A Response by Eric Chewning
In reaction to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger postulated a thought experiment about a cat with a Geiger counter and a bit of poison in a sealed box. Quantum mechanics says that, after a while, the cat is both alive and dead. But a person looking into the box will either find the cat alive or dead. Therefore, before looking into the box, we need to assume the cat to be both living and deceased.
This morbid duality is also present in defense modernization. The Department of Defense is continually transitioning defense technology into a legacy force. But you will not truly know if that force is sufficiently animated until the box is opened and the fighting starts.
Once the conflict begins, we often find that our assumptions about the optimal future investments are “dead cats.” Recall the US Army’s Force XXI planning and its emphasis on the Future Combat System (FCS) in the early 2000s. Central assumptions around the value of information superiority, the need to trade force protection for mobility, and warfighting concepts focused on stand-off engagements crumbled in the streets of Baghdad as urban close combat reinforced the centrality of armor. As a result, the Army canceled FCS, rushed billions of dollars to rapidly upgrade legacy Abrams MBTs and Bradley IFVs, and added armor to new Stryker vehicles.
But sometimes, the cat is alive. Look at the Patriot missile system, a franchise first introduced 40 years ago and subsequently evolved through spiral development. It is now unexpectedly intercepting Russian hypersonic missiles over Ukraine.
The challenge is: if we open a box with a dead cat, how do we bring it back to life?
As Mr. Walker rightly points out, our operational planning and defense industrial base realities are not sufficiently linked. Central assumptions around force planning, the challenge of simultaneous large-scale conflicts, and current capability versus capacity considerations are likely to be “dead cats” in a conflict with China.
As Mr. Fata smartly illustrates, one way to revive the situation is to take a page from Ukraine’s playbook and infuse legacy systems with new enabling technologies.
What I submit is that, to invigorate defense modernization, we need to better connect and stimulate four systems organic to the military-industrial ecosystem: concepts of operations, technology, funding, and acquisition.
Concept of operations (CONOPS): CONOPS are how the force fights. They serve as an organizing principle for the Services in executing their Title X obligations to main, train, and equip the armed services. CONOPS will vary by warfighting domain—space, air, land, sea, cyber—and need to enable warfighting across domains.
Technology: Technology and CONOPS enjoy a push-pull dynamic and are refined through experimentation. In one sense, technology informs CONOPS by demonstrating the “art of the possible.” In another sense, CONOPS drives technology development by setting out aspirational requirements for industry to invest to meet. This tension also resides in the defense industrial base. Often emerging “defense tech” startups or commercial players emphasize the “push” dynamic as their business models are product-driven and increasingly software centric. In comparison, legacy defense companies tend to look for the “pull” of requirements from their DOD customers.
Funding: Money is how DOD and Congress signal capability demand to industry. As a result, it dictates industry size and informs industry structure for a given capability. It also determines the rate of capability development and the scale of technology transition to the force as well as the overall size of the force.
Acquisition: This is how DOD buys. Choices around elements like program competition, intellectual property rights, and contracting method all influence who participates in the defense industry. In addition to being a barrier to industry entry, the amount of bureaucratic process can also drive acquisition timelines. The combination of funding and acquisition determines industry structure. For example, back in 1995, the United States was producing 4 (attack) +1 (boomer) submarines across its two nuclear shipyards. Then came a “Peace Dividend” procurement holiday that caused the engineering talent to leave, trade workforce to exit, suppliers to shut down operations, and shipyards to restructure to a co-production model. Now as the industry moves to re-ramp, it is slowly making progress towards a 2+1 cadence.
In other areas of the industrial base, if funding levels are low and the acquisition approach does not support the business models of non-traditional defense companies, then industry structure will not change.
Connecting these military-industrial systems is not easy. Each resides within a combination of bureaucratic actors: Congress (authorizers and appropriators), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Combatant Commands, and the Military Services. If one system is not connected to the others, the whole arrangement fails. The best technology and CONOP will not move forward without sufficient funding. Lots of funding against poor technology or a bad CONOP will not succeed on the battlefield. An acquisition approach that cannot deliver capability at the speed of relevance is useless.
Ultimately, our ability to transition defense technology requires active leadership by Congress and DOD within and across each system as well as a recognition that acquisition reform needs to continue and accelerate; that funding levels need to be maintained; and that technology-CONOPS experimentation needs to not only continue but to also move capability into full rate production faster.
Like Schrodinger’s Cat, we will not know if our military is sufficiently modernized for the next conflict until the box of war is opened. But we increase the odds it will be (or that we can resuscitate it), if we better connect CONOPS, technology, funding, and acquisition approaches.
