Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
In my opinion, the West is almost solely focused on technological innovation and missing the larger issue of advanced gray zone strategies that are frankly resilient to any technological solution. In sum, our innovation is focused on winning the next conventional war, while our adversaries are defeating us now with innovative strategies in the gray zone far short of conventional warfare.

We need innovation in our holistic understanding of the security environment, how to recognize other than military threats to our national interests, and subsequent innovation in our strategic approaches. Learning to do the wrong thing better is not value added innovation.
https://www.usip.org/publications/20...common-defense

The recently released "Providing for the Common Defense," a bi-partisan review of the National Defense Strategy argues the following:

The convergence of these trends has created a crisis of national security for the United States—what some leading voices in the U.S. national security community have termed an emergency. Across Eurasia, gray zone aggression is steadily undermining the security of U.S. allies and partners and eroding American influence. Regional military balances in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Pacific have shifted in decidedly adverse ways. These trends are undermining deterrence of U.S. adversaries and the confidence of American allies, thus increasing the likelihood of military conflict. The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict. It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously. Additionally, it would be unwise and irresponsible not to expect adversaries to attempt debilitating kinetic, cyber, or other types of attacks against Americans at home while they seek to defeat our military abroad. U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe.
Emphasis is mine

Followed by,

Proposed fixes to existing vulnerabilities—concepts such as “expanding the competitive space,” “accepting risk” in lower-priority theaters, increasing the salience of nuclear weapons, or relying on “Dynamic Force Employment”—are imprecise and unpersuasive. Furthermore, America’s rivals are mounting comprehensive challenges using military means and consequential economic, diplomatic, political, and informational tools. Absent a more integrated, whole-of-government strategy than has been evident to date, the United States is unlikely to reverse its rivals’ momentum across an evolving, complex spectrum of competition.
Again the emphasis is mine. Many of us have been repeating the same arguments for years. The default answer is not always more and better destroyers, more and better bombers, more armor brigades that we may not be able to project forward unless we can defeat formidable anti-access technologies to begin with, etc. Foremost, innovation needs to be focused on strategic approaches to compete in the gray zone, and new war fighting doctrine. Better toys to reinforce legacy war fighting doctrine, which arguably is currently or close to being obsolete is a losing proposition.

The most important innovations and the most difficult to execute is adapting our interagency / whole of government command structure and decision making processes so we can move at the speed of relevance. Frankly, some of our agencies, departments, and bureaus are outdated and need to either go away or evolve into something very different than they are today. We do not not have an ideal organization, or collection of organizations, for competing effectively in the gray zone. We do not have a functional interagency process to appropriately leverage and synchronize the authorities of the existing government entities. It is past time for deep change, and we need to stop worrying about temporary hurt feelings and bruised egos that will come with this change.

During the Cold War, the U.S. military developed detailed concepts for overcoming formidable operational challenges.
Today, Russia and China are capable of challenging the United States, its allies, and its partners on a far greater scale than any adversary since the Cold War. . . . Detailed, rigorous operational concepts for solving these problems and defending U.S. interests are badly needed, but do not appear to exist.
It is a tougher problem today, as we have multiple threats that operate globally and in new and multiple domains. Narrowing down our problems to two or three that we can focus on is not realistic and perhaps irresponsible. I tend to think the 2010 Capstone Concept for Joint Operations pretty much got it right when it described the problem (paraphrased) as,
determining how the future joint force, with constrained resources, will protect U.S. national interests against progressively capable and globally dispersed traditional and non-traditional adversaries in a security environment that is complex, uncertain, rapidly changing, and increasing in competitiveness and transparency. Conflicts may arise with both state and non-state actors that are accumulating more and more power and will have access to advanced weapons.
It may not be the problem the legacy force wants, but it is the problem we must contend with.