occurred, the modern world is remarkable for the ones that are not happening. For a thousand years, the French, Germans, and British fought wars one generation after another. In today’s world, a major war between Western European nations seems farfetched. The Chinese and Russians build warplanes, but no one expects them to invade US airspace. The Koreans and Japanese have centuries of long simmering ethnic hatred, but they are not likely to attack each other.

Even the feud between India and Pakistan has been curtailed by Pax Americana. Their last war in 1999 was ended by direct US diplomatic pressure. Their previous war was almost 45 years ago, lasted only a few weeks, and resulted in 9,000 deaths. That’s a lot of people, but considering a single day of battle in World War I or the American Civil War often had higher casualty rates, one starts to appreciate just how few people these two large populous nations have lost in their decades-long hostility.

What this means is that while ISIS can kill Frenchmen, they can’t kill France. The United States may lose the World Trade Center, but New York itself is free of the specter of bomber fleets that tormented cities in the World War II. Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq are a mess, but the very fact that there is so much attention focused on them demonstrates just how rare large-scale war has become.

I feel really bad that we have no effective solution to ISIS and terrorism. However, this doesn’t mean that the US military is not doing its job.  The very existence of terrorism means that it is.

[layerslider id=”31″]

/by

U.S. Army War College Key Strategic Issues

,

The US Army War College (USAWC) just released its key strategic issues for the academic year 2015/2016. People who wish to understand the direction of the American military would be wise to study this document.

What is the US Army War College?

Every year, the USAWC provides graduate level instruction to approximately 800 Army colonels, and lieutenant colonels. Before matriculation, all students must have first completed U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Also attending are some civilians from Department of Defense, State Department, and the National Security Agency as well as officers from other military services.  After completing a full time 10 month course (or a half-time 2&1/2 year course) students are awarded a master’s degree in strategic studies.

In brief, this is a high-level leadership course for high–level leaders.

What is the Strategic Studies Institute?

A significant element of the USAWC is the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI).  Interestingly, the SSI website does not list education or courses as their “product,” but focus on a variety of white papers, studies, monographs, and books. The SSI has a worldwide network of “external partners” who write about half of these publications. These publications are distributed to decision makers in the military, government, and industry. In addition to the above-mentioned master’s program, these publications are an important way of influencing military and security policies.

 [layerslider id=”31″]

What is the Key Strategic Issues List?

As described by the SSI website, “Every year SSI compiles a Key Strategic Issues List (KSIL) based on input from the U.S. Army War College faculty, the Army Staff, the Joint Staff, the unified and specified commands, and other Army organizations. This is designed to guide the research of SSI, the U.S. Army War College, and other Army related strategic analysts.”

 

What does the KSIL actually say?

I had two immediate impressions of the KSIL. First, it doesn’t provide answers, it raises questions. For example the KSIL doesn’t state something along the lines of, “The American military better get its act together in the Pacific theater, because China is scaring the bejejuss out of its neighbors.” Instead, it asks a variety of related questions, including “How can the Army best contribute to security assurance and deterrence in East and Southeast Asia?”

Secondly, it lists emails of numerous professors, many of whom are key influencers in their own right. For someone doing serious research on American military thinking, and needs to reach out to significant people, this is a treasure trove of contact information.

 

Quantitative analysis

One way of determining the importance of a topic is to count how often it is mentioned.  The KSIL is a PDF document, so I was able to use the “find” function to search for appropriate words.

For example, the word “China” is mentioned over 10 times. This is to be expected. The current administration has been very public about its “Pacific Tilt.” It makes sense that the Army would prepare its leadership for this theater.

Cyber war was mentioned 10+ times. I discussed this with Robert Culver, Robert Culver, AMREL’s Director of Business Development Programs (DOD), who has had a long career in both the Army and Pentagon procurement. He reported extreme interest in cyber war at the recent AUSA gathering and suspects significant funding will be flowing in that direction.

More disappointing was the complete lack of references to unmanned systems. Even the more colloquial terms “robot/robotics” were only mention 3 times, and usually in a laundry list of other issues. Just a few years ago, unmanned systems was the hot girl the military couldn’t wait to date. Now, it’s the ex that gets blocked on FaceBook.

Robert thinks the non-mentions of unmanned systems are insignificant. He said that the KSIL is a strategic document, and unmanned systems are a tactical issue.

I understand his reasoning, but I don’t entirely agree. Unmanned systems have important ramifications that could be considered strategic in that they affect our ability to project force on a regional basis. Unmanned systems achieved prominence in Afghanistan and Iraqi campaigns, which despite our continued involvement, are being flushed down the memory hole. IEDs, the most lethal weapon of those campaigns, get zero mentions. No mention at all of counter insurgency (insurgency only once). As further evidence of our disengagement with the Middle East, Africa got more mentions than Syria, ISIL (ISIS), and Iraq put together.

 [layerslider id=”31″]

War is just so complex

Important topics expressed in KSIL are “complexity” and “hybrid” warfare. As illustrated by Russian tactics in the Ukraine, a complex/hybrid war occurs when the enemy is simultaneously fielding traditional state-controlled military forces, irregular militias/guerillas, cyber attacks, and media/propaganda campaigns.  Lt. Gen. Robert M. Shea, USMC (Ret.) writing in Signal magazine, gives a nice, introduction to the challenges of complex/hybrid wars. He is concerned that the traditional American strength of joint warfighting is being eroded by the demands of this new kind of war.

 

Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study something else.

I was disturbed that there were very few mentions of acquisitions, procurement, and logistics. I understand that these are technically tactical concerns, and are much less sexy than cyber warfare. However, the continued inability of the American military to deal with the problems affecting procurement has profound strategic implications.

Our reliance on expensive weapon systems as well as expensive soldiers has severely limited our ability to project force in many parts of the world. Clever enemies have turned the poor quality of their fighters and equipment into an advantage. A lost battle may cost them $10,000, but the victory for us may cost us $10 million. Even for as nation as wealthy as ours, this is not sustainable. Top-level officers and strategic leaders may not be interested in this problem, but they should be.

 

Read it for yourself

The Key Strategic Issues List is worth reading in its entirety.  Download it here.

/by

Three Surprising Applications for Robots [VIDEOS]

, ,

Everyone is looking for the “killer app,” the must-have application that will speed the consumer adoption of unmanned systems.  As evidence by the following videos, the next big thing may be something that none of us thought of.

[layerslider id=”31″]

/by