OPINION — Drones in Ukraine and within the Conflict with Iran have made the floor of the earth a contested house. The U.S. has found that 1) air superiority and missile protection programs (THAAD, Patriot batteries) designed to counter tens/a whole bunch of plane and missiles is inadequate towards uneven assaults of hundreds of drones. And that 2) undefended high-value fastened civilian infrastructure – oil tankers, knowledge facilities, desalination crops, oil refineries, power nodes, factories, et al -are all in danger.
When the targets are now not simply navy belongings however something precious on the floor, the long-term math now not favors the defender. To resolve this drawback the U.S. is spending $10s of billions of {dollars} on low-cost Counter-UAS programs – detection programs, cheap missiles, kamikaze drones, microwave and laser weapons.
However what we’re not spending $10s of billions on is studying tips on how to cheaply and rapidly put our high-value, hard-to-replace, and time-critical belongings (munitions, gasoline distribution, Command and Management continuity nodes, spares), and many others., out of hurt’s method – sheltered, underground (or in house).
The teachings from Gaza reinforce that underground programs may protect forces and allow maneuver. The teachings from Ukraine are that survivability whereas underneath fixed drone statement/assault requires utilizing underground services to offer overhead cowl (whereas masking RF, infrared and different signatures). And the teachings from Iran’s assaults on infrastructure within the Gulf Cooperation Council international locations is that something on the floor goes to be a goal.
We have to rethink the character of pressure safety in addition to navy and civilian infrastructure safety.
Air Protection Programs
For many years the U.S. has constructed air protection programs designed for capturing down plane and missiles.
The Navy’s Aegis destroyers present protection for provider strike teams utilizing surface-to-air missiles towards hostile plane and missiles. The Military’s Patriot anti-aircraft batteries present space safety towards plane and missiles. The Missile Protection Company (MDA) offers missile protection from North Korea for Guam and a restricted missile protection for the U.S. MDA is main the event of Golden Dome, a missile protection system to guard your complete U.S. towards ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles from China and Russia.
All of those programs have been designed to make use of costly missiles to shoot down equally costly plane and missiles. None of those programs have been designed to shoot down a whole bunch/hundreds of very low-cost drones.
Plane Safety
After destroying Iraqi plane shelters within the Gulf Conflict with 2,000-lb bombs, the U.S. Air Pressure satisfied itself that constructing plane and upkeep shelters was not definitely worth the funding. As a substitute, their plan – the Agile Fight Employment (ACE) program – was to disperse small groups to distant austere areas (with minimal air protection programs) in time of struggle. Dispersal together with air superiority would substitute for constructing hardened shelters. Oops. It did not depend on low-cost drones discovering these dispersed plane. (One would have thought that Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Net utilizing 117 drones smuggled in delivery containers – which struck and destroyed Russian bombers – would have been a wakeup name.)
The price of not having hardened plane shelters throughout the 2026 Iran Conflict got here house when Iran destroyed an AWACS plane and KC-135 tankers sitting within the open. In the meantime, China, Iran and North Korea have made large investments in hardened shelters and underground services.
Defending Floor Forces
The issue of defending troops with foxholes towards artillery is a whole bunch of years outdated. In WWI, trenches linked foxholes into programs. Bunkers have been hardened towards direct hits. Every step was a response to elevated lethality from above. At this time, drones are the brand new artillery; a persistent, low-cost and exact overhead risk however with the power to maneuver laterally, enter openings, and loiter. And mass drone assaults put each excessive worth navy and civilian goal on the floor in danger. Fielding extra hardened shelters for troopers just like the Military’s Modular Protecting System Overhead Cowl shelters is a primary step for FPV kamikaze drones protection, however drones can get inside buildings by any sufficiently sized openings.
Drone Safety
Ukraine has put in ~500 miles of anti-drone internet tunnels with a objective of 2,500 miles by the top of 2026. These are steel poles and fishing nets stretched over roads however they symbolize the identical intuition: the floor is a kill zone, so cowl it. Russia has executed the identical.
The logical response is to go underground (or out to house) however the know-how to do it rapidly, cheaply, and at scale is genuinely new. The hole in present pondering is between “put up nets” (low-cost, quick, restricted) and “construct a Chilly Conflict concrete bunker” (costly, gradual, everlasting). What’s lacking is the center layer – quickly bored shallow tunnels that present real overhead cowl for motion corridors, tools parking, and personnel safety.
What tunnels remedy that nets and shelters do not
A internet stops an FPV drone’s propellers. A shelter stops shrapnel. However a tunnel 15-30 ft underground is invisible to ISR, proof against most top-attack munitions, cannot be entered by a drone by a door or window, and survives something in need of a bunker-buster. Gaza proved that even with whole air superiority and floor management, Israel has destroyed solely about 40 p.c of Gaza’s tunnels after two and a half years of struggle.
That is an uneven defender’s benefit the U.S. navy needs to be occupied with for its personal use, not simply as a risk to beat.
What’s modified to make this possible is that we might not want boring tunnels per se, however as a substitute modular, pre-fabricated tunnel segments that may be put in with cut-and-cover strategies at expeditionary bases. Or autonomous boring machines sized for navy logistics (smaller variations of the Boring Firm TBMs) corridors relatively than freeway visitors.
The issue is a scarcity of urgency and creativeness
The issue is actual, the incumbents (Military Corps of Engineers) are gradual, and the present industrial tunneling business is not occupied with expeditionary navy functions.
The doctrinal hole is between “dig a foxhole with an entrenching software” (particular person soldier, hours) or deploy a number of Military’s Modular Protecting System Overhead Cowl shelters or “construct a Chilly Conflict hardened plane shelter” (main development undertaking, years, billions). There isn’t any doctrine for quickly boring hardened underground motion corridors, dispersed tools shelters, or protected command publish positions utilizing fashionable tunneling know-how.
Military doctrine treats excavation as one thing executed with natural engineer tools — backhoes, bulldozers, troops with shovels — to create particular person combating positions and cut-and-cover bunkers. The Air Pressure doctrine barely addresses bodily hardening in any respect, having spent 30 years assuming air superiority and dispersing would substitute for it.
No one within the doctrinal neighborhood is asking: what if the Military may reduce and canopy 100 meters of precast tunnel segments in a day or if we may bore a 12-foot diameter tunnel 30 ft underground at a price of 100 of meters per week and use it as a protected logistics hall, command publish, or plane revetment?
Abstract
Oceans on each side and pleasant nations on our borders have lulled America right into a false sense of safety. In spite of everything, the U.S. has not fought a international pressure on American soil since 1812.
Safety and survivability is now not an issue for a single service neither is it an issue of a single answer or an incremental answer. One thing basically disruptive has modified within the nature of uneven warfare and there’s no going again. Whereas we’re actively chasing rapid options (Golden Dome, JTAF-401, et al), we have to rethink the character of pressure safety, and navy and civilian infrastructure safety. Safety and survivability options should not as attractive as shopping for plane or weapons programs however they often is the key to successful a struggle.
The U.S. wants a coherent safety and survivability technique throughout the DoW and all sectors of our financial system. This dialog must be not solely about how we do it, however how we manage to do it, how we finances and pay for it and the way we quickly deploy it.
Classes Realized
- There isn’t any coherent safety and survivability technique that addresses drones throughout the DoW and the entire of nation
- For troops close to the entrance, tunnels may cut back visible, thermal, and RF signature whereas offering fragment safety with a community of small, hid, overhead- coated positions, quick connectors, buried command posts, protected assist stations, and revetted car hides.
- We have to underground belongings that can not be rapidly changed
- Command posts, comms nodes, ammunition, gasoline distribution factors, restore services, key energy programs, upkeep spares, and high-value plane or drones.
- Suppose protected taxiways, blast partitions, coated trenches, buried cabling, alternate exits, redundant portals, and speedy runway restore. Sortie era underneath assault is dependent upon a complete system, not one bunker.
- We have to work with industrial firms to harden/defend their websites
- Present energetic defenses and incentives for undergrounding vital services
- The Military and Air Pressure have to rethink their doctrines and strategies for Safety and Survivability
- Military Strategies Publications (ATP) 3-37.34 – Survivability Operations deal with excavation as one thing executed with backhoes, bulldozers, troops with shovels to create particular person combating positions and cut-and-cover bunkers. Replace it.
- The Air Pressure must do the identical with AFDP 3-10, AFDP 3-0.1 (Pressure Safety and AFTTP 3-32.34v3, AFH 10-222, Quantity 14 and UFC 3-340-02
- We have to consider pressure and infrastructure safety not piecemeal however holistically
- A part of any weapons programs requirement and finances ought to now embody safety and survivability
- Safety and survivability needs to be deployed concurrently with weapons programs
• We want a Complete of Nation strategy to safety and survivability for each the pressure and important infrastructure
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