Innovations & technologies

MOBILE NUCLEAR POWER WILL ENABLE A LOGISTICS REVOLUTION FOR THE ARMY

In today’s wars, the United States has again learned that a long logistical “tail” creates vulnerabilities that its adversaries are able to exploit. Insurgents in Iraq perfected the art of the improvised explosive device attack against American and allied forces. Future adversaries will certainly also concentrate their attacks on fuel supplies as they know that America’s military needs energy to fight effectively.

And this energy demand will only grow. The Army of the future will require far more power even than today’s Army. Directed-energy weapons, electromagnetic rail guns, electric vehicles, drones, and soldiers connected into a secure communications network will all require electric power. As an earlier War on the Rocks article showed, modern ground attack jets use more aviation fuel than propeller planes to do the same mission. There’s even talk that the successor vehicles to the Army’s tanks could be battery-electric powered. These weapons platforms promise an enhanced ability to protect the force and take the fight to the enemy even as they require more power. On the battlefield, energy and technology act as “force multipliers” that allow American soldiers to be more lethal and less vulnerable.

While weapons systems and information technology have revolutionized the battlefield, the military relies on the same petroleum-based liquid fuel system, delivered by pipelines, trucks, and ships, that Eisenhower was forced to rely on in 1944. These limitations on the military were most notably recognized by Gen. Mattis after his 2003 run to Baghdad, when he declared, “unleash us from the tether of fuel.”