Latest news with #USSpecialOperationsSymposium
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Special ops cracked the code on a problem plaguing the US military: getting better weapons faster
Special operations forces have a fast and flexible weapons acquisition process. It's critical to keeping operators ahead of the curve on what capabilities are needed. There are lessons for the larger Joint Force and Pentagon, officials said. US Special Operations Forces know how to get new technologies and weapons to the warfighter quickly, and there are potential lessons in their approach for the broader military. At a recent symposium in Washington, DC, speakers argued that the Pentagon needs to move faster. "The biggest thing we need to do is really fundamentally change the culture of the Pentagon and Congress," Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat and the ranking member of the US House Armed Services Committee, said last month at the National Defense Industrial Association's US Special Operations Symposium. "We need to speed up the pace of innovation," he said. Special operations forces have flexible acquisition processes which not only bring operators and industry partners together but also encourage adaptations in real time. At the recent symposium, special operations leadership, other military officials, and industry partners spoke about what works and what doesn't in acquiring new weapons and capabilities. SOF's agile acquisition process means that it's able to work with industry partners to get its hands on and adjust both hardware and software faster than others. Officials said its approach was a model for how to solve broader issues within the Pentagon. Melissa Johnson, a Senior Executive Service member and acquisition executive for Special Operations Command (SOCOM), said the strength in the process is that decision-making on what systems to acquire and when is made through close coordination with the operator, creating a stronger relationship between what the individual operator sees as necessary and what industry partners can provide. "I think the recipe is really simple," Johnson said at the symposium, adding that "it's the mindset and culture of being able to take the magic that happens at SOCOM, the way we do business, and how do we scale that and get that across the department." What slows down DoD acquisition? There are a range of different factors. As officials said recently, many of the problems are due to the way funding is appropriated and how contracting works across the services and Congress. The other complication is the requirements piece and whether some are too complicated and arbitrary for certain systems. Smith referenced lengthy and sometimes unnecessary requirements for some things, such as paint on the littoral combat ship. It is not as though US special operations forces are not without their own acquisition problems. For instance, special operations commanders told the House Armed Services Committee last week that US adversaries are modernizing faster than they can, telling congressional leaders that sometimes technology is already obsolete by the time it's fielded. Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, the commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, said "it's this constant loop of trying to catch up with the enemy threat." Still, special operations forces tend to move faster than the rest of the military, which is feeling the pressure to modernize for a higher-end conflict amid the emergence of newer combat technologies like uncrewed systems and artificial intelligence and the greater focus on great power competition with China and Russia. There are lessons to be learned, SOCOM officials said, from the Ukraine war, where drone manufacturers are creating hardware and software solutions to problems on the battlefields even when countermeasures arise. Chris Brose, the chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries, said that one of the benefits of working with SOCOM is that its work with industry partners is run differently than the requirements for building the next attack submarine or destroyer. Brose pointed to Anduril's work with SOCOM on counter-drone systems, noting that feedback from operators on threats that outpace new technologies was key to adjusting in real time. Others have tried this approach with industry, such as US Army Futures Command, which relied on immersive testing and feedback soldier touch points. Still, there is room for improvement in innovation and acquisition within DoD. Adopting SOCOM's way of doing things comes down to having greater flexibility in the budget. But there's wariness from appropriators, Smith said, and that's been a big battle with questions on oversight. Not every solution presented, officials said, is going to apply to the entire military, as special operations forces purchase smaller quantities of cutting-edge technology with a smaller, flexible budget. But a general focus on problem-solving that's closer to industry could be beneficial. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The US military's elite special operators need a lot more 'truly cheap' weapons to fight the next big war, general says
US special operators need cheap weapons for future conflicts, and they need a lot of them. The war in Ukraine has shown the value of having lots of cheap weapons, such as drones. Operators and industry will need to work closely together to develop the right capabilities. US special operators are going to need a bunch of cheap, expendable weapons to fight a fast-paced, high-intensity, and materially demanding future war, US military leaders said recently. And those weapons are going to need to be able to be rapidly modified to adapt to ever-changing battlefield threats. At the National Defense Industrial Association's US Special Operations Symposium last week, special operations leadership and other military officials spoke about the shift from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to great-power competition and the challenges and opportunities that presents for the US military's elite special operations forces, or SOF. Looking at a potential future conflict between the US and a major military power, like China or Russia, officials said a war like that would be fought across a range of contested domains, such as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Dominating these warfighting domains will be decisive, they said. Preparation for this fight has led to increased demand for innovation and the acquisition of new weapons and combat technologies. Lt. Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, the director for Joint Fore development, pointed to Ukraine's success in crippling Russia's Black Sea Fleet with uncrewed surface vessels as an example. There are lessons to learn from the Ukraine war, he said, especially when it comes to drones. The general said "there are a lot of cheap things you can do to have an asymmetric advantage." US special operators are often among the first American troops to get their hands on new technologies, and they work closely with the defense industry to develop new systems. Anderson said that he wants to see "technologies that are truly cheap in the hands of the operators" so that they can "experiment" with them and offer feedback. The key to developing these capabilities, he said, is rapid-cycle iteration. Industry and operators should work closely to develop new systems, edit them based on observations, and switch out capabilities quickly for different missions, he suggested. But these systems need to be affordable, Anderson said, capable of being bought on a large scale for relatively low cost. That's been important in Ukraine, where soldiers burn through thousands of drones and where new drone companies are constantly building newer, cheaper hardware and updating software based on current battlefield challenges. In recent years, the Pentagon has been moving to achieve mass through drone warfare, as seen in Ukraine. The Replicator Initiative, announced in 2023, is the Department of Defense's effort to streamline the development of uncrewed systems with key industry partners, with the goal of deploying thousands of multi-domain drones at speed and scale. The biggest challenges, though, lie in how DoD obtains new systems and works with the defense industry. Similarly, technologies related to artificial intelligence, autonomy, uncrewed systems, and electronic warfare are moving at breakneck speed, meaning what is innovative today may be obsolete tomorrow. Chris Brose, the chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries, said that a potential solution to this problem is the creation of flexible systems that can be updated quickly. Brose said that Anduril's work with DoD on countering drones with US Special Operations Command largely began with trying to solve problems that operators were experiencing on the field. "It started with units that were deploying," he said, with "capabilities that were not working, with threats that were outpacing them, with technology that was rapidly getting better but they were incapable of incorporating." Those challenges led to an understanding that operators and industry need to work together and quickly, adjusting in real time in different locations against different threats. While much can be learned from the war in Ukraine, there are still unanswered questions, especially about how AI will evolve and what humans will actually be needed for in certain combat roles. SOF leadership said that autonomous capabilities and AI may potentially change what roles operators play on the battlefield, such as flying drones. Read the original article on Business Insider
