This past June, in an annual assessment of Department of Defense (DOD) weapons acquisition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the DOD is “still struggling to deliver new technologies quickly.”  In its response, the DOD acknowledged that a new approach is needed—adopting a campaign-style concept might be that new approach.

            Here, I briefly sketch out how the campaigning concept most recently laid out in the 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS) might benefit materiel development.  After discussing campaigning in these key documents, I highlight the major problems that the DOD has faced in major acquisitions problems.  Lastly, I discuss how a campaign approach might bring coherence to the chaos that is defense development.

Campaigning: “Not Business as Usual”

            The NSS signed by President Biden in October of 2022 reintroduced campaigning. The NSS states that we must “operate our military using a campaigning mindset – sequencing logically linked military activities to advance strategy-aligned priorities.” This idea is amplified in the 2022 NDS, which outlines defense priorities that are accomplished in three primary ways – integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building enduring advantages. Campaigning is described as “…not business as usual – it is the deliberate effort to synchronize the Department’s activities and investments to aggregate focus and resources to shift conditions in our favor.”

            Given the US’s position as a world leader and military superpower, one would assume that our actions were already “logically linked… to advance strategy-aligned priorities,” so why was campaigning not business as usual? While the NDS does not explicitly address this, it does say that campaigning must begin with “focused planning that specifies how an initiative supports our defense priorities”. To see why the DOD would emphasize focused planning and disciplined execution, it is helpful to look at the past few decades to see what we have changed.

            The concept of campaigning, in fact, represents a significant shift from US actions since year 2000 and reflects the many changes in the strategic environment. First, from 2001 until 2021 the United States was engaged in Afghanistan, while maintaining an on-again, off again relationship with Iraq, and prosecuted counter-insurgency operations in other countries as part of the “War on Terror.” Second, in that time, China has emerged as a strategic competitor, Russia has become further emboldened with their 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine, and North Korea has emerged as a nuclear state. Our lack of focus and reactionary approach to defense has hampered our ability to identify clear security objectives and the appropriate force structure.

            Beyond the changes in the global political environment, evolutions in technology have changed economies, societies and militaries. Over the past 20 years, the U.S. military has gone digital and products like drones could potentially be indicators of a military revolution. The proliferation of both government and commercial satellites has increased the importance of the space domain. These systems provide new capabilities to both state and non-state actors.   As such, the updated strategic guidance directs a greater emphasis on traditional state actors amid criticism that that United States has been distracted for two decades. As we emerge from 20 years of contingency and crisis operations, the emphasis on campaigning reinforces a disciplined approach to current and emerging threats as part of a comprehensive whole of government approach. This allows us to be predictable and reliable to our partners and demonstrate our resolve to our competitors.

Military Innovation: Fully Funded Acquisition Chaos

            General (R) Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that military modernization is required to compete on the modern battlefield, citing robotics and artificial intelligence as two areas requiring investment. Despite having the highest funded military on earth with an annual budget of approximately $820 billion in 2023, somehow the United States military has failed to modernize at the rate of our adversaries.

            First, it is important to recognize that there are some aspects of modernization that the DOD can control and some that it cannot. Fiscal turmoil, for instance, caused by the congressional appropriations process is not something that the DOD can control; as such, I will focus primarily on the aspects of modernization that the DOD has influence over. One challenge is that despite the multi-year effort to increase the rate of modernization, equipment continues to age and we remain reliant on old equipment that was optimized to fight within the Air-Land Battle conceptual framework of the Cold War. The DOD has had numerous high-profile acquisition failures and has recently rebaselined or outright cancelled several marque efforts such as the Next Generation Air Dominance Project (NGAD), Future Assault Reconnaissance Helicopter (FARA), Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), and the Littoral Combat Ship mission packages. Another concern is the timeline associated with major defense acquisition programs growing from eight to ten years despite initiatives to accelerate the process or the numerous agencies focused on rapid acquisition.

            Though occasionally described as “innovation theater,” the DOD has had recent successes demonstrating new capabilities through exercises like the Army’s Project Convergence, the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System demonstration, and the Navy’s Project Overmatch. These demonstrations, while useful, typically demonstrate a choreographed integration of disparate systems in an attempt to solve the current issues with Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). While these exercises are done in good faith, they lack a common unifying conceptual framework for the future of warfighting. The objectives are established at the system level and success frequently results in cancellation due to the extended delays for funding. The DOD also drives many projects to failure due to frantic impatience, roughly equivalent to planting a seed and then digging it up weeks later to check the status. Some efforts require significant time to integrate due to complexity. Assuming an experimental effort makes the transition to a program of record by crossing the required hurdles for requirements approval and funding, it still must pass a labyrinth of testing prior to being operational. While throwing rocks at each other between the operational and materiel development community is fun and provides a lot of podcast content, the goal is to provide equipment to troops at the “speed of war” – and our performance is not good.

            Innovators, requirement owners, and acquisition professionals all have the best interest of the military as their top priority. Some projects like the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle program demonstrate that we do have the ability to rapidly provide needed equipment to warfighters in a timely manner (though not necessarily efficient). However, these types of projects represent an acquisitions contingency departing from a baseline framework of how we do business. The DOD must be able to break out of the reactionary innovation cycle it currently finds itself in. Recent capability gaps like high-altitude balloons and autonomous weapons demonstrate that despite high levels of spending, we find ourselves again being surprised at the changing character of war.

Campaigning meets Modernization

            This brief examination of modernization programs, and their mixed record of success, is indicative of a process that is the exact opposite of campaigning. If modernization programs are conceptualized as a campaign, some of these problems may be rectified.

            We don’t have to look far to see this approach in action. During the Cold War, the DOD unified around the goal of being able to defeat the Soviet Union. While this task was well defined, it required an overarching conceptional framework to provide focus to the services so that they could execute their Title 10 tasks. The development of the AirLand Battle Doctrine, a comprehensive framework for organization, equipping, and fighting, provided a theory of victory against the Soviet Union. The AirLand Battle concept relied upon using active defenses to fight outnumbered and still win.

            By creating a thoughtful, enduring, and comprehensive conceptional framework that outlined how the United States military would fight, AirLand Battle allowed the services to assess capability gaps and plot a realistic timeline to develop and field materiel solutions that enabled success. The Air-Land Battle modernization initiatives resulted in the Army delivering the “Big Five”: the Apache AH-64 helicopter, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, M1 Abrams tank, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the MIM-104 Patriot Missile System. These systems proved the value of a solid requirement, consistent funding, realistic timelines, and reducing distractions as they enabled the rapid invasion and defeat of Iraq in 1991 in a “100-hour land war.” Despite being a different fight, the equipment designed as a result of Air-Land Battle was dominant in the deserts of Iraq. In the case of the “Big Five” materiel solutions designed to support the conceptual framework of AirLand Battle were be adapted to an unexpected situation successfully. Without a conceptual framework and warfighting theory, those systems might not have been designed and produced in mass. Simply put, “logically linked military activities to advance strategy-aligned priorities” is a good way to develop and field equipment as well as design campaigns when combined with a good framework.

            Applying the concept of campaigning to business practices within the Pentagon makes logical sense. It also will greatly increase the buying power of the DOD as industry will compete for steady development and production contracts. By approaching modernization as a 20-year plan, the DOD can commit to long-term development supporting an operational framework with planned iterative development. To effectively utilize the DOD Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process, materiel developers must have realistic program cost, schedule, and performance objectives and be able to program those in a logical five year forecast. Once the DOD commits to developing and fielding a materiel solution, they must have the discipline to stay the course assuming the project is credible and still fills a gap in warfighting capability. Integration with other platforms and formations must occur prior to validating a requirement with an accurate specification for interoperability while also having room for iterative improvement.

            In looking at innovators within the commercial aerospace sector, it’s important to remember that companies like SpaceX also failed initially when developing the Falcon 1 rocket. Through their iterative improvement, they have improved their performance and reliability to the point where they released a comical video of their failed launches. Being disciplined and adhering to sound engineering principles provided predictable results. Legislation allowing greater flexibility to the DOD for internal reprogramming helps with additional flexibility for slips to cost or schedule, but also increases the risk of the DOD reprogramming money into a new or exciting program. They must fight against the urge to chase the newest innovations annually and demonstrate the discipline to see programs through to completion and fielding over decades. Requirements writers and approvers must also lower the threshold for fielding by accepting risk for initial fielding with a minimum viable product and allowing improvements over the life cycle of a product.

            Much of the innovation theater surrounding the DOD does not produce tangible warfighting products. The innovation theater industry continually sells the DOD on disruptions in warfare through technology without the desire or capacity to provide fieldable solutions at scale. Additionally, the DOD must maintain large stockpiles of munitions. As seen in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, even large stockpiles of munitions are quickly depleted in large scale combat operations. Increasing complexity and inadequate supply chains mean that munitions need more skilled labor, specialized equipment and processes and generally take more time and money to field. Producability is paramount to success in future conflict to avoid having exquisite systems with empty magazines. New legislation like Multi-Year Procurement is a good start to give industry confidence to compete for production contracts as well as cost savings for the DOD due to the stable requirement and predictable funding.

Conclusion

            Campaigning is just as applicable to materiel development as it is actual fighting. Establishing metrics like “accelerating change,” when taken out of context, focus the department and services on more change rather than a disciplined approach to force development. An integrated strategic campaign for materiel development when paired with funding and discipline could yield great results. Adversaries will look to exploit seams, but a lack of discipline building the military of 2040 (a lot of those men and women are already serving – it’s not that far away) could great significant gaps that are much easier to exploit.  The current focus on specific technologies is well intended, but ultimately myopic and contributes to the chaos. While campaigning requires discipline, those same principles apply to the business practices of the DOD and will be necessary to be successful in strategic competition in this “decisive decade.”

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force or the U.S. Government.