To Field Emerging Technologies, Keep Adjusting Policy

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With technological innovation occurring at an accelerating rate both at home and abroad, it is critical that the Defense Department takes a variety of steps to integrate both capabilities that it or the defense industrial base develops and capabilities that are developed in the commercial sector.

The mission of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute is to support the efficient and effective development, production, use and deployment of emerging technologies into operational use. ETI carries out a variety of activities for this purpose, ranging from workshops and webinars to detailed reports to educational sessions, all focused on high priority technology policy and acquisition issues.

Across its research projects, several trends have emerged in what we see as common issues and barriers to the effective development and adoption of emerging technologies by the U.S. military.

One issue seen in the reports is the lack of clear and consistent demand signal provided by the Pentagon to the defense industrial base and broader commercial sector. Universities and companies of all sizes and sectors frequently report difficulty doing business with the military because of inconsistent and often short-term buying schedules, making deep investments in technical and supply chain infrastructure difficult to justify.

The lack of this demand signal also reduces the possibility that private sector investors will fund the development of new and innovative defense systems and technologies.

As detailed in ETI’s supply chain studies, government speeches and strategies promising future purchases do little to provide companies with the cash flow or incentive to begin developing robust supply chains, manufacturing infrastructure, workforce and testing facilities.

Similar findings on demand signals appear in the areas of microelectronics and science-and-technology funding. In the case of the former, stable investments in S&T that increase at a sustainable, predictable rate enable universities and other research institutions to plan for the construction of new facilities, the hiring of new faculty and enrollment decisions for graduate students.

Another emerging theme in ETI’s recent work is that the department can move quickly when it matters most. In an upcoming paper, which was recently presented at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Acquisition Research Symposium, we analyzed the cases of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle program, Massive Ordnance Air Blast program and the Defense Department’s involvement in Operation Warp Speed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It found that, when a ready technology meets high-level political support and a well-defined operational use case, the funding and manufacturing capacity can often be moved much more quickly toward deployment.

The same project made clear that the department already has many of the authorities and financial management practice authorities that it needs to move rapidly to integrate new capabilities. Even while more work must be done to implement acquisition and Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution reforms, the department can already use several such vehicles today.

For example, it can make better use of vehicles such as Commercial Solutions Openings to procure innovative commercial capabilities.

The military can also award follow-on production contracts to companies completing development and prototyping activities without the need for a competitive procurement and can even include milestone payments in the original contracts to prove to companies that a production contract will exist at the end if prototyping success is achieved.

Additionally, the Defense Department has a variety of ways to share its needs with Congress. For example, decision-makers can add funds to high-priority technologies based on real-world developments in program offices before submitting the president’s budget request or can submit mid-year amendments to that request.

In addition to these policy issues, the Defense Department and the defense industrial base still need to keep an eye on the fundamentals, especially at a time when the defense sector represents a shrinking share of the broader U.S. economy.

For example, the ETI reports highlight concerning workforce trends across a variety of emerging technologies, to include hypersonics and directed energy weapons. Most workforce efforts tend to focus on Ph.D. students. Less attention is given to skilled trade workers who will be the ones responsible for building these emerging technologies, including with advanced manufacturing modalities and tools, once they become manufacturable at scale.

Finally, it is crucial that the United States leverage its allies and partners in building the defense industrial base of the future. Increasing the department’s ability to work with foreign countries’ industrial bases and universities through contracting, joint programs and joint research will expand U.S. innovation and industrial capacity.

The association will continue to explore these issues and has established a new conference designed to allow defense leaders to discuss its operational needs with potential vendors.

NDIA’s Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition will take place Aug. 7-9 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The agenda and thematic priorities have been informed by the undersecretaries of defense for research and engineering and acquisition and sustainment, European and Africa Commands and expertise from NDIA’s Science & Engineering Technology and Cyber-Augmented Operations Divisions. ND

Jacob Winn is an associate research fellow at the NDIA Emerging Technologies Institute. For more information about the Emerging Technologies Conference, please visit: www.ndiatechexpo.org

Topics: Defense Department