Investments should target urban warfare.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: INSIDE: Science and Technology

Despite all the leaps and bounds the nation has made in defense technologies to claim military dominance, there is still one domain that has proven elusive: the urban battlefield.

After four years of fighting a counterinsurgency in the cities of Iraq, it has become clear that U.S. forces lack the systems needed to defeat a foe who dodges bullets by lurking amongst the populace.

Civilians, buildings, maze-like streets and other city factors blend to form a complex milieu that all but renders obsolete the radios, sensors, weapons and armor that were effective for warriors on the frontlines in conventional conflicts.

"Right now, it's difficult for us to see beyond the next building in a city. That's what we really need to do," says Duane Schattle, director of the joint urban operations office at Joint Forces Command. "We need to make major investments in our abilities to be able to see into the urban environment, and understand as much about the urban environment as we do in the open environment."

The defense budget has soared since the beginning of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But there hasn't been a commensurate shift in funding for technologies in a counterinsurgency environment, says Stephen Kosiak, vice president for budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

"In terms of overall funding levels, there hasn't been anything like a dramatic shift away from conventional kinds of military capabilities to irregular kinds of military capabilities," he says.

In past wars, the United States invested heftier resources into the technologies that would help its military dominate in open battles at sea, in the air and on the ground. Some say that a similar amount of spending would help in the "three block war."

"How much did we spend in 40 years of the Cold War to dominate the open environment? Maybe that's what we need to be spending now in the next 40 years to dominate the urban environment, because that's where we're at, and that's where we're at for the future," says Schattle.

Spending on research and development is substantially higher than it was during the Cold War, says Kosiak. In the Defense Department's budget, R&D has proportionally increased more than any other account, he adds.

So why, then, have technologies not been as helpful in the current conflict? The reason is two-fold. Until the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the nation, so used to the "big wars" scenario, doubted that it would ever fight in urban areas...