President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
A nation’s political and military leaders must objectively seek out and use history's lessons as guideposts, capturing and applying lessons learned from the most repeated, catastrophic missteps of others to remain adaptable to future warfare's most probable scenarios. History matters more in avoiding past catastrophes than predicting specific events years into the future.
In Mars Adapting, Frank Hoffman studies bottom-up adaptation through the lens of organizational learning theory to explain its dynamics. This theory states that business organizations must continuously evaluate their performance in a competitive and shifting environment to prosper and even survive. Hoffman states that this notion applies to militaries during wartime as they seek to gain an advantage over their adversaries.
The U.S. Air Force must prioritize leadership follow-up and engagement and organizational ownership of innovative solutions to show airmen that their ideas can be implemented. Not every idea should be enacted, but of the projects vetted and nominated by major commands and selected by Headquarters Air Force, the majority should be. This focus on implementation with the solutions recommended above will achieve and accelerate change to ensure the Air Force remains the dominant force America needs it to be in the years to come.
The following interview is a collaboration between Dr. Lori Lyn Bogle and two of her students, Midshipman Lucas Almas and Midshipman Jacob Kinnear, and historian Scott Mobley from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Dr. Mobley’s recent groundbreaking book, Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898 is of special interest to current midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy and illuminates the complicated cultural shift in the officer corps as the service transformed from sail to steam following the Civil War that persists to this day.
Srivastava provides an excellent work on the legal and policy challenges American companies face if they want to innovate in the national security environment, but she does not offer a compelling vision for improving the situation. Anyone who wishes to improve this situation will need a solution and the support of a movement that is good for Congress, good for business, good for the defense and national security customers, and good for innovators. And that is the conundrum of innovating for national security.
Israel faces a challenge it has so far proven unable to solve. After successfully innovating against powerful conventional enemies, it has struggled to utilize its numerical and technological advantages against violent non-state organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. While the Israel Defense Force continues to develop new methods and weaponry, it does not revisit the value it places on the development of platforms, led by the services.
The United States Air Force is in an arms race. Decades of dominance have allowed the force to slip into complacency, while near-peer adversaries have quietly developed capabilities to contest U.S. power across all domains. To re-assert America’s military primacy, the U.S. Air Force needs to transform vague buzzwords like lethality, agility, and innovation into a focused mission, using the department’s substantial resources to create an Air Force that can and will win.
China’s national strategy of military-civil fusion is provoking some anxiety in Washington. There are concerns the United States could be challenged, or even outright disadvantaged, in technological competition relative to the more integrated approach to innovation Chinese leaders are attempting to achieve. It is important to recognize both the parallels and distinctions between American and Chinese concepts and approaches that can clarify the character of this competitive challenge.
The degree of which humans can control the physical space will always be constrained by physics. However, the creative thinking that derives energy from the chaos of war to turn chance into opportunity is not bounded. The success of maneuver warfare is less dependent on the tools available, and more dependent on the creation of new ways to generate and exploit of tactical effects given all the tools available. Unsurprisingly, the major pivotal successes of the application battlespace technology have been the results of ingenious warfighting techniques that maximize the benefits of technological tools.
Art is what allows America to create extraordinary futures out of chaos. And art, once again, will allow America to achieve policy and military success out of science. America embraces and disciplines chaos to create strength and power. For “liberty is power,” John Quincy Adams said. “The nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.” An artist who begins with a vision and nurtures and disciplines the power of chaos with a lightness of being and a firmness of mind, will be rewarded with the surprise of creating something that exceeds his or her original vision at the end.
Weinberger’s history of DARPA is an enthralling read and especially recommended for professionals in acquisition or research areas. It should appeal far beyond the defense community, it is perhaps the best institutional case study in innovation management and adaptive organizational design available.
The essence of war is a competitive reciprocal relationship with an adversary possessing the capacity to make choices in battle. It is impossible to anticipate and predict with precision the contours of all future conflicts and the opponent’s strategy and discrete choices on the battlefield. Recognizing the need to adapt and implement the requisite changes is therefore inherent to the nature of war. The clash of arms is, therefore, also a competition in cycles of learning, reaction, or counteraction. The side that reacts best, and perhaps faster, increases their chances of success.
