National Defense Strategy | The Contracting Education Academy

April 12, 2019 By AMK

The National Defense Strategy: A compelling call for defense innovation

The National Defense Strategy tells the U.S. military – the Department of Defense – what kind of adversaries they should plan to face and how they should plan to use the armed forces.

The National Defense Strategy is the military’s “here’s what we’re going to do” to implement the executive branch’s National Security Strategy. The full version of the National Defense Strategy is classified; but the 10-page unclassified summary of this strategic guidance document for the U.S. Defense Department is worth a read.

Since 9/11 the U.S. military has focused on defeating non-nation states (ISIL, al-Qaeda, et al.) The new National Defense Strategy states that America needs to prepare for competition between major powers, calling out China and Russia explicitly as adversaries, (with China appearing to be the first.) Mattis said, “Our competitive advantage has eroded in every domain of warfare.”

While the National Defense Strategy recognizes the importance of new technologies, e.g. autonomous systems and artificial intelligence, the search is no longer for the holy grail of a technology offset strategy. Instead the focus is on global and rapid maneuver capabilities of smaller, dispersed units to “increase agility, speed, and resiliency … and deployment … in order to stand ready to fight and win the next conflict.” The goal is to make the military more “lethal, agile, and resilient.”

The man with a lot of fingerprints on this document is Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan. Shanahan came from Boeing, and his views on innovation make interesting reading.

People in government rarely make the case for taking more risk. Yet Shanahan said after the strategy was released, “Innovation is messy.” He added, “we’re going to have to get comfortable with people making mistakes.”

Keep reading this article at: https://warontherocks.com/2018/02/national-defense-strategy-compelling-call-defense-innovation/

April 10, 2019 By AMK

GAO: Revised analytic approach needed by DoD to support force structure decision-making

To adapt to growing threats, the Department of Defense (DoD) says it must urgently change.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at DoD’s process for providing senior leaders with the information they need to adjust the size and capabilities of the U.S. military to meet top defense priorities.

Senior leaders are not getting the information they need to make these important decisions.

In GAO’s March 14, 2019 report, they recommend addressing the following challenges:

It is difficult to develop a common “starting point” for force structure analysis.
The military services’ analyses largely supported the status quo.
There was no way to compare options and identify trade-offs across DoD.

The GAO finds that DoD’s analytic approach has not provided senior leaders with the support they need to evaluate and determine the force structure necessary to implement the National Defense Strategy. DoD’s analytic approach — Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA) — is used by the services to evaluate their force structure needs and develop their budgets. However, GAO found that SSA has been hindered by three interrelated challenges:

Products are cumbersome and inflexible. Although DoD guidance states that SSA products are to be common starting points for analysis on plausible threats, including threats identified in strategic guidance, DoD has not kept the products complete and up to date in part because they were highly detailed and complex and therefore cumbersome to develop and analyze.

Analysis does not significantly deviate from services’ programmed force structures or test key assumptions. Although DoD’s guidance states that SSA should facilitate a broad range of analysis exploring innovative approaches to mitigate threats identified in the strategy, the services generally have not conducted this type of analysis because guidance has not specifically required the services to do so.

DoD lacks joint analytic capabilities to assess force structure. Although DoD guidance states that SSA is intended to facilitate the comparison and evaluation of competing force structure options and cross-service tradeoffs, the department has not conducted this type of analysis because it lacks a body or process to do so.

GAO’s report notes:

DoD efforts to revise its analytic approach are in the early stages and have not yet identified solutions to these challenges. Moreover, DoD has attempted reforms in the past without success. Without a functioning analytic process that addresses the above challenges, senior leaders do not have the analytic support they need to prioritize force structure investments that would best manage risk and address the threats outlined in the National Defense Strategy.

See the GAO’s full report and recommendations here: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-385

March 21, 2019 By AMK

In acquisition, standing still is the biggest risk

The biggest risk in federal acquisition today is not taking enough risks.

Not reckless risks, but deliberate risks consistent with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 1 guidance.

The largest chunk of U.S. research and development spending, the most significant technological innovation, and its fastest evolution all reside in the private sector. And the private sector has little interest in slogging through the rule-burdened, prescriptive, intellectual-property-devouring federal procurement process. These facts are driving a tidal wave of change in government buying, especially in Defense organizations.

Here’s the January 2018 National Defense Strategy:

“We must not accept cumbersome approval chains, wasteful applications of resources in uncompetitive space, or overly risk-averse thinking that impedes change. Delivering performance means we will shed outdated management practices and structures while integrating insights from business innovation.”

Not only is the Pentagon challenged in attracting the most innovative companies in America’s most vibrant business sectors, but our adversaries—like Russia and China—have little acquisition oversight or regulation so they are beating us to the cutting edge.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2019/03/acquisition-standing-still-biggest-risk/155397

February 25, 2019 By AMK

Defense Department releases artificial intelligence strategy

On February 12, 2019 the Department of Defense (DoD) released a summary and supplementary fact sheet of its artificial intelligence strategy (AI Strategy).

The AI Strategy has been a couple of years in the making as the Trump administration has scrutinized the relative investments and advancements in artificial intelligence by the United States, its allies and partners, and potential strategic competitors such as China and Russia.

The animating concern was articulated in the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy (NDS): strategic competitors such as China and Russia has made investments in technological modernization, including artificial intelligence, and conventional military capability that is eroding U.S. military advantage and changing how we think about conventional deterrence. As the NDS states, “[t]he reemergence of long-term strategic competition, rapid dispersion of technologies” such as “advanced computing, “big data” analytics, artificial intelligence” and others will be necessary to “ensure we will be able to fight and win the wars of the future.”

The AI Strategy offers that “[t]he United States, together with its allies and partners, must adopt AI to maintain its strategic position, prevail on future battlefields, and safeguard [a free and open international] order. We will also seek to develop and use AI technologies in ways that advance security, peace, and stability in the long run. We will lead in the responsible use and development of AI by articulating our vision and guiding principles for using AI in a lawful and ethical manner.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2019/02/defense-department-releases-artificial-intelligence-strategy/

February 15, 2019 By AMK

Recruiting, faster tech acquisition are vital to maritime superiority

The U.S. Navy, which is graduating 40,000 trained recruits every year, “is the most talented Navy we have on record,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson says.

The service has met its recruiting goals for sailors every month for the past 12 years, he told an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Jan. 28th, “even though we can’t compete” with the private sector on salary. And the Navy “demands a lot,” Richardson added, citing requirements that recruits spend seven months at sea away from their families.

The incoming maritime aspirants also are drawn from a diverse talent pool because diversity is an “asymmetric advantage,” he said. “Diverse teams have been shown scientifically to be better” at collaboration, creativity and innovation. Recruiters will also tailor their pitches to candidates with differing goals in education, travel and family obligations.

Such moves to care for the “U.S. Navy team” are one of the components of the Navy’s newly revised “Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority,” released last month after Navy leaders updated a January 2016 version to reflect the President’s National Security Strategy and the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2019/01/recruiting-faster-tech-acquisition-are-vital-maritime-superiority-cno/154485

The National Defense Strategy tells the U.S. military – the Department of Defense – what kind of adversaries they should plan to face and how they should plan to use the armed forces.

To adapt to growing threats, the Department of Defense (DoD) says it must urgently change.

The biggest risk in federal acquisition today is not taking enough risks.

On February 12, 2019 the Department of Defense (DoD) released a summary and supplementary fact sheet of its artificial intelligence strategy (AI Strategy).

The U.S. Navy, which is graduating 40,000 trained recruits every year, “is the most talented Navy we have on record,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson says.

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