Achieving Sustained Strategic Technological Superiority in a Great Power Competition

How do we secure a strategic technological advantage for the common defense?  How can U.S. government statutes and other regulations protect our nation’s innovative advantage while at the same time, creating business models that reward innovative start-ups, innovative small businesses, and innovative non-traditional defense sector corporations for contributing to national security?  How can the U.S. secure foundations of the current innovation base such as semi-conductors or federally funded research centers and universities?  How can the U.S. government better rationalize and stabilize long-term, federal capital investments in science and technology and deleverage the risk to American business associated with experimenting for the federal government. How can the U.S. government better attract the brightest minds and best innovators of our nation and others, to contribute to national security?  What does China’s innovation policy look like?  Other Nations? What might a U.S. National Innovation Base Security Plan look like?

 

Creating a Healthy, Adaptive, and Profitable National Security Eco-System in a Global Economy

How do we ensure a secure industrial base common defense in a highly competitive global economy? How do we map industrial base ecosystems? Supply chain ecosystems? Who is responsible for ensuring healthy ecosystems?  Does the government shore up vulnerabilities in industrial base and supply chain ecosystems?  How do we integrate policies related to the defense innovation base and the defense industrial base?  How do the barriers to entry for work with the federal government compare to the commercial sector?  Can more U.S. commerce be attracted to national security by adjusting statutes and regulations related to profitability and risk?   How can we leverage the Presidentially mandated studies examining vulnerabilities to our industrial base and to our sources of strategic materials?  How do we incorporate these studies with recent recommendations from the 809 Panel, proposed updates to Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States statute, recent trade policy, increased utilization of Other Transaction Authority, and the new Commercial Solutions Opening award mechanism?  What does China’s industrial policy look like (Made in China 2025)?  Other Nations? What might a U.S. National Industrial Base Security Plan look like?

 

Mobilization in a Modern Context

If mobilization is scaling then repurposing industry and even society, to survive an existential conflict with our way of life in tact, what does mobilization mean given today’s complex security environment?  What does current U.S. mobilization policy look like? What did mobilization policy look like in WW II? What did our mobilization preparedness policy look like after WW II up to the fall of the Soviet Union?    How do you scale an industrial base?  How do you scale an innovation base?  Can the modern industrial base be repurposed to scale national security capacities in the way that the United States did in WW II?  How does the fact that two oceans no longer keep us safe and a recovery from homeland attacks as the first matter of action for mobilization change traditional thinking about mobilization preparedness planning? What if we had two engage in two major combat operations simultaneously? What does China’s mobilization policy look like?  Other Nations? 

 

Framework for a National Plan

What does a plan for the United States to succeed in a great power competition look like?  Is the framework of securing the innovation base; making viable the industrial base; and scaling both should deterrence fail – a good first start at that framework?  What is the inventory of executive orders, statute, and other governmental regulations that would be the subject of reexamination and integration for such a plan?  How much of such a plan is related to rewriting the value proposition for American business to participate in national defense.  Can barriers to entry be reduced and reward-to-risk be increased sufficient to drive a power of attraction to working with the federal government across all lines of such a plan?  Who is responsible for the plan? Is the plan a supporting plan to the extant National Security Strategy or stand-alone with different horizon lines?