Defense Science Board 

2006 Summer Study 

on 

21st Century Strategic 

Technology Vectors 

Volume III 

Strategic Technology Planning 

February 2006 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

Washington, D.C. 20301-3140
Report Documentation Page Form Approved

OMB No. 0704-0188

Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and

maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information,

including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington

VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it

does not display a currently valid OMB control number.

1. REPORT DATE

FEB 2006 2. REPORT TYPE

3. DATES COVERED

 00-00-2006 to 00-00-2006 

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Defense Science Board 2006 Summer Study on 21st Century Strategic

Technology Vectors. Volume III Strategic Technology Planning 

5a. CONTRACT NUMBER

5b. GRANT NUMBER

5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER

5e. TASK NUMBER

5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER

7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense,For Acquisition, Technology,

and Logistics,Washington,DC,20301-3140

8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION

REPORT NUMBER

9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM(S)

11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT 

NUMBER(S)

12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited

13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

14. ABSTRACT

15. SUBJECT TERMS

16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 

ABSTRACT

18. NUMBER

OF PAGES

99

19a. NAME OF

RESPONSIBLE PERSON

a. REPORT

unclassified

b. ABSTRACT

unclassified

c. THIS PAGE

unclassified

Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)

Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 
Volume I of the Defense Science Board 2006 Summer Study on 21st Century 

Strategic Technology Vectors represents the consensus view of the study’s 

membership. This volume (III) is the report of the Strategic Technology 

Planning panel of the summer study. Its findings and recommendations were 

used to create volume I and it provides additional detail. Findings and 

recommendations provided in this and the other panel reports (volumes II and 

IV) do not necessarily represent the consensus view of the full summer study 

membership. 

This report is a product of the Defense Science Board (DSB). 

The DSB is a Federal Advisory Committee established to provide independent advice to the 

Secretary of Defense. Statements, opinions, conclusions, and recommendations in this report 

do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of Defense. 

This report is unclassified.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I i

Table of Contents 

Summary..........................................................................................................iii

Chapter 1. Strategic Context..........................................................................1

Uncertainty and Surprise .........................................................................1

U.S. Strategic Technology Advantages are Eroding................................2

Chapter 2. What Is Not Working Well Enough .........................................6

A Lack of Strategic Direction .................................................................6

Enterprise Processes Have Deteriorated Over Time..........................7

Chapter 3. What is Needed..........................................................................13

Strategic Technology Planning: Mission Portfolios...........................13

Enhanced Execution Capacity..............................................................14

Chapter 4. Historical Precedent ..................................................................19

Features of Most Great Developments...............................................19

Mission Portfolios in the 1960s and 1970s .........................................20

Chapter 5. Recommendations .....................................................................29

Strategic Technology Planning .............................................................30

Enhanced Execution Capability ...........................................................42

A Refocused AT&L Enterprise............................................................45

Chapter 6. Conclusion ..................................................................................46

Appendix A. Terms of Reference...............................................................49

Appendix B. Panel Membership .................................................................53

Appendix C. Presentations to the Panel ....................................................54

Appendix D. Statute and Policy Background............................................56

Appendix E. Current JCIDS and S&T Processes.....................................58

Appendix F. Illustrative Execution Agent Roles......................................79

Appendix G. Historical Perspective ...........................................................81

Appendix H. Glossary ..................................................................................92
ii I TABLE OF CONTENTS 
SUMMARY I iii

Summary 

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) emphasized the 

need for greater agility in the Department of Defense (DOD)—a need 

amplified as terrorists exhibit the very adaptability so desired. The QDR 

also specified that to achieve this goal, DOD must undertake 

organizational change. 

The QDR provided insights into the potential threat environment 

for decades to come. The current and future threats to national security 

cannot be addressed and managed by simple, single-dimensional 

actions. Rather, an enterprise-wide action plan is called for that includes 

changes to people, processes, and technologies. To achieve such drastic 

enhancements, actions are needed throughout the department. 

As part of the Defense Science Board 2006 Summer Study on 21st

Century Strategic Technology Vectors (see Terms of Reference in 

Appendix A), this report focuses on the DOD science and technology 

enterprise and how it could be transformed to meet the nation’s future 

security challenges. It reflects the findings and recommendations of the 

study’s panel on strategic technology planning (see Panel Membership 

in Appendix B), which was charged with reviewing the processes by 

which national security objectives are used to derive needed operational 

capabilities, which in turn are used to develop and prioritize science and 

technology plans and programs. 
iv I 
STRATEGIC CONTEXT I 1

Chapter 1. Strategic Context 

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and other strategic 

documents identify key future challenges and the broad capabilities 

required to meet those challenges—in other words, the “what.” This 

report addresses the “how”—the processes by which technologies are 

developed against the context of those challenges to better deliver 

required capabilities. 

Any assessment must begin with the acknowledgement that many of 

the relevant global environmental factors influencing the explosive 

development of technology are also creating challenges to U.S. security. 

These factors enable state and non-state actors to develop capabilities 

that can be used against the United States and its allies. These factors are 

increasingly outside of U.S. control or influence. Thus, it is not feasible to 

separate the technology-threat-countermeasure sequence in the way that 

was once possible. This relationship will become more critical as the 

ability to leverage relevant commercial technologies shortens the time 

from idea to deployment and reduces the costs to adversaries. 

Uncertainty and Surprise 

The uncertainty and surprise that will dominate the strategic 

environment, as outlined in the QDR, should itself not be a surprise. 

Rather, the post-Cold War paradigm is predictably dynamic. Therefore, 

the Department of Defense (DOD) must establish processes and 

environments for technology and systems development that can function 

in a rapidly changing world. 

Current threats challenge traditional, overpowering U.S. superiority 

by finding and exploiting asymmetric advantage. In the QDR framework 

the asymmetries are: 
2 I CHAPTER 1 

 Global war on terror: The use of unconventional means to 

traditional standing military power. 

 Emergence of peer: The use of conventional means in 

dimensions that avoid closing on U.S. strengths or that favor 

their strategic advantages, such as deep sea or dispersed 

ground (not air or space). 

 Rogue adversary: The use of weapons of mass destruction 

(WMD). 

 Unstable nation states: Placing at risk or destroying the 

foundations of civil society or government with the use of 

chaos or violating the established rules of engagement. 

DOD needs to develop a response capability that is more than 

equally ingenious as the current evolution of asymmetric threats. 

Fostering this new ingenuity will require that many forces within the 

department work together. Of these many factors, improving the 

strategic technology planning process is a key to providing the disruptive 

capability needed to enhance security in this dynamic global environment. 

To be successful, the department should establish a new framework for 

technologies, systems, and capabilities development that overcomes or 

offsets the responsiveness of current and future adversaries. 

U.S. Strategic Technology Advantages are Eroding 

Since WWII, the United States has exploited technology to its 

advantage more quickly and efficiently and with more powerful results 

than any other country. This crucial national advantage was 

empowered by: 

 a previously simple threat-peer environment 

 technical leadership that was the mainstay of the department 

 relatively small levels of innovation by nations other than the 

United States and its traditional allies 

 U.S. science and technology (S&T) investment that dwarfed the 

levels of S&T investment elsewhere 
STRATEGIC CONTEXT I 3

 a military-industrial complex that was the primary source for 

U.S. technology 

 a DOD that drew the best technical minds available 

 a national outlook that valued strategic technology. 

Today, many, if not all, of these factors have changed. The dynamic 

in which the department must function is different, requiring 

adjustment to expectations and accordingly to processes. 

Asymmetric Adversaries and Technology Programs 

Improvements in technology could enable DOD to create the 

systems needed to prevail over the systems deployed by new 

adversaries. But adversaries are likely to be leveraging much of the same 

global technology base in developing threats and countermeasures. In 

this highly mobile, global technological environment, the same 

technology concepts and sources the DOD should seek will likely be 

sought for exploitation by adversaries. This challenge will increase as 

commercial technologies become more commonly integrated into highand low-cost weapon systems. 

Current adversaries have shown an increasing ability to respond to 

U.S. deployed capabilities in innovative, fast, low-cost, and regionalspecific ways. In response, the United States struggles to exercise the 

entire “legacy S&T development system” to counteract these threats. 

While the legacy S&T development system is optimized to produce 

high quality, reliable systems, its products are slow to be fielded, 

expensive, and too often optimized for global deployment, rather than 

the fleeting and regional problems at hand. In addition, decision aids 

for commanding and controlling the force, or to effectively integrate 

coalition forces, must continuously evolve so as to remain ahead of 

these newly delivered systems. 

The United States must be capable of fighting in a way that 

emphasizes its superior innovative capabilities. Effective technology 

development is essential to turn the adaptation cycle to the advantage 

of the United States. The adaptation cycle of adversaries is often 
4 I CHAPTER 1 

facilitated by their willingness to apply available commercial technology 

in creative ways and to rapidly integrate technologies into systems. 

This new exploitation of asymmetry between U.S. forces and a suite 

of adversaries accentuates the differences in motivations and norms. 

America’s focus on quality of life, the respect for human life, and 

individual liberty is countered by the reckless disregard for human life, 

lack of focus on a stable nation-state foundation, and a greater 

emphasis on religious and ethnic ties rather than national loyalties. 

In addition, employing non-kinetic instruments of warfare blurs the 

definition of winning or losing in war as the motivations, goals, and 

assumptions of U.S. adversaries are so elucidated. These circumstances 

amplify the asymmetry by providing small, disenfranchised groups 

with disproportionate power against traditional armies or established 

nation states. 

To these ends U.S. adversaries have sought the capability to 

accelerate the development and deployment of systems using: 

 globalization and the Internet, which enables the rapid spread 

of technology and proliferation of information gleaned from the 

relative openness of the American defense industry and 

multinational firms 

 integrative innovation to quickly achieve new capabilities 

without using exotic technologies 

 global knowledge and quality education to make adherents more 

capable in areas that directly enhance their ability to engineer 

new asymmetric capabilities 

 experimentation, basic operations, and enhanced operations 

that are being combined into one continuous, rapid effort to 

develop solutions to system deployment challenges. 
STRATEGIC CONTEXT I 5

Pace of Adversarial Changes and DOD Technology 

Implementation 

A primary issue is the time sequencing of activities. The department 

should establish processes that will exploit this rapidly changing global 

technology domain. A concerted effort is needed to develop a DOD 

technology strategy that not only continues to addresses long-term 

concerns but also evolves to support rapidly changing, short-term needs. 

DOD should assemble and manage its capabilities development 

process to exploit the same attributes of highly compressed urgent 

collaboration, innovation, and expediency that U.S. adversaries are 

exercising to adapt to the modern operational battlefield. 

Currently, the technology development budget process does neither 

well, since strategic technology planning is more the product of 

stakeholder consensus. Furthermore, incentives create an environment 

where participants are more likely to disrupt progress with their 

bureaucratic self-interests rather than facilitate advances.1

As a result, the end state must take into account the elements of costs, 

resources, and speed. The cost/resource struggle is exacerbated by the fact 

that the United States will likely have more demands and fewer resources 

to meet them. Conversely, adversaries will likely, as a deliberate strategy, 

refine their exploitation of technologies to deploy new capabilities ever 

more expeditiously, rather than respond to a lack of resources. Finally, 

western cultures require a high wage for technology workers who are 

needed to support these new development paradigms while many 

adversaries have significantly lower manpower costs. 

 

1. For example, with a relatively fixed top-line budget for DOD technology development, 

Congressional earmarks for S&T projects not requested by the war fighters can displace other 

funded S&T projects. Without a clearly articulated vision that would enable the department to 

more effectively say no to these additional programs, earmarks will continue to divert scarce 

S&T staff resources in the military service and defense agencies. Additionally, many “earmarks” 

are not even mandated by statute, but by committee report language. 
6 I CHAPTER 2 

Chapter 2. 

What Is Not Working Well Enough 

DOD science and technology programs are not well-positioned 

to meet the nation’s strategic challenges. 

The challenges described in the QDR place even greater demands 

on the department’s deployed forces. DOD needs to be more adaptive 

in order for these forces to continue to meet future challenges. A better 

linkage is needed between the technology community and the war 

fighter so that deployed forces are better informed about technological 

possibilities and the department’s ability to develop missions, 

capabilities, and requirements is enhanced. 

A Lack of Strategic Direction 

Today’s complex and changing environment demands careful 

strategic direction to better focus technology development and 

investments. The Department of Defense needs an overarching 

strategic plan that identifies all capabilities likely to be needed in the 

near- and far-term to address major challenges. This strategic plan 

should identify existing capabilities, those in need of improvement, and 

those in need of development. Capability areas in need of improvement 

or development should be prioritized relative to the demands of the 

strategic environment. The plan should also be capable of identifying 

those technologies that are reaching or past their utility. 

Future joint concepts and capability needs would be better 

developed with an informed understanding of the technological 

possibilities available to the United States, as well as the technology 

options available to adversaries. These technology vectors need to be 

well considered before capabilities and concepts are fixed. A high 

degree of peer-to-peer interaction between technologists and missionplanners will be required to achieve these results. 
WHAT IS NOT WORKING I 7

Whether it is future technological developments by a near peer or 

future commercial technological developments in the hands of 

terrorists, technologists must anticipate these possibilities if the 

capabilities development enterprise is to be fully prepared to meet the 

threat posed by adaptive adversaries. Thus, the requirement to help 

shape the scope and focus of future capabilities must be part of the 

department’s strategic technology plan. Pure war-fighter-driven 

technology programs are insufficient to assure that the necessary 

technologies will be in place to meet future needs, given the pace and 

nature of current and future operating environments. 

Enterprise Processes Have Deteriorated 

The launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957 triggered a major 

reorganization of military research and development (R&D). The 

Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 created the office of the Director 

of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) to provide a 

centralized authority to approve, disapprove, or modify all R&D 

programs of the Defense Department. In that post–Korean War 

period, concern about the Soviet Union’s possession of the hydrogen 

bomb and its potential to deliver one over intercontinental distances 

provided a renewed high-level interest in the ability of science and 

technology to develop defensive and offensive counters to this threat. 

Science and technology programs became quickly focused on the space 

and missile defense arenas. The Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(later renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

[DARPA]) was created to conduct special projects in this area, free 

from interference by the military services. The emphasis in DOD was 

on establishing the overall technology agenda, eliminating redundancy, 

and reducing inter-service rivalry, with the DDR&E serving as the final 

authority. These strategic technology processes remained relatively 

constant throughout the Cold War. 

But, since the mid-1980s, the department’s management of S&T has 

been dispersed and decentralized. The role of the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense (OSD) is best described as one of policy and oversight. This 

role contrasts with the more proactive, high-level direction and strategyshaping role characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s. The events of 
8 I CHAPTER 2 

September 11, 2001, drastically changed the strategic thinking of the 

Department of Defense, while S&T approaches have remained stuck in 

the 1980s. It is of immense importance that DOD’s current proactive 

approach to strategies, plans, and programs be accompanied by a 

proactive technology enterprise that is refocused to address the current 

strategic environment and its compelling new challenges. 

The Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS) was 

created to replace the previous service-specific requirements-generation 

system, which was widely seen as having created redundancies in 

capabilities and failed to meet the combined needs of the combatant 

commanders who actually employ the capabilities provided by the 

services, Special Operations Command, and the defense agencies.2

 As the 

JCIDS process is struggling to evolve into an effective system, the 

current strategic technology planning process is still criticized as simply 

compiling a list of service technology programs and not an enterprise 

strategic plan. Additionally, it is not informed by, nor does it effectively 

inform, the JCIDS requirement process. 

Strategic technology planning is the responsibility of the DDR&E in 

the role of principal staff advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (USD [AT&L]). The DDR&E 

staff of approximately 60 people has the following responsibilities: 

 develop strategies and supporting plans 

 conduct analyses and studies 

 develop policies 

 provide technical leadership, oversight, and advice 

 make recommendations 

 issue guidance 

 recommend approval, modification, or disapproval 

of programs and projects 

 

2. Appendix E contains more detailed explanation of the JDICS and S&T processes 

within DOD. 
WHAT IS NOT WORKING I 9

 provide guidance during the Planning, Programming, Budgeting 

and Execution (PPBE) process 

 develop defense and transformation planning guidance 

consistent with a capabilities-based planning approach 

 develop technology planning guidance for the Secretary of 

Defense 

 recommend appropriate funding levels 

 represent the research and engineering (R&E) program as a 

member of the Program Review Group 

 recommend programmatic adjustments 

 advise the Secretary of Defense on whether the President’s 

budget meets DOD goals and objectives 

 oversee the DOD laboratories 

 promote coordination and cooperation within DOD and 

between DOD and other federal agencies and the civilian 

community 

 ensure R&E interchange with allied and friendly nations 

 provide support to the Defense Technology Security 

Administration 

 provide advice and assistance for rapid technology transition 

 develop and maintain an R&E metrics program to measure 

and assess progress 

 provide technical evaluation of DOD component special 

access programs 

 provide technical support to USD (AT&L) on technology 

readiness of programs for the Defense Acquisition Board 

and industrial base issues 
10 I CHAPTER 2 

 serve on boards, committees, and other groups in R&E 

functional areas and represent OSD on DDR&E matters 

outside the DOD.3

The current staff is overwhelmed with day-to-day activities inherent 

within these assigned responsibilities. For example, they are often given 

only a short time period to perform a technical readiness assessment for 

a complex acquisition program consisting of multiple technical risks 

and a variety of performing contractors. In addition to performing 

these technical readiness assessments, they are often called upon to 

recommend ways to mitigate high-risk programs. In part, these shortterm requests have in essence transformed the DOD Chief Technology 

Officer into the DOD Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer’s staff is 

then constrained to an approximately two-week period to review the 

service Program Objective Memorandum submissions for compliance 

with departmental guidance. Because of the press of these day-today activities, important long-term functions such as strategic 

planning do not receive the necessary attention. 

Strategic technology planning by the DDR&E has been further 

hampered by an inability to arrive at an intimate understanding of war 

fighter needs. These insights can only be obtained from a frequent and 

continuing peer-to-peer interaction with operational military personnel. 

They require in-depth knowledge of national and departmental strategic 

goals and objectives and an ability to translate these objectives into 

specific strategic technology vectors to guide the creation of service and 

agency technology plans. It also requires deep technical knowledge to 

understand what is possible and what is not. Finally, it requires sufficient 

staff for contemplative thinking and collaboration with the services, other 

government agencies, and with industry, universities, and allies. DDR&E 

currently accomplishes strategic planning during lulls between day-to-day 

demands, rather than with sufficient people to dedicate to the process. 

This failure to develop a credible strategic plan in some part results in 

an uninspired technology community that tends to revert to an overemphasis on immediate problems—resulting in a near-term rather than 

 

3. DOD Directive 5134.3. 
WHAT IS NOT WORKING I 11

strategic focus. The increasingly near-term and risk-averse science and 

technology investment accounts (budget categories 6.2 and 6.3) reflect 

this trend, aggravated by the natural tendency of service program 

managers to focus technology resources toward solving their current 

programmatic challenges. 

In contrast, a credible, continually refreshed strategic technology 

plan will: 

 provide meaningful technical goals and objectives (from 

the vision) to better prepare for an uncertain future 

 inspire and encourage technologists to take risks (longer 

term vision) 

 balance technology investments between requirements 

and opportunities 

 build consensus and advocacy within the user community 

to support technology investments and pave the way for 

technology transition 

 rationalize and justify the technology program to Congress 

with arguments that give strong support for the priorities set 

out in the President’s budget. 

Over the past several decades, DOD (and, in some cases, the 

nation) has lost its leadership position in technical areas that are 

important to maintaining military superiority. For example, in technical 

areas such as information technology, biology, and microelectronics, 

the DOD is no longer a significant player as a technology developer or 

even as a significant buyer. Because of the huge world-wide market in 

these high-technology areas, the DOD is now a small-volume buyer. 

The relevant industry is willing to sell the department standard 

commercial products but is increasingly hesitant to alter technology or 

production process just to satisfy unique military needs. 

In other cases, the best available technology is not always available to 

the DOD. Federal Acquisition Regulations require specific and rigid cost 

accounting standards that differ markedly from those used by 

commercial industry and are often too much of a burden for some 

organizations. Another impediment is the regulations that require rights 
12 I CHAPTER 2 

to intellectual property that serve to discourage industry from entering 

into DOD R&D contracts. These regulations especially impact small 

companies that typically have new and innovative technology. Even 

the best and brightest industry scientists and engineers who once 

were traditionally drawn to DOD technologies and programs now 

often choose to work in the more lucrative and faster evolving 

commercial arena. 

With so much technology innovation in the world markets, the DOD 

has yet to organize and staff accordingly. The DOD does not know what 

it does not know and to date has yet to construct solutions or processes 

to overcome this important barrier. There are no systematic and 

enterprise-wide mechanisms to determine how global technologies can 

be used to enhance military capabilities or how these technologies can be 

used against the United States by potential adversaries. 

Defense companies (such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop 

Grumman, and Raytheon) typically allocate significant amounts 

(approximately $1.5 billion annually) of discretionary independent 

research and development funding each year. Yet, without a strategic 

plan, DOD lacks the ability to leverage and optimize industry 

investment for mutual benefit. Major commercial companies allocate 

even larger discretionary resources for research and development (such 

as the pharmaceutical, automotive, and electronics industries). Sony 

alone, for example, spends in research and development more than 

DARPA’s annual budget. 
WHAT IS NEEDED I 13

Chapter 3. What is Needed 

To address the problems described in the previous chapter and 

establish an effective strategic technology planning process in the 

Department of Defense, the panel identified two broad areas where 

improvements can be made: mission-oriented planning and enhanced 

execution. 

Strategic Technology Planning: Mission Portfolios 

The 2006 QDR characterized the future environment—with all its 

myriad uncertainties—well enough to pose a meaningful list of strategic 

challenges. But beyond those broad challenges, the DOD requires a set 

of overarching operational objectives to provide a focus for technology 

development. An example of such an objective, used in earlier decades by 

the Air Force, was “having the capability to strike any target, at any place, 

at any time, with precision.” An attribute-related expression of this 

objective might have been “We seek stealth, precision, and speed.” 

This compact objective provided a trajectory to the S&T community 

and shaped technology development activities at all levels. Wellarticulated operational objectives of this nature are required to develop 

mission-relevant technology visions that will provide a context for setting 

resource priorities. Once the technology vision is defined, a set of 

technology strategies is required to guide planning and programming and 

to outline the mechanisms by which the defined technology objectives 

will be inserted into the capability planning process. 

A strong partnership between the USD (AT&L) and the Vice 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VCJCS) will be a key enabler for 

the development and execution of the technology vision and strategy. 

Their leadership will guide the S&T community to leverage the best 

solutions from both a capabilities focus (demand-pull) as well as an 

S&T focus (technology-push). 
14 I CHAPTER 3 

A dedicated cadre of mission portfolio strategists will be 

needed to develop the technology visions and associated strategies.

This group should be tasked to assess current technological realities and 

the technological possibilities, from near- to far-term, which hold the 

potential to create the key capabilities needed to meet the range of 

challenges facing the department (such as the global war on terror, an 

emerging peer, rogue states, and failing states). 

Through this portfolio approach, plans can be put in place for 

enterprise-wide investment strategies that are needed to direct the 

development of technologies over multiple timeframes, as well as to 

highlight relevant risks and opportunities. Furthermore, if called upon, 

a mission-oriented portfolio approach could provide the basis for 

investment and disinvestment decisions, driven by available resources, 

shifting strategies, or concepts that do not prove out. 

Enhanced Execution Capacity 

In addition to establishing a cadre of mission portfolio strategists, 

DOD needs to bolster its ability to execute the technology strategies. In 

broad terms, this means establishing technology development mechanisms, 

as described in Table 1. Five execution agents are needed: developer, 

innovator, speculator, prospector, and expeditor.4 

As noted, the DOD must operate in an unpredictable world, where 

new threats and new national security challenges can emerge very 

quickly. Thus, while preparing a best estimate of what the future will 

bring is prudent, there must be a recognition that the future cannot be 

known with certainty and DOD needs to be prepared to adapt quickly 

to changing strategic environments. 

In addition, commercially developed technologies are universally 

available, improving quickly, and are increasingly being adapted for 

military purposes through aggressive Darwinian “real world development 

 

4. Volume I, which integrates across all the panel reports, identifies a sixth execution agent, 

the “anticipator.” The anticipator explores how foes could use technology to field 

capabilities disruptive to U.S. goals. 
WHAT IS NEEDED I 15

and testing” processes seeking to thwart U.S. defenses—the threat from 

improvised explosive devices (IED) is a current deadly example, but 

others just as serious and surprising will certainly follow. Just as these 

new commercial technologies can quickly turn into threats, DOD needs 

to have an efficient mechanism to exploit the emergence of these 

technologies to improve its own capabilities. 

Table 1. Taxonomy of Technology Development Mechanisms 

Taxonomy Functions

Developer Develops systems in direct response to requirements using the established 

acquisition system; delivers to users.

Innovator Funds risky technologies with the potential for enormous payoff in military 

capability; develops prototypes; responds to current or anticipated needs; 

delivers to developer or expeditor.

Speculator Funds “bottoms-up” discovery to create disruptive breakthroughs in DOD 

areas without clear commercial application; not directly requirementsdriven; very high risk; typically requires sustained investments over 

substantial time horizons; delivers to innovator, developer, or expeditor.

Prospector Finds global solutions to address current needs; informs execution agents 

of what’s available now.

Expeditor Accelerates technology to war fighter in less than two years, especially in 

response to changing operational needs; uses current or developmental 

technologies; driven by “requirements pull”; conducts rapid prototyping, 

testing, and demonstration; delivers to users.

For these reasons, the United States must balance its goal of 

prioritizing technology development resources based on assumptions 

about the future, with the need to be adaptive in a rapidly changing world. 

Furthermore, the DOD must continue to foster (through empowered 

people) the innovation that has long been a hallmark of U.S. technological 

dominance—bringing change to the larger world, rather than simply being 

on the receiving end of change as described above. This “bottoms-up” 

innovation is an important element in the technology development arsenal. 
16 I CHAPTER 3 

These fundamental tensions—between “top-down” versus 

“bottoms-up” and fast-cycle-time versus sustained effort—call for a 

number of execution agents, each with a different purpose, discrete 

core competency, and focus. Summed together, this suite of agents can 

better foster the competition of ideas required for continued U.S. 

dominance. The job of the USD (AT&L), in the “technology” role, is 

to create an environment, across the full taxonomy of S&T domains, 

where the technology aperture can be open as wide as possible. 

Further, when appropriate, it should adjudicate between the efforts of 

its various execution agencies. The USD (AT&L) must aim to create 

a Darwinian competition of ideas, resulting in the development of the 

full mix of capabilities: near- and long-term, requirements-driven 

and innovation-enabled, developed by DOD and harvested from 

commercial technologies. 

“Developers” mature technology in direct response to requirements 

and operate within the traditional (often ponderous) acquisition system. 

As requirements-driven organizations, they are focused on delivering a 

specified level of performance to the user on a set schedule, at a set cost 

that is determined well in advance. They are well suited to implement the 

top-down S&T prioritization, especially those with long-time horizons. 

Other mechanisms are required for more risky technology 

development. Another element in the suite of execution agents is the 

“innovator,” funding very risky technologies beyond those within the 

charter of the developers that, if successful, have the potential for 

enormous payoff in military capability. The innovator should not be 

constrained by excess oversight or peer-reviewed processes, since these 

can prevent the emergence of very high-risk technologies. Innovators 

are a complement to, not a replacement for, the developers. 

Where innovators select their technology investments based on 

directly supporting military capability needs, experience shows that it is 

also important to provide a “speculator” mechanism to fund “bottomsup” discovery in those areas important to DOD, often initially without a 

clear war fighter application. Such efforts are not requirements-driven 

and, further, are typically very high risk. Therefore, they may not appear 

to be wise bets when viewed through the lens of capability needs based 

on mission analysis. However, history shows that creative risk-taking is 
WHAT IS NEEDED I 17

important in achieving disruptive breakthroughs, which in turn are 

necessary for providing the unexpected technology opportunities that 

enable new, unforeseen, war fighting capabilities—new and better ways 

to do things that have heretofore been seen as “acceptable.” This 

function is becoming increasingly important to fund within the DOD, 

since the defense sector’s speculative independent research and 

development investments have fallen victim to the extreme pressures of 

the market. To be successful, such efforts typically require sustained 

investments over substantial time horizons in order to bear fruit. 

One of the more important aspects of the security environment is the 

proliferation of commercial technologies. These are globally available to 

U.S. enemies and can be expected to be effectively, often asymmetrically, 

exploited by them. The United States should do the same. In addition, 

one of the key assumptions of the QDR is the potential for sudden 

surprise. In a newly emerging strategic reality, there may be an abundance 

of “low-hanging technology fruit” that could be fielded more or less 

directly. A healthy S&T system would create a process to harvest 

commercial technologies into effective capabilities for the DOD through 

a “prospector” mechanism. 

Fast cycle times are critical to this function, in order to keep pace 

with the fast-changing commercial environment, to identify mission 

solutions or new capabilities of which war fighters would otherwise be 

unaware, and to respond quickly to new threats as they come to the fore. 

This insight is gained by trawling the world market, especially the 

commercial market, for promising concepts and technologies that could 

be acquired and easily adapted in the very near-term (“off the shelf”). 

These concepts and technologies would then be quickly handed off to 

others in the DOD to capture and create the connection to immediate 

war fighter needs. 

Finally, it is important to have an “expeditor” mechanism to rapidly 

fill requirements gaps with those technologies that can be matured 

relatively quickly—that is, in less than two years. The goal is to 

accelerate the transition of technology into fielded capabilities in much 

shorter times than is typical today. This type of work is driven by 

“requirements pull” rather than “technology push,” and may use 

existing technology directly or adapt it as necessary to fit within a time-
18 I CHAPTER 3 

certain window. The scope of this effort must include rapid 

prototyping, testing, and, ultimately, demonstration of new capabilities.5 

To summarize, a number of different types of execution agents, 

each with distinct core competences and cultures and governed by 

different rules sets and incentives, are required to meet conflicting 

demands: top-down versus bottom-up, long development time versus 

quick response time, requirements-driven versus innovation-driven, 

DOD-specific technologies versus commercial technologies, and 

planned-for threat versus newly emerged threat. 

 

5. Volume IV of the 2006 summer study report, Accelerating the Transition of Technologies 

in U.S. Capabilities, discuses the expeditor function in greater detail, including 

recommendations for implementation in DOD. 
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT I 19

Chapter 4. Historical Precedent 

An examination of how DOD has, in the past, executed technology 

strategies developed to meet then-relevant security challenges provides 

ample precedent for the panel’s broad prescriptions described in the 

previous chapter. 

Features of Most Great Developments 

A historical look at many developments reveals some common 

features that are instructive in the context of implementing the 

recommendations of this report.6

The “great” developments have been conceived and championed by 

remarkable individuals who provided vision and effective management. 

The approaches consistently used by such individuals focused on people, 

not processes. This context is in stark contrast to a current Pentagon 

culture that emphasizes processes over people. Indeed, this cultural shift 

has now existed for so long that today the very existence of many people 

in the system revolves around processes and consensus, with resulting 

“capabilities processes” that are bloated, intellectually numbing acts. 

The great developments of the past have often had a driving vision 

that provided coherence and direction over time—a vision 

characterized by substance and depth. These coherent visions identified 

“thrusts,” examples of which will be described later in this chapter. 

These thrusts were developed and honed by small groups of top-notch, 

mid-level “up and comers” who were given the freedom to innovate. 

Within the military, these young officers often became well-known 

general officers in later years. 

 

6. Appendix G elaborates more on the features of great developments and offers examples 

of many past successes. 
20 I CHAPTER 4 

Such concepts, however, would have gone nowhere except for the 

senior leadership who championed the activities—service chiefs or senior 

officials such as the DDR&E, for example. Typically, such innovative 

concepts were disruptive and were therefore resisted by existing 

organizations. As a result, senior leaders had to override this tendency to 

resist. That they often did so is perhaps remarkable to those familiar with 

the “innovator’s dilemma” in industry, but defense planning has 

objectors playing far different roles than in profit-making institutions. 

Mission Portfolios in the 1960s and 1970s 

In the 1960s and 1970s, during the height of the Cold War, the 

United States had four diverse strategic missions: strategic deterrence, 

assuring the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), containing 

Asian communism, and opposing Soviet “wars of national liberation.” 

Each was addressed with a different mixture of political means, 

technical programs, military deployments, and combat interventions. As 

a result, the de facto centers for decision-making developed in different 

parts of the federal government. 

Table 2 identifies the principal de facto “mission portfolio strategists” 

that operated within each mission area. While other organizations could 

properly qualify as portfolio strategists, only the principal ones are listed 

in the interest of space. The role of the portfolio strategist is 

characterized by an end-to-end perspective of the whole mission 

response, even though some mission portfolio strategists focused their 

attention on particular programs and technical domains. The mission 

portfolio strategists often exercised some degree of authority over 

technical direction and budget. In other cases, the mission portfolio 

strategists exercised only advisory functions. Some mission portfolio 

strategists were focused on technical programs, others focused on 

diplomatic actions. 

The sections that follow describe each of these strategic missions 

and examine how they were approached in a mission-oriented context. 

They serve as example of the mission portfolios needed in the 

department today. 
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT I 21

Table 2. De facto “Mission Portfolio Strategists” of the 1960s and 1970s 

Mission

Strategic Deterrence 

 DDR&E Strategic Office 

 RAND Physics Department 

 Joint Strategic Targeting and Planning Staff Scientific Advisory Group 

 Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Nuclear Panel

NATO Assurance 

 DDR&E Tactical Office 

 RAND, Institute for Defense Analyses, and other federally funded research and 

development centers 

 Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, Army Science Board, and Naval Studies Board 

 Assistant secretaries in Departments of Defense and State

Asia Containment Mission 

 Assistant secretaries in Departments of Defense and State 

 Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief Pacific

 Commander, U.S. Forces Korea 

Wars of National Liberation Mission 

 National Security Council and senior officials in Department of State 

 Intelligence community: collection, analysis, and operations

NOW—AT&L, and others, are organized by function, not by mission

Strategic Deterrence Mission 

The strategy to deter nuclear strikes by the Soviet Union relied 

largely on the development and deployment of early warning 

surveillance satellites and strategic nuclear retaliatory forces, to include 

specialized intelligence collection, communication means, and 

command arrangements. This high dependence upon relatively novel 

technical means led inevitably to a central role in decision-making by 

technical leaders in the DOD and those national laboratories engaged 

in nuclear weapons development. Those leaders routinely discussed 

problems, progress, and choices with the national security leadership, 
22 I CHAPTER 4 

including the President of the United States. The home office of the 

head of the U.S. arms control negotiating team, Paul Nitze, was located 

within the offices of the DDR&E (when that job had roughly the scope 

of the current USD [AT&L]). 

Aircraft designed to deliver nuclear weapons were acquired through 

existing organizations. However, the nuclear-capable missile programs 

in all the military services were executed through newly established 

special purpose acquisition organizations. Similarly, ballistic missile 

defense programs were conducted by dedicated organizations, largely in 

the Army. All of these special acquisition teams were, to varying 

degrees, monitored and controlled directly by the DDR&E Strategic 

Office. In addition to these hardware acquisition teams, there were 

many dedicated teams of technical personnel that devoted intense 

time looking for unsuspected difficulties in executing retaliatory strikes 

and devising solutions to suspected problems. DARPA was established 

in 1958 in response the “technical surprise” of the Soviet Sputnik 

satellite program. In its early days DARPA focused on ballistic missile 

defense and directed energy—both of which are just now becoming 

fielded weapons. 

Moreover, several specialized S&T execution agents were 

established or modified to bolster specific technical aspects of the 

strategic mission capability. Two notable examples were the Defense 

Nuclear Agency that performed S&T on nuclear weapons effects, and 

the Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) Security Program that 

performed S&T on those aspects of anti-submarine warfare related to 

the SSBN force, to assure its survivability. In both cases, the Strategic 

Office of DDR&E exercised direct technical direction, as well as 

funding and policy oversight. Moreover, the DDR&E Strategic Office 

received the knowledge generated by this specialized S&T and used it to 

inform decisions on major weapons programs. During this period, the 

National Reconnaissance Office was established to provide detailed 

intelligence in support of the strategic mission. Due to security 

concerns, the National Reconnaissance Office directed and funded its 

own supporting S&T. 
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT I 23

Portfolio Strategist 

Since the strategic deterrence mission was heavily based on advanced 

technical programs in missiles and nuclear weapons, the mission portfolio 

strategists were predominantly technical in perspective and position. 

The personnel within the DDR&E Strategic Office were, with rare 

exceptions, professionally trained scientists and engineers, often with 

executive experience in the aerospace industry. The director of the office 

had a flag officer as his military assistant, who also had professional 

technical education and program management experience. About 20 

percent of the professional staff were military officers with similar 

backgrounds. The total office consisted of about two dozen professionals. 

Project RAND was established in the late 1940s to provide planning 

and technical advice to the newly created U.S. Air Force. The RAND 

physics department was primarily concerned with nuclear weapons and 

strategic nuclear delivery systems, including Army and Navy programs of 

that type. It also had direct contractual relationships with national 

laboratories developing nuclear weapons and made several key scientific 

contributions to those programs. Members of the physics department 

served on a number of high-level formal advisory committees in 

Washington, thus providing essential connectivity to the arms control 

and national strategy communities. Other RAND departments 

contributed strongly to the development of concepts and strategy for 

deterrence, extended deterrence, and political strategy.7

The Joint Strategic Targeting and Planning Staff was the joint 

organization based at the Strategic Air Command headquarters in 

Omaha, Nebrasks that prepared the operational plans for the 

employment of nuclear weapons in support of the strategic mission. Its 

scientific advisory group was composed of outside persons, properly 

cleared, with both technical and operational experience. It was charged 

with assuring that the strategic operational forces had the technical 

ability to conduct their operational plans. In that role, the scientific 

advisory group directed many S&T activities whose output included 

 

7. Non-physics members included Albert Wohlstetter, Bernard Brodie, Fred Ikle, and B. W. 

Augenstein, among others. 
24 I CHAPTER 4 

assessments and new opportunities, as well as proposals for technical 

solutions for problems. In 1992, the Strategic Air Command and the 

JSTPS were disestablished, their functions assumed by the newly 

formed U.S. Strategic Command. 

The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board has a broad charter, 

exercised through standing panels each devoted to particular technical 

areas. In the Cold War era, nuclear weapons were deemed important 

enough to garner a panel devoted to them. That panel became involved 

in nuclear arms control matters, as well as nuclear weapons development 

and strategic nuclear delivery systems. It routinely established sub-panels 

to oversee critical technical issues affecting Air Force strategic forces. 

NATO Assurance Mission 

To assure the U.S. commitment to Europe, the nation drew on a 

broad solution space within a political framework provided by NATO’s 

newly established military command arrangements. Permanent 

deployment of large U.S. forces—land, sea, and air—on European soil 

provided both symbolic and actual capability to oppose a Soviet-led 

invasion of Western Europe. Equipping those forces with nuclear 

weapons provided a link to the U.S. strategic nuclear forces. The 

continual modernization of those forces with advanced non-nuclear 

weapons, platforms, communications, intelligence collection, and 

logistics provided assurance that the United States was serious and 

prepared. Contrary to much conventional wisdom, the bulk of overall 

defense expenditures, defense acquisition programs, and S&T 

expenditures were devoted to this “NATO mission.” Cooperative R&D 

programs, as well as shared production of selected items, notably fighter 

planes, served to maintain vitality in European industrial sources. This 

mixed dependence on military and political means led to dedicated 

organizations within the Department of State (State) and the DOD and 

became known as “the NATO mission.” 

Because of certain tensions that arose, the National Security Council 

became deeply involved and, depending upon the issue, often became the 

de facto decision forum. Because the weapon systems relevant to NATO 

were largely “traditional” in nature, the S&T that supported their design 

and development was largely controlled within the military services. The 
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT I 25

rise of the “air-land battle” and “follow-on forces attack” operational 

concepts in the 1970s did lead to intense Army–Air Force collaboration, 

but this collaboration was conducted largely outside of the formal Joint 

Chiefs of Staff or OSD decision forums. 

Portfolio Strategists 

The DDR&E Tactical Office was organized and staffed in a similar 

fashion to the DDR&E Strategic Office. It concerned itself with 

weapon systems and munitions for land, sea, and air. Most of its 

acquisition programs were conceived and directly managed by the 

services. At the time, the combatant commanders did not have the 

obligation, military staff, or technical support to participate in weapon 

system decisions, much less in S&T decisions. A notable exception was 

the Strategic Air Command, which as a specified combatant command 

could rely upon its strong Air Force connections. But Strategic Air 

Command did not really play in the NATO mission arena, though at 

the time many thought it should. 

RAND, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and several other 

federally funded research and development centers conducted extensive 

studies and provided much cogent and influential advice regarding 

weapon systems and promising avenues of S&T exploration in support 

of the NATO mission. The Institute for Defense Analyses was tasked by 

OSD for the most part, but also housed the Weapon System Evaluation 

Group, which served the Joint Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff. Each of the services had an advisory body composed of senior 

technical outsiders. They operated predominantly in a single-service 

mode. However, that presented a true portfolio strategist view in only a 

small minority of cases, but some were very important. 

Tactical communications was probably the most notable case and 

the lack of interoperable communications in legacy systems has 

survived to this day. In reaction to this, OSD established a succession 

of DOD-wide policies and OSD oversight organizations, of which the 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks Information and 

Integration is the current successor. Technical change has been rapid in 

this area, of course, and policy change has had a hard time keeping up 

with technical opportunity. 
26 I CHAPTER 4 

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security 

Affairs and the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe played very 

important roles in portfolio strategy because everything associated with 

NATO had a political dimension. In the S&T arena this was manifested 

most directly in two nominally contradictory matters: (1) formal and 

very active collaboration with NATO allies on many aspects of military 

related technology, and (2) increasingly strong U.S. laws restricting the 

export of “sensitive” U.S. products and technology. 

Asia Containment Mission 

Containing communism in Asia was supported by a mixed response 

of political arrangements, forward military deployment—including 

nuclear delivery systems—and large-scale conventional combat in 

Vietnam until the early 1970s. During that combat, which included 

traditional and counter-insurgency operations, there were major efforts, 

mostly within the services, to bring S&T products quickly to the 

battlefield. The response then shifted, with diminishing deployment of 

military forces, to an increase in political engagement among the major 

world powers, including Nixon’s opening to China. In this later period, 

very few technical programs were justified based on the Asia mission—

most were in support of naval forces. As a result, the OSD-level 

technical community was not a major force in the decision-making, and 

direct and useful collaboration between the U.S. Navy and Department 

of State became the forum for major decisions. The Navy technical 

structure largely took care of such S&T as it was in direct support of 

this mission. 

Portfolio Strategist 

During the combat phase of Vietnam, efforts to rapidly insert 

technical solutions to solve real problems that were identified by the 

operational forces led to the establishment of ad hoc organizations to 

execute these programs. These organizations focused on the narrow but 

consuming task of getting things built and delivered. Development 

planning organizations in the services did provide some end-to-end 

portfolio strategist activity, particularly with respect to air-to-air combat 

(resulting in training programs such as Top Gun) and suppression of 
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT I 27

surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft artillery threats (resulting in a 

revival of electronic countermeasure pods for fighter aircraft and tactics 

revisions for B-52s). 

After combat came to a close, there was very little drive to orient 

S&T toward the Asia containment mission. To be sure, some portfolio 

strategic efforts on naval matters uncharacteristic to the Pacific were 

undertaken by Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Pacific 

Command, and DARPA funded some interesting and strong work in 

this regard. There was a growing effort on the diplomatic front that 

entailed issues of forward basing and cooperative training programs. 

The portfolio strategy aspects were driven primarily by the regional 

policy staffs in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, and Department of State. 

Wars of National Liberation Mission 

Opposition to Soviet “wars of national liberation” was undertaken 

with a mix of economic support and political engagement with Soviet 

target states, together with a wide variety of overt to covert actions. Most 

of these actions did not involve DOD resources, personnel, or S&T 

programs to a significant degree. The bulk of the defense S&T community 

was not particularly involved in the decision forum—although the S&T 

arm of the intelligence community did play important roles. As such, the 

de facto mission portfolio strategists were in the National Security 

Council staff, high-level officials in the Department of State, and 

particular planning cells in the intelligence community. 

Summary 

All of the portfolio strategists of the 1960s and 1970s were 

“mission-oriented.” Often they had a limited scope of activity within 

their planning purview and an even more limited scope of action. More 

importantly, however, they uniformly had a wide, end-to-end 

perspective of the whole mission. Indeed, those individuals who were 

unable to have this “big picture” perspective were ridiculed and shoved 

aside in the decision process. 
28 I CHAPTER 4 

Roughly coincident with the end of the Cold War, the office of the 

USD (AT&L) and many other relevant organizations changed from a 

mission-oriented to a function-oriented basis. As a result, there is a fairly 

limited capability in place to develop mission-oriented portfolio strategies. 

Beyond broad mission challenges, the DOD needs a set of more 

distinct candidates on which to focus its S&T planning and 

investments—that is, overarching operational objectives. As mentioned earlier, 

an example used previously by the Air Force was “having the capability 

to strike any target, at any place, at any time, with precision.” This 

compact objective pointed S&T in the right direction and affected all 

levels of activity. An attribute-related expression of objectives, noted 

earlier, might have been “We seek stealth, precision, and speed.” The 

candidates for such overarching objectives, ideally articulated by the USD 

(AT&L) and the VCJCS, must be plausible and would truly make a difference 

strategically. (Volume I and II of this report describe such strategic 

objectives and commensurate technology vectors for the 21st century.) 

With such alternatives declared, the question becomes how to organize 

investments, structures, and processes for success, all of which are 

reflected in this report’s recommendations. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 29

Chapter 5. Recommendations 

At the heart of the panel’s recommendations is a central 

philosophy: the Department of Defense can only meet the strategic 

challenges of the 21st century with a tighter integration of the user 

and technology communities. 

In a complex, rapidly changing environment filled with problems of a 

large scale, the department needs to integrate the deep domain 

expertise resident throughout its organization with enterprise-wide, 

mission-oriented visions. DOD’s mission solutions need to be better 

informed by the technological possibilities being generated throughout the 

world, present and future, in order to avoid both the risk of degenerating 

into wishful thinking and falling prey to a disruptive surprise. 

Furthermore, the technology development community should be 

better informed by the mission needs of the department—thus bounding 

innovation and experimentation within the department’s priorities and 

resources of the. The development of a rich peer-to-peer dialogue 

between the capability definition communities of the combatant 

commanders and force providers, and the DOD-wide technology 

development enterprise should become the basis for future requirements 

definition and technology planning, just as this partnership has been a 

key component of success in the department’s past. 

In order to complement a more informed capabilities generation and 

planning process, the department needs a robust set of technology 

development capacities. While the department once had numerous 

technology development institutions that covered most of the relevant 

technology domains, today gaps have emerged as the commercial market 

place has grown. In particular, the department needs an organized 

function that can “prospect” commercial, non-DOD, and foreign 

technologies for good ideas and products. 

In addition, the department needs to institutionalize its “expediting” 

functions to ensure the war fighter can receive needed capabilities rapidly. 

The department needs to strengthen and protect its “speculators” 

operating on the technology frontiers, looking for the truly disruptive 
30 I CHAPTER 5 

solutions. This set of technology development functions not only 

enhances the department’s ability to execute plans and visions, but also it 

acts as the ultimate hedge against poor plans and misguided visions. 

The remainder of this chapter provides specific recommendations 

in support of these two broad areas. 

Strategic Technology Planning 

In the area of strategic technology planning, the panel offers three 

principal recommendations. 

Recommendation #1: Establish Mission Portfolios ______________________ 

During the Cold War, the DOD enterprise could self-organize and 

prioritize based on a single, well-known overarching challenge—the 

strategic threat from the Soviet Union. Current and future 

environments are far more complex with a multitude of strategic 

challenges. In the absence of overarching visions or guidance, the 

department tends to approach the threat along vertical and functional 

lines—that is, the military services and agencies. 

Yet, in most cases, and certainly in the business world, the better 

response to global, complex environments has been to create matrix 

organizations combining functional expertise with deep mission 

(or customer) expertise. Institutions in the DOD that can provide a 

cross-cutting, enterprise-wide, mission-oriented perspective are few and 

far between—particularly with peer-level participation from the 

technology world. 

In order to offset this deficiency and provide a holistic, missionoriented view to help guide technology investments, the USD (AT&L) 

and VCJCS should establish mission portfolios. These portfolios would 

serve as the basis for developing an investment strategy that cuts across 

strategic challenges and reflects both the needs of the war fighter and 

the possibilities identified by technologists. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 31

The number of portfolios should be reasonably small. The panel 

recommends no more than five, each of which is mission-specific. The 

set of missions should encompass the full range of strategic challenges 

that the nation faces. These mission portfolios should be based on or 

relate to the set of missions identified in the broader strategy 

documents used in the department—the National Security Strategy, the 

National Defense Strategy, the QDR, the Defense Planning Scenarios, 

and others. 

For the purposes of this report, the panel has used challenges 

identified within the QDR—emerging peer, rogue states, the global war 

on terror, and failed states—to illustrate one possible organizing 

construct for the portfolios. Ultimately, a key task of the USD (AT&L) 

and VCJCS will be to identify the boundaries of the portfolios. It 

should be noted that because the portfolios are organized by mission, 

there will be intentional overlap in terms of capabilities that can be used 

to solve the mission. Finally, the number and organization of the 

portfolios should be reviewed periodically, perhaps during each or every 

other QDR cycle. 

The mission portfolio should represent an understanding of: 

 the assumptions related to the current and future mission 

 the risks related to the mission 

 the capabilities across the doctrine, organization, training, 

materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) 

spectrum and technologies anticipated and necessary over the 

near-, mid-, and long-term to successfully execute the mission 

challenges 

 capability and technology gap assessments associated with the 

mission and potential new areas of investment 

 alternative solutions and hedges to fill the gaps 

 the metrics of success. 
32 I CHAPTER 5 

A key function of the mission portfolios will be to identify the 

range of capabilities necessary to successfully execute the mission, 

enabled by available and developmental technologies. As illustrated by 

“capability 1” in figure 1, in the near-term, existing technologies would 

enable the evolution of capabilities that are currently undefined—

providing a “technology push.” 

Capability 2 illustrates the situation where technologies in 

development will be phased-in as older technologies and older 

capabilities face obsolescence and are no longer able to meet the 

challenges of the evolving threat. Generally, there is strong visibility in 

terms of the technology potential. 

Figure 1. Mission Portfolios Include a Variety of Capabilities Enabled by 

Available and Developmental Technologies 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 33

The global war on terror demonstrates the need to continually meet 

technological challenges as adversary methods and means become more 

sophisticated and difficult to counter with currently deployed capabilities. 

Notionally, there is a pressing need to rapidly perform capability and 

technology gap assessments associated with the mission and to field 

system solutions supported by available technology. In this case, 

technology push comes from the DOD development environment with 

technology available from the commercial and industrial sectors. 

“Capability 3” encompasses “requirements pull,” where extensive 

technology development is required to enable defined new capabilities. 

This case would occur when considerable technology would be 

developed to enable new strategic vectors. 

In “capability 4,” technology development lags the timing proposed 

for a particular defined capability, thus creating a “technology void.” 

The availability of technology after the operational need is recognized 

arises in situations that are driven by technological surprise and rapid 

development and deployment of the threat. In these situations, there is 

a potential to close the technology gap through either greater S&T 

investment in the area or a decision to shift the effort to a high-risk 

technology development. 

The task of identifying the range of needed capabilities to accomplish 

mission objectives, and marrying those needs with the development of 

technology over time, is a complex task beyond the competency of any 

individual. For that reason, the panel recommends establishing a cadre of 

strategists (recommendation #2) charged with this responsibility. 

Interaction With and Benefits for the Partnership between the 

USD (AT&L) and VCJCS 

The development of mission portfolios will enhance the growing 

“capabilities” partnership between the USD (AT&L) and the VCJCS. As 

in the past, the VCJCS provides “demand” planning through the Joint 

Staff (J7 and J8) and linkage with the joint world, including managing 

joint capability areas, the JCIDS and Joint Requirements Oversight 

Council (JROC) processes, and the integration of the combatant 
34 I CHAPTER 5 

commanders’ priorities. The USD (AT&L) is providing the traditional 

“supply” planning from technology to delivered material solutions. 

Together, the USD (AT&L) and VCJCS are currently partnering for 

a variety of cross-cutting guidance and reviews where their 

responsibilities intersect. Joint capability area reviews are being 

conducted to ensure acquisition activities are consistent with broad 

guidance in planning documents and with planning, programming, and 

evaluation products. Their collective influence over mission 

requirements is further enhanced through joint participation in the 

JROC, the Senior Level Review Group, and the Deputy’s Advisory 

Working Group (DAWG). 

This partnership has recently engaged the Director, Program Analysis 

and Evaluation (PA&E) to provide programmatic analysis to their 

deliberations and decision-making. The mission portfolios will 

significantly strengthen their deliberations and decision-making insights 

for the front end of mission-wide requirements. This horizontal 

perspective will buttress the existing structures that manage 

programmatic, acquisition, and requirements activities. Individually the 

USD (AT&L) and the VCJCS have sufficient bureaucratic “carrots and 

sticks” to encourage compliance by the services, agencies, and the 

combatant commanders. 

The USD (AT&L) and VCJCS will have many opportunities to 

influence the mission portfolio development process. The first and 

most strategic is the selection of the portfolios themselves. The second 

major point for the USD (AT&L) and VCJCS will be the validation and 

evaluation of the completed mission portfolios—the futures assumed, 

risk assumptions, trade-off parameters, success metrics, and other 

defining components. Finally, the cross-mission analysis, strengths and 

weaknesses of options, and trade-off decisions will be a third strategic 

point of engagement. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 35

Recommendation #2: 

Establish Mission Portfolio Strategists ________________________________ 

In order to create the mission portfolios, the USD (AT&L) and 

VCJCS will need a cadre of mission portfolio strategists. This group is 

intended to be small, with both military and civilian representation. While 

each strategist group is a part of the USD (AT&L) organization, the 

strategists are selected and staffed by both the USD (AT&L) and VCJCS. 

It is important to note that the panel intends for this cadre to be a staff 

group with no direct authority or control over budgets, except as provided 

through AT&L under current rules and regulations. Finally, these mission 

portfolio strategists should be hired for three- to five-year terms. This work 

requires a substantial investment in time and multiple cycles of analysis to 

achieve competence. The past successes described earlier resulted in large 

part from the combination of hand-picked personnel and long tours of 

duty. Any less and the required depth of understanding cannot be 

achieved; any more and bureaucratic ossification will set in. 

The mission portfolio strategists’ positions will not be easy to fill 

given the necessary technology expertise required to relate to the 

technology development enterprise, as well as a working knowledge of 

the mission’s operational strategy. The mission portfolio strategists are 

meant to serve as the mission-oriented, technology intellectual capital of 

the USD (AT&L) and VCJCS. 

Because of the breadth of the task and the group’s small size, the cadre 

cannot exist in a vacuum and will need to interact with many organizations 

and individuals throughout the department, as illustrated in Figure 2. To 

inform their deliberations in the mission area, the strategist will need to 

interact with the combatant commanders to understand how these 

organizations envision carrying out the mission and the shortcomings they 

see in their current and future ability to meet missions. They will interact 

with the services and agencies to gain an understanding of their operational 

and war fighting visions, their current S&T development capabilities, and 

their planned enhancements. This perspective will include insights into all 

acquisition programs of record. They will similarly engage with the defense 

and joint processes communities such as the JROC, JCIDS, Functional 

Capability Boards, and others. 
36 I CHAPTER 5 

Figure 2. Interactions Enabling Portfolio Strategies

Similarly, the strategists will reach out to the broad technology 

community. The existing DOD technology development institutions, 

such as the service labs, will be critical partners in developing an 

understanding of the department’s technological possibilities. 

Interaction with the department’s “innovation” factories such as 

DARPA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and those 

particular entities “speculating” in the fringes of technology, will 

provide insights into what is possible on the horizon. The strategists 

must develop an understanding of what is technologically possible from 

commercial industry, DOD contractors, and other sources. In addition 

to developing a set of broad social networks the strategists will have to 

rely heavily on the “prospector” organization for insights into global 

trends and innovations otherwise beyond the lens of the traditional 

DOD S&T enterprises. 

Because all proposed mission solutions should ultimately be costconstrained, the strategist team must also iteratively engage with cost 

estimators, from the Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation and 

within the Services. The ultimate success of the portfolios will be based 

on the strategists’ ability to deliver mission cost analyses and 

information to the USD (AT&L) and the VCJCS. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 37

Finally, each mission portfolio strategist team will need to stay 

attuned to the directions and intentions of the other strategist teams, 

because the final recommendations about how to best balance within 

and among the missions will be based on cost-benefit trade-offs across 

all the missions. 

Mission Portfolio Strategist Tasks 

Although each individual would have his or her own style, the panel 

expects that each mission portfolio strategist would conduct the 

following tasks: 

1. Identify the critical-component capabilities necessary to 

accomplish the mission. This task can be seen as a “systems 

engineering” approach, but it will also seem natural to commanders 

experienced in developing operation plans. The key idea is that all 

critical components must be developed, not just those that are 

technically, organizationally, or doctrinally convenient. The criticalcomponent capabilities must be specified at a meaningful level of detail 

if they are to be useful. 

2. Alternative Projections. A key task of the mission portfolio 

strategists will be to develop alternative projections of the future, 

including the potential interaction of measure-countermeasure 

competition for the critical capability components. It is an enduring 

characteristic of planning that as one side develops successful capabilities, 

the other will look for ways to undercut them—whether by lowtechnology tactics or high-technology solutions. 

One consequence for defense planners is the need to constantly 

assess whether the time is ripe to continue or accelerate investment in 

systems that currently provide high capability or whether it is instead 

time to slow investment and begin the transition to the next generation 

of technology. In such situations, planners are seldom sure how quickly 

current capabilities will be obviated, which new technologies and 

operational concepts will prove out, or how quickly and at what cost 

they can be fielded. This is not a subject to be addressed with simpleminded focus on the alleged best estimate: there are too many 
38 I CHAPTER 5 

uncertainties. Instead, planners should encourage experimentation, 

variation, and competition. 

3. Recommendations for well-hedged investments. The 

implication of the task above is the need for well-hedged investment 

programs. This need translates into funding “redundant” efforts, 

especially with S&T. It is not, however, a blank check to pursue all ideas 

at any cost. Some ideas can be culled out by good analysis; other ideas 

can lose out (or be deferred) after their development encounters serious 

problems; still others can lose out when prototypes are competed. To 

make this philosophy effective, however, planners need to have 

relatively concrete notions of what metrics to use in tracking progress 

or non-progress and conducting competitions. At some point, painful 

program cancellations will be necessary, even though program 

proponents will fight them. 

The mission portfolio strategists should be sensitive to these issues 

and should have concrete recommendations for hedging, decision 

points, and metrics. Finally, they should identify natural “increments” 

of capability that should be separately priced and evaluated. Foregoing 

“nice to have” features, particularly on early blocks, can both save 

money and avoid serious problems that result from immature 

technology. Similarly, the traditional question of “How much is 

enough?” is always relevant. Program proponents are often hesitant to 

provide alternative increments for acquisition, but the information is 

essential for sound planning and tradeoffs. 

Fortunately, when making investment decisions, it is sometimes 

possible to learn a great deal about alternative approaches with 

relatively small S&T expenditures; in other cases, relatively definitive 

assessments can be achieved with only moderately expensive 

prototypes. In still other cases, parallel engineering development and 

even limited production is necessary before uncertainties about both 

need and capability will resolve themselves. 

4. The need for special measures. The mission portfolio 

strategists will find themselves distinguishing sharply among what can 

be accomplished “now,” in the near-term, in the mid-term, and 

eventually. For the “now” and “near-term” possibilities, they may 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 39

conclude that nothing will in fact happen unless special measures are 

taken to expedite development along with all the other aspects of 

DOTMLPF necessary for successful fielding. They may then identify 

possible expediting mechanisms. In other cases, they may believe that 

commercial or other-country technology “should” be very relevant, but 

is not well understood. In that case, they may look for potential 

“prospectors” to do more careful evaluation. When thinking about the 

long-term, they may have the sense that technology might allow for 

revolutionary change, even though key enablers are just not available 

and the requisite interest not yet stimulated. 

Figure 3 shows an illustrative flow pulling together the various 

concepts described here. At the left are the four portfolios recommended 

by the panel, one of which relates to the global war on terror (GWOT) 

mission. One of the first things for the portfolio manager to develop 

would be a set of the “critical component” capabilities—that is, those 

capabilities on which success of the mission depends. These are not just 

contributors to the mission, but necessary for success. 

Figure 3. Illustrative Logical Flow from Portfolios to Technologies

Since the mission portfolio strategist is not intended to do 

everything, much less reproduce the vast work of the services, there 

should be an effort to find a smaller subset of cross-cutting strategic 

technology thrusts with particular salience for the office of the USD 

(AT&L). In Figure 3, for illustrative purposes, it is assumed that the 
40 I CHAPTER 5 

four cross-cutting thrusts are: understanding human terrain, ubiquitous 

observation and recording, contextual exploitation, and rapidly tailored 

effects—as described in Volumes I and II of this report. It then 

becomes necessary to identify the key technologies enabling each of the 

cross-cutting thrusts. Other DOD components (such as the Functional 

Capabilities Boards established by the JROC) organize problems 

differently and it is assumed that the mission portfolio strategists will 

draw upon these for insight and data. 

Recommendation # 3: 

Develop a Mission-Oriented Strategic Technology Plan ___________________ 

One of the uses of the mission portfolio output should be to serve 

as the foundation of a strategic technology plan. As noted previously in 

this chapter, the mission portfolio strategists will be developing a crosscutting, mission-oriented view of the capabilities and technologies 

required. At this point the mission portfolio strategists will have the 

insights from the range of actors within the DOD enterprise: the 

services, combatant commanders, Joint Staff, agencies, the broader 

technical community, industry, and others—all of whom are necessary 

to develop a horizontal, mission perspective. 

In its “technology” role, USD (AT&L) should be able to leverage the 

technology component of the mission portfolio work and develop an 

enterprise-wide strategic technology plan. In order to translate the 

mission portfolio work into a strategic technology plan, functional 

analyses will have to be undertaken, whereby cross-mission gaps and 

overlaps in technology over a 20-year time span are identified. In 

addition, input from the “prospecting” and “speculating” functions of 

the technology development enterprise should be used to identify new 

technology thrusts capable of enabling entirely new capabilities, not 

identified via the mission perspective. As a product of the USD (AT&L) 

and VCJCS mission portfolio analysis, this plan will be derived from a 

mission context and informed by both the operational requirements and 

the technological possibilities. As such, the plan will be more than just an 

amalgamation of the services’ strategic technology plans. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 41

The strategic technology plan is the portfolio of technology 

development necessary to enable emerging war fighting concepts. It 

should have several key components: 

 Establish the state of DOD’s current technology base as it 

relates to the five or fewer mission areas. 

 Based upon a clear understanding of the operational requirements 

of each mission, derive the projected technology needs identified 

across the missions. As an output of the mission portfolio 

process it should reflect a period of iteration between the 

strategic technology plan and the operators that will identify the 

realism of operational objectives given the limits of technology. 

Following this iterative process, the USD (AT&L) should be able 

to project desired technology end state requirements for both the 

mid- and long-term. 

 Clearly enumerate the resulting technology gaps and the 

resources (time, money, and people) necessary to close these 

gaps. A significant amount of effort will be necessary on the 

part of USD (AT&L), in conjunction with the technology 

development execution agents in the services, agencies, OSD 

and industry, to determine: how these gaps get closed, by 

whom, and in what priority. This process will, by definition, 

highlight the ongoing technology programs that are not a 

mission priority and that should, therefore, be terminated. 

Implied in this process is the need to create a truly robust ability to 

anticipate technology advances and to anticipate how potential 

adversaries will adapt to these advances. This is a dynamic task, as is 

tracking metrics and continually updating the plan. Given the conviction 

that in this era operational capabilities are so dependent upon S&T 

insights, the panel believes that the department’s operational destiny 

should be influenced in large part by the S&T enterprise, supported by 

the intelligence enterprise. 

The completed strategic technology plan should stand on its own as 

the rationale for S&T budget requests and as the conceptual framework 

within which new technology investments are proposed. Given its 

origins in the mission portfolio analysis, the proposed technology 
42 I CHAPTER 5 

investments will have a linkage to either missions or their ability to 

enable new capabilities; will reflect an enterprise-wide perspective and 

will be resourced (providing an element of financial realism often 

missing). The plan will thus provide a rationale for investment beyond 

some arbitrary target, such as “S&T should be 3 percent of the top 

line.” Furthermore, once analyzed within the cross-cutting, horizontal, 

mission-context, the ability to make hard trade-offs in declining budget 

environments—including what should be cut in order to free resources 

to begin new initiatives—should be made easier. It should also provide 

the S&T enterprise a basis to articulate why proffered Congressional 

earmarks are helpful or not. 

Enhanced Execution Capability 

Recommendation # 4: 

Expand Technology Development Execution Capacity ____________________ 

To complement a more informed capabilities generation and 

planning process, the department needs a robust set of technology 

development capacities. A broad set of technology development 

functions not only enhances the ability to execute the department’s 

plans and visions, but also strengthens the technology development 

enterprise’s ability to “push” technology. Most importantly, a robust set 

of technology development capabilities become the ultimate hedge 

against poor plans and misguided visions (someone, somewhere will be 

thinking of a solution). 

The current technology development environment is mapped in 

Figure 4, showing the execution agents and their activities as described 

earlier in this report. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 43

Figure 4. Current Technology Development Environment

Any individual organization that funds technology development 

uses one or more of the elements of this taxonomy. The developer and 

innovator mechanisms are currently well covered. The expeditor 

mechanism has been created using ad hoc structures, such as those 

established to face the problem associated with IEDs (initially the Joint 

IED Task Force, which transitioned first into the Joint IED Task Force 

and then to the Joint IED Defeat Organization). However, there is no 

standing “expeditor” capacity to expeditiously meet emerging war 

fighter requirements and inadequate DOD-wide investment in truly 

speculative technology research. 

 Expeditor. The panel recommends the department create 

standing institutional capacity to rapidly (less than two years) 

move technology to fielded systems. (The expeditor is discussed 

in further detail in Volumes I and IV of this report.) 
44 I CHAPTER 5 

 Speculator. This capability is a key shortfall in an environment 

where avoiding technological surprise is a strategic challenge. 

This capacity is needed to invest in speculative (inventor-like), 

high-risk, high pay-off technologies that might satisfy future 

needs—not meeting existing requirements. In a sense the 

speculator is anticipating future needs. There will be many 

failures, but without speculating, we are likely to be surprised or 

caught short in the future. 

The third area, the prospector, is less a technology developer than a 

technology finder. For this reason the panel addresses the prospector in 

a separate recommendation below. 

Recommendation # 5: Establish a Prospector Function ___________________ 

In the new technology environment, identifying the global ideas 

that can be acquired or adapted for DOD needs is a critically needed 

capability. The DOD enterprise needs a “prospector” capacity designed 

to find solutions to current and future needs—including solutions to 

problems not yet recognized—that are emerging in the non–DOD 

world. Further, this entity also searches for ideas that might enable 

capabilities not envisioned by the department or its adversaries. This 

capability currently exists on an ad hoc and small basis throughout DOD 

and the intelligence community. For example, the Navy has a group of 

individuals based around the globe tasked to monitor relevant foreign 

sea power technologies. However, it is a capability that is severely 

lacking on a systematic and enterprise-wide basis. 

The USD (AT&L) should establish a group of people knowledgeable 

about the needs of the DOD to trawl commercial industry, foreign 

governments, and academia for promising products and technology 

solutions. This group’s role will be to inform the mission portfolio 

strategists and all participants in the DOD chain of the technology 

investment process, including the war fighters (combatant commanders 

and joint community), the services and laboratories, PA&E, and USD 

(AT&L) and DDR&E, about emerging problems, solutions, and 

promising research that could provide needed or new capabilities. The 

goal is to keep the DOD community intimately part of and not apart 

from the wider, global technological community. The prospectors should 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 45

also inform the DOD enterprise about the range of technological options 

available to adversaries. 

The prospector fulfills an additional critical function. In a world of 

rapid technological development occurring outside of government 

(including adversary adaptation of such technologies), the United States 

cannot simply react to fielded weapons or countermeasures. It is too 

late to wait to respond until confronted with a system on the battlefield. 

But it is not possible to anticipate what our adversaries might do, and 

how they might do it, unless we are intimately familiar with the range of 

technologies that might be available to them. The prospector can 

anticipate what might occur in the battlefield by seeing what is 

happening in the marketplace of products, ideas, and technologies. 

A Refocused AT&L Enterprise 

Implementing these challenging recommendations will result in a 

refocused USD (AT&L) enterprise—one oriented around missions 

rather than functions. 

The payoff to such change will be a capabilities-generation process 

that is more in sync with the global marketplace. It will return the DOD 

technology enterprise to a strategic investment focus that was once 

successful, vice the current emphasis on process reviews, oversight, and 

day-to-day emergencies. It will enhance effectiveness across multiple 

time frames and economic futures, and, using the QDR as a point of 

departure, it will address multiple capabilities in multiple domains. 

The ways and means to implement this study lie within the AT&L 

enterprise. The required organizational and process efficiencies to free 

these resources can be found in the details of recommendations in prior 

Defense Science Board (DSB) reports. 
46 I CHAPTER 6 

Chapter 6. Conclusion 

The recommendations in this report are designed to equip the 

DOD to lead technology development in the 21st century, leveraging 

the pace and change occurring in the non–DOD environment. 

The most important benefit of the portfolio-strategist approach is 

that the priorities of the Secretary of Defense will be directly and 

explicitly addressed in a way that cuts through the fog of Pentagon 

bureaucracy to recommend meaningful, well-defined, effective actions; 

to monitor the effects of implementation; and to adapt as necessary. 

This role is not subordinate to other planning processes, but rather is 

a “special” role that draws on and connects to the myriad other processes 

as proves useful. Over time, perhaps this special role will no longer be 

necessary because routine processes will become more effective and 

streamlined. And, over even more time, new and different techniques for 

accomplishing these “special” functions will need to be introduced. 

The mission portfolio strategists, recommended in this report, would 

inform and motivate strategic thrusts not only for the department, 

but over time for national strategy as well, thereby affecting other 

agencies such as the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State, 

and others. 

The mission portfolio strategists would not only recommend how 

to allocate resources within their separate portfolios, but would also 

provide the insights necessary to inform cross-portfolio tradeoffs. The 

panel understands that these trade-offs are not likely to be a result of 

highly quantitative decision analysis. Rather, top-level decisions will be 

informed by clearly developed characterizations where investments 

would most likely have big benefits and where somewhat reduced 

investments would introduce only tolerable risk. 

The cadre of mission portfolio strategists and a strategic technology 

plan will serve as leverage points for a DOD-wide discourse between 

and among the components of the technology development enterprise, 

which is necessary for a technology strategy that transparently optimizes 
CONCLUSION I 47

its investment strategy. Complemented with more capacity in execution, 

through the expeditor’s rapid fielding and the speculator’s investment in 

the future, as well as the prospector’s identification of emerging risks 

and opportunities, the department will be better equipped to meet the 

challenges that the nation faces today and in the future. 
48 I CHAPTER 6 
APPENDIX B I 49

Appendix A. Terms of Reference 

. 



APPENDIX B I 53

Appendix B. Panel Membership 

MEMBERS 

Name Affiliation

Mike Bayer (Chair) Private Consultant 

Amy Alving SAIC 

Russ Barber Raytheon 

Pierre Chao Center for Strategic and International Studies 

Paul Davis RAND 

Jim Kurtz Institute for Defense Analyses 

Darren McKnight SAIC 

Art Money Private Consultant 

Wick Murray Institute for Defense Analyses 

Alan Schwartz Private Consultant 

Dick Urban Charles Stark Draper Laboratory 

Charlie Wasaff National Capital Companies, LLC 

Maj Gen Jasper Welch, USAF (Ret) Private Consultant 

GOVERNMENT ADVISORS 

Col Donnie Davis, USAF U.S. Joint Forces Command, J-8 

Robert Foster BioSystems, OSD 

Terry Pudas Force Transformation Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense 

STAFF 

Stacy Zelenski O’Mara Strategic Analysis, Inc. 
54 I APPENDIX C 

Appendix C. 

Presentations to the Panel 

Name Topic

MARCH 10, 2006 

Mr. Andy Marshall 

OSD Net Assessment Discussion 

Mr. John Higbee and Mr. Dave Ahern 

Defense Acquisition University Big “A” 

Dr. Linton Wells 

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Networks Information and Integration 

Technology Trends and Net-Centric Operations 

APRIL 21, 2006 

Lt Gen Ron Kadish, USAF (Ret) Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment 

Mr. Keith Englander Missile Defense Agency Architecture 

MAY 16, 2006 

Dr. Thomas Killion 

Deputy Assistant Secretary (Research and 

Technology)/Chief Scientist, Headquarters, 

Department of the Army 

Army Science and Technology 

Mr. Larry Lynn 

Private Consultant Comments on the S&T Management Processes 

Dr. James A. Tegnelia 

Director, DTRA 

Overview of the Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency 

Mr. Greg Henry 

Executive Office of the President, Office of 

Management and Budget 

Resource Planning Factors for Defense S&T: An 

OMB Perspective 

Mr. Clay Jones 

Chairman, President and CEO Rockwell 

Collins 

Technology Investments—Linkage to Corporate 

Strategies 
PRESENTATIONS TO THE TASK FORCE I 55

JUNE 8, 2006 

Dr. Delores Etter 

Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 

Research Development and Acquisition 

Navy S&T Priorities 

Dr. Timothy Coffey 

National Defense University DOD S&T Assessment 

Dr. Craig Fields 

Private Consultant S&T Leadership and Management 

Dr. Jacques Gansler 

University of Maryland Realizing Military Needs 

JULY 12, 2006 

Dr. Tony Tether 

Director, Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency 

DARPA Overview 
56 I APPENDIX D 

Appendix D. 

Statute and Policy Background 

Not later than 150 days after a new President takes office, and 

annually thereafter, Congress requires the President to submit a national 

security strategy report that sets forth the national security strategy of the 

United States and includes a comprehensive description and discussion 

of (1) the worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States; 

(2) the foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense 

capabilities necessary to deter aggression and to implement the national 

security strategy; (3) the proposed short- and long-term uses of the 

political, economic, military, and other elements of national power to 

protect or promote the interests and achieve national security goals and 

objectives; and (4) the adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to 

carry out the national security strategy.8

In addition, Congress requires that every four years, the Secretary of 

Defense conduct, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, a comprehensive examination known as a Quadrennial Defense 

Review to (1) delineate a national defense strategy consistent with the most 

recent national security strategy prescribed by the President; (2) define 

sufficient force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, 

budget plan, and other elements that would be required to execute 

successfully the full range of missions called for in that national defense 

strategy; and (3) identify the budget plan required to provide sufficient 

resources to execute the missions called for in the national defense 

strategy at a low-to-moderate level of risk, and any additional resources 

(beyond those programmed in the current future-years defense program) 

required to achieve such a level of risk.9

The Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System 

(JCIDS) further defines the military capabilities needed to execute the 

 

8. 50 U.S.C. 404a 

9. 10 U.S.C. 118
STATUTE AND POLICY BACKGROUND I 57

national security and national military strategies, and identifies and 

prioritizes gaps in those capabilities. The S&T planning process seeks to 

translate those capability gaps into prioritized S&T plans and programs. 
58 I APPENDIX E 

Appendix E. 

Current JCIDS and S&T Processes 

This appendix offers a description of DOD’s processes and outputs 

as presented to the DSB during the panel’s deliberations (March-August 

2006). This information served as a baseline to inform the discussions 

of what new processes would be needed in the future to implement 

“strategic technology vectors.” The recommendations of this report do 

not depend on the specific details below; they are included in the report 

as background and for the purpose of full disclosure on the data that 

was consulted. 

Joint Capabilities Integration Development System 

JCIDS, a capability needs identification process, is officially described 

as “an enhanced methodology using joint concepts that will identify and 

describe existing or future shortcomings and redundancies in war fighting 

capabilities; describe effective solutions; identify potential approaches to 

resolve those shortcomings; and provide a foundation for further 

development and enhancements of integrated architectures.”10

The Planning Panel did not seek to assess how well JCIDS succeeds 

in accomplishing these aims. Other Defense Science Board studies, 

particularly the 2005 summer study on Transformation: A Strategic Appraisal,

have done that. Instead, this study focused on the relationship between 

JCIDS capability needs identification and technology planning. The panel 

assessed the balance between “technology push” and “operator pull.” 

Figure E-1 illustrates how the family of joint future concepts (also 

known as the joint operations concepts or “JOpsC” family) feeds a 

capability-based assessment process that produces recommendations 

regarding capability needs and DOTMLPF changes. 

 

10. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3170.01E 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 59

Figure E-1. JCIDS Capability Needs Identification Process11

Importantly for this study, there is a conspicuous inconsistency in the 

chart that provides justification for delving into the relationship between 

the JCIDS and S&T planning processes. Specifically, while the chart 

shows a two-way arrow linking JCIDS recommendations to science and 

technology, the accompanying text suggests a one-way flow only. Indeed, 

the prioritized joint war fighting capabilities identified through the JCIDS 

process should serve to inform the S&T community and focus the 

developmental efforts of the community as specified in the Defense 

Technology Area Plan (DTAP) and the Joint Warfighting Science and 

Technology Plan (JWSTP). Joint future concepts in the JOpsC family 

 

11. CJCSI 3170.01E 
60 I APPENDIX E 

therefore should exert operator pull on the DTAP and JWSTP, but the 

question remains whether a corresponding mechanism exists to push 

technological possibilities into the family of future joint concepts. Thus, 

the inherent dependency of the two processes on an active bilateral, 

continuing dialogue was explored during the study in depth. 

S&T Planning Process 

Research and engineering goals are central to the DOD S&T 

planning process. They provide the strategic framework for the 

supporting Basic Research Plan (BRP), DTAP, and JWSTP. These 

documents are collaborative products of OSD, the Joint Staff, the 

military services, and various defense agencies. 

As shown in Figure E-2, the R&E goals and plans respond to the 

JOpsC family of future joint concepts and the QDR, which, as previously 

noted, delineates the defense strategy needed to achieve the national 

security objectives of the President’s National Security Strategy. The 

JOpsC family, QDR, and supporting service and defense agency S&T 

plans guide the annual preparation of the DOD S&T budget. DDR&E 

makes the R&E goals and plans available to S&T budget stakeholders 

with the intended goal of focusing collective efforts on superior joint 

warfare capabilities and improving interoperability. 

The R&E goals were developed to provide near-term capability 

options for today’s war fighters while maintaining a steady flow of 

technology that will provide advanced capabilities for the future force. 

The R&E goals are characterized as technical capability goals, process 

goals, and enabling technology goals.12

 

12. Joint Warfighting Science and Technology Plan, Washington, D.C.: Office of the Director, 

Defense Research and Engineering, February 2006. 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 61

Figure E-2. S&T Planning Process13

Three S&T plans address three distinct time frames: 

 Basic research (long-term): The BRP presents a 20–25 year 

outlook on DOD objectives and investment strategy for DODsponsored basic research (6.1) performed by universities, industry, 

and service laboratories. In addition, it presents the planned 

investment in each of 12 technical disciplines composing the 

basic research program. 

 Defense technology area research (mid-to-long-term): 

The DTAP presents the DOD objectives and the applied 

research (6.2) and advanced technology development (6.3) 

investment strategies for technologies critical to DOD acquisition 

plans, service war fighter capabilities, and the JWSTP. The 

 

13. The S&T planning process depicted is extracted from the February 2006 Joint Warfighting 

Science and Technology Plan. JWSTP was signed by both the Joint Staff Director for Force 

Structure, Resources, and Assessment (J-8) and the Director of Defense Research and 

Engineering. 
62 I APPENDIX E 

DTAP’s outlook ranges from 5 to 20 years. It charts the total 

DOD investment for a given technology, providing a horizontal 

perspective across service and defense agency efforts. The DTAP 

documents the focus, content, and principal objectives of DOD 

S&T efforts overall. This plan provides a sound basis for 

acquisition decisions, structured to respond to the DDR&E 

emphasis on maturing technology for rapid transition to the 

operating forces. 

 Joint war fighting application research (near-term): The 

JWSTP, focusing on an outlook of five years or less, looks 

across the applied research (6.2) and advanced technology 

development (6.3) plans of the services and defense agencies. 

Its objective is to help ensure that the S&T program supports 

priority future joint war fighting capabilities as determined by 

the eight Functional Capabilities Boards (FCBs) chartered by 

the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. Each FCB is 

responsible for developing and maintaining a Joint Functional 

Concept (JFC). The JWSTP focuses on developing technology 

options to support the achievement of the eight JFCs, and 

devotes a separate chapter to each. 

Of the three plans, the JWSTP is the only S&T planning document 

directly linked to JCIDS. The short-term JWSTP is thus driven by the 

JFCs—a clear instance of operator pull. 

In order to determine whether the S&T plans exert technology push 

on the joint functional concept (or others in the JOpsC family), the panel 

reviewed the February 2005 DTAP against the eight JFCs. Of the eight, 

only one—battle space awareness—makes any reference to the DTAP (it 

should be noted that this JFC reference was merely made in a footnote 

and not even in the bibliography). Both the BRP and DTAP repeatedly 

point out the joint and service concepts to which technology programs 

might have applicability, but the concepts themselves do not take the 

technological possibilities into account. 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 63

Opportunities for Integrating Joint Capabilities 

and S&T Planning 

The CJCSI on the Joint Operations Concepts development process 

provides guidance for developing joint concepts to link strategic 

guidance to the development and employment of future joint force 

capabilities. As shown in Figure E-3, the JOpsC family comprises four 

types of joint concepts. 

Figure E-3. JOpsC Family of Future Joint Concepts14

 Capstone concept for joint operations (CCJO): This 

overarching concept guides the development of future joint 

capabilities. Its purpose is to lead force development and 

employment by providing a broad description of how future 

joint forces are expected to operate across the range of military 

operations 8–20 years into the future. Service concepts and 

subordinate joint concepts expand on the CCJO solution. 

 

14. CJCSI 3010.02B, Joint Operations Concepts Development Process (JOpsC DP), January 

27, 2006, p. A-2. 
64 I APPENDIX E 

 Joint operating concepts (JOCs): These concepts apply the 

CCJO solution in greater detail to a specified mission area, 

describing how a joint force commander, 8–20 years into the 

future, might conduct operations within a military campaign. 

A joint operating concept identifies the operational level effects 

that are considered essential for achieving the end states 

envisioned by the concept, and focuses on the broad military 

capabilities necessary to create those effects. Five JOCs have 

been completed to date, including (1) homeland defense and 

civil support operations; (2) strategic deterrence operations; (3) 

major combat operations; and (4) stability operations: military 

support to security, transition, and reconstruction; and (5) 

irregular warfare. A sixth JOC, addressing shaping operations, 

was recently initiated.15

 Joint functional concepts (JFCs): JFCs apply elements of the 

CCJO solution to describe how the joint force, 8–20 years into 

the future, might perform an enduring military function across 

the full range of military operations. A JFC identifies the 

operational-level capabilities required and the key attributes 

necessary to compare capability or solution alternatives. JFCs 

also determine any additional military capabilities required to 

create the effects identified in JOCs. FCBs chartered by the 

JROC are responsible for writing, developing, and assessing 

joint functional concepts. The JROC establishes FCBs 

according to functional areas, and the vice director of J-8 

approves FCB portfolios within each functional area. Each of 

the eight FCBs maintains a corresponding joint functional 

concept by the same name. FCBs continually assess the joint 

functional concept and relationships with other concepts. 

 

15. Joint Transformation and Concepts, joint concept status briefing at the Future Joint 

Warfare website, http://www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare/joc.htm. 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 65

 Joint integrating concepts (JICs): JICs are operational-level 

descriptions of how a joint force commander, 8–20 years into 

the future, might perform a specific operation or function 

derived from a JOC or a JFC. JICs are narrowly scoped to 

identify, describe, and apply specific military capabilities, which 

are then translated into fundamental tasks, conditions, and 

standards. Further analyses and expansion of tasks, conditions, 

and standards is accomplished after JIC completion in order to 

effectively execute a capabilities-based assessment. 

Current policy describes the “proper military-technological context” 

as a consideration when writing a concept, explaining that “concepts are 

designed to exploit new technologies or to respond to the proliferation of 

new technologies.”16 However, neither the instruction nor any of the 

templates it contains (for the CCJO, JOCs, JFCs, and JICs) requires 

explicit consideration of the technologies that might be applicable to the 

timeframe or the missions or functions addressed by joint concepts. 

Therefore the enormous effort being expended to develop future 

concepts may fail to take into account the possibilities raised by billions 

of dollars in S&T investment. 

Planning in OSD and DOD Components 

The panel’s evaluation of the JCIDS and S&T planning processes 

found that current S&T technology planning processes do not appear 

to be well connected with other capabilities-based planning processes. 

An extension of that conclusion might be that processes for translating 

future capability needs into strategic technology vectors and plans are 

not well defined at the department level. The short-term JWSTP is 

informed by and well-connected to JFCs, but the technological 

possibilities addressed in the longer-term DTAP and BRP do not 

appear to be considered when new concepts or plans are developed. 

In contrast to department-level S&T planning processes, there is 

evidence that the services have very mature capabilities-based planning 

processes centered around the force provider—processes that are directly 

 

16. CJCSI 3010.02B, January 27, 2006, p. B-E-1. 
66 I APPENDIX E 

linked to their unique S&T planning processes. That said, even in the 

more mature service processes, technology planning reacts to future joint 

concepts but does not initially shape them. Thus, throughout the DOD 

there is a need for closer collaboration between concept developers and 

technology planners to allow early consideration of longer term 

technological opportunities and the co-evolution of the doctrine, 

organization, and training needed to turn technology into materiel and 

materiel into usable capabilities. 

While DOD is shifting to joint capability areas as the taxonomy and 

framework for capabilities-based planning, this is not the case for S&T 

planning. At present the longer term S&T plans (such as DTAP, BRP, 

and military department S&T plans) are still focused on a taxonomy of 

S&T areas that cannot be directly translated to capabilities—sciencecentered areas as in the BRP strategic research areas, or technologycentered areas as in the DTAP 12 “technology areas.” 

Roles and Authorities of Key Officials 

In addition to looking at the processes by which national security 

objectives and the military capabilities necessary to attain them are used 

to develop and prioritize S&T enablers, the panel looked at the senior 

officials who “own” those processes and considered their roles and 

authorities, and the mechanisms available to help them fulfill those roles. 

The three officials considered were the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; the DDR&E, who reports 

directly to the USD (AT&L); and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff. 

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics 

By statute, the USD (AT&L) has the authority to direct the 

secretaries of the military departments and the heads of all other 

elements of DOD with regard to matters for which the Under Secretary 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 67

has responsibility.17 These responsibilities include, but are by no means 

limited to, the following: 

 serve as the Defense Acquisition Executive with overall 

responsibility for supervising the performance of the DOD 

acquisition system (which the establishing DOD directive says 

exists “to manage the nation’s investments in technologies, 

programs, and product support necessary to achieve the 

National Security Strategy and support the United States Armed 

Forces—not only today’s force, but also the next force, and 

future forces beyond that”) 

 coordinate research, development, and production programs 

DOD-wide to eliminate duplication of effort and ensure that 

available resources are used to maximum advantage 

 establish policies and programs that improve, streamline, and 

strengthen DOD component technology access and 

development programs; encourage open market competition 

and technology-driven prototype efforts that offer increased 

military capabilities at lower total ownership costs and faster 

fielding times; and exploit the cost-reduction potential of 

accessing innovative or commercially developed technologies 

 develop acquisition-related plans, strategies, guidance, and 

assessments to ensure that acquisition milestone review and the 

planning, programming, budgeting, and execution processes are 

timely and effectively implemented 

 in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 

ensure homeland defense and special operations and lowintensity conflict programs, systems, and activities related to 

acquisition will effectively support the combatant commanders 

and war fighters 

 in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Intelligence, ensuring intelligence and intelligence-related 

programs, systems, and activities related to acquisition 

effectively support the combatant commanders and war fighters 

 

17. 10 U.S.C. 133(b)(5) 
68 I APPENDIX E 

 synchronize strategic planning related to assigned responsibilities 

and functions and those organizations reporting to the USD 

(AT&L).18

These authorities and responsibilities of the USD (AT&L) are 

currently the basis for two enablers that could be elaborated to improve 

S&T planning, portfolio management, and program funding guidance. 

A key issue identified by the panel is whether the “portfolio 

management” processes from the experiment will be robust enough to 

inform and guide any new S&T planning processes required to 

implement S&T strategic vectors. 

“Supervising the performance” of acquisition programs does not 

necessarily include direct authority over the funding resources. 

Conveniently, USD (AT&L) also has delegated authority to withhold 

funds from an acquisition program that does not meet established 

criteria. Internally, the process by which this authority is exercised is 

called the “Format I” process. In this context, a key issue identified by 

the panel is whether the USD (AT&L)’s statutory authority to direct the 

acquisition activities of the military departments extends to their S&T 

programs as well. 

The USD (AT&L) has delegated authority to withhold funds from an 

acquisition program, which is defined as “a directed, funded effort that 

provides a new, improved, or continuing materiel, weapon, or information 

system or service capability in response to an approved need.” 19

Director, Defense Research and Engineering 

The position of the DDR&E was established by Congress at the 

request of President Eisenhower in 1958, following the Soviet Union’s 

launch of the Sputnik satellite. Originally, the DDR&E was given direct 

authority to approve, disapprove, or modify all research and development 

programs in DOD, with rank equal to the secretaries of the military 

 

18. DODD 5134.01 

19. DODD 5000.1 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 69

departments, greater than any of the assistant secretaries of defense, and 

subordinate only to the secretary and deputy secretary of defense. In 

1977, an Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering was 

created, and the DDR&E title disappeared. The Goldwater-Nichols Act 

of 1986 created the position of Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition (changed to Acquisition and Technology in 1993 and later to 

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), and the DDR&E position was 

reestablished, reporting to the Under Secretary.20

Today the DDR&E is established by law in title 10, section 139a, “to 

perform such duties relating to research and engineering as the USD 

(AT&L) may prescribe.” DOD Directive 5134.3, dated November 2003, 

constitutes the DDR&E’s charter. This DOD policy names the DDR&E 

the Chief Technology Officer of the department, and assigns the 

DDR&E authority and responsibility to: 

 develop the strategies and supporting plans that exploit technology 

and prototypes to respond to the needs of DOD and ensure U.S. 

technological superiority 

 develop policies; provide technical leadership, oversight and 

advice; make recommendations; and issue guidance for the DOD 

research and engineering plans and programs (research and 

engineering includes S&T programs, consisting of basic research, 

applied research, and advanced technology development; and 

advanced component development and prototypes programs) 

 recommend approval, modification, or disapproval of programs 

and projects of the military departments and other DOD 

components in assigned fields to eliminate unpromising or 

unnecessarily duplicative programs, and initiation or support of 

promising ones 

 provide input into the Defense Planning Guidance (since 

replaced by two documents, the Strategic Planning Guidance 

and Joint Programming Guidance) and Transformation 

 

20. Defense Science Board Task Force on the Toles and Authorities of the Director of Defense Research and 

Engineering, Washington D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 

Technology and Logistics..
70 I APPENDIX E 

Planning Guidance concerning critical technology areas and 

overall content of the research and engineering program, 

consistent with a capabilities-based planning approach. 

The charter says the DDR&E may recommend certain actions with 

respect to programs and projects of the military departments, but does 

not say who has authority to approve those recommendations. This raises 

the issue of whether DOD has a principal staff assistant with an 

unambiguous mandate to set, monitor, and adjust strategic S&T plans, 

programs, and budgets. Additional ambiguity emerges when one 

considers that the USD (AT&L)’s charter also does not explicitly 

provide for that authority. Thus, the question arises as to whether the 

USD (AT&L) has authority to act on the DDR&E’s recommendations 

regarding military department S&T programs (as opposed to acquisition 

programs) or whether that authority is reserved unto the Secretary or 

Deputy Secretary Of Defense.21

Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

The Goldwater-Nichols Act created the position of Vice Chairman, 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, and stipulated that the Vice Chairman could 

perform the duties as prescribed by the Chairman and approved by the 

Secretary of Defense.22 Section 181 of title 10 establishes the Joint 

Requirements Oversight Council, names the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff as the chairman of the Council, and says that this function 

may only be delegated to the Vice Chairman. Most recently, the Strategic 

Planning Guidance for fiscal years 2008–2013 established the Deputy’s 

Advisory Working Group, co-chaired by the Deputy Secretary of 

Defense and the VCJCS. Established to oversee implementation of the 

2006 QDR strategic priorities and other cross-cutting, high-leverage 

issues, DAWG responsibilities include implementation and oversight of 

the following: 

 

21. DODD 5134.01 

22. Prior to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, there was no Vice Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff. When the Chairman was absent, the acting chairmanship rotated among other 

members of the Joint Chiefs, disrupting continuity. 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 71

 execution of action items, roadmaps, follow-up, management, 

and closure of the 2006 QDR 

 coordination of Strategic Planning Guidance, Joint Programming 

Guidance, and key elements of the fiscal years 2008–2013 

defense program 

 governance of the department’s special access programs 

 other cross-cutting governance issues as selected by the co-chairs 

 additional issues nominated for consideration by members of 

the DAWG.23

In regards to capabilities-based planning, the Vice Chairman’s duties 

are as prescribed by the Chairman and of those the most important and 

relevant to this DSB study are the responsibilities for operating the JROC 

and the JCIDS processes.24 The JROC and JCIDS are the mechanisms 

that enable the Chairman to submit to the congressional defense 

committees a report on the requirements of the combatant commands 

that contains a consolidation of the integrated priority lists of 

requirements of the combatant commands. The report includes the 

Chairman’s views on the consolidated lists; a description of the extent to 

which the most recent future-years defense program (FYDP) addresses 

the requirements on the consolidated lists; and a description of the 

funding proposed in the President’s budget for the next fiscal year, and 

for the subsequent fiscal years covered by the most recent FYDP. It also 

addresses each deficiency in readiness identified during the joint readiness 

review conducted for the first quarter of the current fiscal year. 

 

23. Throughout this report, references to the authority and responsibilities of the VCJCS are 

related to the Vice Chairman’s delegated role as the chairman of the JROC and co-chairman of 

the DAWG.

24. By law, the Secretary of Defense, through the use of DOD directives, may assign to the 

Chairman responsibility for overseeing the activities of the combatant commanders. The 

Chairman serves as the spokesperson for the commanders of the combatant commands, 

especially on the operational requirements of their commands. In performing such function, title 

10 specifies that the Chairman shall confer with and obtain information from the combatant 

commanders with respect to the requirements of their commands; evaluate and integrate such 

information; advise and make recommendations to the Secretary with respect to the requirements 

of the combatant commands, individually and collectively; and communicate the requirements of 

the combatant commands to other elements of the Department of Defense. 
72 I APPENDIX E 

Other responsibilities relevant to analyses of this study include the 

Chairman’s statutory obligation to provide strategic direction, strategic 

planning, contingency planning and preparedness; and advice on 

requirements, programs, and budget. In this last category, the Chairman 

is specifically responsible for advising the Secretary on the priorities of 

requirements identified by the combatant commanders; advising the 

secretary on the extent to which the program recommendations and 

budget proposals of the military departments and other DOD 

components for a fiscal year conform with established priorities; 

submitting to the Secretary alternative program recommendations and 

budget proposals, within projected resource levels and guidance, in order 

to achieve greater conformance with established priorities; and assessing 

military requirements for defense acquisition programs. In fulfilling his 

statutory responsibility to provide advice on requirements, programs, and 

budget, the Chairman is assisted by the JROC.25 FCBs, created by the 

JROC, play a key role in identifying capability needs that should drive 

S&T strategies and programs. 

With the Vice Chairman’s endorsement, FCBs can provide the 

USD (AT&L) with priority joint war fighting capabilities for each of the 

JFCs. These priority joint war fighting capabilities are intended to 

inform the S&T community and focus the technology development 

efforts specified in the Joint Warfighting Science and Technology Plan. 

These priority joint war fighting capabilities are also intended to inform 

USD (AT&L)-led capability roadmaps, capability area reviews, and 

industrial base capability studies. 

The promise of effective capabilities-based planning depends on a 

two-way dialogue between FCBs and S&T planners. In-depth 

interviews with senior S&T planners and Joint Staff members during 

 

25. The JROC was formed in the late 1980s and for years operated under a charter issued by 

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 

enshrined the JROC in title 10, but made its establishment the responsibility of the Secretary of 

Defense and defined its mission to assist the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as being in 

addition to other matters assigned to it by the President or the Secretary of Defense. There is no 

record of the Secretary’s ever having “established” the JROC or issuing any guidance as to what 

he wants it to do. The JROC still operates under a charter signed by the Chairman (CJCSI 

5123.01B, Charter of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, 15 April 2004).
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 73

the course of this study failed to uncover evidence that this essential 

dialogue has emerged. This lack of effective dialogue is of great 

significance to planning for strategic S&T vectors and its resulting 

“technology push” opportunities. 

USD (AT&L) Role in S&T Planning and 

Execution—Formal Mechanisms 

In addition to the authority to withhold funds from programs that 

do not meet specified criteria, the USD (AT&L) has a number of other 

mechanisms available to affect the planning and execution of S&T 

programs of the DOD components. These mechanisms include 

 inputs to the QDR—identification of issues, participation in 

integrated product teams and working groups 

 inputs to PPBE processes and documents— Strategic Planning 

Guidance, Joint Programming Guidance, program review 

 membership in senior decision bodies—Defense Senior 

Leadership Council, Senior Level Review Group, and Deputy’s 

Advisory Working Group 

 assignment of missions and goals to direct-reporting 

organizations—DDR&E, DARPA, Missile Defense Agency 

 establishment of DOD-wide policies and programs 

 development of DOD directives and instructions 

 approval and support of new programs 

Details of JCIDS Processes Relevant to S&T 

Planning 

Capabilities-Based Identification of Needs 

The JCIDS instruction accurately and succinctly relates what is 

needed for a capabilities-based assessment of needs. By overlaying 

existing threats with the capabilities available to meet those threats, 

capability gaps (threats that need to be addressed for which no capability 
74 I APPENDIX E 

exists) are easily identifiable. Additionally, capability redundancies (tasks 

for which abundant capabilities exist) are made apparent in this process. 

At times, some of the redundancies become candidates to provide the 

resources necessary to develop and acquire new capabilities needed to fill 

the identified gaps. 

The process works as follows: 

First, the combatant commanders analyze the missions assigned to 

them by the Unified Command Plan, Contingency Planning Guidance, 

Security Cooperation Guidance, and Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan. 

Service and joint force developers analyze various “future missions” 

represented by service vision documents and concepts, the JOpsC 

family of future joint concepts, defense planning scenarios, and the 

QDR focus areas, among others. 

Second, the combatant commanders analyze capabilities to 

determine which required tasks can and cannot be accomplished by 

available forces and enablers. The combatant commanders analyze 

forces apportioned in the Global Force Management Guidance (forces 

available in the next two or three years) and other enablers, such as 

basing and over flight rights and bandwidth availability. Force 

developers analyze the programmed force (at the end of the FYDP) and 

beyond (represented by Multi-Service Force Deployment documents). 

Third, the combatant commanders identify capability gaps. These 

gaps are tasks identified in earlier analyses that have been classified as 

unattainable by any combination of current or programmed capabilities, 

or that can only be accomplished at great cost in terms of lives at risk 

and time. The combatant commanders identify shortfalls in their plans 

and consequently list them in their respective Integrated Priority Lists. 

Force developers maintain a running inventory of capabilities, to 

include those that currently exist, those expected to become available as 

the result of executing approved programs, and those that are needed 

but not available. 

And finally, technology gaps are identified. Not all capability gaps 

are amenable to technological solutions. Technologists who understand 

the demands of each mission in some depth and who have visibility 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 75

across the breadth of technological possibilities on the horizon are best 

suited to identify technology gaps that, when filled, will enable the 

fielding of new capabilities. 

Mission Analysis 

Near-term mission analysis is conducted by combatant commanders 

and their staffs. The combatant commanders analyze the missions 

assigned to them to identify all stated and implied tasks. Planners 

develop and game alternative courses of action to determine the best 

way to apply available capabilities to accomplish campaign objectives. 

The combatant commander selects a concept of operations that may be 

submitted to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Secretary of 

Defense for approval, as specified in the Joint Strategic Capabilities 

Plan. Planners at the combatant commander headquarters and at 

component levels develop the approved concept of operations into a 

complete plan, with a supporting plan. Shortfalls that cannot be 

resolved through adjustment of the concept of operations or provision 

of additional resources are submitted with the plan when it is forwarded 

for approval, and may be highlighted in the combatant commander’s 

Integrated Priority Lists. 

JCIDS Functional Needs Analysis 

In the mid- to long-term, from just beyond the FYDP out to 20 

years in the future, JOCs represent how future missions will be carried 

out. When applied to specified defense planning scenarios, they provide 

the tasks against which future capabilities, as represented by JFCs, are 

compared to determine which tasks can and cannot be accomplished. 

The resulting capability gaps are prioritized within each FCB, and then 

across all functional areas, to produce a prioritized list of capability gaps 

that can be analyzed by technologists to identify technology gaps that 

can be addressed in S&T plans and programs. 
76 I APPENDIX E 

Functional Capabilities Boards 

FCBs are established according to functional areas by the JROC, 

which determines which boards will be established, disbanded, or 

combined. The JROC also determines which specific area(s) are 

assigned to each board and the lead organization(s) responsible for 

sponsoring the board. The gatekeeper (vice director, J-8) approves FCB 

portfolios inside each functional area. 

The stated mission of these boards is to support the JROC by 

integrating stakeholder (OSD, combatant commands, services, defense 

agencies, Joint Staff, and other federal agencies) views in concept 

development, capabilities planning, and force development to ensure the 

U.S. military can execute assigned missions. FCBs provide assessments 

and recommendations that enhance capabilities integration; examine joint 

priorities among existing and future programs; assess program 

alternatives (including unclassified, collateral, compartmented, and special 

access programs); minimize duplication of effort throughout the services; 

and provide oversight in the management of materiel and non-materiel 

changes that support the national defense and military strategies to 

achieve optimum effectiveness and efficiency of the armed forces. 

Each FCB evaluates issues that impact its functional area and 

provides subject matter expertise and input to the JROC. Specific 

functions that are assigned to the boards include the following: 

 report findings and make recommendations on issues requiring 

JROC review 

 provide assessments of capabilities issues to support PPBE 

process activities 

 coordinate and integrate department-wide participation to 

ensure that supporting analyses adequately leverage the 

expertise of the DOD components to identify promising 

materiel and non-materiel approaches 

 conduct capability evaluations through assessments and studies, 

using common assessment frameworks (as appropriate), to 

structure issues and assess impact to joint war fighting 
JCIDS AND S&T PROCESSES I 77

 assist the JROC in overseeing materiel and non-materiel 

capabilities development 

 develop and maintain portfolios to assist in managing capability 

issues and documents26

FCBs participate in the development and use of joint concepts that 

support the joint capabilities identification process. Specifically, each 

board is responsible for developing and maintaining a Joint Functional 

Concept that describes how the future joint force will perform a 

particular military function across the full range of military operations 

(that is, across all relevant mission sets) 10–20 years in the future. FCBs 

continually assess their joint functional concept and relationships with 

other concepts. 

The leading role of the FCBs in assessing and prioritizing capability 

needs and in developing and integrating new capabilities to fill capability 

gaps is underlined in the Chairman’s Instruction for JCIDS, which 

declares that “Each FCB is responsible for all aspects, materiel and nonmateriel, of its assigned functional area.” 

Chartered Functional Capability Boards 

The JROC charters FCBs, assigns their functional areas, and 

identifies their chairs, based on recommendations from the Joint Staff’s 

Director for Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment (J-8). Eight 

FCBs are currently chartered, as shown in Figure E-4 along with the 

general or flag officer who chairs each. Each FCB maintains a joint 

functional concept, the title of which matches the name of the 

responsible FCB. 

 

26. CJCSI 3137.01. 
78 I APPENDIX E 

Figure E-4. Chartered Functional Capability Boards
EXECUTION AGENT ROLES I 79

Appendix F. 

Illustrative Execution Agent Roles 

Figure F-1 illustrates the type of analysis that might be done with a 

priority list of enabling technologies. The figure draws on the strategic 

technology vectors identified in Volumes I and II of this study as 

example (first column), in this case showing some of the technologies 

needed for ubiquitous observation. The portfolio manager might 

characterize each of these technologies into categories such as the 

following: 

 not yet in development, but of the high-potential-payoff 

(probably with high risk as well), in which case development 

might depend on finding a “speculator” 

 in development and proceeding 

 not yet in development but ripe for being so because of 

commercial activities (a prime candidate for a prospector to 

identify and recommend) 

 “ready to go,” that is, ready to be put into the field with minimal 

special work; in this case, what would be needed would be an 

expeditor. 

Where the speculator, prospector, and expeditor would be found 

would depend on the technology. A particular department of a 

particular laboratory might, at a particular time, be ideal for any of 

them. In another case, DARPA might take on the job. Or perhaps 

something new and special would be needed. 

The portfolio strategist would be thinking about these functions 

and eager to identify how they could be accomplished. 
80 I APPENDIX F 

Technology 

Areas

High Risk/High 

Reward: 

Speculator/Innovator

Under 

Development 

Showing 

Progress: 

Developer

Leverage 

Commercial 

Development: 

Prospector

Mature 

Within DOD: 

Expeditor

Ubiquitous Observation

High altitude, long 

endurance platforms

Active/passive 

hyperspectral 

sensing

Day/night allweather wide 

area 

surveillance

Giga pixel optical 

imaging

Space-based 

ground moving 

target 

indication/synthetic 

aperture radar

Foliage 

penetration 

sensors

Miniature sensor 

technology

High 

performance/high 

efficiency signal 

processing

Close-in 

sensor and 

tagging 

systems

Stealthy/precision 

delivery platforms

High density 

packaging

Efficient 

energy 

storage 

technology

Miniature sensor 

technology

All domain 

precision 

geolocation

Soldier centric 

communications/ 

networking 

technology

Soldier as a 

collector

Interactive automated 

debriefing

Body borne 

flexible displays

Efficient 

energy 

storage 

technology

Human/system 

collaboration

Human guided 

algorithms

Natural manmachine interface

Figure F-1. Technology Areas Associated with Ubiquitous Observation 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 81

Appendix G. Historical Perspective 

This appendix draws upon historical developments for insights 

about past capability developments and implications for planning and 

processes by the office of the USD (AT&L). It first looks at what has 

characterized successful past developments. Second, it comments on 

the role of overarching visions. Last, it examines how defense 

secretaries in effect took “portfolio views” to conceive strategy and 

identify and enforce priorities. 

Illustrative Past Successes 

Figure G-1 summarizes the panel’s brief review of about fifty 

capability developments that came about in separate programs. It shows 

capability categories in which major advances were made—not just 

theoretical advances, but advances that reached the field and made a 

very big difference, often a difference warranting the term transformation. 

Capability (example) Dates Sponsor

Precision Fires (Cruise missiles. Armed 

Predator, laser guided bomb, GPS) 1970s–90s USAF

Littoral Control (Littoral Combat Ship) 2004–2006 USN

Surveillance (Global Hawk, Predator, Joint 

Surveillance and Target Attack Radar 

System)

1980s–1990s USAF

Tactical Mobility for Ground Forces (M1A1, 

Bradley, Stryker) 1980s–2002 USA

Penetration of Air Defenses (F117, B1, B2) 1970s–1990s USAF

Maritime Superiority (carrier battle groups, 

boomers, fast attacks) 1920s–30s; 1950s–60s USN

Personal and Vehicle Protection (active 

armor; body armor) 1980s–2004 USA

Figure G-1. Example Capability Developments
82 I APPENDIX G 

Precision Fires 

Precision fires developed over a period of several decades, far more 

slowly than proponents hoped. In some respects, this reflected the time 

required for technology to advance. In other cases, it reflected 

consistent resistance by the services to protect related developments 

when budget cuts occurred. There were always reasons. For example, 

early technologies for achieving accuracy required multiple ground 

points and a heavy operational burden to fly the aircraft needed. 

Developing the exquisite technology for precise assessment of time and 

for space-based navigation aids took many years and, in the interim, 

systems were imperfect and difficult to work with. 

Laser-guided bombs, which were feasible in the 1960s and were 

eventually used in Vietnam, depended on good weather conditions. 

Despite these various problems, however, visionaries saw with great 

clarity the enormous potential of precision weapons. They were a small 

and distinct minority always having to fight for development dollars and 

opportunities to demonstrate and later field their results. In the 1970s, 

Secretary of Defense Brown intervened to support developments, even 

though he had no convenient “requirement” upon which to draw. 

Perhaps tragically, the names of only some of the key scientists, 

engineers, and officers behind precision fires are well known today (for 

example, Ivan Getting, who contributed much to the Global Positioning 

System (GPS); less so, Roger Easton, whose contributions were from the 

Naval Research Laboratory). 

Organizational and bureaucratic problems were often an impediment. 

The idea behind the wildly successful Joint Direct Air Munition, which 

couples a GPS kit to an existing iron bomb, was well developed years 

before it was procured. Indeed, at one point a RAND study for the Air 

Force convinced General Lee Butler (Strategic Air Command and its 

successor U.S. Strategic Command) to approve its development. 

Proponents were ecstatic. Development did not in fact proceed, however, 

because—according to lore—someone in the acquisition community 

concluded that it would be illegal to proceed without a formally blessed 

“requirement.” In this instance, as with many, the definitive history needs 

to be developed before those with first-hand knowledge are no longer 

available for interviews or to provide documents. 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 83

The Littoral Combat Ship 

The Littoral Combat Ship, which is now in procurement, was the 

result of low-cost exploration championed by VADM Art Cebrowski 

while at the Naval War College, and by the Chief of Naval Operations 

(CNO) Admiral Vern Clark. The CNO’s personal intervention was 

essential in overcoming the resistance and, indeed, the hostility of most 

Navy “barons.” Ultimately, it was the hands-on use of an existing 

commercial ship, borrowed from Australia for the experimentation, 

which convinced fleet commanders that great benefits could be obtained 

from having a number of such ships. In this case, the issue was not so 

much enabling technology, but the willingness to adapt existing 

commercial technology. 

Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Targeting 

This report shall not recount the well-known story of how satellite 

reconnaissance was developed, primarily in the 1950s and 1960s, 

except to note that deep-seated resistance was common. The reasons 

included parochialism by aviators, the worry that satellites would be 

vulnerable, and the high technical risks and costs associated with early 

satellite programs. 

More recently, Global Hawk and Predator, which are typically 

referred to today as glorious successes, were seen for years as flawed 

programs being foisted upon the Air Force by “techies” in DARPA. 

Aside from the usual parochial issues, the best was definitely the enemy 

of the good. Many people were deeply skeptical and even hostile 

because, in essence, unmanned aerial vehicles could not do some of the 

things that pilots can do, and had their usual share of technical and cost 

problems. It was Israel not the United States that plunged ahead early 

because military necessity sometimes trumps other matters. 

Even when Global Hawk and Predator were pushed into operational 

service (by what we call “expeditors”), skeptics focused on the 

shortcomings. There were great pressures to build better versions, but 

with substantial related delays and prospects for cost growth. There were 

champions within the DOD for holding down requirements, but 

historians will probably identify Congress as having been crucial. It 
84 I APPENDIX G 

mandated procurement of essentially as-was versions, thereby precluding 

delays. There were and are arguments on both sides of the debate, but it 

is clear that normal processes have the ability to delay “forever,” 

obtaining highly valuable operational capabilities.27

The Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) 

provides a similar example. JSTARS has a moving-target-indicator radar 

allowing it to track moving vehicles, providing commanders with an 

unprecedented view of large invasion forces and providing essential 

information for devastating interdiction of armored forces (“halting 

invading armies”). The JSTARS was a mere R&D system at the time of 

the first Gulf War, but was pushed into the field by proponents and 

“expeditors” against the wishes of the establishment. It quickly 

demonstrated its potential to those who noticed. In one unusual but 

dramatic part of the Gulf War, six Iraqi Republican Guard divisions 

tried to fight, which required maneuver. A combination of unmanned 

aerial vehicles and JSTARS tracked their movements even during 

sandstorms and all but a few dozen of the armored vehicles were 

destroyed or abandoned. This demonstrated vividly how certain aspects 

of warfare had in fact been transformed. Fifteen years later, we take it 

for granted that adversary armored forces cannot maneuver much less 

invade along classic corridors, if U.S. forces can operate with systems 

such as JSTARS and precision weapons. 

JSTARS was also quite imperfect as an operational system, not 

having been developed with the requisite support structure among other 

things. Still, a squadron was acquired and deployed. Superior alternatives 

were subsequently pursued. 

Tactical Mobility 

The U.S. Army (and Marines) of the 1990s still had many units 

dependent on the foot-march. They were light, but so light as to lack 

tactical mobility. They also lacked adequate lethality. The 82nd Airborne 

was regarded to have been potentially a mere “speed bump” in the first 

 

27. See, for example, Jeff Drezner and Robert Leonard, Innovative Development: Global Hawk and 

Dark Star, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2002. 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 85

Gulf War. Further, as the ability of the Air Force to halt invading armies 

became evident, the Army felt competitive pressures to improve its 

ability to rapidly deploy lethal, mobile forces. Many studies, such as those 

of the Army Science Board, emphasized not only the need, but the 

technological feasibility of doing something. 

Stryker emerged from an acrimonious debate about wheels versus 

tracked, and homegrown versus borrowed. Army Chief of Staff 

Shinseki made the decision against considerable opposition. Operators 

have applauded the Stryker vehicle, despite its limitations and need for 

upgrading after learning on the battlefield of Iraq. Despite initial 

shortcomings, however, it is today evident that experience with Stryker 

brigades is transforming Army doctrine.28

From a technological perspective, Stryker brigades incorporate 

many of the ideas and capabilities pursued initially by Chief of Staff 

Gordon Sullivan with his experiments on the “digitized division.” Some 

of the ideas trace back to experiments during the 1980s, again at the 

personal instigation of the Chief of Staff General Shy Meyer. As always, 

there was much learning and iteration as technologies finally reached 

the hands of operators. 

Penetration of Air Defenses 

Perhaps the best documented and best known of the great 

developments in modern times has been that of stealth aircraft.29

Initiated at Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works as the result of 

suggestions from mathematical theory (some of it first discussed in the 

Soviet literature), the beginnings consisted of fundamental S&T, leading 

to a point at which representatives could visit a select few figures in the 

Air Force and the DDR&E and announce, in effect, that an airplane 

could be built with a radar cross section approximately the size of a 

 

28. See, for example, Dan Gonzales, et al., Network-Centric Operations Case History: the Stryker 

Brigade Combat Teem, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2005. Major General James Dubik (USA) 

briefed the summer study on the learning processes being followed by the Stryker community 

and the extent to which fundamental changes in doctrine and tactics, techniques, and 

procedures have been and continue to be necessary. 

29 Ben Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: a Personal Memoir, 1994. 
86 I APPENDIX G 

marble. A few individuals, including the Chief of Staff, the DDR&E, 

and some others destined for high positions later, became champions 

and monitors. The DDR&E (William Perry, later Secretary of Defense) 

found ways to pursue the program in deep secrecy and with minimal 

interference by the “normal” system or Congress. The F-117 and B-2 

arrived in due course. 

Aircraft Carriers 

Many other examples can be discussed over the years, but looking 

back to the 1920s and 1930s, it is evident how, in some respects, 

nothing changes. In the aftermath of World War I, battleships reigned 

supreme. Nonetheless, there were some visionaries who could imagine 

a “transformation” based on airpower from ships. That their ideas were 

resisted by the battleship navy should hardly be a surprise, especially 

given the primitive state of aviation at the time. 

Remarkably, a cadre of scientists, engineers, aviators, and naval 

officers pursued the vision—and found the necessary champions at the 

top of the Navy, notably a review board created to think strategically. 

Their pursuits were largely R&D and were not treated as competitive 

with battleships; instead, the story went, carriers would be scouts. 

Despite the shortage of funds in the intra-war era, the Navy actually 

built early carriers, slowly perfecting the myriad of skills and 

technologies necessary. So did the Japanese, but more overtly with a 

carrier focus. After Pearl Harbor, of course, it was evident that the day 

of the battleship was over and that aircraft carriers were now the core 

of all that would follow. The Navy and its industrial base were able to 

act with alacrity.30

 

30. A good account of the history of these developments is Richard Hundley, Past Revolutions, 

Future Transformations, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999. 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 87

Features of Most Great Developments 

Looking across the many developments, some general features can 

be identified. 

People 

The “great” developments have had remarkable individual people as 

conceivers, visionaries, managers, or champions. The consistent 

emphasis in interviews of “old timers” is people, not processes. This is 

in contrast to a current Pentagon culture emphasizing consensus and 

process. Indeed, this culture has now existed for so long that the very 

intuition of many people in the system revolves around consensus and 

process, with resulting “requirements” for bloated, exhausting activities 

with no one having the freedom to act. 

The Role of Visions 

The great developments have often had an accompanying vision 

that provided coherence and direction over time, a vision with both 

substance and legs. These coherent visions identified “thrusts,” 

examples of which we shall show later. These were developed and 

honed by small groups of top-notch “up and comers” at mid-level. 

Within the military, these young officers often became well known 

general officers in later years. 

Champions 

Such concepts, however, would have gone nowhere except for 

championing by senior leadership e.g., the service chief and senior 

officials such as the DDR&E. Typically, the concepts were disruptive, 

and were therefore resisted by the existing organizations. Leaders, 

then, had to override this tendency to resist. That they often did so is 

perhaps remarkable to those familiar with the “innovator’s dilemma” 

in industry, but defense planning has objectors very different from 

profit-making. 
88 I APPENDIX G 

Broad Thinking 

Significantly, for this study with a terms of reference that focused on 

S&T, top leaders associated with the great developments thought about 

the near-, mid-, and long-term, and across development categories. They 

were not particularly focused on S&T; they did, however, value it greatly 

and pushed innovation in diverse ways (e.g., advanced concept 

technology system and continuing DARPA activities). They thought in 

terms of phased, evolutionary developments. 

Service Opposition 

The great developments usually had to overcome non-interest or 

even strong opposition within the eventually sponsoring service (e.g., 

Global Hawk, Predator, NLCS, and F-16s). Often, service chiefs played 

a critical role by “reaching down” and championing innovators who 

would otherwise have lost out in the competition for funding and 

priority. Similarly, service chiefs were often the ones who “faced reality” 

about the need for tradeoffs. Sometimes, they did so in behind-closeddoors cooperation with the DDR&E and Secretary of Defense, without 

consensus within the service (an example is the procurement of the F16 as the low-end portion of a high-low mix). 

Intervention by the Secretary of Defense 

Upon occasion, the Secretary of Defense had to intervene, overriding 

the preferences of the services and even the service chiefs. Sometimes it 

was as part of introducing new missions; sometimes it was to protect 

“national” programs; sometimes it was to reflect conclusions of 

economic analysis (such as increasing the rate of procurement of 

precision weapons or unmanned air vehicles). 

Finessing or Evading Processes 

Especially relevant is the observation that the great developments 

succeeded despite, rather than because, of normal processes. Nothing 

so complex as the JCIDS process existed until recent years, but at any 

given time the then-“normal” process was almost always regarded as 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 89

too burdensome and too perilous. The champions usually found ways 

to avoid the normal process (e.g., black programs). In more recent 

times, senior officials have again noted that “important” developments 

are dealt with outside the normal process (e.g., the IED task force). 

This observation should be a sobering cautionary for those who seek to 

solve current problems by perfecting big processes. 

Failures 

Failures are also important to notice. The panel identified several 

examples of outright failures in its historical review. There were some 

with deep technical roots (e.g., when the F-102 was first built, there was 

an insufficient understanding of some aspects of aerodynamics). There 

could have been more disasters, except that “responsible adults,” 

typically a chief of staff, would relax requirements rather than pursue 

something not yet feasible. For example, during the development of the 

F-15, there was great technical pressure to push the limits, but the chief 

of staff relaxed requirements a bit to reduce risk in the first block. This 

decision permitted earlier success at lower cost. In today’s Missile 

Defense Agency, directors have in recent years followed a policy of 

building what can be built now (if it is deemed useful), rather than 

attempting to build what is only desired. These are both variants of 

what might today be called evolutionary acquisition. The alternative 

provides failures. 

The most notable recent failure was the first phase work on the 

Future Combat System. The Army pursued vague goals that depended 

upon technologies that were clearly identified by DDR&E as 

immature. Some senior observers argue that years were lost with “cando” efforts to meet ill-conceived initial “requirements” such as 

limiting a new vehicle to 20 tons. The program was substantially 

restructured by the current Chief of Staff to include well-defined off 

ramps and a relaxation of unreasonable technical requirements. As of 

August 2006, many aspects of the program appeared to be in much 

better condition than previously. 

Another example of temporary failure was the unsuccessful 

THAAD development of the 1990s, in which speed was pursued even 

as tests failed and reflected a failure to have mastered necessary 
90 I APPENDIX G 

intermediate steps. After extensive independent reviews, the program 

was restructured.31 Recent developments have been more successful, 

including testing. Thus, a program that was once a failure has 

apparently recovered. 

Visions 

Another major point of this historical review is that past successes 

often benefited from leaders’ communicating a simple, coherent, and 

compelling vision of an overarching capability to be pursued. In 

addition, however, they conveyed a sense of pragmatism that clearly 

distinguished among what could be done soon, in the mid-term, or in 

the long-term, with and without different degrees of risk. That is, the 

visions were tempered by good sense: instead of recklessly pursuing 

high-end requirements on an unreasonable time scale, they proceeded 

with what would now be called evolutionary development. 

Figure G-1 shows some of the many visions that have been 

important over the years. These can be seen as having defined strategic 

technology thrusts. 

Rethinking Contents and Weights of the 

“Portfolio” 

The last point is that the Secretaries of Defense (with at least one 

very strong deputy) have frequently had to conceive the terms of how to 

think strategically and how categories of investment should be 

“rebalanced.” They had in mind what is referred to in this report as 

portfolios, and of making adjustments both within and across portfolios. 

The first example, a half century ago, involved creating the mission 

category of strategic nuclear deterrence (and requirements for assured 

 

31. See “The Welch Report,” issued in 1999, which said “the general planning and execution of 

the THAAD (Theater High Altitude Area Defense) and LEAP (Lightweight Exoatmospheric 

Projectile) programs are inconsistent with the difficulty of the task. These programs are 

pursuing very aggressive schedules, but these schedules are not supported by the state of 

planning and testing.” (p.7) 
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE I 91

destruction capability and assured-retaliation capability) that was 

described in Chapter 4. During the 1960s, the de facto portfolios were 

strategic nuclear deterrence, reassuring allies in Europe, containing 

communism in Asia, and resisting wars of national liberation. In the 

1970s, the set was conceived regionally, except that strategic nuclear 

deterrence was always a mismatch. By the end of the 1970s, Southwest 

Asia was added as a regional category. In the 1980s, the Secretary 

emphasized the need to view matters in terms of possible global war: 

war might begin in Southwest Asia and spread to Europe and then 

worldwide, or any variation thereof. In the 1990s, the mission category 

of environment shaping was added, which explicitly legitimized and 

highlighted the importance of overseas presence, keeping the peace in 

East Asia, and establishing and maintaining a network of allies and 

potential allies. 

Today, the new categories relate to the global war on terrorism, 

failed and failing states, rogues, and near peers. 
92 I APPENDIX H 

Appendix H. Glossary 

AFRL Air Force Research Laboratory 

ARL U.S. Army Research Laboratory 

AT&L acquisition, technology, and logistics 

BRP Basic Research Plan 

CCJO Capstone Concept for Joint Operations 

CJCSI Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 

CNO Chief of Naval Operations 

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

DAWG Deputy’s Advisory Working Group 

DCR DOTMLPF change recommendation 

DDR&E Director, Defense Research and Engineering 

DISA Defense Information Systems Agency 

DOD Department of Defense 

DOTMLPF doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel and 

facilities 

DSB Defense Science Board 

DTAP Defense Technology Area Plan 

DTRA Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

FAA functional area analysis 

FCB Functional Capabilities Board 

FNA functional needs analysis 

FSA functional solution analysis 

FYDP future years defense program 

GPS Global Positioning System 

GWOT global war on terrorism 

IED improvised explosive devices 

IPL integrated priority list 

JCIDS Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System 

JFC Joint Functional Concept 

JIC Joint Integrating Concept 

JOC Joint Operating Concepts 
GLOSSARY I 93

JOpsC Joint Operations Concepts 

JROC Joint Requirements Oversight Council 

JSTARS Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System 

JWSTP Joint Warfighting Science and Technology Plan 

LEAP Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile 

MDA Missile Defense Agency 

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

NGA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 

NRL U.S. Naval Research Laboratory 

NSA National Security Agency 

NSWC Naval Surface Warfare Center 

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense 

PA&E Program Analysis and Evaluation 

PIA privacy impact assessment 

PPBE planning, programming, budgeting, and execution 

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review 

R&D research and development 

RD&E research, development, and engineering 

R&E research and engineering 

REF Rapid Equipping Force 

SPAWAR Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center 

SSBN ballistic missile submarine (nuclear) 

S&T science and technology 

TARA Technical Area Reviews and Assessments 

TARDEC U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and 

Engineering Center 

THAAD Theater High-Altitude Area Defense 

UJTL Universal Joint Task List 

USD (AT&L) Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

VCJCS Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

WMD weapons of mass destruction 

WRAIR Walter Reed Army Institute of Research