Meeting the Challenges of Innovations for the Ready Force

On September 26, 2024, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation hosted a discussion emphasising the need for innovation in building a ready force rather than merely waiting for a future force to take shape after delivery. This raises a critical question: how can organisational design drive innovation within a military?

I spoke with John Blackburn during my September-October 2024 visit to Canberra about this challenge. He has dedicated much of his professional life to addressing such issues.

In our conversation, Blackburn argued that successful innovation within the operational force requires a combination of bottom-up initiatives, top-down design, and a tolerance for failure while attempting to innovate. He recalled the work of Admiral Cebrowski of the U.S. Navy on network-centric warfare, where he emphasised the importance of experimentation to drive innovation, while accepting failures as part of the learning process.

Blackburn stated that a well-defined CONOPS is the crucial link between bottom-up innovation and top-down design. He recalled his time in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), during which he worked on such an approach for the RAAF’s Plan Jericho.

He described the approach this way: The theme of Plan Jericho’s fifth-generation Air Force was “top-down design meets bottom-up innovation.” The idea was to establish a concept of operations as a test idea, then trial it with bottom-up innovation without stifling creativity.

The concept would be adapted based on these experiments because it remains largely theoretical until tested to see what works. Plan Jericho was founded on the principle of tolerance for failure, learning from experiments, and continuously improving the operational force.

He continued: We were talking about a feedback loop. You start with a design, and bottom-up innovation helps refine it. You iterate the design, recognising what works and what doesn’t. Another challenge is dealing with bureaucratic control. I was the mentor to the team and assisted with the design of the plan and its execution. We funded it initially at $15 million a year and started exploring innovative ideas in partnership with industry.

After about a year, we identified several promising bottom-up innovations. My advice to the team was to hand off these plans to the running RAAF system, which excels at carrying out well-defined tasks. Once handed off, the Jericho team could then refocus on evaluating the CONOPS, identifying what went wrong, and considering alternative approaches.

Unfortunately, the Australian Department of Defence subsequently moved towards a centralised innovation model focused on long-term platform acquisition. Centralising innovation is a surefire way to kill innovation as it becomes bureaucratised and limits the ability to rapidly redesign and innovate within the operational force. The issue is one of risk tolerance and focusing on platforms rather than the operational effects they create.

Blackburn expressed concern that the current approach of the Australian Department of Defence appears to emphasise platform acquisition without a coherent top-down design. There is a lack of what a 2015 Defence review called “program-level” design to integrate the myriad of projects in the capability investment plan. This is a major problem, for example, in acquiring an Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) system.

Blackburn argued: We are buying billions of dollars’ worth of equipment for an IAMD system without a coherent system-level design.

Blackburn further argued that CONOPS-driven design aligns with another key requirement: the need for a debate on a National Security Strategy to guide defence strategy. Australia does not have a National Security Strategy; it has a Defence Strategy without broader guidance that integrates all elements of national power.

In summary, Blackburn emphasised that innovation in defence requires a clear concept of operations that connects top-down design with bottom-up experimentation. This approach helps create an adaptive, ready force rather than a static, platform-centric force that struggles to keep pace with evolving threats and requirements.

Featured graphic: Photo 178979193 / Australian Map © Sonyasgar | Dreamstime.com