The American Military's Real Problem: Shooting 'Ants' With 'Elephant Guns'

Tobias Burgers, Scott Nicholas Romaniuk

Security,

Do we really have the money for high-end, extended, near-endless military campaigns?

In combating asymmetric threats, we have to ask ourselves, on which side of the asymmetry do we sit? Typically and almost in a cliché manner, we depict our side as superior – we have the technology, we have the equipment, we have the on-going development capabilities. But do we really have the money for such high-end, extended, near-endless military campaigns?

Consider the defensive action by USS Mason in the Red Sea in October 2016. Its response to a rebel attack compels us to rethink the cost factor involved in defensive measures, and how we popularly interpret the costs of war and national security. A few short seconds of fending off a Yemeni rebel attack cost the United States NAVY (USN) an unsettling $8 million. Cost of the rebel attack: $500,000 or less than 10 percent of USS Mason’s reaction.

The USS Mason example illustrates how high-tech warfare, albeit adequate in purely military terms, is, in a larger strategic context, a flawed option.

In this article, we advocate a realignment of security and defense debates to position them in the context of what it means to wage high-tech war in the twenty-first century. The asymmetry of warfare has never been more evident than in the material costs of warfighting.

America’s wars of the twenty-first century against non-state soldiers or non-state militants seem to require high and higher-tech weapons. They will include machines necessary for fast and effective transportation, weapons that kill and do not kill, personal equipment as part of soldiers’ combat uniforms, “unmanned” or remote equipment, anytime/anywhere communications technology, robotic platforms, global surveillance and instruments like the Low-Cost Imaging Terminal Seeker (LCITS), and a turn to non-petroleum fuels. The costs associated with these requisite weapons and equipment are staggering.