The Pentagon’s ‘Smart’ Revolution

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Commentary Magazine: The Pentagon’s ‘Smart’ Revolution

Faster, smaller, cheaper: The story of the ‘Third Offset’

ARTHUR HERMAN /

 

JUNE 16, 2016

It is September 2025. As tensions between the United States and Iran reach a crisis, a U.S. Navy carrier and two AEGIS-class destroyers are escorting Saudi oil tankers through the Hormuz Straits. Suddenly a dozen remote-controlled Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps speedboats roar into view, each armed with 2,000 kgs of deadly explosives, and begin wildly weaving around and circling the American escort vessels. But before they close in and detonate their charges, each of the IRGC speedboats goes up in an explosion of steel and sea foam.

 

How? Scores of small self-guided sea mines, each less than a foot long, had been released by a nearby U.S. submarine to track the movements of the Iranian vessels. Using their artificial-intelligence-enhanced sensors, these seagoing drones were able to predict the direction and speed of each boat’s evasive maneuvers. And when the Iranian craft moved in too close for comfort, the drones swarmed, attached themselves to the hulls of the Iranian ships, and, at the push of a button by their operator on board the submarine, blew up the boats almost simultaneously.