34 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION
an attack – hardly surprising as the
conflict in Syria and Iraq has featured
extensive use of small UAVs for
tactical surveillance and armed strike.
So, in any future deployment
the ADF can reasonably expect to
encounter hostile UAS, with the
potential for them to disrupt or
constrain the freedom of operations
we might once have fully enjoyed.
UAS need not even be hostile to be
disruptive. How about UAS operated
by news organisations transmitting
imagery of troop dispositions in real
time?
Disruptive technology is scarcely
new, although the expression in
its modern guise was created by
US business consultant Clayton
Christensen in an article in 1995.
Various iterations of this concept had
been articulated by earlier authors.
Disruptive technology is essentially
any new technology which stuffs up an
existing market or means of operation.
There are abundant examples.
The introduction of the automobile
in the late 19th century did not
end horse-drawn transport, and all
that went with it, as early cars were
expensive, unreliable playthings of the
rich.
What did was the introduction
of the Model T Ford in 1908, an
affordable and reliable vehicle which
introduced motoring to the masses.
More recently, Finnish company
Nokia dominated the global market
for mobile phones, at one time
selling more handsets than any other
company. Then along came the
iPhone. Nokia phones still exist but
how many do you see these days?
People will always need to get from
one place to another and how else
could they do it other than aboard a
taxi?
Uber showed there was another
way, which was frequently cheaper
and more convenient, underlining
Christensen’s fundamental thesis that
it wasn’t the new technology which
caused the disruption – it was the
underlying business model which the
technology enabled.
For the ADF, rapid technological
change and the growing availability
of new and inexpensive capabilities
to all comers, certainly raises one
fundamental question – are we
preparing to fight the right war?
The answer probably has to be
no, with the qualification that, with a
few exceptions, no-one has ever been
fully prepared for the war they found
themselves fighting.
The US military triumphed over
Saddam Hussein in the Kuwait war,
a graphic testament to the success
of post-Vietnam reforms. Then it
got bogged down in insurgencies
in Afghanistan and Iraq and had to
relearn the lessons of Vietnam.
Australia emerged from Vietnam
a seasoned counter-insurgency force,
then struggled to mount a stabilisation
operation to East Timor because
underlying enabling capabilities
had withered, seemingly not that
important in a period of modestpeacekeeping missions.
It has to be said the ADF is now in
good shape, with well-trained capable
forces and excellent equipment, either
in service or soon to be.
In just about every industry sector
on earth and especially in defence,
smart people are paid to think hard
about future trends. Their success rate
is often pretty ordinary, even from
people you think would know better.
How’s this gem, cited by Forbes
magazine in a 2015 article, from
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in 2007:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone
is going to get any significant market
share.”
With the rise of a professional
military class, there have long been
predictions as to how some new
technology will revolutionise warfare.
In 1921 Italian air power theorist
Giulio Douhet published his treatise
on air power, arguing that the bomber
would always get past defences and
that strategic bombing of a city
and its industry would so erode
the population’s will to resist that
capitulation would speedily follow.
With the experience of strategic
bombing from World War I and the
expectation that future bombers could
deliver a far greater weight of bombs,
his theory proved highly influential.
The next war proved he was mostly
wrong. The RAF discovered early its
bombers couldn’t always get through
and even when they did, they couldn’t
reliably strike a target even as large
as a city. Bombing of cities in the UK‘UAS need
not even be
hostile to be
disruptive.’
China’s PLAAF is beginning to
field the Chengdu J-20 fighter.
ALERT5/WIKIMEDIA