Posted on 10/12/2020 6:39:04 AM PDT by AndyJackson
Read full article at CNAS
Some highlights:
The U.S. military is at a high-stakes inflection point: it must take a series of much bigger and bolder steps to keep its military-technological edge over great power competitors such as China, or it could lose that edge within the decade...
this conceptual shift toward great power competition has not been matched by a requisite re-alignment of concepts, culture, and service programs and budgets. The DoD is talking a far better game than it is actually playing. The proverbial clock is ticking, and while the Pentagon and Congress continue to make changes largely at the margins, China is making serious investments to rapidly close the military-technological gap....
Chinas theory of victory increasingly relies on the notion of system destruction warfare: crippling an adversarys networks at the outset of conflict by deploying sophisticated electronic warfare, counter-space, and cyber capabilities to disrupt critical C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) networks, thwart U.S. power projection, and undermine American resolve.....
Innovationin this case, the art of gaining competitive advantage by leveraging new concepts and technologies to transform how the U.S. military operateshas long been a hallmark of the U.S. armed forces...
In [recent years] the number of self-described innovation hubs in DoD has grown substantially, ranging from long-standing organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the service research labs to newer organizations, for example Army Futures Command; the Air Forces AFWERX, Kessel Run, and Platform One; Special Operations Commands (SOCOMs) SOFWERX; the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN); Naval-X; and the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). Beyond creating a veritable alphabet soup of new organizations, this proliferation has increased DoDs ability to survey the technology landscape, including non-traditional companies; to identify potentially promising solutions to priority problems; and then to rapidly develop prototypes of new capabilities. However, this expanding set of organizations has not yielded the results DoD so urgently needsmore rapid fielding, at scale, of the critical capabilities that will give U.S. operators the edge to deter and, if necessary, defeat aggression by another great power. The proliferation of innovation organizations suggests that DoD does not have an innovation problem; rather, it has an innovation adoption problem. The supply of innovation opportunities is increasing, but the demand is not keeping pace because of bureaucratic and cultural barriers to reducing investments in old technologies and concepts.[YES!!!!- this is the rentseeking deepstate at work]
....concept development efforts are... not adequately supported with the necessary robust analysis, wargaming, and particularly field experimentation. These activities are essential for testing, refining, and integrating new concepts into the force, as well as for determining the key technological enablers that will be essential to operationalize the concepts over the next decade and beyond. The departments analytic, simulation, and experimentation tools and activities are simply not keeping pace with the changing threat environment. Far more analysis, anchored by experimentation at scale, is desperately needed so that novel operational concepts can be analyzed and tested in realistic scenarios.
.....Some in Congress do not want to buy these systems until the services can better articulate requirements and concepts of employments, a process. designed to ensure that a DoD customer has fully specified its needs when purchasing large complex platforms and weapon systems. [T]his often years-long process has certainly contributed to reducing technical, schedule, and cost risks in some major defense acquisition programs [Nonsense. The F-35!!! which was way over cost and way over schedule and may not actually meet needs]. But when it comes to developing urgently needed disruptive capabilities, this rigid, sequential process often runs counter to the sort of iterative, agile development that is more appropriate for emerging capabilities such as AI, autonomy, and other software-driven innovations.
Time to continue to drain the swamp!
This is true!
Neither Ford nor the Wright Brothers tried everything. They settled on a plausible option using available or foreseeably developable and pursued improvements until it worked.
Skunkworks did not pursue all conceptual aerospace options. It pursued the development of advanced aircraft building on projections from known capabilities.
Typical focus on technology rather than discipline and fighting spirit.
I think I know of a chink in the CCP armor:
Reverse infiltration! They’ve sent us a slew of their own to infiltrate our industrial and university system. We should recruit a dozen or so of them who have come to adore America and detest China. Then we send them back to ensconce themselves into key positions back in China, thereby to be sleeper saboteurs to deploy at key moments of conflict.
So, lets look at the past year this way. China creates a virus. Then they start work on a vaccine. They let the virus go. They make sure that several students living abroad get it, while home for Christmas break. They make sure that every tanker and cruise ship has been infected. Then after both are done, they admit they have a virus. They give the vaccine, not to the people of Wuhan, but to the people in surrounding towns. Gradually, in the normal flu shots, a large number of Chinese get the vaccine. The army is completely vaccinated. And that’s when they start skirmishes with every one of their neighbors. Assuming that the neighboring countries are fighting the virus as well as the Chinese, they will give in to China or lose to China. They eventually offer to sell their vaccine to their friends.
And lets say that this is one of numerous virus’ they have in their labs. And one of numerous vaccines. They now know how fast we can counter one of their virus’. They can wait and decide when to let lose the really deadly one. This one wasn’t so bad. This was just a test. They wanted to see how we would handle it. They also wanted to know how well they would handle it. I contend that this was not an accident, it was a test. And there are more virus’ behind this one.
I concur. This is new face of Asymmetric warfare.
When they take out our satellites and keep our carriers from getting anywhere near Taiwan, Taiwan is their’s for the taking. You can stand naked on the shore of Cali waving your spear with all the fighting spirit you want, but technology matters. We proved that in taking down Iraq twice.
We have millions of good Chinese Americans who fled China and want nothing to do with the CCP. I presume we get more every day of very good very smart very hard working people who enjoy the freedoms that the Marxo-fascist democrats want to give up.
If they left any family behind in China then the CCP has some control over them.
“Reverse infiltration!”
Good idea.....except it’s been happening for over two hundred years here only because that’s basically how old we are. There is nothing sacred about all of the countries out there to include our own. And espionage has been in existence since before Christ. How do you think they got him? The only thing we, and a whole bunch of other nations did, was improve the capacity of it. And whoever has the most toys at the end, wins...kinda.
rwood
America closes immigration door to 91.9 million communists in ChinaWhy not all Chinese? Anyone of them, regardless of their better intentions is subject to ummm, pressure, applied by the threat of or actual overt harm to their family members back in the old country.
"Say, it turns out your mother is a near exact tissue match to a polit bureau member who needs a new heart, we can keep looking for a better match if you do this one little thing for us..."
Thanks to a previous administration exposing US agents (who promptly were rounded up and executed) no rational person would ever trust the US with their lives.
The damage to US intelligence capabilities will last for generations, as intended.
When they take out our satellites and keep our carriers from getting anywhere near Taiwan, Taiwan is theirs for the taking. You can stand naked on the shore of Cali waving your spear with all the fighting spirit you want, but technology matters. We proved that in taking down Iraq twice.
******
When you are fighting a real war against a real enemy that can match your technology and numbers, rather than a tiny country like Iraq, victory will go to the army with discipline and fighting spirit, not the one with the most transgenders and females.
Army is going to do real well in the South China Sea. This is an air and sea and space battle.
Waving your spear
Yes, but it is a large spear.
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