DoD scrambles for new drone plans as Iran shoots down costly Reapers

DoD scrambles for new drone plans as Iran shoots down costly Reapers

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission. Drones have the Pentagon turning on itself: One day, it’s seeking fleets of ever-cheaper uncrewed planes to wage war. Two days later, it’s pleading for lasers to shoot them down. The U.S. military seems to be reaching the same conclusion about drones that The Bunker’s parents realized about rock ‘n roll, circa 1964: This is not a fad. It’s fascinating to watch, in real time, the Pentagon’s go-so-slow approach to uncrewed aircraft. Initially it wasn’t sure these buzzy robot bombs would be a game changer. Drones are “too drab and unexciting to generate much enthusiasm” in the U.S. military, the Government Accountability Office reported(PDF) in 1981. The Bunker first covered a drone program — the Army’s ill-fated MQM-105 Aquila — more than 40 years ago. We go so far back together that we knew them originally (PDF) as RPVs — Remotely Piloted Vehicles, before being dubbed UAVs, for Unmanned (or Unpiloted, or Uninhabited) Aerial Vehicles (heck, drone warfare even has its own glossary). The Bunker still prefers “drone,” a hangover from newspaper editors who liked short words and banned turgid Pentagon-approved nomenclature — or their God-awful acronyms — in headlines. Following 9/11, the Pentagon got serious about killer drones, and even more so when it became clear that potential foes were, too. On July 8, the Pentagon issued a 90-page “practical handbook” for the rest of us to deal with “the drone threat.” While it doesn’t recommend building fallout shelters, it does contain echoes(PDF) of Cold War hysteria: You cannot…buy a jammer at Home Depot and use it for your home. While you can defeat a drone kinetically using a rifle or shotgun, it is difficult because some drones are small and fast. More importantly, it is often illegal for a private individual to shoot down a drone. The current conflicts involving Ukraine and Iran — where drones have helped both nations counter the superior force of Russia and the U.S., respectively — show that drones are here to stay. Continuing miniaturization, increasingly sophisticated navigation, better networking, and ever-clearer remote viewing have turned drone warfare into the Next Big Thing in the Pentagon’s airborne arsenal. The Current Big Thing in the Defense Department’s arsenal, of course, remains costly fighters, bombers, and spy planes with real humans at the controls. But their grip on the stick is ineluctably loosening. Yet here’s the rub, for the rest of us: Weapons kept getting “better” until 1945, when the U.S. invention and use of the atom bomb finally drew a line — fingers still crossed — on weapons too deadly and too destructive to use. Once we reached that threshold, the only path forward was to make better less-destructive weapons. And that’s led to ever-more-costly-but-only-marginally-improved platforms like stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, and satellites. That has led all sides to spend cataracts of cash trying to eke out fleeting advantages over possible foes. To put it bluntly, that makes for a heck of a business plan to squander trillions of dollars. Last week, in a nutshell, we saw this madness in motion in the Defense Department’s double-barreled push for cheaper drones to attack the enemy, as well as costly lasers to destroy enemy drones attacking us. But doing it for less Back in May, the Air Force’s top officer declared the MQ-9 Reaper drone the “most valuable player” in the U.S. war against Iran. Last week, a U.S. official said Iran has shot down about 30 Reapers, leaving the U.S. military with about 135. At roughly $30 million each — raise your hand if you remember experts telling us how cheap drones would be — that’s close to $1 billion in grim Reapers. So, on July 7, the Pentagon refreshingly conceded its Reaper fleet costs too much. It needs to be replaced with something cheaper, yet able to fly the “missions that the MQ-9A performs today.” That would allow the Pentagon to buy more drones, and risk dispatching them on more dangerous missions than crewed aircraft. This, of course, also requires a new acronym: MMA, for Massed Modular Aircraft. According to the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit: By deploying large groups of risk-tolerant MMA, the Joint Force can overwhelm enemy defenses even while experiencing numerous MMA losses. Keeping a constant airborne MMA presence to launch weapons, gather intelligence, perform electronic warfare missions, or relay communications will force an adversary to stay on the defensive. This relentless pressure will exhaust the adversary, forcing them to burn through expensive anti-aircraft missiles and resources faster than they can be replaced. The technical term for such language is “wishful thinking.” Especially when contractors are given 16 days to respond. Sky fries The U.S. military isn’t the only country seeking bigger and cheaper drone fleets. That’s why the Pentagon announced July 9 that it has signed deals with Lockheed, the Pentagon’s biggest contractor, and nLIGHT, a relatively rinky-dink high-energy laser company. Their assignment: to develop directed-energy weapons capable of frying incoming swarms of enemy drones and cruise missiles. The initial contracts total $86 million, and could rise to $847 million. “We must actively defend the homeland against emerging threats,” Emil Michael, the ex-Uber exec now in charge of U.S. military research, said. “We are partnering with industry to rapidly deliver deep magazine directed energy capabilities to the Joint Force that can be seamlessly deployed across multiple domains.” (“No more phone calls, please — we have a winner in the contest for the most military buzz phrases used by a Senate-confirmed Defense Department political appointee in a single Pentagon press release!”) This effort is the latest in a lengthy list of Pentagon efforts to develop effective laser weapons (“Laser weapons are five years away,” a Pentagon engineer told The Bunker before there were cell phones, “and always will be.”) Yet the premise of their promise is so great that research should continue. It’s just that, to date, the potential has never matched the reality. One more thing: these two contracts are so-called Other Transaction Authority (OTA) deals, which means they “are generally exempt (PDF) from federal procurement laws and regulations,” according to the Congressional Research Service. Scott Amey, general counsel and the OTA expert here at the Project On Government Oversight, is dubious. “These agreements were intended to lure in non-traditional contractors and to move quickly by scrapping normal contracting processes,” he says. “This arrangement, which includes a division of Lockheed, is a recipe for disaster.” Doubling down on RPVs The Pentagon’s drone drift is happening in fits and starts. Pilots remain a proud bunch, and are not eager to bail out of their cockpits. Fifteen years ago, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said there was no need to have pilots flying the military’s newest bomber, now known as the B-21 Raider and slated to soon become operational. “Nobody has shown me anything that requires a person in that airplane — nobody,” Marine General James “Hoss” Cartwright told(PDF) The Bunker in 2011. “I’m waiting for that argument and I haven’t found it yet.” Looks like he’s going to have to keep waiting. The Air Force, long run by pilots, designed the B-21 so it can be flown without them. It also considered putting only a single pilot in the bomber’s cockpit, along with a second crew member to operate its weapons. But that isn’t practical for U.S.-based bombers like the B-2, which recently flew nonstop 37-hour bombing raids against Iran. Such lengthy round-trips are sure to be part of the B-21’s mission. They require more than one pilot. So the choice was clear: the B-21 either had to be uncrewed or flown by a pair of pilots. Last Thursday, July 9, the service announced each B-21 cockpit will have two pilots. Skeptics have long pondered why the Pentagon has four air forces — one for the Air Force, a second for the Navy, a third for the Marines, and lastly for the Army. If we’re not careful, the unfolding drone revolution is simply going to double that number. Here’s what has caught The Bunker's eye recently → Apples, meet tree President Donald Trump’s sons are investing heavily in defense-industry startups as the Pentagon is pumping billions into such risky ventures, the Washington Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, Andrew Ba Tran, Luis Melgar, and Peter Jamison reported July 13. → No mere cannon fodder If the U.S. has to draft troops for a big war, don’t be surprised if the Selective Service starts by cherry-picking highly skilled individuals for technologically demanding assignments, Edward Hasbrouck reported July 8 in Responsible Statecraft. → Well, that's reassuring... The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration announced July 8 that it has wrapped up work on key components of the U.S. military’s newest nuclear bomb three months ahead of schedule, “providing additional flexibility to the President’s nuclear response options.” Thanks for flexibly targeting to read The Bunker this week. Consider forwarding this on to friends, foes, and family so they can subscribe here.