The two wars have both demonstrated the importance of unmanned systems in war and demolished the myths that have driven U.S. National Security polices for the last 25 years.
The late former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the most damaging myth by replacing traditional military threat planning with the delusion that pirates and terrorists would be America’s primary future threats. He rejected any concerns about a near peer opponent. That and Rumsfeld’s faith in promised new technologies, led to acquisition decisions that saddled the U.S. Navy with trouble-plagued warships that cannot be deployed safely into a combat zone. That is, the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS’s) and Zumwalt-class stealth “guided missile” destroyers (DDGs). Reportedly designed for “Littoral Warfare” like the U.S. Navy is currently fighting in the Strait of Hormuz, they are in fact not suitable for either “littoral” or broad ocean area warfare.
