Earlier this week on another venue, I asked, “Are we a learning institution?” We talk about being one, but do we act like one? Or with apologies to Talleyrand, do we instead act more like the Bourbon monarchy in France where we, “… had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”?
Readers of USNIBlog are familiar with the Age of Transformationalism in the early 2000s. We’ve discussed it here often, and those still serving are struggling with its errors, most notable the byproducts of compounded technology and program risk that manifested themselves in LCS, DDG-1000 and the FORD CVN. There are other examples, but those are the highlights.
One of the driving ideas behind the Age of Transformationalism was that all was new. We had to leverage our superior (self-assigned) abilities to leapfrog generations over any opponent, offsetting their numbers with our greater technological advantage (which we already enjoyed).
The executive summary of the results? We failed. Either programs were cancelled altogether, DDG-1000 and CG(X), or were midwifed along hoping that some combination of Sailor sweat and seabags of money would fix them, i.e. LCS.
The Age of Transformationalism was seductive. Not only were we able to say that we were smarter and better than generations before us, we could snort at their accomplishments – either PERRY FFG or SPRUANCE DD etc – while enjoying everyone and their funding lines backing up our shiny and chrome Tomorrowland. Either it would happen as we promised – at which point we will be hailed as visionaries – or it wouldn’t work on someone else’s watch four or more PCS cycles down the road.
Well, it seems others want to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
I have to supply a firm, “non-concur” on the neo-transformationalist proposals by General Charles Q Brown Jr., USAF and General David H. Berger, USMC as put out earlier this month in The Washington Post.
It starts with a reasonable point summarizing their takeaway from the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
The U.S. military no longer enjoyed global primacy, and to remain competitive, needed to make fundamental changes.
There are a lot of disconnects and blinkered views that follow. While I am open to new ways to measure readiness – nothing in perfect – this line brought up a red flag.
But what about units that must fight in tomorrow’s conflicts? While this short-term and narrow view of readiness may have been appropriate for an earlier era, when America’s military capabilities far exceeded those of our adversaries, it is poorly suited to an environment characterized by great power competition.
No. During the Cold War – no 20/20 hindsight allowed here – our readiness system was not dramatically different than it is now – nor were our views of weapons to fight with tomorrow. The Reagan Era “Maritime Strategy” did not assume our military capabilities “far exceeded those of our adversaries” and the Soviet Union was unquestionably a “great power.”
I’m sorry, but that claim is simply not fully supported by historical facts in living memory. Generals Brown and Berger – along with your humble blogger – were all company grade or young field grade officers at the height and end of the Cold War. This is all well within living memory.
Another aspect of the Age of Transformationalism was an assumption that those making decisions knew the future. They didn’t and we don’t now. No one does … that is why you hedge. You fail when you assume otherwise.
…readiness … should focus less on near-term availability and more on future capability and warfighting advantage over peer adversaries.
Stop. Define your terms. How do you define “near-term availability?” Do we think we can tell the world to head out to 10 DME and hold indefinitely while we build a military we expect them to conform our expectations? The next big war will come, it is just no one knows when. It could come in 2022 as likely as 2052. It may or may not involve the Communist government in China. What is the net risk to not being ready to fight a war that may be here in 2022 because we would prefer to fight in 2052? That is a risk that history tells us is not worth taking. Ever.
…we recommend adding to readiness metrics new layers of analysis utilizing artificial intelligence to leverage the military’s data-rich environment.
Again, define your terms. Just saying “artificial intelligence” is not pixie dust you can use to cover gaps. It is not a secret sauce that makes everything fine. Define it and what it will do. An excel spreadsheet is AI … if you define it as such. Algorithms that drive stock trades can be as well. A Hellfire seeker head is. What AI are we talking about here, what are its variables, and who is doing the programming?
Our primary function as service chiefs is to organize, train and equip our forces for employment. We owe the combatant commanders who use these forces the capabilities that produce a warfighting advantage now and into the future, not simply greater quantities of existing equipment unsuited to competition or conflict with great powers.
OK, what do we have right now – and have been buying for awhile – that is not suited to fighting Communist China? Let’s call “great power” for who it is – the People’s Republic of China. Russia is a strong regional power, not a great power in a conventional sense. The threat posed by the PRC has been clear to everyone for over 15 years. Longer for the smarter thinkers amongst us. Are Brown and Berger implying here that we have been doing nothing to face this threat? If so, we need names and examples to give us the who and why so we can ask them exactly what they have been spending the taxpayers money on.
Achieving this goal will require accelerating investments in capabilities, including hypersonic weapons; AI-enabled remotely piloted aircraft; long-range penetrating strike; truly joint all-domain command and control; unmanned, low-cost, expendable ground, surface and air vehicles; long-range mobile ground-launched missiles; and better integrated air and missile defenses.
These are great things we need to develop and employ. When do they expect will be the IOC for these systems? FOC? Will they be useful for the fight in 2022? What about 2025? 2030? How much are you willing to risk losing the fight in those years because the world wasn’t interested in aligning with our desired timeline?
And of course, they had to use the “t” word, as if to make my point.
To be clear, we do not suggest merely cutting funds for near-term readiness and legacy capacity, but rather redirecting savings toward transformative modernization as part of our proposed new readiness framework and consistent with larger future force design models.
We’ve seen this movie. They almost said, “this time it will be different.” Almost.
We have a unique, but limited, window of opportunity.
Another conceit of the Age of Transformationalism makes a comeback. Nothing about today is “unique” and the “limited” is an appeal to emotion. If you are going to say “limited” you need to define that timeframe so we can have a reason based discussion as opposed to an emotional appeal derived from proclaimed esoteric knowledge. With DOD’s track record, that isn’t sufficient. There is no well of institutional capital remaining to draw from.
I understand that they are in a tough position. They now have the responsibility to fix the errors of previous generations of leaders who made this same bet. From the failure of the Army’s FCS, the premature closing of the F-22 line, and the previously mentioned Navy program failures – we had to fall back on “legacy” systems. We lost a generation by being too ambitious … flavored with a bit of arrogance.
Not all legacy systems are bad. That old black pen still works fine and does well. Sure, there are better pens, but we don’t throw that away halfway through the workday while we wait for a new model to show up … if it shows up. We use it to get the job done.
Yes, we need more modern systems – that is clear. What we cannot do is make the same mistakes of the past by looking for attractive short cuts. No, we have to do the hard work of evolutionary (not revolutionary) development for the future with our right hand, while with our left get ready for the fight that may come tomorrow.
