Analyzing Emerging and Disruptive Technologies for the Military

¶ … Disruptive Technologies for the Military

Disruptive technologies are innovations that aid in creating new markets, eventually going on to disturb or even dismantle the current value networks and market, and to displace an older technology. Clayton M. Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, coined this term, now used frequently in technology and business literature for describing innovations that bring about improvements to any service or product, in ways not expected by the market (Lucas, 2012). The Professor first made use of the term in his best-seller "The Innovator's Dilemma" (published in the year 1997), wherein he classified new technologies into two groups: disruptive and sustaining. The former category refers to novel, inadequately refined technology, typically associated with performance issues, known only to some group(s), and normally lacking any proven practical use. Meanwhile, the latter category includes familiar technologies undergoing successive improvements. Disruption may be viewed from another perspective, if one looks at its meaning -- something that radically destroys or changes established structure or way of doing things. Disruptive technologies are capable of altering our lifestyles, the world economy, what society means by work, and the business arena. This paper will discuss such technologies and their potential benefits to our world (Christiansen, 1997; Fonseca, 2014).

Characteristics of disruptive technologies

i. Experiencing breakthroughs or advancing rapidly

Disruptive technologies normally exhibit fast-paced capability modification with respect to performance or price, relative to existing, contemporary approaches and substitutes, or experience breakthroughs that drive discontinuous improvements in capability or quicker rates of modification. For instance, gene-sequencing technologies are progressing at a quicker pace than computer processing, and might soon make low-cost desktop sequencing devices possible. Substantial breakthroughs are witnessed in sophisticated materials technology, from the initial artificial graphene production in 2004 (graphene is a nanomaterial having exceptional properties including conductivity and strength), to IBM Corporation's development, in 2011, of the world's first integrated circuit made of graphene (Manyika et al., 2013; Lin et al., 2011).

ii. Broad potential impact scope

For being economically disruptive, technologies need to have a wide reach -- they must touch sectors and organizations, and impact (or lead to the development of) a broad range of services, machines, or products. For instance, mobile Internet is capable of affecting the everyday lives of five billion individuals, providing them with tools for becoming potential entrepreneurs or innovators; consequently, mobile Internet has become one of the world's most influential technologies. Further, Internet of Things (IoT) can connect as well as embed intelligence into several billion devices and objects worldwide, impacting billions of individuals' safety, productivity, and health (Manyika et al., 2013).

iii. Potential impact on considerable economic value

Economically disruptive technologies should be capable of creating a huge economic impact. There should be large value in the balance (e.g., potential profit-pool disruption, Gross Domestic Product additions, and potential obsolescence of capital investments). For instance, advanced robotics is capable of affecting labor costs amounting to 6.3 trillion dollars across the globe. Cloud technology can increase productivity by 3 trillion dollars in global business IT spending, while also allowing for the development of novel online services and products for several million businesses and several billion customers (Manyika et al., 2013).

iv. Potentially disruptive economic impact

Important technologies are capable of radically altering the existing state of affairs. They can change how mankind lives and works, elicit fresh opportunities or alter business surplus, and become a driver for progress or alter countries' comparative advantage. Next-gen genomics can transform the way healthcare professionals diagnose and cure diseases like cancer, potentially extending patients' lives. Advanced energy storage devices can transform when, how, and where energy is used. Advanced gas and oil exploration and extraction can drive economic progress, in addition to shifting value across regions and energy markets (Lin et al., 2011).

Current disruptive technologies

i. Mobile Internet

Within a short period, Internet-enabled mobile devices have lost their status as luxury items that few people could afford, to become an integral part of everyday life for over one billion tablet and smartphone owners. In the U.S., about 40% of social networking site (and other social media) usage and 30% of Internet browsing is done using mobile devices. Wireless Web usage was anticipated to surpass wired usage by 2015. A flood of mobile apps and ubiquitous connectivity has enabled users to find novel ways of interacting with, knowing, and viewing the world around them. Mobile internet technology is swiftly evolving, with novel formats and intuitive interfaces (e.g., wearable devices). Further, mobile Internet can be employed for numerous purposes across public sector organizations and enterprises, facilitating improved efficiency of service delivery and producing opportunities for increasing workforce productivity. Mobile Internet can help bring Web connectivity to several billion individuals in developing countries (Fonseca, 2014; Manyika et al., 2013).

ii. Automated knowledge work

Advancements in machine learning, artificial intelligence, voice recognition and other natural interfaces are making the automation of numerous knowledge works, considered since long as impractical or impossible for machines, possible. For example, some computers are capable of answering "unstructured" queries (presented in ordinary terms and not written precisely like software queries), aiding customers, or workers lacking specialized training to retrieve information by themselves. This affords us a chance to bring change to knowledge work organization and performance. Complex analytics tools may be utilized for augmenting highly capable employees' capabilities, and with increasing automation of knowledge works, total automation of some kinds of jobs is possible as well (Fonseca, 2014; Manyika et al., 2013).

iii. IoT (Internet of Things)

IoT or the embedding of actuators and sensors in physical objects (e.g. machines) to make them a part of the connected universe is spreading swiftly. From monitoring product flow through factories to measuring crop moisture and tracking water flow through utility water pipes, IoT assists public sector institutions and enterprises in managing assets, creating novel business models, and optimizing their performance. With the feature of remote monitoring, IoT shows great potential of improving chronically ill individuals' health, and tackling the main cause of mounting health-care expenditures (Fonseca, 2014; Manyika et al., 2013).

iv. 3D printing

Generally, thus far, only product designers, hobbyists, and some select manufacturers have applied 3D printing. However, additive manufacturing machines' performance is improving, material and printer prices are experiencing a rapid drop, and the material range is expanding; all these facts point to the potential rapid adoption of 3D printing by consumers as well as industrial buyers. Using 3D printing, ideas can directly go from 3D design files to finished products/parts, potentially omitting several of the conventional production steps. Notably, 3D printing allows on-demand manufacturing, which is associated with significant implications for spare-parts stocking and supply chains, thereby adding significant costs for producers. 3D printing is also capable of reducing the quantity of manufacturing wastes, and creating objects that could not be made, or were hard to make using conventional methods. Scientists have progressed as far as bioprinting organs, using inkjet printing for layering stem cells, together with a supporting frame (Fonseca, 2014; Manyika et al., 2013).

v. Advanced robotics

Risky, dirty, or physically difficult jobs (like spray painting and welding) have been assumed by industrial robots for the last several decades. These robots are bulky, inflexible, and costly, and are fenced off and bolted to factory floors for worker protection. Nowadays, however, robots are more evolved, and have acquired dexterity, intelligence, and enhanced senses, owing to accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, sensors, machine vision, actuators, and inter-machine communication. Workers can easily communicate with, and program, these robots. Further, such robots are more adaptable and compact, enabling their safe deployment alongside workers. Such advancements could make robot substitution for manual labor in the manufacturing, maintenance, and cleaning sectors more practical. Moreover, this technology is capable of giving rise to novel kinds of robotic prosthetics, "exoskeleton" braces, and surgical robots, which can aid individuals suffering from constrained mobility in functioning more normally, and can help extend and improve the lives of many (Fonseca, 2014; Manyika et al., 2013).

Emerging disruptive technologies for the Military Establishment

Emergent disruptive technologies are game-changers, and this potential is becoming more apparent as lawmakers and defense analysts continue including them in scenario planning, strategy development, and war games. Individual technologies can result in countless tactical-level innovations (for instance, employment of hordes of autonomous, unmanned vehicles by dismounted infantry, ballistic missile countering by directed-energy, sea- and land-based, missile defense, etc.). With technological advancement, the major part of military thinking and planning will obviously take place at tactical and operational warfare levels. But these technologies' game-changing capacity necessitates a grasp of the way they fundamentally change military competition's strategic nature, as well as the way war is waged (Brimley et al., 2013).

Disruptive and emerging technologies can alter the link between the defensive and offensive elements of conflict. The U.S. could, in traditional warfare, create as well as dominate offense-dominant war regimes through a combination of Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, precision-guided weapons, and stealth technology, i.e., these abilities render it exceedingly difficult for enemies to succeed when assuming a defensive stand. This combination was game changing, facilitating the assertion of America's military prowess for about twenty-five years. Numerous emergent technologies (especially directed-energy weaponry) made defense against modern precision-guided weapons easier, by permitting accurate firing at incoming targets several times and helping obviate the attacker's quantitative advantage. This was capable of significantly altering the perceived military power balance in various competitive grounds, such as Asia-Pacific, where the area denial and anti-access tactic of China is based, partially, on saturation of U.S. sea- and land-based missile defense structures through missile barrages (Gunzinger & Dougherty, 2012). Undeniably, China's effort toward equality in the area of precision striking, by the creation of long-range missiles is rather destabilizing, given this regime's offensive nature (Brimley et al., 2013). Chances of counteracting a tactic for missile saturation with directed-energy weaponry would undermine a region of significant advantage to China, possibly shifting perceived local power balance in a way that would promote regional stability and prove beneficial to U.S.A's Asian strategy.

Several of the aforementioned potential game-changers point towards a future wherein mass could resurface as a dominant element of traditional, high-end conflict. Ever since precision striking emerged, payload and platform quantity has assumed lesser importance relative to their stealth, precision, range and other qualitative characteristics. Overwhelming adversaries using large bombardments is costly and unnecessary when combatants are confident that the target will be hit, particularly for naval and air combat strike capacities. Shooters only need to fire a sufficient amount to make sure at least one of them is successful. America's defense strategy has been profoundly influenced by this dynamic, right from procurement levels and acquisition practices to the position of America's overseas military forces and war planning. American qualitative technology dominance implies that a major part of its military strategy concentrates on short encounters wherein the nation's forces can precisely, quickly close in, and destroy enemy forces, even when the enemy outnumbers them. However, this dynamic might change with proliferation of long-range precision structures in certain situations. If the U.S. is faced with an enemy with nearly similar kinds of precise, stealthy, long-range capabilities, accompanied by a balancing of the defense-offense dynamic, quantity can play a highly significant role in future conflict. To put it in another way, we may witness a reemergence of mass as the key element of high-end contingencies in future. Such dynamics will potentially cause America and its high-end foes to apply mass concepts (such as swarming) to new capabilities, like autonomous unmanned systems. In qualitative bias reversal towards bigger platforms that stress on stealth, range, and persistence, an emphasis on unmanned systems' quantitative dimension would incentivize investment in relatively smaller, highly autonomous, and networked platforms. These relatively expendable and economical platforms can combine and overwhelm a sophisticated defensive system (Brimley et al., 2013).

Risks and barriers

The immense potential of technological game-changers necessitates constant attention and investment by defense lawmakers, in addition to stronger collaboration between leading-edge commercial innovators and the Department of Defense (DOD). Nevertheless, the Pentagon appears to be incapable of executing it. Rather, its focus appears to be entirely on identification of budgetary cuts required to address sequestration. While sequestration is certainly a rather tough challenge, this singular emphasis on cuts for the present might be obfuscating the necessity of investing for the future (FitzGerald et al., 2014).

Number of other barriers jeopardizes required investments. Firstly, as mentioned above, militaries typically strongly resist major technological investments, that may threaten their conventional employment concepts and perceived key weapons platforms. Robert Gates, ex-Defense Secretary stated, when leaving office, that, a kind of nostalgia exists which, quite often, consumes successful, large organizations' institutional culture. All service institutions face this problem. All of them have had traditional orientations, with roots in the Second World War and the subsequent Cold War, which were later reinforced during the Persian Gulf operation of 1991 and which have, to varying extents, been neglected in recent Afghan and Iraq operations (Fryer-Biggs, 2014). Typically, military services' investments and attention are focused on incremental upgrading of conventional platforms, without regard for more progressive procurement and investment (FitzGerald et al., 2014).

Secondly, a large investment on unproven novel technologies is associated with a tremendous amount of risk as well as possibility of failure. One deep-seated aspect of Pentagon's institutional culture is averting risks (a quite reasonable approach for the uniformed planner). Army commanders are in charge of being at the ready to handle plausible modern-day contingencies. Therefore, they are obviously wary of investments in game-changers, whose benefits (if any) exist not in the present but in the long-term. Nearly always, commanders will prefer assured additional capacity for the present to potential (and more importantly, possible) future capability. Thus, military and civilian defense leaders have to make sure their investment in possibly game-changing, next-gen technologies continue through the present recession (FitzGerald et al., 2014).

Risks and barriers mitigation strategy

The Congress ought to: Mandate that the U.S. Defense Secretary issue yearly status reports on defense R&D to ensure that a constant focus is maintained by the military and Defense Secretary on the matter, and to provide the public and the Congress with a yearly baseline for analysis and oversight; and Institute permanent or temporary subcommittees of House and Senate Committees on Armed Services, whose task will be to ensure dedicated supervision of defense R&D spending. Alternatively, yearly hearings by current subcommittees that are most relevant may suffice (Brimley et al., 2013).

The Defense Secretary ought to: Make the Deputy Defense Secretary responsible for creating a permanent next-gen technological task force, modeled, perhaps, after the existing Defense Science Board. It priorities must be: making sure government investment in game-changers isn't unduly targeted for cutbacks during recession; making sure experimentation endeavors continue encouraging an innovative culture in military organizations, which accepts the likelihood of experiencing failure; and aiding effective coordination between military services, Defense Under Secretary for Policy, Defense Under Secretary for Acquisitions, Logistics, and Technology, and Joint Staff; Charge the Defense Under Secretary for Policy with ascertaining that the established collection of long-range scenarios of defense planning wholly consider plausible next-gen technological game-changers (HASIK & CALLAN, 2014). The above move would assist in countering the frequent, considerable pressure for building long-range scenarios around present-day platforms, operational concepts, and technologies; Order a set of researches that explore how best one can retain ample human oversight of, and decision-making with regard to, application of autonomous systems and other emerging technologies in potential and probable future crises; Introduce a multiyear war games series aimed at increasing an understanding of the way present and potential future advancements in commercial and military technology might change military competition in Middle East, Asia, etc.; and Request the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman to delegate to regional combatant commanders and military service chiefs the task of considering ways for better collaboration on, and integration of, development, as well as potential implementation of next-gen technologies (Brimley et al., 2013).

Lastly, the White House ought to: Establish a permanent joint IPC (interagency policy committee) for examining the position of the nation's defense R&D policies, priorities, and financing. The committee's co-chairmen must be senior representatives of the National Security Staff, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of Management and Budget. The IPC must be made responsible for ensuring that multiservice, multiagency approaches are adopted for preserving strong R&D initiatives across the U.S. government; and Institute a permanent forum, via the Office of Science and Technology Policy, for helping increase the scale and number of private-public partnerships aimed at applying sophisticated technology to difficult national security issues (Brimley et al., 2013; FitzGerald et al., 2014).