Tom Cole Asks Pentagon Officials How Tactics In Ukraine War Are Shaping US Military Strategy

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) asked Pentagon officials how tactics used in the Russia-Ukraine war are shaping the United States' own military strategy.

Transcript

00:00very interested in the lessons that we're drawing from ukraine i've never seen anything transform

00:06our thinking quite so rapidly as that war and as terrible as it is it's certainly given us

00:12a chance to rethink our own force structure and what we ought to do so let me start with you if

00:16i may mr secretary if you had to like pick the three things that have struck you the most or you

00:22think we ought to be aware of as we think about refashioning the force looking at ukraine you

00:28know what what would those things and to be fair i'm going to ask general george the same

00:32questions i'm not trying to pitch you against one i'm just very very curious about uh you know how

00:37what you're saying because we've traveled extensively i've seen ukrainian uh patriot batteries training

00:44at fort sill in my district i've been to europe and watched ukrainian soldiers training on nato

00:50facilities and interacting with nato soldiers certainly with our soldiers in particular

00:54uh and i'm just you know enormously impressed by how much we're learning um but i'm curious how

01:01you would see it and how you would integrate those lessons into what you're doing now

01:04uh absolutely chairman so um i i think one of the first things is uh it's impossible to move so the

01:11the moment you're near the front uh lines there are so many sensors that exist the army has for a very

01:16long time said we own the night and so we have did our a lot of our offensive capabilities were built

01:23around the fact that we own the night that that no longer is sufficient with drones and all of the

01:28other sensors the moment a human or a thing starts to move the enemy knows the next one is technology

01:35leads so when general george and i are talking about these platforms of the future oftentimes we're

01:40referencing that they are software systems that are just manifesting in the world as hardware what

01:46they will need to be able to do is be updated in near real time so what we're learning from drones in

01:50ukraine is they're updating the software and some of the hardware components on these drones every

01:56two weeks our best guess is that today with our current systems we might be able to pull it off in 18

02:01months at scale um that that is just not even it is so far from sufficient for the modern uh warfare

02:08and then the last one is just the speed of war so the ability to have swarms of things whether they're

02:16autonomous or human led is just making it so that the command and control layer that we're about to

02:22describe throughout this hearing and the digital layer that is going to be required to basically

02:26allow our people to sync with our things and sync with our sensors that layer needs to be fast it needs

02:33to be protected and then probably in the future what it needs is it needs to be able to have some sort

02:38of generative ai models that can come in and help with things like targeting and all of these different

02:43things that human beings have done for a long time but the speed has changed so quickly that humans are

02:48just not able to keep up and it requires software solutions you know i'm probably going to expand on

02:55a couple of things that the secretary said i think overall we're paying attention to this all the time we

02:59get a lot of briefings back on this talking to the ukrainians we're learning across every war fighting

03:06function and it's the one thing that i hear from our troops is that we're not moving fast enough i mean

03:11that's the feedback that i get and why we are you know trying to move this forward and why we're

03:16talking about army transformation initiative i think the big thing is well the first one that the

03:21secretary talked about you cannot hide on the modern battlefield we have to develop you know systems that

03:27are lower signature you're going to have to be more mobile everything is going to have to reduce

03:32their signature and that's both visible and on the electromagnetic we have to work that out

03:40second is on drones drones are going to be in every formation that we do we're going to have autonomous

03:45systems in everywhere every formation whether it's to protect detect or attack those things are going

03:52to be in every kind of formation a logistics formation an artillery battery that i know you're familiar with

03:57everybody's going to have to do that and that gets to training our formations up and down on how

04:02we're doing that and that's what i mentioned how we're going to have to change how we're organized

04:06because we're going to have to be organized differently and that's part of army transformation

04:10initiative as well and then i'll probably add one thing just because the question came from you

04:15chairman is on is just the efficacy of long-range fires and i think we've seen that i mean ukraine did not

04:22have uh and this is using drones and long-range fires did not have a navy and what they were able

04:28to do with the black sea fleet so that's another area that we are working on very hard we have to

04:34move very quickly in that area as well and i think it was brought up about having magazine depth that's

04:40the other thing that we are looking at making sure that we can move quickly in that area well you

04:46anticipated one of my questions which i was going to ask you specifically about long-range fires and

04:50and what lessons you've uh you've drawn there because i'm struck just as chairman calvert was about

04:57the transformation of the nature of this war in progress from what we saw at the beginning

05:02uh to this drone the percentage of casualties now inflicted by drones on both sides

05:09and honestly i've been and i'd love to be told you're wrong or whatever so don't hesitate but

05:16to me just watching it as a non-professional and outsider i've been shocked about how little

05:21conventional air power has played in this conflict you know we've been able to fight without looking

05:27up for most of uh my lifetime uh you got to look up on battlefields now because it's not a jet roaring

05:36over your head that we can take care of it's a small drone that's you know not is it slow enough that

05:42we're not knocking it out with air power so uh and i've been shocked about frankly uh how little

05:51the advantage russia would have in a conventional fight in the air has mattered on the ground in

05:57this particular conflict partly because of drones partly because there's so much more reach

06:02and long-range fires now than there used to be but they're certainly not flying much over the skies

06:08in ukraine and obviously our patriot people are part of that but it's just it's stunning because

06:15it's a lot different than most recent conflicts so i just if you would just quickly um general george

06:22if you have any reflections on any of that and yeah let's love to hear your thoughts um yeah chairman

06:29i appreciate the getting a chance to come back i mean i would you know follow up the list would be

06:33longer it's hard to you know to go down stop at three um you mentioned integrated air and missile

06:39defense so the same reason that we're being really effective with long-range fires we're going to have

06:43to innovate and move quicker and again this gets back to we can't wait to 2030 or any of those things we

06:49have to be moving out in that we are doing that when we talk about integrated air missile defense we're

06:55also we should also be thoughtful of counter uas we're very focused on sense decide and act so act

07:03can be kinetic or non-kinetic but we have to innovate in each of those areas so our sensors are going to

07:09have to be ubiquitous we're going to have to look for cheaper sensors that are with every formation because

07:14everybody is going to have to be alerted to that and i don't care what and i've talked to the service

07:18chiefs what service you're in drones are going to be you know out there and long-range fires are going to

07:24be able to reach and so we have to we have to focus on that so that's what we're that's what

07:29we're attempting to do and and do that as rapidly as possible what's a challenge obviously and a lot

07:35of the drones are dual use and it's coming you know that um you know we're seeing drones that can lift

07:41you know big heavy we're going to use them in logistics um that is ahead and what we need to do is

07:47make sure we're doing the same thing that we have the same agility when it comes to counter uas

07:52so that we are maintaining pace with that with that threat that's going to be out there thank

07:57you very much you'll back mr chairman uh secretary do you have any further comment oh i i was just

08:06going to add i i think one of the things we spend a lot of time thinking about is if it is true that

08:12russia has manufactured nearly one million drones we are an incredibly wealthy nation perhaps the wealthiest

08:18in human history but even we um cannot um fire four million dollar kinetic weaponry at 800 drones

08:26for very long and so one of the things back to the speed of sharing information that that we need as

08:31a nation is we need to be able to um take down some drones with 50 cal rounds um because a 50 cal is

08:37pretty cheap we need to be able to use directed energy at scale that we are trying to make it so that

08:43we can uh envision a war because many of the the greater wars last a very long time and we're going

08:49to need to be able to afford that war and so in most of our decisions what we are talking about as an

08:53army is how do we prepare to engage with a near peer or a peer for a very long time and make the math work

09:00a very long time and make the math work thank you uh mr morelli

09:13you

Category

Transcript

Recommended