Satellite communications and military situational awareness in modern warfare

Satellite Communications and Situational Awareness

As with so much else in today's world, the military and military operations have been transformed by technology. The situation of the armed forces, and of combat itself, in the time of the Second World War, Korea, and even Vietnam, seem like the dim memories of bygone age. Yet, these conflicts were within the experience of many persons now living. Once upon a time, commanders in the field depended either on their own eyes and ears for information in regard to the enemy, or else they relied on information that was hours, days, or even possibly weeks old. Napoleon and Wellington would have been stunned by the technologies available to Eisenhower and Rommel -- the ability to reconnoiter by flying over enemy positions, instant communication by radio between troops in the field and base camp, not to mention "precision" weapons, big guns whose firing mechanisms had been carefully calibrated according to scientific calculations. Just give the order, and you could shells an enemy position, miles away and out of sight. If you really tried, you might even be able to hit a specific target: a barn, a bunker, maybe even a particular pillbox. But who would be more amazed with the military communication tools, and situational awareness available to the commanders of the Twenty-First Century? Grant? Pershing? Possibly someone closer to our own time ... like General Westmoreland? After all, that was only thirty years ago. Could so much really have changed?

Communications satellites, and computer technology, have completely revolutionized modern warfare. Strategy, deployment, and combat are all affected by the contemporary commander's access to state-of-the-art communications equipment that permits him to observe from afar the lay of the land, the supply lines, and disposition of enemy troops. He can communicate with his own men and women even if all visible lines-of-communication are broken or blocked. He can send messages to his own detachments even if there is no infrastructure in place. No jungle is too thick, nor any mountain so high, nor any shelter so deep that they cannot be penetrated by modern method's of reconnaissance. The rings of satellites that circle the Earth have made possible real-time correspondence and surveillance by any commander, anywhere. That is why technology is so important. That is why it is so essential that our military have the very best, and the very latest that today's scientists and computer technicians can create. And that is why, too, the armed forces of the United States of America cannot afford to let any of their technological equipment, or any of their technological plans fall into the hands of unfriendly nations, armies, or terrorists. Modern warfare is more mobile than ever before, but it is also more highly technical and precise, more far-reaching and all-encompassing than anything that was ever dreamed of by the heroes of previous conflicts -- even those that took place in the early days of the careers of some of the modern army's top generals, or the Navy's leading admirals. This paper will examine the influence that satellite communications have on the situational awareness of today's military. It will show what makes America's fighting men and women ... "The best in the world."

B. The First Satellites

The very first satellites were less objects of utility than symbols of the potential power of modern technology. The ability of a nation to build an artificial satellite, and launch that satellite into orbit around the Earth was representative of the level of skill available to a given state. Such successes presaged other achievements, and appeared even to foretell future military success and world domination. The nation that managed to produce this first little piece of a technological miracle was the Soviet Union. The soviet success shocked the West, and the United States in particular:

The impact of the space race can hardly be overstated. For the better part of a decade the Soviets scored triumph after triumph as the United States struggled desperately to get into the game. Not only did the Soviet Union launch the first satellite, but their satellites were much heavier (Khrushchev liked to refer to American satellites as "oranges and grapefruits"). Then, in 1959 the Soviets launched the first satellites outside the earth's orbit; one of these circled the sun the, first artificial planet, and another went around the moon and sent back pictures of the moon's far side, an accomplishment a British survey called "an astonishing demonstration of Soviet technological skill" and "a feat of enormous propaganda value."

(Mueller, 1989, p. 146)

Hoping for second place, not even being in the running for first place, these events made America seem to destined to lose the worldwide race for dominance. For the Cold War was more than a matter of two sides drawing up in battle lines, it was a fight between ideologies, a fight for the future of people's souls and the future of civilization. Until the fateful day the first Soviet satellite was launched, few would have thought that any could challenge the American military, or the American way-of-life. In the words of a near-contemporary text, "If the nation felt that it lay unprotected in the face of Soviet attack ... The nation might be bluffed into accepting a series of limited setbacks which in the end would add up to the loss of the balance of power in Eurasia and, in effect, to clean-cut American defeat." (Rostow, 1960, p. 314) In one stroke, the Soviet Union appeared to eliminate what had been seen as a hands-down American advantage in terms of international bases, the Strategic Air Command, and a general ability to attack its adversary without placing its own people and territories directly in harm's way. The U.S.S.R.'s

... Fundamental talents in the relevant fields of basic science and engineering were evidently available .... Moreover, it solved the problem of external bases, since the ICBM could strike America from Russian soil. Thus, the whole enterprise appeared to provide a way of bypassing an adversary's main strength.

(Rostow, 1972, p. 70)

D. Practical Applications

Lastly, we turn to the practical, on-the-ground, or, up-in-the-air, applications of these marvelous new technologies. Armed with data in hitherto unimagined quantities, modern warfare has reached a level of precision, and economy of assets, that would also have lain beyond the imagination of the typical commander of just a generation ago. A mass of technological wizardry takes all of this data, and combines it with real-time, battlefield information to generate today's "smart" weapons. A recent example of this from straight out of the Iraq War can be observed in the Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAM's. These operate in the following manner:

Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). JDAMs reach their pinpointed targets like this: The attack aircraft receives electronic mission data, which then is downloaded into the JDAM's computer. If the targets change in flight, the new coordinates automatically guide the JDAM. The bomb can be launched as far as 15 miles from the target and far above antiaircraft artillery range. Once the JDAM is released, an inertial navigation system guides the tail fins during free fall, and an onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) device makes any necessary corrections to guide the bomb to within 45 feet of the target. The satellite guidance allows the weapon to be used in any weather.

(Waller, 2003)

And this is but one application!

In the run up to this same Iraq War, experts envisioned the use of satellite technologies to create almost a "robot soldier." (Waller, 2002)

In the opening air campaign ... U.S. B-1 and B-2 stealth bombers carrying 16 and 24 one-ton satellite -guided bombs respectively, would attack a range of targets from military headquarters to air defences. How much the new technology has changed the face of war can be gauged by the fact that over 60% of bombs to be dropped will be precision-guided munitions, as opposed to only 9% during the previous Gulf War. "This will allow more effective bombing with fewer aircraft ...."

(Vesely, 2003)

And on the horizon, military experts already envision new high-tech satellite weapons that will enable the United States to defend itself not from the skies, but from beyond, out in the vastness of Space:

... Such satellite -based arms -- which the U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) calls "space-based Earth-strike weapons" -- theoretically could allow the United States to destroy any enemy at any time with a minimum of troop, ship or aircraft movement and without threatening a holocaust with weapons of mass destruction .... SPACECOM is one of nine unified commands of the U.S. military that is responsible for combining Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force operations under its area of jurisdiction. The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is responsible for U.S. military activity in central and southern Asia, for instance, and it and other commands combine land, sea and air assets in a geographic region. But, according to a command spokesman, SPACECOM integrates "space forces and space-derived information with land, sea and air forces." (Waller, 2002)

The future of modern warfare is now, with satellites and space-based weapons destined to play a major role in future wars, and in the defense and security of the United States of America.