An Outline for System Innovation and Technological Integration
Reading edition
Achieving Shock and Awe is central to Rapid Dominance, and therefore must serve as the key organizing principle for any rigorous examination and exploitation of system concepts and technologies for Rapid Dominance. Understanding the interplay between technology and doctrine is not only or simply a straightforward matter of establishing operational requirements and then seeking to attain them through invention and design. It is a complex and interactive process of experimentation and discovery wherein intellect, hard work, endurance, and innovation must drive the use of technology. Rather than make changes, however significant, to modifying current capabilities or building newer, similar ones, Rapid Dominance seeks to identify and field systems specifically designed to achieve Shock and Awe-systems that may break the mold much as the Model T Ford once did years ago.
The genetic decoders in bioengineering laboratories, computer-aided design tools used by engineers, vast database management systems in place in corporate offices, computer-controlled machines enabling composite materials, and the countless academic, business, and personal computers are all evidence of the prominent and ever increasing role information technologies have assumed in modern economies. Many of the technologies underlying the Information Age are being spearheaded by U.S. small business and its entrepreneurial culture. Certainly, from the huge consumer electronics firms in Japan to software development businesses in India, the rest of the world participates and competes. But few can deny that U.S. industry provides the leadership in and is the preeminent developer of information technologies as they are most broadly defined. This leadership position, properly leveraged, provides the United States with an ever increasing military advantage over competing nations.
Leveraging technology requires more than merely incorporating it into U.S. forces; it is likely to include a significant redesign of both forces and leadership to embrace these rapidly evolving technologies. Many of the technologies that will support Rapid Dominance are already discernible. Unlike the impact of nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that a single technology or system will emerge to produce Rapid Dominance. It will only be attainable through the broadest integration of strategic concepts, doctrine, operational needs, technological advances, system design, and appropriate organization of command, control, training and education. And only a large, immensely capable country such as the U.S. may be able to achieve this.
Rapid Dominance seeks to integrate this confluence of strategy, technology, and innovation. Four core characteristics were defined earlier as crucial:
Complete knowledge of self, adversary, and the environment;
Rapidity;
Brilliance of execution; and
Control of the environment.
What follows is illustrative rather than exhaustive of how technology can be used in a broad system approach. Many of these technologies currently are being addressed within the defense community. Analysts, military strategists, acquisition planners, and even "futurists" are wrestling with the meaning and consequences of the Information Age. Our focus on systems and technologies begins with these four characteristics.