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Schwartz orders study of future threats

The Air Force’s top uniformed leader wants to know what weapons — terrestrial, space and cyberspace — future enemies will use in the next 25 years and how the service can deter them.

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz has directed Air University to examine threats out to 2035 and how nanotechnology, biotechnology, nuclear power and directed energy in the laser and microwave ranges could be used to counter attacks, said Col. John Geis, director of Air University’s Center for Strategy and Technology at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

In early January, senior Pentagon officials told House members of cyber strikes on American military and government information networks that originated from inside China, though they said it is yet unclear whether the government or military was responsible.

Schwartz has underscored his belief in the need for a national deterrence policy and platforms to enforce it since he took office in 2008.

Deterrence “is not a fading construct in national security,” Schwartz and Lt. Col. Timothy Kirk, his co-author and speechwriter, wrote in a spring 2009 white paper. “On the contrary, deterrence is re-emerging and growing in importance as an aspect of U.S. defense policy.

“Deterrence policy has shown itself an exquisitely beneficial tool in obtaining national security objectives,” Schwartz and Kirk wrote. “On the other hand, deterrence — either misunderstood or misapplied — can form the basis for incomplete or ill-advised U.S. policy, especially in terms of how and when to use military power to achieve high-stakes national security objectives. A variety of recent and historical examples attests to a vital requirement for understanding how disconnects between military capabilities, national policy, and the value of national purpose can cause unfavorable if not disastrous consequences.”

Schwartz on deterrence policy

The white paper offers snapshots of Schwartz’s thinking about deterrence policy.

“We must approach deterrence not as an entity by itself, but rather as a policy component from a larger palette; assurance, dissuasion, insurance and deterrence blend together to achieve policy’s purpose,” the paper said. “Ways and means are still important, but the proportional mix will shift based upon policy’s purpose.”

Future threats will require changing the Cold War model that American deterrence policies have been based on for decades, Schwartz and Kirk wrote. The new approach will be all about seeing the bigger picture.

“The strategic environment will likely dictate policy portfolio engineering in place of traditional deterrence policy,” according to the paper. “If the environment continues to emerge consistently with recent trends, we can expect a requirement to engineer policy that includes a mix of deterrence, dissuasion, assurance and insurance ...”

Senior Pentagon officials and lawmakers have been raising concerns about the state of the military’s deterrence arsenal — especially its nuclear weapons — for years.

In 2009, a panel composed of former senior military and Pentagon officials, led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, concluded Washington’s nuclear deterrence policy has slipped.

The group panned the Air Force, long the steward of the nuclear arsenal, finding “a serious erosion of senior-level attention, focus, expertise, mission readiness, resources, and discipline in the nuclear weapons mission area…,” according to the report.

Task force members also “found that the lack of interest in and attention to the nuclear mission and nuclear deterrence … go well beyond the Air Force,” the report stated. “This lack of interest and attention have been widespread throughout DoD and contributed to the decline of attention in the Air Force.”

The panel added, however, that the Air Force has taken steps to enhance its focus on deterrence.