Why The U.S. Military Is "Struggling To Modernize"

By John Oncea, Editor

Since World War II, there has been no more urgent demand for the service to adopt new technologies and weapon systems due to the formidable Chinese military threat. So, what’s standing in the way?

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has been working with academia, industry, allies, and partners in an ongoing effort to develop cutting-edge technology that will keep its troops one step ahead of the enemy.

Speaking at the Inaugural Defense Department Basic Research Conference in Arlington, VA late last year, Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, explained that this strategy can be understood by looking at its three main themes: research and engineering (R&E), campaigning, and building enduring advantages.

R&E, which Shyu described as “working to ensure that the joint force can operate seamlessly across all domains — air, land, sea, cyber and space — and in concert with allies and partners,” is advancing partnerships with Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, NATO, and more. “Our foreign comparative test program also promotes coalition interoperability and strengthens our shared defense industrial base,” said Shyu. “Our mission engineering division is using modeling and simulation to assess joint capability gaps, and how we're integrating critical enabling technologies into mission architectures.”

Campaigning depends on the ability of R&E to work with interagency partners including the Departments of Treasury and Commerce, the State Department, and the Small Business Administration. Shyu holds up The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve program, which has embarked on a continuous campaign of joint experimentation to close the gaps in joint warfighting capability, adding, “These joint experiments are scenario-based and will be conducted in six-month cycles starting next year.”

According to the (DOD), “This experimentation … will involve 14 critical technology areas for the warfighter. The technology areas include biotechnology; quantum sciences; advanced materials; future G, which is beyond 5G technologies that also have a lot of commercial development, trusted artificial intelligence and autonomy; microelectronics; space technology; renewable energy; integrated network; systems of systems; advanced computing and software; human-machine interfaces; hypersonics; direct energy; and integrated sensing and cyber.”

The third theme, building enduring advantages, involves R&E identifying reforms to accelerate the development and acquisition of critical technologies and then making necessary investments in the workforce. “We're supporting the future defense innovation base through initiatives to support small businesses, startups, and other nontraditional companies and encouraging them to work with the DOD," Shyu said.

The DOD supports these three themes by leveraging the U.S.’s science and technology innovation community to solve operational and engineering challenges with cross-cutting solutions that benefit all military services. R&E is also laying a foundation to attract the right technical workforce, as well as support “university-affiliated research centers and federally funded research and development centers (working) on cutting-edge technologies including space dynamics, system engineering, applied physics, software engineering, and geophysical detection.”

“We're committed to fostering a culture that encourages innovation and risk-taking. Our future depends on our STEM workforce, so we must invest in multiple talent pipelines for the defense innovation base,” Shyu said.

6 Priorities The Military Is Applying To Achieve Modernization

The last comprehensive modernization effort made by the U.S. Army occurred 40 years ago, according to the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). To ensure that the current modernization effort is successful, the Army must maintain its readiness to fight tonight while preparing for the necessities of the future battlefield.

This “continues to be achieved through six main priorities: long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicle, future vertical lift, air and missile defense, network and Solider lethality,” writes AUSA. “Under the leadership of eight cross-functional teams, the Army is leveraging the latest research and technology to ensure that these priorities support the Army’s goal of remaining ready to fight tonight while preparing for the future battlefield.

“Since their designation and subsequent alignment with Army Futures Command (AFC) in 2018, these six priorities have continued to be the focus of Army research, development, and modernization. With the proper resources and support to fully develop these priorities, the Army and the joint force will maintain their ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversaries.

Adherence to these priorities is expected to allow the Army to develop “a transformed, multi-domain-capable force by 2035,” AUSA writes. “Modernization of the Army ensures that it maintains the organization, leadership, training and conviction, weapon systems and resources necessary to execute its duties in collaboration with the joint force and allies.”

The Technology Is Here

In an interview exploring why the military is struggling to modernize with New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton, Fresh Air host Terri Gross sets the stage, saying, “The U.S. military has been testing new weapons with remarkable capabilities using cutting-edge, digital technology, including artificial intelligence.”

Gross further notes that progress toward implementing autonomous deadly weapon systems has been hindered by various factors such as tradition, politics, lobbyists, procurement bureaucracy, disagreements within the military, and ethical concerns and that the military’s current weapon systems are being challenged by ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, as well as preparations for potential conflict with China.

Lipton explores all of these factors with Gross, as well as in his New York Times article detailing how next-generation, less expensive, and more flexible vessels are an option “but the Navy remains lased to big shipbuilding programs driven by traditions, political influence, and jobs.”

Among the available technologies that would modernize the Navy are:

• A collection of tiny, unmanned vessels, prototypes for the kind of cheaper, easier-to-build, and more mobile force that some officers and analysts of naval warfare said was already helping to contain Iran and could be essential to fighting a war in the Pacific.” These drones can operate for up to a year, see at night via infrared cameras, and allow the Navy to use manned ships more efficiently.
• The Devil Ray, a vessel capable of reaching 90 miles per hour which would allow it to track faster boats.
• Artificial intelligence, which Lipton told Gross to some extent to evaluate feeds from drones to identify threats and suss through the overwhelming amount of data being generated by DoD satellites, aerial sensors, and ground sensors. Lipton explained, “One of the things that Ukraine has shown is you have to take all this information and fuse it immediately, find your targets, and act on that information. And only a computer can do that because it can adjust this material instantaneously and identify things that it thinks are threats. And it could point to humans and say, ‘I think this is a threat.’ And then the human does (a) final determination as to, yes, that's a threat, we want to attack it.”

Obstacles In The Road

Lipton reiterated integrating these technologies and more would provide a myriad of benefits, but analysts and current and former officials say the Navy “remains lashed to political and economic forces that have produced jobs-driven procurement policies that yield powerful but cumbersome warships that may not be ideally suited for the mission it is facing.”

Lipton quotes Lorin Selby – who retired this summer as a rear admiral and the chief of naval research after a 36-year career in which he helped run many of the Navy’s major acquisition units – as saying, “The U.S. Navy is arrogant. We have an arrogance about, we’ve got these aircraft carriers, we’ve got these amazing submarines. We don’t know anything else. And that is just wrong.”

Beyond “arrogance,” an aversion to change exists among members of Congress, particularly those representing states that rely on the current level and budgeting of spending like Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi.

Lipton writes that the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi is Huntington Ingalls shipyard located in Pascagoula. It is here that four classes of ships are built including “the Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyers, 509-foot vessels that are considered the workhorses of the Navy.

“The destroyers can handle a range of missions, including hunting down and destroying enemy submarines, attacking other ships in nearby waters, and firing precision missiles to strike far-off targets on land. The Navy already has 73 of them and has deals to build 16 more, at a price tag of about $2 billion apiece.”

Despite the fact these destroyers are “increasingly vulnerable – especially in a conflict with China over Taiwan,” the debate in Washington remains largely focused on protecting and expanding traditional platforms.

“The Pentagon this year proposed delaying the purchase of one of the ships, known as an amphibious transport dock, that Huntington Ingalls builds at its Pascagoula yard, citing the rising cost,” writes Lipton. “Again and again, lawmakers pressed Navy officials not to delay, and think tanks and consulting firms funded by the shipbuilders pushed out opinion pieces instead urging the Navy to build more manned ships.”

Towards the end of his article, Lipton summarizes the dilemma, quoting Selby as saying, “You now run up against the machine — the people who just want to kind of continue to do what we’ve always done. The budgeting process, the congressional process, the industrial lobbying efforts. It is all designed to continue to produce what we’ve already got and make it a little better. But that is not good enough.”