Aerospace technology versus Insurgency

The 2007 Aerospace Power and Counterinsurgency Forum

Brendan Cathcart, Staff

“Defeating insurgent terror networks requires distributed, truly persistent surveillance-strike complexes,” said Tom Erhard, a retired air force member and current senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in the United States. His particular perspective on the need for better aerospace technologies in the fight against insurgent networks in places like Iraq and Afghanistan was one of many presented at the 2007 Aerospace Power Forum, held Nov. 27-28 at the Fort Garry Hotel. Funded by the Department of Defence, the event takes place every two years and is hosted by The University of Manitoba’s Centre of Defence and Security Studies (CDSS).

Topics at this year’s forum included: counterinsurgency and armed force, counterinsurgency in airpower thought, the experiences and lessons of aerospace power application from Afghanistan and Iraq, aerospace counterinsurgency roles and mission, air force restructuring and counterinsurgency, aerospace technologies, and counterinsurgency and the allied experience and challenge. Proceedings were organized into seven panels with one speaker per panel, each speaker being a respected and experienced professional in their field.

From members of the RAND Corporation to retired major-generals to political scientists to Pentagon and NATO staff, each speaker at the forum has had direct experience with current international conflicts either in research and development, policy and advocacy, leadership, or direct engagement. Given the different fields of specialization it was not surprising that each had a different take on the role of aerospace technology in counterinsurgency.

James Corum, a professor at the department of joint and multinational operations at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, argued in his presentation “Aerospace Power Roles and Missions,” that the most important issue to address is helping host nations build up their own air forces so that they can take control of the conflicts in their respective countries. Citing the Hukbalahap rebellion in 1950s Philippines, Corum explained the ways in which the United States assisted in putting down the rebellion by supplying and training the Philippine army to use air support. President Magsaysay as well as army commanders were enabled to liaison with troops and villagers, constant surveillance planes disrupted rebel force patterns, strike abilities were increased dramatically, enabling them to directly hit rebel strongholds, troop transport brought forces to wherever they needed to be, and psychological operations dropped leaflets everywhere and broadcasted messages to break the rebels’ sense of security and morale. This historical information is important to think about in relation to Afghanistan, urged Corum, because “most of these remote tribal villages have never even seen the Government.”

He further argued that the military doesn’t necessarily need to be more high-tech, but rather needs to simply work better. In his experience a man with special binoculars in the back of a plane is actually more effective than Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with high-tech sensing technologies.

Tom Erhard disagrees. In his presentation “Aerospace Technologies and Counterinsurgency,” Erhard argued that a very common problem is that the Predator UAVs will spot targets, and then when backup fighter planes are called in to engage the targets, the pilots can’t find them. He said that this problem was already recognized and began to be addressed prior to 9-11 with the inclusion of attack systems in newer designs of Predators, a project that he was personally involved in.

One of the primary benefits of UAVs, said Erhart, is that they have stamina that no humans are capable of. “They don’t have bladders, they don’t have wives to get home to, they can fly at 70,000 feet without having to wear special space suits or breathe nitrogen, and they won’t complain about any of it.” Another benefit is that such technology allows military to see over the next hill without having to send men in to check it out first. “Technology allows you to gain an unfair advantage, which is a good thing in war.” Erhard went on to give some examples of new technologies being developed at the moment; laser communications, ubiquitous sensing, directed energy weapons, high-precision rockets, low collateral damage fuses, Blue Force tracking and electronic warfare; the last one in the list being something he wasn’t allowed to give any details about.

Most of the other presenters at the forum fell somewhere between the polarized perspectives of Corum and Tom Erhart in discussing the merits, necessity, and practicality of using aerospace technology to combat insurgency. Some, like Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Charles Swannack, shared their own personal experiences about they ways in which such modern technology helped them on the frontlines.

There was one question that I felt needed to be answered before I left the forum, and that was whether the use of aerospace technology against insurgency implied the expansion of military operations into space. I asked Lasha Tchantouridzé, adjunct professor of politics at the University of Manitoba and research associate at the CDSS, also one of the forum’s moderators, about this concern. “Yes, it does,” he said, “But only in terms of surveillance.” He explained that there are international laws prohibiting weapons in space, but that satellites are perfectly acceptable.

The first satellite, Russia’s Sputnik, had already gone up in the ’60s, and by the time of the Cold War there were hundreds. When I asked why it was OK for competing countries to have such surveillance capabilities, Tchantouridzé’s response also helped me to better understand one of the key purposes of talking so openly about modern warfare technologies at the forum, apart from the necessity of debate and collaboration. “If another country can see what we are doing, then there is no need for paranoia or rash decisions because they will know what we are capable of.”

For more information about the forum you can check out the CDSS website at http://www.umanitoba.ca/centres/defence/. Presenters’ papers should already be available for download, and proceedings of the forum will be posted shortly.

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