The Value of Experimentation, not Demonstration

1

not Demonstration

2

Hudson Institute is a research organization promoting American leadership for a secure, free, and prosperous future.

transitions through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, energy, technology, culture, and law. Hudson seeks to guide policymakers and global leaders in government and business through a robust program of publications, conferences, policy briefings, and recommendations. First published in 2024 by NDIA’s affiliate, the Emerging Technologies Institute. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201, United States of America. (703) 522-1820 © 2024 by the National Defense Industrial Association. All rights reserved. This report is made possible by general support to NDIA and the Emerging Technologies Institute. No direct sponsorship contributed to this report. This report is produced by NDIA, a non-partisan, non-profit, educational association that has been designated by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and was founded to educate its constituencies on all aspects of national security. Its research is nonpartisan. DISCLAIMER: The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed to be official positions of either NDIA or any of the organizations listed as contributors or the membership of NDIA. It is published in the interest of an information exchange between government and industry, pursuant to its mission to bring industry and government together to engage in discussions of important topics. For more information please visit our website: EmergingTechnologiesInstitute.org Typeset and produced by Alexander Feeser and Eve Dorris.

Rachel Sunderland, NDIA Director of Public Affairs & Communications at rsunderland@NDIA.org

The Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts & Technology

Senior Fellow, The Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts & Technology

for their editorial work. 3

complex and interconnected battlespace. Notably, technology is creating new opportunities to co-evolve operational concepts and tactics with the tools of war- fare. With the accelerating pace of change in warfare, success can depend more on rapid adaptation via novel combinations of capabilities across domains than on speed, range, or warhead size. The degree of cross-do- main and cross-system coupling needed to win in this reality challenges traditional service-by-service and program-by-program approaches to technology-en- abled operational concepts. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has demonstrated remarkable speed in developing new military capabilities – espe- cially in missiles and aircraft – and has complemented that with rapid scaling of inventory. This combination of speed and scale conspires to make one of the biggest problems facing the Department of Defense (DoD) not just performance attributes or quantities of systems, but its very agility to operate, and stresses the histor- ical approach of episodically filling operational gaps with service-specific acquisition priorities. As adver- saries advance their capabilities, DoD needs new ways to prototype and experiment with joint systems-of-sys- tems that transcend traditional service boundaries and enable rapid adaptation.

Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) in 2021 to drive joint experimentation and accelerate capability development. This effort has undergone considerable refinement since its launch and is now structured to focus on solving military problems with available capa- bilities, rather than maturing or introducing specific products.

gy-enabled solutions at the operational level of war before war manifests. This does not mean that all or even most RDER experimentation is done at the operational level or run at a joint level; rather the exper- imentation should be informed by the problems and/ or opportunities that exist at that level. By addressing 1 Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking 2 A full recording of the “Advancing Joint Experimentation to Solve Operational Problems” event can be found on the Hudson Institute’s YouTube channel here: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGI7VRbIG8&t=930s problems at the operational level—such as C5ISRT 1 at scale—RDER naturally pursues joint solutions that don’t inherently map onto one particular service or operat- ing domain. No single service has the responsibility for joint command and control (C2). However, some new capabilities – like a kill chain that leverages sensors and munitions from multiple services – require not only the technical work of integrating sensor and shooter, but also exploration of how to best employ the new capabil- ity, which units should command the effect, and which others should support it.