The organizations and processes we use are purposefully designed to maintain course and speed—not to allow significant change. Most of what I have seen regarding innovation in our Navy has been activity driven, more focused on getting a program through another step in the process than solving real problems. Our choice is simple. We can either innovate today, or be forced to rapidly adapt in the middle of conflict.8
With the tone and expectations set, the forum concentrated on three lines of discussion: (1) We would need to create conditions conducive to innovation; (2) we would need to identify the type of problems to be addressed; and (3) we would need a channel to develop innovative ideas and concepts.
The issues discussed at the conference are not exclusive to the Navy. At a recent Naval Institute/Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Joint Warfighting Conference, retired Air Force Lieutenant General David Deptula commented that the biggest challenge we face as a military has nothing to do with any particular weapon system, nor is it programmatic or budgetary. “Our biggest challenge will be to overcome organizational inertia, open our minds, and get out of the box.” Concepts such as Air-Sea Battle are good starting points to define future capabilities, yet they will need to avoid the seemingly inevitable descent into a shopping list—especially in today’s austere environment. Instead, it is important to ask deeper questions that could spawn a more innovative examination of future issues.
Looking ahead, to move innovation from a cerebral activity to a practice will require a dispassionate review of how we currently organize, train, and equip our forces. The general theme remains: Future battles will be fought in the context of being challenged at sea. The following questions may help frame how we think about our future:
• Do we train our forces against a thinking opponent? The central piece of maritime power projection remains the carrier strike group (CSG). The incredible range, lethality, and flexibility of the CSG are undeniable. The process of preparing these forces for deployment is a well-defined, qualification-driven process resulting in a high state of readiness for the group. The question is, are we building real tactical capabilities in our main battery or just preparing them for the most likely day-to-day operations they currently face? We need to develop a thinking “red cell” that can use a wide array of capabilities to create new and different high-end scenarios.
• Wargaming is another area ripe for examination. Is our approach on target? During the interwar years, wargaming was a major venue for vetting innovative ideas and discovering new ones. These games were played at the Naval War College pitting flag officers against each other in scenarios mainly focused on the Pacific. Debriefs were detailed and often brutal. As we begin to look at future challenges across multiple domains, the value of operational-level wargaming could be significant.
• Where do integrated tactics live? A large part of responding to challenges at sea will be new and innovative tactics. While plenty of organizations are developing concepts of operation in the important areas of antisubmarine warfare, integrated air and missile defense, and power projection, little attention is being paid to how we will integrate these efforts in the future battle space. Incorporating disparate sets of tactics into our warfighting whole should be a key area of any innovation effort. The challenge may be to successfully integrate platforms and procedures to fight in higher-end environments across multiple domains.
• Are we training our commanding officers to have the personal initiative to succeed in future environments? The ability to execute while cut off from higher authority is often a key to victory on the battlefield. The Army and Marine Corps have begun to empower their leaders through “Mission Command.”
In a recently published paper on the topic, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey noted:
In its highest state, shared context and understanding is implicit and intuitive between hierarchal and lateral echelons of command, enabling decentralized and distributed formations to perform as if they were centrally coordinated. When achieved, these practices result in decentralized formal decision-making throughout the force, leading implicitly to the opportunity to gain advantageous operational tempo over our adversaries.9
Harnessing Our Talent
Becoming more innovative will require us to chart a new way to energize and channel ideas to higher echelons. It remains profoundly difficult for large-scale formal organizations, which prize stability, continuity, and predictability, to establish and maintain within themselves the organizational conditions required for research and creativity. Considering samples from the business world can help the Navy understand how to establish a process for moving forward. The key will be to step away from capabilities and acquisition thinking (things) and look across the scope of thought at new ways to operate in challenging environments. It will require harnessing different perspectives, both from inside and outside the military. It means regaining our innovative DNA.
The Navy is at a critical nexus. After a decade of operations in U.S. Central Command, the Navy and Marine Corps are filled with veterans who have tasted the challenges of combat and are ready to put their lessons to use for the greater good. As one junior officer noted a year ago: “These are bright young minds who have been given tremendous responsibility in combat. Thrust them into a conservative bureaucracy and they are going crazy against its illogic.”10 The key challenge remains—how do we encourage our best and brightest to use their experience to help drive innovation in the Navy?
In his departing comments as Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Norton Schwartz noted: “My one regret is that maybe we de-emphasized innovation more than we should have. We had some things to do early on, and we never really came back to pushing that innovative culture.”11
The Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) is taking action on a number of fronts to regain the Navy’s innovation advantage. The centerpiece of this effort is an overhaul of the Concept Generation/Concept Development (CGCD) process. The new process streamlines and channels innovative concepts and ideas from the originators to senior leadership. This includes establishing a Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Advisory Board (CAB) to serve as a lens on the future and champion innovation at the highest levels. Manned by a hybrid mixture of flag officers, scholars, and technology experts, the CAB will look broadly within and beyond the Navy for new warfighting ideas. Its efforts will provide key top-down momentum for innovation. It has worked before and, properly manned and empowered, could work again.
The second development will be a CNO Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC). This small (and junior) group has established broad connections with industry and small-business innovators to germinate and nurture emerging technologies and concepts. Properly insulated, this “group within a group” could do some amazing things. Author Warren Bennis looked at innovative groups, from Disney to the Manhattan Project, and found “one thing great groups need is protection . . . most traditional organizations say they want innovation, but they reflexively shun the untried.”12 The “free radicals” of the CRIC will be at liberty to move as they see fit while engaging at the front lines of commercial innovation.
The next step for keeping the momentum of new ideas rolling will be a significant effort in experimentation. When aggregated, these broad steps can better focus and help turn new ideas into new capabilities. It has been estimated that for every 3,000 new ideas in business, one survives. A focusing process as described previously can improve our odds.
As the Fleet’s center for innovation, NWDC has taken a number of steps to support a “rebirth” of innovation. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been a key partner in this effort as the leader in science and technology innovation for the Navy. The collaboration between NWDC and ONR is a good first step. NWDC looks through the lens of the warfighter for ways to mitigate challenges or seize opportunities through the employment of new or existing capabilities. ONR is focused on the creation and development of “leap ahead” technologies. Key points of intersection in these processes include experimentation and rapid fielding. Other key actions taken by NWDC include:
• Resumed funding for tactical development and execution (TAC D&E) projects; a series of