The commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) said the American defense establishment has to move faster under the threat of being outpaced by its adversaries, particularly in the space and missile defense realms.
The U.S. is currently being outpaced by its adversaries in defense matters because in recent decades the country has forgotten how to move fast in development and acquisition, Gen. John Hyten, the commander of STRATCOM said here Aug. 8 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.
This too-slow pace is matched with a multipolar and multidomain environment where each domain impact others and those of both U.S. partners and adversaries. War is not limited to any particular domain, with cyber, space, and conventional warfare all impacting each other as well as conventional domains. “There’s no such thing as war in space; there’s just war. There’s no such thing as war in cyber; there’s just war,” he said.
The STRATCOM commander noted China’s anti-satellite test in 2007 and North Korea’s quickening ballistic missile testing schedule as emblematic of what potential U.S. adversaries are doing. North Korea is acting more like the U.S. did in the 1950s with ballistic missile tests: repeated tests with frequent failure, learning from the failures, and eventually succeeding.
In contrast, the U.S. defense space and missile defense fields in particular have created a culture of risk aversion and slow processes stretching from budgeting to acquisition. The expectation now is for tests to work the first time and if they fail it shows up in a newspaper headline, Hyten said.
This has spurred a missile defense testing schedule with about 18 months between tests. He said STRATCOM needs better capability and interceptors and specifically endorsed putting more risk tolerance in testing and less pressure to succeed on the first try.
If the U.S. does not increase its development pace, an adversary can overtake us, Hyten said. He explained it this way: if its taking the U.S. up to 25 years to field a new satellite capability but an adversary gets a new generation capability in 10 years, then the adversary goes through more cycles of capabilities than the U.S. After 50 years of this the U.S. would be only two cycles ahead while an adversary goes through five.
Hyten recounted what he has told Congress along the same lines: what keeps him up at night is if the U.S. defense field has lost the ability to move fast and keep up with adversaries rather than worrying about North Korean or Russian threats.
He said in order to solve this problem the Defense Department should expand rapid acquisition authorities and streamlines the processes, empowering personnel with authority to move faster in development and testing.
If the Defense Department can do that, it might be able to move at a pace closer to the Cold War. The current plan of deploying a Minuteman III replacement by the 2030s for $84 billion is not good enough, Hyten said. He compared it to how the Navy moved from planning a submarine with a nuclear reactor to delivery within five years with the Nautilus.
“That’s speed and innovation.”
The early ICBMs were also developed quicker. He also cited how Minuteman I funding started in 1958, and by 1961 the missile had its first test, and by 1964 hundreds of the ICBMs were deployed with their full command and control facilities at a total cost of about $17 billion in current year dollars.
Hyten was careful not to criticize the acquisition community for these too-slow problems because all of the actors in the process are doing what they are supposed to do. However, everyone needs to learn to work faster again, including Congress, he said.
Hyten included himself as part of the problem because whenever a missile defense test occurs he used to call former Missile Defense Agency head Vice Adm. James Syring and now Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves to ask if the test worked. He said he should be asking if it was a test success where they achieved testing objectives and learned how to improve the systems.
He said allowing more risk tolerance and more frequent testing does not mean deploying assets that are not ready yet. An asset has to work when it is deployed, but the testing program portion must allow for failures.
Hyten also endorsed the idea of laws that mandate submitting less documentation for missile defense and space projects. He said this slows the process as well and the Defense Department does not need any more laws mandating documentation on top of what already exists.