US military is getting serious about innovation; we better keep up

Pentagon launches its third offset strategy

On 15 Nov, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel launched the Defense Innovation Initiative (DII; link to memo; link to speech). In his memo initiating DII, Hagel described it as a “broad, Department-wide initiative to pursue innovative ways to sustain and advance our military superiority for the 21st Century and improve business operations throughout the Department.” He went on to say that “American dominance in key warfighting domains is eroding, and we must find new and creative ways to sustain, and in some areas expand, our advantages even as we deal with more limited resources.”

In particular, the memo noted that while the US had been fighting two land wars, potential adversaries had been busy “modernizing their militaries, developing and proliferating disruptive capabilities across the military spectrum”, a clear reference to Russia’s ambiguous/hybrid warfare in the Ukraine, China’s anti-access / area denial capabilities, and even offensive cyber capabilities. Michael C. Horowitz, senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, adds that proliferation of advanced weapons beyond traditional opponents is another critical factor.

DII recognises that US technological supremacy, which we have taken for granted for thirty years, hangs in the balance. More chillingly, Pete Newell, who ran the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) and is now managing partner at BMNT, argues that technological dominance is a temporary state, and that the key question is how fast we can change once the fight starts. It boils down to the human capital system that drives technological innovation.

DII is colloquially known as the third offset strategy, a concept which requires some explanation for non-US audiences. In his speech announcing the launch of DII, Hagel detailed the first two offset strategies, which sought to “offset” superior Soviet mass first with nuclear weapons and then with precision munitions:

We’ve accomplished this before. In the 1950s [in the first offset strategy], President Eisenhower successfully offset the Soviet Union’s conventional superiority through his New Look build-up of America’s nuclear deterrent. In the 1970s [in the second offset strategy], Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, working closely with Undersecretary — and future Defense Secretary — Bill Perry, shepherded their own offset strategy, establishing the Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program that helped develop and field revolutionary new systems, such as extended-range precision-guided munitions, stealth aircraft, and new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms.

Offset strategies are not just about hardware. The second offset strategy in particular was underpinned by AirLand Battle and maneuver warefare. The importance of ideas is reflected in DII’s five particular areas of focus:

• Leadership development
• Breakthrough technologies
• Wargaming
• Operational concepts
• Business practices

In his speech, Hagel added some detail to the DII plan:

Our technology effort will establish a new Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program that will help identify, develop, and field breakthroughs in the most cutting-edge technologies and systems — especially from the fields of robotics, autonomous systems, miniaturization, big data, and advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing. This program will look toward the next decade and beyond.

In the near-term, it will invite some of the brightest minds from inside and outside government to start with a clean sheet of paper, and assess what technologies and systems DoD ought to develop over the next three to five years and beyond.

In a prior speech he outlined four very concrete objectives:

• More use of modular and open systems architectures
• Providing industry with draft requirements earlier
• Removing obstacles to procuring commercial items
• Improving our technology search and outreach in global markets

The third offset builds on work already under way

Nine days after he launched the third offset, Hagel was fired by President Obama. Nonetheless, the preliminary indications are that DII will survive his departure, as the policy’s chief architect Bob Work will remain in post.

DII itself is nonetheless clearly at a relatively early stage. The ideas listed by Hagel in his speech are all over the place (e.g. 3D printing, robots, business practices and leadership). This is unavoidable. The second offset benefited from an elegantly simple problem (Soviet mass in Europe), whereas Pentagon planners now face a dizzying array of threats. Getting the question right will be crucial (time to call in strategy’s strategist?).

Fortunately the US is not starting from scratch. Scholars and experts have been discussing the topic for some time. Examples include Ben FitzGerald at the Center for a New American Security, the “Beyond Offset” series on War on the Rocks, and discussions on The Bridge, in addition to Work’s efforts.

Technology Domain Awareness and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum are good examples of both top-down and bottom-up efforts very much in the spirit of the third offset.

Technology Domain Awareness (TDA). TDA is an initiative launched by Jay Harrison at the Center for Smart Defense. TDA supports Chris Zember, director of the DoD Information Analysis Centers. Zember argues that defence R&D spending is now just a few percent of the global total, compared with more than 50% in defence’s heyday. This has inspired TDA’s goal of understanding the “technology commons” — “those areas where global leadership in technology development and application are increasingly spread across multiple nations and non-state interests.” In other words, bringing commercial technology into the military.

Zember also argues that this process will not be easy. SCHAFT, a Japanse company, won the DARPA Robotics Challenge in 2013 (video). Boston Dynamics has also received DARPA funding for its Atlas robot (video). Both companies were bought by Google, which says it will not pursue defence projects, due to concerns about slow procurement and IP.

Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF). DEF, founded by US Navy pilot Ben Kohlman, is an independent group of defence leaders seeking to foster the adaption and innovation. DEF is very much focused on the people side of innovation: creating an enduring culture of innovation that empowers lower level leaders to be bold in advocating for change. “Technology is good, but people are better,” says Kohlman. DEF’s agenda includes both disruptive ideas and disruptive technologies, and its membership is equally happy discussing defence iPhone apps and changes to Pentagon personnel policies. The Ghetto Colonel is referenced often.

Message for the UK: get with the programme

The implication for the UK is simple: a paradigm shift is coming and we better get ready to adapt. As described above, the third offset strategy does not require spending huge sums on integrated weapons platforms. It is about harvesting disruptive technologies and new ways of thinking to neutralise emerging threats and, in a sense, preserve the global status quo. Small technologies and better ideas.

This should play to the UK’s strengths. The UK arguably has the most dynamic economy outside of the US, with a nascent renaissance in advanced manufacturing and of course the Silicon Roundabout. As a marketplace for ideas the UK is unrivalled.

Of course challenges are many. Most obviously, British defence spending is falling, to the extent we long ago moved from fat to muscle to bone. Further, a key plank of the second offset strategy was counter-proliferation of advanced technology, and today’s more interconnected world this could well mean the Pentagon guards its secrets even more jealously.

More serious is the question of whether the UK military and its procurement apparatus can think its way into the third offset. Certainly Jonathan Shaw is not optimistic. Next to the intellectual power of General Petraeus’s counter-insurgency strategy and General Keane’s surge, the UK has demonstrated very little strategic creativity since 9/11. And a satirist could not possibly dream up a better symbol of outdated thinking than a pair of massive, new Queen-Elizabeth-class carriers with no planes to put on them (the first sea lord’s use of the term “snatch frigates” comes a close second).

Where and who will the UK’s third offset thinking come from?