Unmanned systems: can the industrial base support the pentagon's vision?

• Author: Russell, Matthew

Perhaps the most revolutionary transformation in U.S. military operations during the past decade has been the rapid growth in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. Their application in the future will transform both warfare and the civilian sector.

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Since 2000, the Pentagon's UAV inventory has grown from fewer than 50 to almost 7,000 aircraft. The Predator-series alone has flown more than 1 million flight hours on almost 80,000 missions. Initially used for reconnaissance operations, UAVs also have become strike platforms.

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These early generation UAVs, however, will pale in comparison to the advanced aircraft that will enter the market in the coming decades. Greater computing power, combined with developments in miniaturization, sensors, and artificial intelligence, will dramatically boost UAV capabilities, their ability to operate with each other, and how they interact with humans. Frank Kendall, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, acknowledged this rapid change when he recently directed the Defense Science Board to examine more aggressively the future role of intelligent, autonomous battlefield systems.

The Defense Department also must consider whether the nation has the adequate industrial base to support its vision. Although U.S. industry today is ahead, over time global competition will intensify as more countries--in both the military and civilian sectors--invest in robotics and information technology.

Plans for future military capabilities usually focus on war scenarios, rather than the broader context of the supporting industry, society, economics and policies. Also lacking is consideration of how UAVs could be used against the United States and its allies.

In one 2040 scenario developed for the Project on National Security Reform, strategists explored the long-range national security policy and organizational implications of a world in which U.S. dominance in autonomous systems leads to the capability to rapidly occupy and suppress dissent in an Iraq-like nation without the loss of any American lives and minimal disruption to noncombatants.

This scenario assumed the continuation of current trends in robotics and sensors technology, as well as a policy choice to enable greater interaction between the military and diplomatic arms of the U.S. government. The war game featured a veritable menagerie of UAVs, ranging from large hunter-killer...