The culture of defense has changed drastically in the past 20 years. While the U.S. once led the charge in defense, we are now living in a shared political and military world order.
Due to this cultural shift, the U.S. can no longer act as unilaterally as it once did — it must adapt its training and strategies to incorporate this new global market. The Department of Defense has never been particularly organized when it comes to long-term maintenance of its core competencies. But if the DoD fails to change this strategic weakness, it may find itself left in the dust when it comes to design and manufacturing.
Culture needs to be better defined across our defense industry, and it can be. But to do so, the industrial base will need to overhaul its traditional infrastructure and redefine its parameters for knowledge and innovation.
The Importance of the Human Element
Traditionally, the U.S. has focused its energy on empowering the people on the ground, accomplishing missions from the human perspective. But in the past decade or so, the pendulum has begun to swing in the opposite direction: automation. Thanks to technologies like modeling, simulation and unmanned vehicles, the DoD is catapulting toward entirely machine-focused development. While there are some merits to this approach, this direction may quickly take us to a point of marginal return and marginal utility.
The DoD needs a new balanced approach between the human and the automated to prepare for future combat needs. It must acknowledge that a trained human system is an essential part of a balanced tooth-to-tail concept. This integration also ties directly into the new, more global defense environment. Recognizing the individual's role in combat requires the DoD to respond and understand the role culture plays in military development. This is true not only for our own country, but also for military superpowers like China, Russia, and Iran.
Rather than threaten military strikes, the U.S. must now look to diplomacy and international debate. This focus is essential to protecting citizens at home and abroad and is the responsible choice for a global leader. Each nation's social norms, values, and behaviors drive their own political and defense decisions, and all of these factors must be considered when negotiating terms.
The U.S. is where we train, study, instill values, and shape our service members' behavior and thinking — not just as soldiers, but also as people. To have a strong home base, we have to not only remember the people involved on every side of a potential conflict, but also train our soldiers to think empathetically about every angle of the conflict.
Setting the Right Balance
So how can the DoD enact all of these changes and make them stick? To do that, it must consider how it deals with procurement, contracts, professional development, and long-term planning in three key areas that cover the tooth and the tail.
Traditional infrastructure: This is the tail of the strategy. It includes physical assets like buildings, vehicles, and weapon platforms, focusing on operationally safe and technologically advanced assets that embrace the human element.
Knowledge infrastructure: This covers succession planning, training, and career path development. These must be updated to millennials' way of thinking, building collaborative relationships over hierarchies. Adapting the knowledge infrastructure to fit younger generations is essential to long-term sustainability.
Innovation and collaboration infrastructure: Forums, academia, and world experts all fit under this category. Constant environmental and innovation conversations will keep the DoD current on world development across the board.
Successful implementation of these infrastructures will require continual assessment and realignment. These evaluations follow the fundamental balanced scorecard attributes of any high-performing organization — military or not. If these aren't kept in constant consideration, it could ruin the delicate balance the industry needs.to move forward.
The defense industry is changing whether we like it or not. As long as the DoD and the industry base can maintain the right balance and focus in this new world, it should have a healthy future in terms of safety and economy.
Bradford Blevins is a managing partner at gothamCulture and a U.S. Army Infantry veteran.
