Today's Army is transitioning its warfighting focus from superiority of technology and industry to information dominance. If the Army's smoke generating organizations are going to remain viable, they must enhance the joint force's ability to win in future warfare. They must be able to achieve electromagnetic spectrum supremacy and meet the needs of the twenty-first century joint force throughout the range of conflict. This twenty first century obscurant capability must be able to defeat and/or control reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) sensors and targets at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. I present a comparison of the twenty-first century maneuver force smoke/obscurant requirements and point out where the Chemical Corps needs to take further action to fill shortfalls in all twenty-first century operational requirements. This study investigates whether Army smoke generating units will remain a vital asset or become a liability to the twenty-first century joint force. It also suggests obscurant mission changes throughout the spectrum of conflict on the future battlefield. My presentation is relevant to the following topics: camouflage, concealment, countermeasures, deception, operational uses, smoke systems and materials, information operations, OPSEC, protection, multispectral obcurants, sensors, future, smoke, obscurants, and command and control weapons (C2W) attack and protection.

This thesis presents a concept for a near-future application of an integrated land-, air-, and space-based system of sensors, detectors, and analysis to provide critical immediate warning, reporting, and situational updates of NBC attacks. It shows how much more efficient and effective this concept is as compared to the United States' current system of independent detectors and sensors operating separately at the various levels of command and control. Ultimately, it describes a concept that has a greater potential to achieve the United States' objective of convincing our enemies that NBC weapons will be ineffective against us. The U.S. Counter-Proliferation Initiative is the overarching strategy for countering the WMD threat. It focuses on prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, deterrence of their use, and defense measures countering use. While these three arms of the Counter-Proliferation Initiative currently exist in separate operational bodies, they have yet to be linked in a way that will combine and, consequently, strengthen their efforts. What they lack is a system that allows all three elements of this initiative to operate simultaneously and synergistically to nullify the risk or loss of personnel and material from weapons of mass destruction usage. This thesis presents a concept to achieve this critically needed synergy.