Taking the challenge to solve the hardest problem.
Last week when I said I was joining Smack Technologies Inc. I noted I came on because they were getting after the most difficult thing I was facing over the last few assignments of my career. Regardless of it was informing the service during Force Design, serving in command in Okinawa at the MEF level, or working at the Joint Task Force level in Oahu the broad outline of the challenge remained the same. My next few posts will describe aspects of the problem
An analogy we used repeatedly over the past several years-born from experience in exercises, war games, and planning for the main effort of the joint force was that the future fight’s initial characteristics would demand the massing of fires to attrit, in order to sufficiently mass you would have to conduct multi domain maneuver, and maneuver uncovered by effects would result in inefficient massing and more importantly unacceptable friendly attrition. That last part has bearing because it is critical to accept that the fight won’t be won initially-that doesn’t happen in the age of industrial warfare-but much can be lost that makes protracted conflict very challenging.
Many sit astride this comprehensive challenge, working their portion by warfighting function or specialty-but rarely does one get to see the magnitude of the problem. Gathering the staffs, units, experts, and putting in motion is the work of thousands of contributors but sitting in the eye of that hurricane is precious few. It is said that logistics is the pacing function in the Pacific. Given distances and the nature of a peer threat unlike any other in the world at the moment, this is undeniably true. While logistics is critical, it fundamentally serves as a constraint-to solve the problem you have to first understand what it is you intend to accomplish to then determine what logistics you require. It is worth noting this is all in theory, as in practice the realities of munitions sufficiencies, their locations globally, and fuel-in particular-all drive what the joint force can, and cannot, do today.
In my words this is the challenge Smack is trying to solve: Not just how to manage the current operations fight, which has a significant amount of attention from some promising solutions. Rather, how do you understand the campaign at the operational level and orchestrate variations of the tactical execution over time against a peer threat operating in all domains. How do you apply the power of AI against that when path dependency has shown its promise elsewhere? How do you ensure you cut across domains, across elements of the combined and joint force? More to follow, but excited to push the threshold.
Business Development Manager SOCOM/IC | MBA, William and Mary | Special Operations Veteran | TS/SCI
2moAfter party at Nickle City??