So You Want to Influence the National Defense Strategy (NDS)?

Notes on Effective Communication

You received an email stating “NDS Inputs due NLT COB today,” and realized you have an opportunity to provide an unclassified input to the new National Defense Strategy (NDS). Pausing, you remember a guest lecturer in your Naval War College class in Newport, Rhode Island.

The speaker said, “when given an open-ended task, do your bosses’ job and redefine it for them.

A. Pick a known issue

B. Scope it first to a specific problem and then scope it again to a current priority.

C. Then leverage history and repurpose what we’ve done successfully to address the current issue, problem, and priority you’ve chosen.”

With that in mind, first we define the current situation:

Communist China represents an existential threat to the United States and the world order that has guaranteed the global economic success of the past 80 years.

China’s aggressive and coercive actions in the Western Pacific and threats to forcibly reunify the democratically elected government of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland represent the greatest threat to peace, stability, and American leadership.

The President has said that China will not successfully invade Taiwan during his tenure. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has the military mission to deter, and if necessary, defeat an invasion of Taiwan. Commander USINDOPACOM has stated his intent to “turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities.”

Then we broadly define the problem:

The U.S. Government has not maintained sufficient stocks of critical munitions, and has not built a system capable of identifying, prototyping, and fielding classified unmanned capabilities at scale, speed, and quality.

Next, we scope the problem.

First, the military’s munitions requirements process (MRP) is a bureaucratic two-year cycle that does not respond to rapidly changing conditions.

Second, the National Defense Authorization Act directs USINDOPACOM to report to Congress a list of critical munitions and systems that support the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. (Section 1313).

Third, history provides two examples of the U.S. government rapidly developing needed capabilities during a crisis.

· First the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950 (extended through 2026) empowers the President to influence domestic industry, ensuring the supply of materials needed for national defense and emergencies.

· Second Operation Warp Speed (OWS) created a public-private partnership to accelerate the development, testing, and fielding of COVID-19 vaccines.

Reviewing our three-step approach, we have focused on the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s war fighting requirements. Our input will first use DPA to develop and field critical munitions. Then second use OWS to field unmanned systems (UxS) at speed, quality, and scale. Third, we will recommend aligning what we say (strategic guidance) with what we do (operations, activities, investments, and what we sell to our allies and trusted partners)

Input:

Our nation needs to fill gaps in critical munitions and rapidly field classified unmanned capabilities at scale in the Taiwan Straits.

To address shortages In critical munitions, the President should implement a Deterrence through Strength approach to deter, and if necessary defeat an invasion of Taiwan.

• Appoint an Assistant Secretary of War with the role, responsibility, and authority to centralize acquisition, procurement, and reprogramming authority over section 1313 critical munitions.

• Assign a Joint Staff J-8 Joint Requirement Office to assist.

• Implement a Defense Production Act to close gaps in those critical munitions in the section 1313 report.

• Utilize multi-year procurement to purchase full production rates and any surge capacity.

• Expand the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), a multilateral initiative launched to enhance defense industrial resilience in the Indo-Pacific region, and work with partner nations to close gaps in critical munitions in the section 1313 report.

• Work with the White House and Congress to modify and waive policies and regulations.

• Require a validated supply chain for each munition. Which traces each part from raw materials through manufacturing, final assembly, testing, and delivery.

To address the shortage in classified unmanned systems (UxS) the President should implement an Operation Warp Speed for New Weapons to deter, and if necessary, defeat an invasion of Taiwan.

• Appoint a White House-led tiger team with a clear, measurable product goal of fielding unmanned systems (UxS) in the Taiwan Straight at speed, quality, and scale.

• Utilize advanced market commitments, purchase guarantees, milestone payments, and innovation prizes.

• Implement a whole of government strategy to speed decision making and streamline regulations.

• Work with industry and take a portfolio approach to rapidly identify:

  • What does industry have?

  • What can we modify?

  • What can we scale with speed and quality?

  • What is the concept of operations?

Next, the President should direct the alignment between our strategic documents and our military actions in order to grow and preserve our military readiness for the existential challenge of China and the Defense of the Homeland.

• Our overseas military Posture as defined by the Global Defense Posture and Global Posture Review and subordinate processes.

• Our rotational military presence, operations, and exercises as defined by the Global Force Management, Request for Forces, Secretary of Defense Operations Book, and subordinate processes.

• Our strategic planning and procurement as defined by the Defense Planning and Programming Guidance, Contingency Planning Guidance, Joint Strategic Planning Guidance, and subordinate processes.

• Our Foreign Military Sales and Foreign Military Funding, to include the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), to build Defense through Strength with our allies and trusted partners.

• Identify which capabilities can and should be shared in an export version with our allies and trusted partners.

• Utilize all levers of national power to negotiate the FMS/FMF agreements and the access and basing agreements to field those capabilities overseas.

• Specify and fund the specific operations, activities, and investments needed to ensure the interoperability of those capabilities with our allies and trusted partners.”

Sending your input to the printer, you grab another cup of coffee. Then read your input aloud, make corrections, and iterate until you have a concise, spell-checked, and grammar-checked input. Pasting the text into an email, you hit send, log off your computer, and head for the Metro ride home.