The journey from nuclear missiles to cyberwar planning took seventy years
After World War II, Washington completely abandoned its previously characteristic foreign policy self-isolation (more precisely, "closure" within the Western Hemisphere). He proclaimed himself the leader of the "free world" (that is, capitalist countries), and his main support was military force. The US Armed Forces had absolute superiority over any enemy in the quantity and quality of conventional equipment, and until 1949 they also had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. The USSR ground forces could challenge the US ground forces (and with a good chance of success), but the Air Force and especially the US Navy certainly had no equal.
"Nuclear missile fetishism" didn't help
Already the Korean War has somewhat shaken faith in the military hegemony of the United States. The KPA and PLA had a significant numerical superiority in personnel, who were generally well trained and extremely fanatical, over the armies of the United States and its allies. At the same time, they were equipped with very high-quality Soviet weapons. And the extremely few Soviet MiG-15s practically devalued American air power ( "Sabers" against MiGs" ). No one attempted to attack the US naval force, but it did not bring victory by itself. The war turned out to be extremely brutal, bloody and ended in a draw.
The 50s and 60s, not only for the United States, but also for all the major armies of the world, became the era of "nuclear missile fetishism". The Americans have created many ballistic and cruise missiles of various ranges of land, sea and air-based nuclear equipment ( "From Loon to Polar Star" ). Moreover, some of these missiles were transferred to NATO allies, although the nuclear warheads remained under American control. Artillery received nuclear shells, first of all, the M107 and M110 self-propelled guns ( "American God of War" ) were developed for their use. Combat aircraft were considered almost exclusively as carriers of nuclear weapons or interceptors of enemy carriers of nuclear weapons. It was within the framework of such views that the American Air Force received the "hundredth series" aircraft. All carrier-based aircraft also received nuclear bombs, and the surface forces of the Navy completely turned into "guards of aircraft carriers" ( "Midway" did not spoil the furrows" ). Even anti–aircraft missiles and, quite surprisingly, air-to-air missiles received nuclear warheads.
“It was the defeat in the information war on its own territory that led to the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War as a whole. From which a completely adequate conclusion was made about the need to pay priority attention to the information impact on its own population, the population of the allied countries and the opposing countries”
The Vietnam War, unlike the Korean War, had epochal significance for the US Armed Forces, and diverse. It has become a unique combination of classical, high-tech and information warfare. And it more than fits the completely meaningless, but extremely popular term "hybrid war" today, although at that time no one had thought of this nonsense yet.
The Vietnam War completely destroyed the paradigm of "nuclear missile fetishism", which has not been revived. With the help of fairly limited supplies of military equipment to the DRV (primarily air defense systems), the USSR (and initially China) inflicted gigantic losses on the United States in equipment, especially aviation. The Armed Forces of South Vietnam also got it in full. The Saigon army, thanks, as a rule, to free American supplies, was extremely large, but in the end it was almost completely destroyed. Only a small part of the ships and planes managed to escape to the Philippines and Thailand in April 1975. In addition, the USSR gained the most important experience (especially in the field of air defense), and also studied a large number of captured American weapons.
Since Washington threw away huge amounts of money for the production of conventional weapons, then mostly lost in the jungles of Vietnam, during this time the USSR managed to catch up with the United States in strategic weapons and far bypass conventional ones. At least quantitatively.
The United States has received a severe blow to national pride, which it has been experiencing for more than a decade. It was the Vietnam War that forced the Pentagon to completely abandon military conscription, which also affected the US Armed Forces in a far from the best way. The United States gained considerable experience in anti-guerrilla warfare, although then it was perceived somewhat hypertrophied. Much more useful for the Americans was the experience of fighting a strong ground air defense, as well as the experience of mass use of helicopters ( "Helicopters first of all" ). But the most valuable lesson for Washington turned out to be in the field of information warfare. It was the defeat in the information war on its own territory that led to the defeat of the United States in the war as a whole. From which a completely adequate conclusion was made about the need to pay priority attention to the information impact on its own population, the population of the allied countries and the opposing countries.
Iraq and Yugoslavia are underfoot
In the 70s and 80s, the United States and the USSR continued the nuclear arms race, creating reserves sufficient for multiple mutually assured destruction. This finished off the "nuclear missile fetishism" and led to the understanding that even if a war starts, it is desirable that it does not go into the nuclear phase as long as possible.
Therefore, there was an equally intense conventional arms race. The American Armed Forces received Abrams tanks ( "Chaffee's Heirs" ) and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Apache attack helicopters with Hellfire ATGM, fourth-generation F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 fighters ( "The Bet on fighters" ), bombers-invisibles F-117, and then B-2 ( "Toys for two billion" ), KRVB AGM-86, KRNB/KRMB BGM-109 "Tomahawk". Tomahawks, the Mk41 UVP and the Aegis system have given a completely new quality to multi-purpose submarines ( "Submarine as a fetish" ), cruisers and destroyers of the US Navy. Washington managed to arrange for Moscow "its Vietnam" (in Afghanistan) and launched a powerful information war against the USSR, which became the main reason for its collapse.
The 1991 war against Iraq had no less epochal and no less diverse significance for the United States than the Vietnam war. In Vietnam, the US Armed Forces fought for eight and a half years against the formally very weak army of North Vietnam and the partisans of South Vietnam, suffered huge losses and lost. In January-February 1991, the United States and its allies completely defeated the Iraqi Armed Forces, which at that time were formally among the ten strongest in the world, with extremely insignificant losses during the classic war.
The war was won due to the air campaign, during which high–precision weapons were widely used - KRVB, KRMB, various aircraft missiles and UAB ( "Rattlesnake Strike" ). The most important factor in Iraq's defeat was the complete passivity of its command, but this factor was ignored by everyone, since the Pentagon took full control of the information coverage of the campaign and presented it as an absolute triumph of American military power.
The subsequent collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, the even easier (almost without losses and without conducting a ground operation) defeat of Yugoslavia in 1999 deepened the transformation of the American Armed Forces. They began to transform into a network-centric army, that is, into a system where all elements (from higher headquarters to individual combat vehicles and even military personnel) are united by vertical and horizontal connections into a single network.
The presence of a large number of various intelligence systems should provide network-centric armed Forces with maximum situational awareness on the battlefield and defeat the enemy immediately after its detection with the help of those forces and means that are most convenient to do this. The implementation of this concept was supposed to turn any war waged by Washington into a kind of computer game for the Americans themselves and into an apocalypse for the enemy. Such a nature of warfare was determined not only by the technical superiority of the United States over all potential opponents, but also by the mercenary principle of manning the Armed Forces.
In a highly developed modern Western society, the absolute majority of people are not ready for self-sacrifice for any purpose, therefore, it is possible to man the army only if you promise potential servicemen a war without losses.
As part of the implementation of this concept, the volume of purchases of classical military equipment (tanks, artillery systems, aircraft, ships) has noticeably decreased, funds have been allocated to modernize existing platforms and turn them into digital, integrated into a network-centric system. But high-precision weapons were purchased en masse, as well as UAVs, first reconnaissance, then combat ( "I'm sitting in the States, I'm bombing Baghdad" ).
Bet on the "soldier of fortune"
The war in Afghanistan and the second war in Iraq further contributed to the further transformation of the American Armed Forces. In these wars, the United States suffered quite significant losses, but at times less than in Vietnam. Nevertheless, these losses have led to a significant lumpenization of the ground forces and marines, which account for more than 90 percent of the losses.
One of the additional ways to reduce the losses of the regular armed Forces was the very extensive use by the Pentagon of PMCs, whose losses are "not considered", although they are quite comparable to the losses of the "official" army. At the same time, military construction in the United States was almost completely reoriented to war with a deliberately "understated" enemy – weak and archaic regular armies or, as a rule, with partisan formations. Such an enemy obviously does not have modern ground and especially aviation and marine equipment. This led, in particular, to a significant degradation of American ground-based air defense, which turned out to be almost completely reoriented to solving missile defense tasks while almost completely ignoring the task of combating aerodynamic targets ( "US air defense: from "Bush" to "Sting" ).
The artillery of the American army has also largely degraded. The "fight against terrorism" has given rise to very peculiar samples of military equipment – the Stryker armored personnel carrier and MRAP class armored vehicles ( "armored personnel carriers against weaklings" ), "coastal action" warships (LCS). All of them turned out to be extremely expensive and at the same time completely unsuitable for conducting a classic war. The same applies to combat UAVs "Predator" and "Reaper", which are effective only in the complete absence of enemy air defense.
No less specific was the concept of fifth-generation fighters, extremely expensive, while not having obvious advantages over the latest modifications of fourth-generation machines. In the US Navy, there was an actual "desensitization" of aircraft carriers. Cruisers and destroyers equipped with the Tomahawk missile defense system and the Standard missile defense system, as well as the advanced Aegis system, are much cheaper than aircraft carriers, while having much greater both strike and defensive capabilities. In addition, any cruiser and destroyer, unlike an aircraft carrier, is able to effectively protect itself. Nevertheless, the construction of new aircraft carriers continues.
The events in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria in 2014 and in subsequent years caused a certain shock in the United States and led to the fact that the Pentagon "remembered" the need to prepare for war with an equal opponent (both quantitatively and qualitatively). At the same time, however, no one in the United States is going to restore military conscription. Because of this, the command is forced to continue to focus on conducting a war without losses.
However, anti-guerrilla warfare requires constant control of the territory, so it is impossible without noticeable losses. As a result, the Afghan war between the United States and NATO ended with a shameful flight from this country, much more shameful than from Vietnam. And a possible classic war against an equal opponent can lead to losses of an order of magnitude greater, even if nuclear weapons are not used.
Another paradigm shift will obviously lead to an intensification of purchases of missiles (for various purposes, range, basing) and UAVs. There will be a "resuscitation" of its own ground air defense and means of suppressing the enemy's strong ground air defense (with the help of all the same missiles and UAVs). Much more attention will be paid to electronic warfare (again, both their own and the counteraction of the enemy's electronic warfare). Apparently, to a certain extent, the artillery will be reanimated, which faces the task of suppressing the most important enemy objects (KP, air defense, electronic warfare, communications) at long distances.
Armored vehicles will remain a means of "last resort", aircraft will increasingly play the role of "carriers of missiles". Of course, the navy will remain the basis of the US military power. And the concept of network-centric warfare is not going anywhere. Only it will no longer be a guarantee for the American military that war will turn into a kind of computer game.
Alexander Khramchikhin, independent military expert
The newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier", published in issue No. 11 (924) for March 29, 2022