To counter that threat, America’s defense establishment, both government and industry, must push even greater innovation, Hagel said.
“American dominance on the seas, in the skies, and in space — not to mention cyberspace — can no longer be taken for granted,” he told a lunchtime audience at Defense Innovation Days, a conference sponsored by the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance. “To retain our superiority in the future, our thinking and our actions must be relevant to tomorrow’s challenges.”
Hagel said that innovation cannot be limited to how the nation builds weapons systems, but in how they are researched and designed and how they are bought and paid for.
That new thinking will include encouraging small businesses to become players in the defense industry.
“There will also be new initiatives focused on helping small businesses and start-ups succeed,” Hagel said. “When they have new ideas or create new technologies, we want to be helping, not hindering their potential for success.”
“We can’t focus only on where we are today. We must also think through where we’re going tomorrow and why. We must be willing to take risks in our innovation and creative thinking,” Hagel said, adding that the Defense Department and defense industry “cannot afford to putter into stagnation.”
But that doesn’t mean simply throwing trillions of dollars into weapons systems, Hagel said.
“As the largest steward of taxpayer dollars, DoD must always strive to make every dollar count,” he said, using the acronym for the Department of Defense. “We all agree that DoD needs to be smarter in what we buy and how we buy it.”
While the department looks to cut costs, Hagel also cautioned that Congress needs to change the way it develops the nation’s budget after a series of automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration” caused turmoil in the military and in the defense industry in 2013 before Congress reached a deal and suspended sequestration, but only for two years.
“The deep, steep, and abrupt cuts of sequestration took a toll on the force by cutting into the readiness of our troops,” Hagel said. “But we were also mindful of the harmful impact on industry, and the ripple effects it caused up and down the supply chain. And while the budget agreement reached last year has lessened the impact of these cuts for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, we still face the reality that sequestration is the law of the land and will return in 2016 if Congress does not change the law.”
Innovation that keeps America a step ahead of its enemies is key to global security, Hagel said. “A world where our military lacks a decisive edge would be less stable, less secure for both the United States and our allies,” he said. “We will not send our troops into a fair fight.”
Hagel’s audience included representatives of the defense industry, from giants such as submarine maker General Dynamics Electric Boat and missile and electronics firm Raytheon to smaller subcontractors. He thanked them “for what you do for our country” after praising the region’s role in the nation’s defense.
“Southeastern New England has become the Silicon Valley of undersea warfare,” Hagel said. “It’s not only that our submarines are built here. It’s that their critical underlying technology, capabilities, and future operational concepts are developed here as well.”
©2014 The Providence Journal (Providence, R.I.)
