Photo By Warren Duffie | From left: Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered; Rear Adm....... read more read more
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ARLINGTON, Va.—Reflecting on the title of his speaking panel — “Turning the Titanic: Is the U.S. Military Innovating Enough?” — and the disaster metaphor it evoked, Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Lorin Selby offered the following thoughts on naval technology innovation:
“We know how that [Titanic] story ends and that’s not how we want this one to end,” he said. “We have two main things we need to do. First, maintain and modernize existing weapon systems we have today because they are effective and provide great deterrent value.
“However, I do see a future that’s going to be very different,” he continued. “I think it involves hundreds or thousands of smaller autonomous platforms and sensors. How do you transition between the two? You need to be ambidextrous and exploratory — looking for those technologies that can actually change the game and be disruptive.”
Selby gave his remarks on July 20, during the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. The annual three-day conference provides a non-partisan public venue for government officials, business executives, leading academics and noted journalists to discuss the most pressing national security and foreign policy challenges of our time.
The chief of naval research participated in a panel about technology innovation within the military. Selby’s fellow participant was Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and currently a partner in the venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, moderated the discussion.
Selby presented his vision for reimagining naval power — “the small, the agile and the many,” which involves small, unmanned, autonomous platforms that can be constructed, tested and adapted quickly; can be built in large numbers; and are less expensive than larger platforms. These air, surface and subsurface vehicles can be outfitted with a variety of sensors and payloads for diverse missions.
By being built relatively inexpensively, and in greater numbers, these platforms offer multiple advantages: (1) They can be deployed in unique formations to confound and confuse adversaries and (2) if they’re shot down or lost, American forces will have dozens, even thousands, of backups in place.
“In the military, we like to set requirements,” said Selby. “We need to become problem-focused. What problem does the warfighter have that we need to solve? Maybe that involves reaching out to industry and academia to see who’s got a solution and find ways to rapidly scale that to something we hand to a warfighter in months, not years.”
Selby believes the concept of “the small, the agile and the many” represents a viable Strategic Hedge for supporting the large and complex platforms making up the bulk of today’s force structure. He cited World War II as an example of the value of a Strategic Hedge.
Before Pearl Harbor, Navy strategists believed the battleship would be the nucleus of future naval warfare. Although large investments were made in the battleship fleet, there was, however, some investment in aircraft carriers and submarines as a Strategic Hedge. But after the attack — which destroyed or damaged many of America’s battleships — aircraft carriers and submarines proved their value, and that Strategic Hedge proved crucial to winning the war.
The panel discussion covered a variety of topics, including ways to improve the military acquisition process, using more commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology, and the war in Ukraine and how that conflict has presented new lessons in combat operations. Both Selby and Hoffman were impressed by how the Ukrainians are reportedly using commercial technology to fight, including GPS for intelligence gathering, cell phones for communications and drones for delivering blood and water.
“They’re using simple technologies to do logistics,” said Selby. “We need to look at this and become a fast follower. For some things, we don’t need to design it anymore. Let’s just buy it or contract it from the commercial sector. Industry often is going much faster than we are. We need to take advantage of that.”
To underscore this point, Selby highlighted SCOUT — an Office of Naval Research-sponsored, repeatable system for identifying alternative ways to bring unmanned technologies to problems, operationalize them and get them to scale. SCOUT is committed to getting nontraditional, COTS, government-developed and/or government-sponsored technologies to the fleet rapidly.
He also promoted the idea of an Experimentation Fleet Commander — a high-ranking officer tied into senior congressional and military leaders — who will lead a lean, well-resourced team to ensure ideas reach prototype status quickly; set up testing early and often; and get products to warfighters rapidly.
Selby helped close the discussion on an optimistic note:
“American innovation, collaborative spirit and the ability to share ideas openly and honestly give us the advantage that no one in the world can keep up with. That’s our secret power.”
Watch Selby’s appearance at the 2022 Aspen Security Forum at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCK3NykV1rY.
Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2022 12:28 |
| Story ID: | 425722 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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