From closed to open systems: How the US military services pursue innovation

ABSTRACT

The return to strategic competition affects the US military services differently, but all are contending with the challenge of renewing their military advantage against near-peer, technologically advanced competitors. Commercially driven innovation trends simultaneously challenge the way that the US military manages technology. This article traces the pursuits to institutionalise open innovation practices inside the services to incorporate emerging technologies into their envisaged competitive advantage. Rather than treating the US military as a monolithic entity, this article assesses how new service-level organisations differ in the ways and means they pursue innovation and seeks to explain why those differences persist.

KEYWORDS:

• Military innovation
• emerging technologies
• future warfare
• US military
• strategic competition

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the editors of this special issue – Michael Raska, Katarzyna Zysk, and Ian Bowers – as well as Henrik Paulsson, Maaike Verbruggen, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive remarks.

Disclosure statement

The author reported no potential conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Audrey Kurth Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists (Oxford: Oxford UP 2020), 23–25.

² Office of the Secretary of Defense, ‘National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge’, January 2018, 5.

³ Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists, 17–41.

⁴ Ibid., 19.

⁵ Tai Ming Cheung, ‘Innovation in China’s Defense Technology Base: Foreign Technology and Military Capabilities’, Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5–6 (2016), 729.

⁶ Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press 2003), 43, 51.

⁷ Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, 21-62; Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists, 19–20.

⁸ US Department of Defense, ‘Summary of the 2018 Department of Defense Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Harnessing AI to Advance our Security and Prosperity’, 12 February 2019, 9, https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/12/2002088963/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-DOD-AI-STRATEGY.PDF.

⁹ Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli, ‘Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage’, International Security 43/3 (Winter 2018/19), 159.

¹⁰ Daniel Fiott, ‘A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap’, Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 425–6; Satoru Mori, ‘US Defense Innovation and Artificial Intelligence’, Asia-Pacific Review 25/2 (2018), 16–44.

¹¹ Gilli and Gilli, ‘Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage’, 151.

¹² Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists, 19.

¹³ Many of these policies stem from different periods of military innovation, each shaped by unique concepts, processes, and debates. The point that this article attempts to make is that the bureaucracy now has to deal with the culmination of all of them, as it is easier to add new policies and regulations, than it is to remove existing ones. Elsewhere in this special issue, Michael Raska builds on the work of Colin Gray’s ‘waves’ of the Revolution in Military Affairs, which readers may refer to for a better understanding of the factors that shaped military innovation-relevant policies in these previous waves. See: Michael Raska, ‘The sixth RMA wave: Disruption in Military Affairs?’ Journal of Strategic Studies (2020), 1-24.

¹⁴ Shelby S. Oakley, ‘Defense Acquisitions Annual Assessment: Drive to Deliver Capabilities Faster Increases Importance of Program Knowledge and Consistent Data for Oversight’, Government Accountability Office, June 2020, 18, https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/707359.pdf.

¹⁵ Jacques Gansler, Democracy’s Arsenal: Creating a Twenty-First Century Defense Industry (Cambridge, MA: MIT UP 2011), 122–125.

¹⁶ Army Futures Command, ‘Command Brief Creating a New Culture of Innovation’, Command Brief, 14 March 2019, https://www.slideshare.net/TheNationalGuardBure/army-futures-command.

¹⁷ Gilli and Gilli, ‘Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage’, 151.

¹⁸ Noah M. Spataro, ‘FY2018 NIAC Consolidated Report: Lean Startup Approach to Capability Development: Evolving Small Batch Innovation for Dual-use Technologies’, Naval Innovation Advisory Council, 1 August 2018, 3.

¹⁹ John McCain, ‘Opening Statement by SASC Chairman John McCain at Hearing on DoD Nominations’, Office of Senator John McCain, 14 November 2017, https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/floor-statements?ID=05DCC73A-F9F2-44E8-A75F-236003222AF2.

²⁰ Patrick Bell and Jan Kallberg, ‘The Death of the Cyber Generalist’, United States Army War College War Room, 8 June 2018, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/death-of-cyber-generalist/.

²¹ Eric Schmidt, Robert Work, ‘First Quarter Recommendations’, National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (March 2020), 59.

²² J. Michael McQuade et al., ‘Software is Never Done: Refactoring the Acquisition Code for Competitive Advantage’, Defense Innovation Board, 3 May 2019, https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/01/2002126690/-1/-1/0/SWAP%20EXECUTIVE%20SUMMARY.PDF.

²³ Thomas W. Haduch, ‘Maintaining the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command Prototype Integration Facilities’, Defense Acquisition UP, May 2014, 7, https://www.dau.edu/training/career-development/sscf/Documents/T.%20HaduchSSCF2014SRPOPSECFINAL.pdf.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Eric Lofgren, The Last Frontier of Acquisition Reform: The Budget Process, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium, 13-14 May 2020 (Monterey, CA), 8. Naval Postgraduate School, 8.

²⁶ Spataro, ‘FY2018 NIAC Consolidated Report: Lean Startup Approach to Capability Development: Evolving Small Batch Innovation for Dual-use Technologies’, 32.

²⁷ While this article primarily deals with institutional change, cultural factors are closely related. Culture is more often cited as a constant that helps explain change (or resistance to it), rather than it is a malleable factor. See: Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray (eds), The Culture of Military Organizations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP 2019).

²⁸ Nina A. Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38/4 (2015), 529–53.

²⁹ Jon R. Lindsay, Information Technology and Military Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2020), 109–35.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Fiott, ‘A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap’, 425–6.

³² Michael C. Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 2010), 33.

³³ Stephen P. Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1991), 2–5.

³⁴ Jonathan T. Eckhardt, Michael P. Ciuchta, and Mason Carpenter, Open innovation, information, and entrepreneurship within platform ecosystems, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 12 (2018), 369–91.

³⁵ Andrew Grissom defines military innovation as focused on operations, saying that acquisition reform and other bureaucratic practices ‘are not considered legitimate innovation unless a clear link can be drawn to operational praxis.’ This makes sense when technology is adopted in a sequential manner, meaning it is first acquired and subsequently deployed. The focus on digital technology in open innovation takes a different viewpoint on the importance of bureaucratic measures because this sequence does not apply to software. By making the militaries more responsive to changes to the pace and trajectory of technological change, the collapsed barriers between research and operations may mean changing the measurement of changes to operational praxis. For his definition of military innovation, see: Andrew Grissom, ‘The Future of Military Innovation Studies’, Journal of Strategic Studies 29/5 (2006), 907.

³⁶ McQuade et al., ‘Software is Never Done: Refactoring the Acquisition Code for Competitive Advantage’, 10.

³⁷ Oakley, ‘Defense Acquisitions Annual Assessment: Drive to Deliver Capabilities Faster Increases Importance of Program Knowledge and Consistent Data for Oversight’, 18.

³⁸ Gilli and Gilli, ‘Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage’, 151.

³⁹ Lindsay, Information Technology and Military Power, 125.

⁴⁰ Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company 2014), 62.

⁴¹ Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, 56.

⁴² Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945, (New York, NY: Columbia UP 2008), 2–5.

⁴³ Fiott, ‘A Revolution Too Far? US Defence Innovation, Europe and NATO’s Military-Technological Gap’, 430.

⁴⁴ Cronin, Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists, 19.

⁴⁵ Examples include the Royal Navy’s HMS Dreadnought and battlefleet warfare, as well as the Royal Air Force integrated air defence. Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics, 142–65; Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars, Cornell UP (Ithaca, NY: 1986); Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1991).

⁴⁶ Cultural dynamics or intra-service rivalry can focus on similar cases to this end, including differences between Navy (aviation, surface, subsurface) or Marine Corps (infantry, aviation, logistics) branches. See: Terry Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation, Frank Cass Publishers (New York, NY: 2004), 8.

⁴⁷ This includes the development of the Polaris and Trident II nuclear submarine-launched ballistic missiles. See: Harvey M. Sapolsky, Polaris System Development: Bureaucratic and Programmatic Success in Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972); Owen Reid Cote Jr., ‘The Politics of Innovative Military Doctrine: The US Navy and Fleet Ballistic Missiles’, Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 1996.

⁴⁸ See footnote 35.

⁴⁹ Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military.

⁵⁰ Owen Reid Cote Jr., ‘The Politics of Innovative Military Doctrine: The US Navy and Fleet Ballistic Missiles’, cited in Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation, 7.

⁵¹ ibid.

⁵² Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars.

⁵³ Ibid., 135, 159.

⁵⁴ Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945, 219.

⁵⁵ One example that is beyond the scope of this paper is the possibility of inter-service rivalry with the emergent Space Force.

⁵⁶ Barry Posen, ‘Foreward: Military doctrine and the management of uncertainty,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 39/2 (2016), 168–9.

⁵⁷ Cote Jr., ‘The Politics of Innovative Military Doctrine: The US Navy and Fleet Ballistic Missiles’.

⁵⁸ Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars; Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military.

⁵⁹ Stuart Griffin, ‘Military Innovation Studies: Multidisciplinary or Lacking Discipline?’, Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1/2 (2016), 203.

⁶⁰ Open innovation can apply to non-digital technologies, as mentioned above, although this is beyond the scope of the article.

⁶¹ In his 2006 article, Andrew Grissom identified the lack of bottom-up literature as a gap in military innovation literature – a call which Griffin said was answered in the following decade. See: Grissom, ‘The Future of Military Innovation Studies’, 920; Griffin, ‘Military Innovation Studies: Multidisciplinary or Lacking Discipline?’, 197.

⁶² Kollars, ‘War’s Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam’; Lindsay Information Technology and Military Power.

⁶³ Michael Horowitz, ‘Artificial Intelligence, International Competition, and the Balance of Power’, Texas National Security Review 1/3 (May 2018), 36–57, https://tnsr.org/2018/05/artificial-intelligence-international-competition-and-the-balance-of-power/.

⁶⁴ Air Force Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team, ‘Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan’, 26 May 2016, https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/airpower/Air%20Superiority%202030%20Flight%20Plan.pdf.

⁶⁵ Daniel R. Lake, The Pursuit of Technological Superiority and the Shrinking American Military (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan 2019), 101–33.

⁶⁶ Ibid.; Will Roper, ‘Take the Red Pill: _The New Digital Acquisition Reality’, Department of the Air Force, 15 September 2020.

⁶⁷ Roper, ‘Take the Red Pill: _The New Digital Acquisition Reality’.

⁶⁸ Jason Miller, ‘Air Force’s game-changing approach to cloud accreditation’, Federal News Network, 30 July 2020, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/ask-the-cio/2020/07/air-forces-game-changing-approach-to-cloud-accreditation/.

⁶⁹ Tom Krazit, ‘How the U.S. Air Force Deployed Kubernetes and Istio on an F-16 in 45 days’, The New Stack, 24 December 2019, https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubernetes-and-istio-on-an-f-16-in-45-days/.

⁷⁰ Nicolas Chaillan, ‘Software Factories’, US Air Force Chief Software Office, 2020, Last accessed 11 October 2020, https://software.af.mil/software-factories/.

⁷¹ Mark Pomerleau, ‘The Air Force is all in on software’, C4ISRnet, 12 August 2019, https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2019/08/12/the-air-force-is-all-in-on-software/.

⁷² Chaillan, ‘Software Factories’.

⁷³ Barry Rosenberg, ‘Fail Fast, Not Twice: DoD’s Push For Agile Software Development’, Breaking Defense, 20 June 2019, https://breakingdefense.com/2019/06/fail-fast-not-twice-dods-push-for-agile-software-development/.

⁷⁴ The Doolittle Institute was the first of the efforts, which helped stand up SOFWERX.

⁷⁵ Tony Perez and Adam Welch, ‘AFWERX Spark,’ ed. Brian Maue, Empowering Next Generation Innovators and Innovations (Arlington, VA: AFWERX, 2020), 37–49, http://afwerx.af.mil/resources/AFWERX-Book.pdf.

⁷⁶ Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, ‘Inaugural Air Force Pitch Day: New contracts, new partners’, 8 March 2019, https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1779609/inaugural-air-force-pitch-day-new-contracts-new-partners/.

⁷⁷ Timothy J. DiNapoli, ‘DOD’s Use of Other Transactions for Prototype Projects Has Increased’, Government Accountability Office, November 2019, 9, https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/702861.pdf.

⁷⁸ Joshua Kleinholz, ‘AFwerX Vegas opens new doors to innovation’, Air Combat Command, 23 August 2017, https://www.acc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1288094/afwerx-vegas-opens-new-doors-to-innovation/.

⁷⁹ Army Futures Command, ‘Command Brief Creating a New Culture of Innovation’.

⁸⁰ Cases on this period of adaptation often focus on the Marine Corps as well as the Army.

⁸¹ ‘Army Directive 2017–22 (Cross-Functional Team Pilot in Support of Materiel Development’, Office of the Secretary of the Army, 6 October 2017.

⁸² Andrew Feickert and Brendan W. McGarry, ‘The Army’s Modernization Strategy: Congressional Oversight Considerations’, Congressional Research Service, 7 February 2020, 9. https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20200207_R46216_444d93a212c95fd2fba1a596d520ca263a833307.pdf.

⁸³ Stew Magnuson, ‘AUSA NEWS: Army Futures Command Breaking Down Barriers’, National Defense Magazine, 16 October 2019, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/10/16/army-futures-command-breaking-down-barriers.

⁸⁴ Jon Harper, ‘Army to Release New Wish List for Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle’, National Defense Magazine, 19 February 2020, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/2/19/army-to-release-new-wish-list-for-optionally-manned-fighting-vehicle.

⁸⁵ Feickert and McGarry, ‘The Army’s Modernization Strategy: Congressional Oversight Considerations’, 9.

⁸⁶ Hans Ulrich Kaeser, ‘The Future Combat System: What Future Can The Army Afford?’ Center for Strategic and International Studies, 5 February 2009, 2, Working draft, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/090205_fcsarmy.pdf.

⁸⁷ Andrew Feickert, ‘The Army’s Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress’, Congressional Research Services, 5 May 2006, 6; Theo Farrell, Sten Rynning, and Terry Terriff, Transforming Military Power Since the Cold War: Britain, France, and the United States, 1991–2012 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP 2013), 53–9.

⁸⁸ This concept grew out of the term 'multi-domain battle' in the early-to-mid-2010s, and has since inspired the term JADC2.

⁸⁹ Feickert and McGarry, ‘The Army’s Modernization Strategy: Congressional Oversight Considerations’, 7.

⁹⁰ This highlights a ‘DevOps’ approach, similar to DevSecOps. Chris Westbrook and Kathryn Bailey, ‘New faces and new tech provide the right mix of know-how and speed,’ US Army, 18 June 2020, https://www.army.mil/article/236576/new_faces_and_new_tech_provide_the_right_mix_of_know_how_and_speed.

⁹¹ The usage of task forces to this end is not itself new. Modernization efforts in the 1990s relied on similar methods with an operational focus, as seen in previous efforts such as the Louisiana Maneuvers digitised exercises or Force XXI design.

⁹² Andrew Eversden, ‘The Army AI task force takes on two “key” projects’, C4ISRnet, 10 June 2020, https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/06/10/the-army-ai-task-force-takes-on-two-key-projects/.

⁹³ Matthew P. Easley, ‘Army Artificial Intelligence Task Force (AI-TF)’, US Army Futures Command, 2019, 12–13. https://www.clsac.org/uploads/5/0/6/3/50633811/2019-easley-aiml.pdf.

⁹⁴ Mandy Mayfield, ‘Army Futures Command Establishes “Software Factory”’, National Defense Magazine, 21 August 2020, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/8/21/army-futures-command-establishes-software-factory.

⁹⁵ Todd South, ‘New tech from Futures Command “designed, built, tested with soldiers” to get it there faster’, Army Times, 20 October 2019, https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/21/new-tech-from-futures-command-designed-built-tested-with-soldiers-to-get-it-there-faster/.

⁹⁶ Richard L. Dunn, ‘Other Transactions Contracts: Poorly Understood, Little Used’, National Defense Magazine, 15 May 2017, https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/5/15/other-transactions-contracts-poorly-understood-little-used.

⁹⁷ Feickert, ‘The Army’s Future Combat System (FCS): Background and Issues for Congress’, 4–5.

⁹⁸ Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1989); Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War Since 1945.

⁹⁹ Although beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that this role includes R&D and acquisition for the Marine Corps. His advocacy for innovation thus extends to both services: for example, in April 2020, the first team in the Marine Corps to gain accreditation for DevSecOps was a software factory-style team that reports to Geurts.

¹⁰⁰ James F. Geurts, ‘The Department of the Navy Fiscal year 2020 Budget Request for Science and Technology Programs’, House Armed Services Committee, 28 March 2019, 6. https://armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/c/4/c46d8d7f-cade-4487-bae0-f87943aa205e/5AD8EA25BA971C25EF67C083034A43F2.hhrg-116-as26-wstate-geurtsj-20190328.pdf.

¹⁰¹ Herman Leonard et al., ‘SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command,’ Harvard Business School Case 819–004, July 2018.

¹⁰² NavalXAgility, ‘Scaling Agility, Navy Doubles Tech Bridge Locations’, 13 May 2020. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=112953 and Teri Carnicelli, ‘Fathomwerx Lab Designated Ventura Tech Bridge for Navy’s NavalX Network,’ Naval Sea Systems Command, 14 May 2020, https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Media/News/SavedNewsModule/Article/2187535/fathomwerx-lab-designated-ventura-tech-bridge-for-navys-navalx-network/.

¹⁰³ Sean Lavelle, ‘The Navy’s Kessel Run’, US Naval Institute, 3 January 2019, https://blog.usni.org/posts/2019/01/03/the-navys-kessel-run.

¹⁰⁴ This number refers to coders who dedicated their spare time and has fluctuated. As of late 2019, the Navy has employed two full-time coders to work on the iLoc platform, which now comprises 25 software tools for P-8 operators.

¹⁰⁵ These tactical coordinators manage missions, and as such, are highly trained to understand and integrate information from various software systems.

¹⁰⁶ Eric Lofgren, ‘The future of Navy software development with Lt. Sean Lavelle’, Acquisition Talk, 1 April 2020. Audio.

¹⁰⁷ AEGIS also uses Platform One. Variants of platforms that multiple services use, including the F-35, may also avail of this infrastructure.

¹⁰⁸ Amazon Web Services, ‘Readying the warfighter: U.S. Navy ERP migrates to AWS’, 22 January 2020, https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/readying-warfighter-navy-erp-migrates-aws/.

¹⁰⁹ James J. Wirtz, ‘Innovation for seapower: U.S. Navy strategy in an age of acceleration’, Defense & Security Analysis 36/1 (2020), 89.

¹¹⁰ Ray Mabus, ‘Harnessing the Navy’s Culture of Innovation’, Naval Science and Technology Future Force Magazine, 7 April 2015, https://futureforce.navylive.dodlive.mil/2015/04/harnessing-the-navys-culture-of-innovation/.

¹¹¹ David Adams et al., ‘SSG Served as an Innovation Incubator’, US Naval Institute Proceedings 143/4/1370, April 2017, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/april/ssg-served-innovation-incubator.

¹¹² John Richardson, The Future Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 17 May 2017, https://admin.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/futurenavyfinal.pdf.

¹¹³ James Stavridis, ‘CNO’s decision to terminate Strategic Studies Group is smart – it used to be good but lately was fiddling around’, Foreign Policy, 8 April 2016, <https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/08/cnos-decision-to-terminate-strategic-studies-group-is-smart-it-used-to-be-good-but-lately-was-fiddling-around/>; Terry Pierce, ‘The Navy Needs a New Engine of Innovation,’ Proceedings Magazine 144/11/1389 (November 2018); Adams et al., ‘SSG Served as an Innovation Incubator’. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/november/navy-needs-new-engine-innovation

¹¹⁴ Lauren C. Williams, Gilday outlines IT vision for Navy systems, FCW, 31 July 2019, https://fcw.com/articles/2019/07/31/gilday-confirmation-cyber-it.aspx.

¹¹⁵ Wirtz, ‘Innovation for seapower: U.S. Navy strategy in an age of acceleration’, 95.

¹¹⁶ Daniel Cebul, ‘Office of Naval Research launches program to speed up innovation’, Defense News, 2 April 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league/2018/04/02/office-of-naval-research-launches-program-to-speed-up-innovation/.

¹¹⁷ As a caveat, the Army has issued an unspecified amount of OTAs on behalf of the other services. See: DiNapoli, ‘DOD’s Use of Other Transactions for Prototype Projects Has Increased’, 10.

¹¹⁸ Lake, The Pursuit of Technological Superiority and the Shrinking American Military, 231–32.

¹¹⁹ Robert B. Neller, ‘Strategy for Assured Command and Control: Enabling C2 for Tomorrow’s Marine Corps, Today’, US Marine Corps, March 2017, 4, https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Marine_Corps_Strategy_for_Assured_Command_and_Control_March_2017.pdf?ver=2017-05-30-160731-940.

¹²⁰ Nathan Strout, ‘The Marine Corps’ 4 priorities in the information environment’, C4ISR.net, 6 January 2020, https://www.c4isrnet.com/information-warfare/2020/01/06/the-marine-corps-4-priorities-in-the-information-environment/.

¹²¹ The two most prominent near-term investments to this end are the forthcoming Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure and Joint Common Foundation, both housed within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

¹²² Matthew G Glavy and Brett Goldstein, ‘The Battle for Mon Cala: Getting the Military to Deliver Its Own Tech Solutions’, War On The Rocks, 20 August 2020, https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/the-battle-for-mon-cala-getting-the-military-to-deliver-its-own-tech-solutions/.

¹²³ Although beyond the scope of this article, another relevant contracting mechanism is the Commercial Solutions Opening.

¹²⁴ Neller, ‘Strategy for Assured Command and Control: Enabling C2 for Tomorrow’s Marine Corps, Today’, 4, 11.

¹²⁵ Henry Kenyon, ‘Rapid app response: Marines to embed development teams with deployed units’, GCN, 6 February 2012, https://gcn.com/articles/2012/02/06/marine-corps-apps-embedded-development-teams.aspx.

¹²⁶ Megan Eckstein, ‘Marine Corps Information Community Growing in Capability, Trying to Find Its Place in Joint Operations’, USNI News, 7 January 2020, https://news.usni.org/2020/01/07/marine-corps-information-community-growing-in-capability-trying-to-find-its-place-in-joint-operations and Mark Pomerleau, ‘Here’s what the Marines’ information command centers will do,’ C4ISR.net, 6 December 2019, https://www.c4isrnet.com/information-warfare/2019/12/06/heres-what-the-marines-information-command-centers-will-do/.

¹²⁷ David H. Berger, ‘Force Design 2030’, US Marine Corps, March 2020, 3.

¹²⁸ Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (2010), 567–594.

¹²⁹ Department of the Navy, ‘Unmanned Campaign Network’, 16 March 2021, 6. https://www.navy.mil/Portals/1/Strategic/20210315%20Unmanned%20Campaign_Final_LowRes.pdf?ver=LtCZ-BPlWki6vCBTdgtDMA%3D%3D.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zoe Stanley-Lockman

Zoe Stanley-Lockman is an Associate Research Fellow in the Military Transformations Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Her research interests are in the areas of defence innovation, security-related emerging technologies, defence industries, and military capability development. Previously she worked as a defence analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris and Brussels. She holds a Master’s degree from Sciences Po Paris and a Bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.