This study reviewed the applicability of autonomy across a broad array of Department of Defense (DOD) missions and concluded that there are both substantial operational benefits and potential perils associated with its use. Autonomy delivers significant military value, including opportunities to reduce the number of warfighters in harm's way, increase the quality and speed of decisions in time-critical operations, and enable new missions that would otherwise be impossible. Autonomy also delivers significant value across a diverse array of global markets. Both enabling technologies and commercial applications are advancing rapidly in response to market opportunities. This study concludes that DOD must accelerate its exploitation of autonomy -- both to realize the potential military value and to remain ahead of adversaries who also will exploit its operational benefits. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
Over the past decade, dozens of studies, reports, directives, and commissions have recommended specific changes in the approach the Department of Defense (DoD) uses to acquire products (primarily major weapon systems). This Defense Science Board (DSB) Summer Study Task Force reviewed these prior studies and concluded that, by and large, the recommendations have ben implemented. Rather than adding to the list of 'what to do' recommendations, this Task Force concentrated on recommending 'how-to-implement' change. This is a departure from the typical technical recommendations, but the Task Force believes this 'how to' focus is urgently needed at this juncture.
In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy: 1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; 2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research; 3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and 4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars.
The United States faces stealthy adversaries who have demonstrated both motives and means to inflict grave damage on the U.S. homeland. The nation's strategy in response to this type of adversary is clear: engage the threat as far as possible from the U.S. homeland, on its turf. This approach requires a multi-agency government effort, with the Department of Defense (DoD) playing a major role. A capability to protect the homeland is a necessary complement to the capability of strategic reach against these asymmetric threats. However, the challenges of homeland protection are complex. There are so many assets to protect, so many modes of attack available to adversaries, and so many organizations (federal, state, local, and private) involved that, understandably, both the conceptual thinking and the capabilities required are still immature. Responsibilities and authorities must be assigned and operative terms (homeland defense and homeland security, for example) need to be defined. The Defense Science Board (DSB) read with care current definitions and wrestled with inventing new ones. In the end, instead of focusing on precise distinctions between various terms, the board adopted a broad framework, consistent with the study terms of reference, within which to consider homeland protection issues. Maturing the conceptual framework and capabilities related to homeland protection, the DSB believes, requires a holistic approach. However, organizational boundaries inhibit such an approach. Thus, fostering a holistic approach to protecting the homeland is a guiding theme for this study and the recommendations reflect this theme.
The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation. —Dr. Kent Hughes, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars This volume contains a remarkable collection of extremely insightful articles on the world’s most successful advanced technology agency. Drafted by the leading US experts on DARPA, it provides a variety of perspectives that in turn benefit from being presented together in a comprehensive volume. It reviews DARPA’s unique role in the U.S. innovation system, as well as the challenges DARPA and its clones face today. As the American model is being considered for adoption by a number of countries worldwide, this book makes a welcome and timely contribution to the policy dialogue on the role played by governments in stimulating technological innovation. — Prof. Charles Wessner, Georgetown University The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’? This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.
The United States cannot be confident that our critical Information Technology (IT) systems will work under attack from a sophisticated and well-resourced opponent utilizing cyber capabilities in combination with all of their military and intelligence capabilities (a "full spectrum" adversary). While this is also true for others (e.g. Allies, rivals, and public/private networks), this Task Force strongly believes the DoD needs to take the lead and build an effective response to measurably increase confidence in the IT systems we depend on (public and private) and at the same time decrease a would-be attacker's confidence in the effectiveness of their capabilities to compromise DoD systems. We have recommended an approach to do so, and we need to start now!
