Studies by the Defense Science Board (DSB)1 and the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC)2 have slightly different recommendations for surveillance, and the report of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS)3 has prescriptions to better account for predictive failure. Taken together, these documents form a reasonable basis for the naval scanning and awareness approach that will lead to preparation or avoidance strategies in succeeding steps. The committee specifically notes that the Report of the Defense Science Board, rather than focusing on avoidance, focuses on preparation (in which surveillance plays a major role), flexibility, and rapid response across the domains of operations, technology, and rapid acquisition. In contrast, Disruptive Commercial Technologies emphasizes surveillance.
Figure 2-1 presents a continuous cycle of scanning and sifting for early detection of new adversary technologies, tactics, and operational concepts; a capability projection of how those could translate into new military capabilities; a net assessment of what those adversary capabilities might mean at an operational or strategic level; an options analysis to determine the effectiveness, cost, and schedule of alternative means of response; and a decision package that provides
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1Defense Science Board. 2009. Report of the Defense Science Board 2008 Summer Study on Capability Surprise, Volume 1: Main Report, Office of the Under Secretary of the Office of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Washington, D.C., September.
2Naval Research Advisory Committee. 2008. Disruptive Commercial Technologies, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, Washington, D.C., June 26.
3Richard J. Danzig. 2011. Driving in the Dark: Ten Propositions About Prediction and National Security, Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., October.
FIGURE 2-1 The surprise management cycle. SOURCE: Defense Science Board. 2009. Report of the Defense Science Board 2008 Summer Study on Capability Surprise, Volume I: Main Report, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Washington, D.C., September.
a comparative assessment and actions plan for those alternative responses. The proposed naval process includes scanning and awareness as approximately the scanning and sifting and capability projection elements of the DSB cycle. The committee’s main departure from the DSB process is focusing on the naval organization and on the implementation of and training for surprise mitigation.
It is also the case that the NRAC report used the “red cell” concept:
The NRAC Disruptive Commercial Technologies Study Panel undertook an unusual side excursion and conducted a Commercial Red Cell Demonstration to investigate the potential of creative people with World Wide Web access to produce new ideas, anecdotally determining what capacity a Red Cell might have to defeat key USMC capabilities or gaps. This experiment tested our hypothesis concerning the potential of small, Internet-enabled groups to interfere with key USMC capabilities. We reached out to the Hollywood creative community for two reasons:
–One of our panel members had previous experience with Hollywood concept development efforts, and was confident that the results would be positive.
–As a shared value, people in the Hollywood community are accustomed to the idea of ad hoc groups tackling novel tasks in highly focused efforts.4
The committee covers the red cell approach in Chapter 3, “Assessing Surprise.”
The Office of Naval Research-Global (ONR-G) already undertakes a form of horizon scanning for research. As will be described next, its role could be expanded to cover not only emerging research results but also emerging commercial technologies and some types of enigmas. As identified in the submarine security program, a form of scanning known as “enigmas” is an activity that examines which technologies and physical phenomena could be exploited even if they are not yet observed in the horizon scanning. Sometimes deployed forces, from fleet commands to Special Operations Forces (SOF) on the ground, observe a surprise during their horizon scanning activities. Sometimes those observing the emergence of a surprise, SOF in particular, are best equipped to respond to or mitigate the surprise, if they are properly trained for such contingencies. Instructing naval forces in contingency planning has proven to be a versatile response to surprise that will be addressed in a later chapter.
Scanning and sifting require multiple intelligence modes—financial, open-source, human, and other clandestine means. The projection of technological maturity and capability requires technically qualified support and an ability to adopt the mindset of an adversary. Surveillance may require an organization to “own” this responsibility lest it be neglected, and it should be a standing organizational element because surveillance activities need to be ongoing throughout the lifetime of any program. Note that ONR, by virtue of “owning” both ONR-G and ONR S&T programs involving experts from laboratories, universities, and industry throughout the United States can leverage both.
The prescriptive remedies of the CNAS report should be considered.5 Many of these appear to be like procurement actions but can be strongly connected to experience of people using the product(s) in the field. This means these remedies should be included explicitly or integrated into field use, as methods for evaluating (or even planning) the required adaptations and informing of future revisions. The CNAS report does not strongly reflect surveillance, although its call for “nurturing diversity and creating competition” in order to “produce a valuable range of potential responses when unpredictable challenges and difficulties arise” fits in somewhat with surveillance concepts.6 Scanning and sifting activity from
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4Naval Research Advisory Committee. 2008. Disruptive Commercial Technologies, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, Washington, D.C., June 26, p. 5.
5Richard J. Danzig. 2011. Driving in the Dark: Ten Propositions About Prediction and National Security, Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., October.
6Ibid., p. 6.
the DSB report is more relevant. It is interesting that the NRAC study does not explicitly refer to the surveillance process, in spite of the fact that its central example (of a brainstorming effort by outsiders, with spectacular results) was used explicitly as a “scanning” process.
EXAMPLES FROM THE COMMERCIAL AND ACADEMIC SECTORS
At a session of the TTI/Vanguard Advanced Technology Conference Series in Seattle on December 6, 2012, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Intel, Justin Rattner, spoke on rethinking industrial research on the 21st century. His main theme was based on a remark by Alan Kay, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” He went on to discuss how Intel, as well as 12 benchmarked peer multinational industrial research laboratories, explores future opportunities and threats with the intention of creating its own future. Intel invests 50 percent of its research on exploratory areas, and the other 50 percent on areas that align with the present business. Whereas the business-aligned developments focus on improvements to the present product lines, the exploration topics can be far afield of the present business. Intel focuses on exploratory areas of promise to position the company for its own breakthroughs, thereby “inventing the future.” If breakthroughs come from elsewhere, Intel, with its related exploration investments, might still be positioned not far behind others to remain a serious competitor for the new area. Because explorations are generally beyond the collective expertise of Intel staff, or perhaps because an insufficient core of expertise exists within the company, Intel and its benchmarked peers tend to go outside of the organization to partner with universities in open research. Breakthroughs that occur are generally developed into products, not within Intel but as joint ventures outside Intel’s product lines. This approach appears to align with the messages in Innovator’s Dilemma7 and The Other Side of Innovation.8 Technology explorations beyond present product, or operational, lines must be protected and nurtured in neutral territory to provide sufficient expertise and prevent the natural tendency of a product line from resisting potentially competing innovations.
Another example of similar thinking is the proposed approach for more flexible federal government policy preparation. A National Defense University (NDU) report, Anticipatory Governance,9 explores how to provide the capability in the U.S. government to explore potential global developments, from black swans through more slowly evolving situations, so that U.S. policies and contingency
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7Clayton M. Christensen. 1997. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Mass.
8Vijay Govindarajan and Christopher Trimble. 2010. The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Mass.
9Leon S. Fuerth with Evan M.H. Faber. 2012. Anticipatory Governance Practical Upgrades: Equipping the Executive Branch to Cope with Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges, National Defense University, Washington, D.C.
plans are available to address the increasingly complex and dynamically changing international landscape in a timely manner. For this objective a set of agile activities and organizational adjustments is recommended. The approach focuses on the Executive Branch and includes the involvement of technical, policy, cultural, and strategy experts, many from academia, to explore potential future developments and the adequacies of present and potential policies.
Central to changing the government culture to better accept (and not dilute) such potentially outside-the-box findings, a “foresight fusion cell” would operate inside the White House as “top cover” as the cell performs horizon searching and would explore the implications of its finding. Recommended changes in policy are then initiated by the Executive Branch. Some process streamlining, changes of organizational scope, and improved inter-organizational interfaces are also recommended for government entities that would participate in the finalization and implementation of new or changed policies. The combination of executive backing and systems engineering-oriented interface modifications to these other entities is expected to eventually shift government culture toward broader acceptance of timely policy innovations.
The proposed role of the White House foresight fusion cell and modifications to other government structures is analogous to the activity and organization of Intel’s exploration investments to create the future. A takeaway from these examples is that truly outside the box developments—that is, those with the most potential for disruptive surprise—are likely best pursued outside the naval organization, in academia and small business ventures, even if sponsored by interested naval program entities. This is the approach ONR-G has continued to pursue, identifying promising science and technologies and resourcing academia across the world. As a corollary, moving such emerging capabilities from the laboratories to the naval establishment too soon could lead to their rejection or dilution of their potential (competing) impact by the more conventional naval organization.
Surprises arising from the commercial sector can have significant impact on the U.S. government and Department of Defense. These surprises can be due to the unexpected use of, and innovation based on, commercial technologies—for example, the emergence of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during the Iraq war10—or from adversarial exploitation of vulnerabilities in the commercial infrastructure on which the U.S. government relies (e.g., the break-in to RSA’s networks that compromised the SecureID two-factor authentication token widely used within government).11 The wide availability of technology combined with the ability to innovate, particularly in the cyberdomain, is a game-changer. Cybercriminals, in particular, are using techniques that not so long ago required na-
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10J. Nicholas Hoover. 2012. “NSA Chief: China Behind RSA Attacks,” InformationWeek Government, March 27. Available at http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/232700341. Accessed March 30, 2012.
11See an entry title “SecurID” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecurID. Accessed March 30, 2012.
tion state–level resources (e.g., botnets, social engineering and big-data mining, and multinational bases and agents) to gain illicit access to financial resources.12
THE SCANNING AND AWARENESS APPROACH
Recognizing and preparing for the different kinds of capability surprise requires advanced studies and war games conducted with open-minded experts across a wide range of fields. Their results need to be continually brought to the attention of the most senior leadership.13 Specifically, experts on capability surprises need to be leading red teams that challenge “conventional” mission executions. Further, outsiders such as college students need to be used to bring new perspectives to what might be done to achieve capabilities surprises. As has been recognized on several occasions, students quickly came up with various unexpected counters to potential capability surprises or thought of new surprises that were fast and easy to implement.
Because of the very diverse nature of the sources of, especially, longer-term capability surprises, many organizations must be actively involved. To make this cross-organizational activity work, processes must be instituted that organize and assign responsibilities to each of the participants and that permit aggregating the diverse information to enable passing it to the “Assessment Processes” described in Chapter 3. Further, there must be processes to provide feedback to all of the parties such that they can be aware of the larger picture and also to help them focus on areas designated as higher priorities. Lastly, there must be a process for periodic senior-level briefings and involvement. This will provide awareness for their decision-making processes and permit them to anticipate and perhaps modify the organization’s direction as early as possible based on potential surprises. Further, it will be necessary for the senior personnel to become involved so as to resolve issues arising across the various organizations due to priority or resource conflicts. It will permit review of this broad cross-organization for performance and budget adjustments as the effort progresses. This is important as each individual organization may be reluctant to adequately budget for efforts that support the broader organization. Senior-level people will have the authority to modify as needed the various components as the efforts evolve. Last, and perhaps most important, the “senior spotlight” on this issue will ensure energetic actions by all parties to do their part to avert altogether or at least mitigate capability surprise.
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12Melissa E. Hathaway. 2011. “Taking a Byte Out of CyberCrime,” Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School, Harvard, Cambridge, Mass. Available at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/byte-out-of-cybercrime-hathaway-oct-2011.pdf. Accessed April 4, 2012.
13A single interaction is not sufficient, as seen with Einstein having to twice appeal to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the potential of nuclear weapons.
Assigning Responsibilities and Developing Processes
The great diversity of scanning and maintaining awareness requires a structured process having three elements: (1) stakeholders, (2) participants and performers, and (3) activities whose outputs are provided to the Assessing Surprise functions described in Chapter 3 and as appropriate to the later chapters. A virtual organization can be created to leverage resources across the many organizations that take part in this structured process. The ONR-G, as will be described later, can be the foundation for this virtual capability surprise structure. Current ONR-G activities, which include surveying for S&T, could be broadened to include the interests of the other stakeholders and maintain central control of the data for all of the organizations. Further, ONR-G could develop and maintain a prioritized list of potential capabilities surprises according to their technology readiness or expected maturity time lines. The head of ONR-G could provide the list and updates on a monthly (if not a more dynamic) basis to the Chief of Naval Research (CNR) and the surprise mitigation office as well as to other relevant organizations. This list together with the integrated views of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) could also be provided to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) every quarter. ONR-G would ensure that all of the inputs from the other stakeholders, such as the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Deputy Director of National Intelligence (DNI) for S&T, are captured and feedback is provided. In addition to coordination with ONI, ONR-G would interface as broadly as reasonable with the intelligence community and, specifically, with the Open Source Center. The fleet forces, as the deployed naval presence abroad, can be a valuable observer of worldwide trade and tactics training. Therefore the Service commands should organize to provide input and operational assessment expertise for this ONR-G-led activity. Finally, ONR-G will be empowered and resourced to task certain other stakeholders and S&T organizations, such as laboratories and universities, providing information and/or expert assessments as needed.
Office of Naval Research-Global
ONR-G today has a well-structured program able to survey and assess S&T around the globe (Europe, Asia, and South America). It has in place many of the processes that can be applied to the other stakeholder activities. ONR-G has ties to many countries and their respective technical organizations, including its U.S. Air Force and Army counterparts, which could have additional insights that might be relevant to the naval forces. In addition, because of its very close ties to the other ONR activities and to various domain experts, ONR-G enjoys regular in-depth reviews of various technical subjects with a range of interested and knowledgeable parties. The resulting information is distilled and provided to senior-level persons. The effort and reporting are integrated with additional scanning products and provided to senior management quarterly and archived
in a structured manner for follow-on assessment and prioritization, as described in Chapter 3. This database will serve as a long-term, updatable repository of information as other elements of a potential capability surprise are aggregated and assessed. Whereas ONR-G has a network of international research ties, ONR itself is well connected to the network of U.S. research organizations. Thus, ONR is truly both national and international in its connectedness.
A key function of ONR-G is not only to scan global research activities for important emerging science and technology but also to actively foster research by providing funding, and, as the opportunities arise, promoting research collaborations with U.S. universities and research centers. Further, if research in an area is showing signs of a potential breakthrough or of a game-changing application, ONR-G can continue the international research, increase funding for it, and perhaps add a U.S. collaborator, or the broader ONR might establish a related research activity in the United States. This research could be extended to critical experiments or to the collection of scientific data needed to better assess feasibility and potential impact. It is important to ensure that the United States gain a hands-on understanding of potentially fruitful research that would allow it to anticipate and mitigate a surprise or to develop its own surprise. By having a domestic research capability, the time between awareness and reaction can be shortened because the learning curve has already occurred. In summary, the “scanning and awareness” phase should include active U.S. research and experimentation to best assess risks and potential.
Office of Naval Intelligence in Coordination with Naval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Officers
Coupled closely with the ONR-G and other stakeholders, intelligence gathering can identify capability surprise candidates and, more importantly, can be requested to investigate, in more depth, things that might be indicators of a capability surprise. Other members of the intelligence community—particularly the intelligence agencies of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) such as the DNI and the intelligence offices of the other Services—can also provide inputs, preferably coordinated by ONR-G or by the ONI on behalf of ONR-G.
Offshore Scanning by Offices
As they carry out their role of rebalancing toward Asia, the Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) staff—in particular the fleet science advisors and operational units—can provide a wide range of insights across various technology and security domains. The same is true for the Atlantic Fleet (LANTFLT) with its vantage from the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe (COMNAVEUR), to monitor activities in the European, African, and South American theaters. While these organizations today have responsibilities to report on and to interact in their
communities, the scanning and awareness network led by ONR-G can correlate and analyze on a broader scale and make requests to organizations for additional information. Further, based on insights gained by capability surprise organizations, requests or alerts may go to a central point in the fleet. It is anticipated that Commander, Fleet Forces Command (FFC), and PACFLT, and perhaps certain numbered fleets, will have horizon-scanning offices. Further, counterpart activities, perhaps as offices, could be enlisted in the effort, including the Coast Guard Force Readiness Command (FORCECOM) and the Marine Corps Combat and Development Command (MCCDC).
Chief Technology Officer
Scanning the horizon for technologies that are threats as well as opportunities should go beyond just the mitigation of surprise. Although ONR works to disseminate and apply emerging technologies, the inherent “valley of death” between emerging technologies and applications remains. Although the proposed surprise mitigation framework is intended to bridge this gap, a senior naval technologist leader would not only provide the additional coverage at the top, but could also serve to introduce technologies into the fleet in an effective and efficient manner. Therefore, the Navy should appoint a CTO to ensure adequate bridging of the gap between technology’s emergence and its implementation. The CTO would serve as an advisor to the surprise mitigation office and also would ensure appropriate technology insertion at the appropriate risk level throughout the naval capability development organization, primarily by having a decisional role in major milestone reviews. Because he now has the most closely aligned role, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (DASN RDT&E) is in the best position to be appointed as the naval CTO. Care should be taken in establishing this new position to respect its historical context.
Others
An ongoing process aims to provide warfighters with rapid reaction support for their urgent operational needs that are identified. The naval forces seniors from both the Secretary of the Navy and the CNO are part of the senior integration group (SIG) that reviews and resources critical needs. The first priority of SIG is surprise. Establishing a close working relationship with this group will ensure that naval interests are supported.
To play their respective roles in national security, the national laboratories, academia, industry, and the intelligence and other communities naturally turn to ONR-G as a connection point. ONR-G either already enjoys such connections or could leverage the connections of its ONR parent.
When a “flash response” is called for, metaorganizations provide an overarching leadership framework affording guidance, direction, and momentum
across organizational lines. For the naval forces to react quickly to capability surprises, a set of contingency connections should be developed that includes reaction approaches, medical responses, media and legal support to articulate some areas, and rapid preparedness for further attacks. By bringing primary and alternative contacts, communications backups, and related systems together in metaorganizational packages, the effects of capability surprises can be mitigated.
The committee held two teleconference meetings with the staff and leaders from the Commander, Pacific Fleet (COMPACFLT). The members of the committee, who included very senior (retired) fleet commanders, recognize that the integrated horizon scanning demands observations of the activities of other naval forces and even commercial traffic in the theater. It was also pointed out that these in-theater observations may generally be shared with other commands but not with OPNAV, S&T, or the acquisition establishments except for local command use in planning and intelligence backup.
Finding 2: The Office of Naval Research-Global (ONR-G) is focused on scanning at the 6.1 and 6.2 levels; the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) on technical intelligence, primarily systems in development, testing, or operational exercises (6.3-6.7 levels); and fleet intelligence on observed operational behavior. However, there is no integrated, comprehensive scanning that also explores the linking of these observations and the emergence of consumer technologies of potential impact. While there are usually early indicators of potential capability surprises, there does not appear to be a coordinated means for U.S. naval forces to explicitly scan the horizon for such indicators; to capture, retain, and vet such indicators with relevant organizations; and, ultimately, to inform senior leadership of potential capability surprises. Such a coordinated means would need to scan, recognize, categorize, analyze, and report technical and/or operational surprises on a global basis.
Recommendation 2: Using existing fleet resources, the Chief of Naval Operations should enlist the support of the combatant commanders and their naval component commands in order to scan, recognize, capture, and report potential capability surprises outside the continental United States (OCONUS). Most notably, the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa, and the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, should establish comparable counterparts within their respective staffs to the surprise mitigation office referred to in Recommendation 1.
To further aid in identifying potential capability surprises—technological, operational, and/or otherwise—the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RDA) should (1) appoint the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Testing
and Evaluation (DASN RDT&E) as the Navy Department’s Chief Technology Officer, with primary responsibility for providing technical advice for all phases of the framework for the surprise mitigation office in Recommendation 1 and (2) direct the Chief of Naval Research to establish a “virtual” scanning and awareness structure led by the Office of Naval Research-Global, engaging the technical, intelligence, and operational communities in order to systematically scan the horizon, maintain awareness, and conduct technology readiness assessments for both the CNO and the surprise mitigation office, as called for in Recommendation 1.
