Is speed transformational? It depends—the speed of what? An airplane? A ship? An electronic message authorizing a strike on a time-sensitive target? Another thing it depends on is what we mean by defense transformation. According to the Department of Defense, transformation is a process that shapes the future "by accomplishing military missions that were previously unimaginable or impossible except at prohibitive risk and cost." So transformation is about mission accomplishment. Speed might help accomplish a certain mission. Then again, it might not.
Speed is a relative thing. What might be important when determining if a military capability is transformational is not speed as an absolute measure, but a demonstration that the process involved is completed before the adversary can accomplish something similar. John Boyd's "OODA loop" (observe, orient, decide, act) did not mandate speed, but it did require that a fighter pilot (or any decision maker) act inside the decision-making process of his opponent. For that matter, Boyd's convincing record of air-to-air victories relied more on energy conservation and maneuver than on speed. Nathan Bedford Forrest's admonition that we get there "fustest with the mostest" implied a similar sense of relativity.
Nevertheless, we hear a great deal these days about how some new platform is transformational owing principally to its speed: the littoral combat ship features a propulsion system that will enable the ship to operate at economic loiter speeds and to conduct high-speed sprints of 50 knots or more; the Air Force argues the F/A-22's combination of stealth, supercruise, high maneuverability, and advanced avionics makes it a "transformational system par excellence"; and the Navy supports the maritime prepositioned force (future) ship because she will provide speed for delivering Marine Corps units.
"Speed matters," says Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark. "What I've come to believe is that speed will be more important in the battlespace in the future than it ever has been in the past." Speed for speed's sake, however, likely will fall short of transformational expectations. If a surface warship in the littorals is attacked by an antiship cruise missile traveling at Mach 6, it makes no difference whether that ship is traveling at 2, 20, or even 200 knots.
Speed is not bad. The relative factor of speed, however, must be considered and traded, as necessary, to accomplish the mission most effectively. In the design and production of both the Seawolf (SSN-21)- and Virginia (SSN-773)-class nuclear attack submarines, for example, much intellectual capital and industrial expertise were committed to providing both platforms with an extremely high tactical speed (the maximum speed at which there is no significant loss of an acoustic advantage over an opponent). When it became apparent, however, that the Seawolf, with all her many technological advantages, was just too expensive, the less costly Virginia class was quick to trade off top-end speed (but not one decibel of quietness) for dollars.
Speed of command and speed of decision are positive factors, and lie at the heart of the OODA loop. They were central to German General Heinz Guderian's panzer rush across France in 1940 and to Army General Tommy Frank's march to Baghdad in 2003. Even there, however, speed can go past the point of diminishing returns. Many a road kill is attributable to the dead squirrel having had an OODA loop associated with an evasion strategy better matched to the threat of a fox than to that of a Buick.
Be it a measure of physical characteristics or battle management, speed for speed's sake is not necessarily a desirable (or transformational) trait. The B-2 bomber would be less effective at Mach 1.5, and the F-15 fighter probably doubled its acquisition cost to achieve "required," but operationally nearly useless, top speeds. Guderian would not have made it across France in a month if his Third Reich bosses had had a perfect and immediate common operational picture. As there is a best submarine speed for transit versus search, there is a best quantity and quickness of streaming information and knowledge from sensors to deciders and shooters. The designers of modern battle management command-and-control systems have some considerable sorting to do to figure out who in the battle space needs what information at what time-and how to get it there. For the time being, it might be best to accept the relative goodness of a common operational picture-while having all nodes in the system recognize that it is common, and not necessarily current, comprehensive, or even correct.
As the Beach Boys sang about their idyllic Kokomo, "We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow." Now that is transformational.
Captain Patton is a 1960 graduate of the Naval Academy and a frequent contributor to Proceedings. He served on seven nuclear submarines, commanding the Pargo (SSN-650). He is the founder and president of Submarine Tactics and Technology, Inc., in North Stonington, Connecticut.