Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 1, No. 4 | Admiral Bill Owens: an interview, page 2

BO: ItÕs very tough. We probably should have had 50 unmanned Predator surveillance aircraft over Afghanistan, for instance, not two. We should have bought them five to ten years ago, and we should have them linked together with satellite systems and other kinds of sensors to really see the battlefield. With such an information umbrella deployed early we might, in the future, detect the Osama bin Ladens of the world and deal with them in the first days of the war. In Afghanistan, if we had been much more responsive and ÒseenÓ the battlefield, we might have been able to catch the bad guys a lot sooner. But I think the military is reluctant to change its doctrine and culture and has a penchant for not implementing new ideas, even those that are not high-tech.

SK: And to make new ideas happen, it also takes leadership. President Bush, right now, has a lot of currency in the country, with the political bureaucracy and the military. If you had his ear, what would you tell him? HeÕs going to be arguing for more money for defense. What does he need to know?

BO: Well, I think the kinds of things that he needs to know about include the capability of technologyÑparticularly the concept known as C4ISR, which stands for the integration of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The capacity of all the equipment and systems that have already been bought for the military is tremendousÑif you change the culture, tie them together and use them optimally. And that means you have to do joint things; you have to put some money into making ÒjointnessÓ happenÑbut those are fighting words in many parts of the Pentagon.

Proceedings, one of the Naval InstituteÕs magazines, recently ran an article that talked about how Bill Owens and his centralized approaches were tantamount to killing the Navy. Well, Owens says, if the Navy has to be secondary to the good of the U.S., IÕm for it. ÒJointnessÓ is where we need to be. ItÕs not a matter of preserving the culture of our servicesÑwe need to take on that culture and confront it. To the president, IÕd say, you need to take on the culture of the armed services. Make jointness happen. You, Mr. President, must emphasize the need to get much more engaged with commercial technology: cutting-edge commercial technology and high bandwidth communications, software that allows you to integrate legacy systems, even imagery and applications developed for the entertainment world. There are programs in the commercial world that can quickly identify a face from a picture at a considerable distance, which has enormous relevance today. These ideas need to be brought into the Pentagon. It may even turn out that the commercial companies that created these technologies may be the new defense contractors of the futureÑas much as Lockheed and Boeing and the other traditional companies are today.

So commercial technology is very important and jointness is important. IÕd also tell the president that we have to start thinking in terms of military capability thatÕs much more flexible and responsive. You have to start thinking, not as Napoleon taught us, that massÑmeaning numbers of troops, numbers of ships, airplanes and tanksÑis not the only important military capability. We have to understand that itÕs not mass, itÕs dominant knowledge that is most important to our success, whether itÕs success in Somalia or in fighting terrorism in this country and abroad. It is knowledge that counts much more than these platforms that we love to buy and that have visibility and a strong constituency in Congress.

SK: Those are fighting words for the lobbyists in the halls of Washington, to say that defense is not just Boeing, Lockheed and the big guysÕ turf.

BO: ItÕs absolutely true, those are fighting words. We have a powerful constituency in President EisenhowerÕs Òmilitary industrial complexÓ: the big companies that we see flourishing in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. ItÕs probably right that they should get more money. But you also see many other companies that were developing very important technologies relevant to information technology, biowarfare, or dirty nukes that are failing because money is not being made available to them as funds pour into the big companies for traditional spending. Some of this is inevitable, but we have to identify the problem and try to create a better system for supporting both weapons and integrated technology development.

SK: On another subject, how dangerous is the idea of militarizing space? We all get satellite television, we all are connected on the Internet, we know that space presents an opportunity for communications. What happens if we do militarize space?

BO: Well, I think it is an issue and the time to think about it is right now. As a result of the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Reagan years, weÕve developed a lot of the technologies that give you precise locating information on the surface of the earth, which is no small thing. When you have the imagery and you have that kind of knowledge of the globe and now you have laser and other capabilities orbiting above us, itÕs inevitable that innovative people will start to think about how you can kill things from space.

So, itÕs time for us to think about the militarization of space, not just in terms of the budget and the innovative nature of what can be done, but to think about whether we want to deal with the possible consequences. Clearly, if we proceed with the militarization of space we may have a great advantage in the short termÑmeaning, a couple of decades. But as time goes on, the technology we develop may also offer similar capabilities to others who will see it as their chance to match our own military capability. And they may not handle that capability as judiciously or as humanely as we would. So, while I am excited that there might be potential there, IÕm equally concerned that we donÕt try to move into that sphere without a lot of thought about whatÕs needed to control it.

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