Schriever Wargame 2010 - Air Force Space Command

powers may also seek to exploit the economic or technical advantage
offered by their commercial space sector.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
~ Sir Winston Churchill, british politician
and wartime prime minister
Harnessing the full potential of industry’s global influence
will require new a modus operandi [or ‘MO’ as they say in
popular crime dramas], in which military personnel will have
to work side-by-side with their industrial counterparts as equal
partners—something that is not normally in their DNA. Such
a change may require a little ‘attitude re-adjustment’ on both
sides in order to progress the relationship beyond that of ‘customer
and supplier’ and into a new era of collaboration. However,
if industry influence is to become an integrated part of our
military campaigns there is a balance to be struck. Firstly, the
industry relationships we may wish to exploit are built upon
a mutual trust that may have been nurtured over many years.
As military practitioners, we will need to respect this trust and
ensure that we only seek to apply pressure when absolutely
necessary in order to preserve the relationship. Secondly, our
industry partners would probably not wish to be seen as acting
directly in support of a military objective for fear of being
ostracized from the international industrial community or, during
times of conflict, being labelled as a combatant. The onus,
therefore, is on the military to protect the commercial integrity
of its industry partners.
As alluded to earlier, the traditional interface between the
military and industry has principally been concerned with the
provision of military equipment. In this regard, the nature of
the relationship is one of customer and supplier and is focused
on the delivery of project milestones; this engenders a somewhat
formal (or even adversarial) relationship between the
participants. So, outside these formal contractual obligations,
what could industry do to enhance the effectiveness of our military
operations?
When one considers that every military capability is developed
or manufactured by a commercial company, no-one
knows more about the internal workings of these systems than
the industry technicians that built them. In a high-tech manufacturing
community, the industry technician is the master of
his domain and we cannot presume to understand his world any
more than the industry technician can presume to be proficient
in military operations. Therefore, it follows that industry may
be able to help us to derive maximum utility from our current
equipment—not just as individual systems but as networked
capabilities spanning multiple physical, electronic, and informational
domains. This approach would be analogous to an industrial
version of the ‘Tier One’ solutions that form part of the
operationally responsive space concept. 2 These solutions aim
to implement more effective ways of employing current space
power capabilities to meet joint commanders’ needs within operationally
relevant time scales. Such an approach would not
only require a military mindset change but commercial companies
would also have to find new ways of ‘playing nicely’
with potential competitors in order to provide holistic technical
solutions to military problems.
As technology marches on, the military tends to focus on an
adversary’s use of technology rather than the technology itself.
Industry, on the other hand, usually has a better understanding
of what may be technologically feasible and how new technologies
could present both opportunities and threats. Therefore,
there could be a greater role for industry (working closely
with the defense scientific community) in the technological
assessment of developmental systems; both ours and those of
our potential adversaries. Of equal importance, industry could
also assist in scanning the horizon for emerging technologies,
particularly those that could change the balance of power (so
called disruptive technologies).
Procurement programs that take decades may be obsolesced
in an afternoon by new technological innovations. 3
The military is a big machine in which some wheels turn
comparatively slower than their commercial equivalents, many
would say that one such wheel is defense acquisition. In deference
to any readers from the defense acquisition community, I
will not attempt to justify this popular UK perception, instead I
will simply ask what more could we do collectively to capitalize
on new technologies before they become obsolete?
Much of the UK defense acquisition life cycle is concerned
with conceptualizing, assessing and demonstrating technologies
before manufacturing can begin; we have yet to embrace
the spiral development process. Future developments in space
technology will likely have both civil and military applications;
so by the time that defense decides to proceed with an acquisition
program, the chances are that industry has already done
much of the necessary de-risking activity. Therefore, perhaps
commercial off-the-shelf solutions or service-based provision
of capability would enable the military to keep pace with, and
exploit, technological advancements while avoiding much of
the initial development costs. The UK’s SKYNET Private Finance
Initiative has successfully demonstrated the utility of this
‘contracting for capability’ methodology. 4 Under this arrangement,
industry will continue to provide ‘assured’ military satellite
communications (including commercial bandwidth) out to
2022. 5 Equally, one could apply this model to the provision
of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance
or even global navigation services.
Although ‘dual-use’ (civil/military) systems are not uncommon,
the SKYNET model has resulted in a new form of integrated
partnership with the commercial provider, in which
military personnel work side-by-side with company representatives
to deliver an operational capability. This close relationship
with industry has resulted in the fielding of critical communications
with a flexibility rarely seen in other contractual
arrangements. The mutual trust is such that the company often
assumes financial risk in order to ensure that we have what we
want, where we want it, and when we want it. Of course, the
administrative processes (and any outstanding payments) will
always catch-up eventually.
27 High Frontier