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The Army team at the Center for Technology and National Security
Policy has been doing technology studies for the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology since 2003. In
2007 we published Enhancing Army S&T: Lessons Learned From
Project Hindsight Revisited, which we refer to here as Vo l. I.
That publication was a summary of critical technology contributions
to the development of four successful Army warfighting systems.
Since then, we have completed a number of studies of important
aspects of the Army science and technology (S&T) program with
an emphasis on the Army laboratories. In the present paper, Vol.
II, we integrate the findings of these studies and make
recommendations after each chapter, as well as in a separate final
chapter. Chapter I of this volume is an introduction, and Chapter
II offers an updated view of the work discussed in Vol. I with an
emphasis on the relative roles played by the Army laboratories and
the contractors that manufactured the systems. The close
collaboration between the two groups was judged by us to be the key
to the successful outcomes. Both the Army laboratories and the
technical personnel at the contractors were essential-without
either group the work would have cost more, taken more time, and
might well have failed. We believe the collaboration was the result
of the efforts of the mid-level managers who pressed technologists
to work together. In Chapter III, we discuss the impact of the lack
of publicity given to the Army laboratories' work. This lack of
publicity has caused some observers to conclude that the
laboratories are not significant contributors to the warfighters.
This belief in turn has produced recommendations from outside the
military to close the laboratories and assign the research to the
private sector. We do not agree with the criticism or the
recommendation. We discuss two aspects of addressing this problem:
the need to maintain high-quality work and the need to provide
detailed information about the contributions of the laboratories to
all parties concerned-namely, Army senior leadership, officials in
the Department of Defense (DOD), the Administration, the Congress,
and the general public. Chapter IV explores the laboratory quality
question. We begin by asserting that the most important asset of a
laboratory is its technical staff members and that, therefore,
ensuring staff quality should be a top priority of management. We
discuss a number of methods for locating and bringing new employees
onboard, including use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act
(IPA), post-doctoral appointments, and visiting scientists and
engineers. Chapter V discusses two reports we issued on the role of
technology in stabilization and reconstruction. We surveyed the
experiences of recently returned soldiers from Iraq. More recently
we have conducted Gedanken Experiments at Fort Bennning to explore,
with experienced soldiers, various challenges facing the laboratory
programs. These experiments brought together a number of officers
and senior non-commissioned officers in combination with Army
scientists and engineers and observers from ASAALT and other Army
organizations. The participants have been enthusiastic about the
experience and are urging that more such experiments be carried
out. In Chapter VI we recommend that the Army laboratories be
managed as the important component of developing new capabilities
for warfighters that they are. The Army should emphasize reporting
relationships and the role of ASAALT in developing policy affecting
the laboratories.
The Army science and technology (S&T) program is conducted both
in-house and in external laboratories. The program consists of
basic research, applied research, and advanced development, known
by their respective budget codes of 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3. The 6.1
basic research program is conducted primarily through grants to
academia, although some research is conducted in-house. There are
also some 6.1 efforts, such as the Army's collaborative technology
alliances (CTAs), that bring together subject matter expert from
industry and academia with counterparts from the DOD laboratories.
The 6.2 applied research program also consists of in-house and
external efforts. Here, the external efforts involve m ore industry
technologists than are seen in the 6.1 program . The 6.3 program,
because of its developmental nature, is primarily executed by
industry, but is overseen by in-house technologists.
In this paper we review some of the landscape of research and
development on power and energy as it pertains to the needs of the
Army warfighter. We focus on the battlefield and consider questions
related to vehicles, dismounted soldiers, and forward operating
bases. The literature in the overall field of energy research is
immense; we make no attempt to review all these reports but rather
have looked at a few selected studies that focus on the military
challenges. The context of the study is twofold: the National need
to reduce the use of petroleum-based fuels and the Army's need to
reduce the logistical burden and hazards of moving said fuels on
the battlefield. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have
highlighted the danger inherent in transporting supplies over
terrain that is difficult to render safe from terrorist raids and
hidden explosives. The Army seeks to reduce this dependence by
improving the fuel efficiency for uses that cannot now be entirely
supplied by alternatives. These efforts will also provide the
opportunity to save a great deal of money and reduce the number of
personnel in the logistics chain. Needless to say, there will still
be convoys carrying other supplies to forward bases. However, any
reduction in the amount of supplies convoyed will be desirable.
The long, drawn- out and expensive acquisition process in the
military is a serious problem at any time, but especially so in
these times of tight and declining budgets. Many times the
Department of Defense (DOD) has been criticized for the manner by
which it procures new weapons systems. Recent articles in the
Washington Post1,2 and Defense News 3 review the Army acquisition
process, presenting an analysis of some $38 billion spent on system
s that were terminated for high costs and lengthy development
times. Two cases in point that f ailed: the Crusader artillery
system which foundered, in part, on the failure of a new propellant
system, high costs, and a too-long development cycle, and the
Comanche stealth helicopter, again terminated because of cost
overrun s and slippage of schedules. The available funding for the
Comanche was redirected into buying and upgrading existing
helicopter program s where the procurement risks were reduced. A
question is how much of this problem is due to technical
inefficiencies, and how much is due to other factors such as the
requirements process, Defense acquisitions regulations, and the
complexity of the lengthy budgeting process or changes in the
governing political system . We seek to show how one factor, the
expanded use of high performance computing, can contribute to
improving the design and production of weapons systems. This would
contribute to a more responsive, more economical acquisition
process.
The assumption underlying the value of peer re view is that the
quality of work is substantiated or improved through critiques by
individuals who are independent, objective, and have specialized
knowledge in the subject matter. One of the authors (Dr. Lyons) has
had firsthand experience with such reviews. Some time ago, while in
the private sector, he was asked to serve on a National Research
Council (NRC) ad hoc committee of external, independent experts to
review the fire research program at the National Bureau of
Standards (N BS). The committee found the program s to be
fragmented and deficient in basic research, and made a number of
recommendations on how to improve them. (For more on how such a
committee operates, see the discussion of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology in chapter 3.) The result was the creation
of a newly focused organization with a strengthened scientific
knowledge base. These reforms helped NBS become a world leader in
the field of fire research.
This paper presents some thoughts about research in science and
technology (S&T) gleaned from my more than 50 years working in
scientific and engineering research -first in the chemical
industry, then at two different government laboratories, and later
some years in S&T policy. It elaborates on a paper by Richard
Chait in which he interviews three former S&T executives in the
Department of Defense (DOD) 1 on how to manage a research
laboratory. In this paper, I expand on the comments made to Dr.
Chait and provide a broad context for my discussion. In addition,
this paper connects a number of subjects discussed in several other
papers published by the Center for Technology and National Security
Policy (C TNSP). My objective is to provide some insights on what
it is like to work in a scientific research establishment. My hope
is that this will be of some value f or the senior manager who has
no laboratory experience but is responsible for overseeing a
research department. I also hop e the paper will help new technical
personnel just entering the laboratory for the firs t time. For
experienced laboratory staff, the paper will contain many familiar
ideas and perhaps some that are controversial. Some of the paper
deals with the DOD technical programs.
Set in the tumultuous days of 1970 as the University of Wisconsin
anti-war movement imploded after a deadly campus bombing, Death on
Cache Lake takes the reader on a dark odyssey through the lake
wilds of Ontario, and the woods and small towns of Wisconsin. A
fishing trip in Quetico Provincial Park turns violently tragic when
friends Caleb Pratt and John Short cross paths with a former
acquaintance who is running for his life, aided and abetted by a
sociopathic mercenary. Death on Cache Lake is a must read for
anyone who has ever paddled a canoe across a northern lake, hiked
on an isolated mountain, or spent a night in a lonely cabin
buffeted by a roaring blizzard. This spellbinding tale of political
intrigue and conspiracy will also captivate history buffs who share
the authors' fascination with American crimes that seem solvable
but remain mysteries. Caleb and John's adrenaline-filled flight
through Ontario to unravel the conspiracy and save their lives
takes them on trains, hitch-hiked rides on trucks, cross country
skis, and canoes, all at a breakneck pace climaxing in an
unforgettable reckoning.
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