Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work has said the Defense Department‘s Third Offset Strategy seeks to bolster U.S. conventional deterrence and pursue new technologies and concepts to meet military superiority goals, DoD News reported Monday.
Cheryl Pellerin writes Work discussed the Pentagon’s plans to achieve military superiority alongside other defense leaders such as U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum.
Work noted the Strategic Capabilities Office established by Defense Secretary Ash Carter was a motivation to produce the third offset that has focused on the development of strategies to match or surpass “pacing competitors.”
“The pacing competitors — not adversaries — are Russia and China, because they’re developing advanced capabilities that potentially worry us … China and Russia now have theater-wide battle networks that are approaching parity with us,†Work noted.
Work added that competitors have invested a lot of money in counter-network operations as well as cyber and electronic warfare systems in a push to address the U.S. battle networks’ capacity.
“We have to experiment with the right tactics, techniques and procedures … and figure out how to offset this capability that all of our competitors are bringing to the conventional battle space, which is, in simple terms, long-range precision strike at volume in space, in cyber space, in the air, on land and at sea,” added Selva.
