The Key to Military Innovation
Our nation’s defense depends on how technology – not which technology – is used.
The Key to Military Innovation
By Chuck Wald and Joe Mariani
Feb. 27, 2017, at 8:00 a.m.
When young Army officer "Boney" Fuller first encountered a tank, he quickly noted that militaries didn't really know how to use it. The World War I battles fought with these tanks were inconclusive at best. They could easily cross the muddy trenches, but the infantry and cavalry couldn't exploit the breakthrough.
But then Fuller had an epiphany. The issue was not the technology; the tanks were fine. The problem was that they were not being used in coordination with other units properly. He devised a plan to combine tanks, aircraft and motorized infantry to break through enemy lines and throw the enemy into disarray. This development revolutionized warfare.
Today, the Department of Defense is facing a similar issue. New technologies abound and are flooding the global marketplace, but their utilization alone will not be enough to ensure the U.S. military maintains its fighting edge over competitor nations. To address this, the department recently embarked on the Third Offset, a strategy to identify and implement "innovative ways to sustain and advance America's military dominance for the 21st century." From the advancement of artificial intelligence and human-machine pairing to experimenting with new organizations, the search for the next revolution in warfare is in full swing.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/articles/2017-02-27/key-to-defense-departments-third-offense-is-use-of-military-technology
