Community Warns of China's Edge Developing Explosive Materials.

• Author: Carberry, Sean
• Position: ENERGETICS

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana--Should a conflict break out tomorrow in the South China Sea over Taiwan, the U.S. military could be at a tactical disadvantage, experts said, because of China's advances in the use of energetic materials--the chemicals used as propellants, pyrotechnics and explosives.

"Modern combat capability is a function of range, speed, terminal effects, signature management and safety, and it's fundamentally born from energetics," Ashley Johnson, technical director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division, said at the 2022 Breakthrough Energetics Conference held at Purdue University recently. The event was organized by the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies Institute.

"We built up a huge lead [in energetics] coming out of World War II into the Cold War, and the dogged fight with a determined and capable adversary honed our capability set to a very high level," he added. "Then we were forced to deal with [the global war on terrorism]," which Johnson said required different tactics and systems that did not rely on advances in energetics.

"It has been a bear market in energetics and munitions for well on 30 years, and urgency is now high based upon the threats," he said. "Our diminished capacities and capabilities, knowledge, skills, abilities and infrastructure are becoming more and more exposed."

China and other adversaries are developing weapons using more powerful chemicals. Such energetic materials can propel warheads longer distances or allow ships and planes to carry more munitions because they can be made smaller and lighter yet still pack the same explosive punch, experts at the conference said.

"There are few things that I've come across in my studies and wargaming on future warfare and future force development that have as significant a potential impact on operational success as that of energetic materials," said Tim Barrick, director of wargaming in the Marine Corps University's Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare. "Regaining advantage in energetic materials must be a strategic imperative for the United States," he added.

The conference was an outcome of a congressionally mandated study released in June 2021 by the Energetics Technology Center, a co-sponsor of the event.

"Energetics and Lethality: The Imperative to Reshape the U.S. Military Kill Chain," found that energetics development has stagnated in part because the Defense Department has not made a priority...