We’ll Need Innovation to Fight China, But Will We Have it? – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Military innovation happens best in wartime. It is usually due to a surprise development on the part of the enemy or unexpected weaknesses shown by friendly forces. It is usually an act of desperation. The Germans have historically shown great skill at innovation. The roots of the vaunted General Staff system came out of the humiliating defeat at the hands of Napoleon in 1806, and the Storm Troop tactics of World War I grew out of frustration with the bloody stalemate caused by the failure of linear tactics and trench warfare.

Americans have also shown a talent for in-stride innovation during combat, and often it came from quite low in the ranks. For example, the idea of placing dozer blades on tanks to break out of the bocage stalemate during the Battle of Normandy came from a sergeant. In the air, it took a relatively junior officer — Lieutenant Commander (later Admiral) John “Jimmy” Thatch — to figure out how to offset the superior maneuverability of the Japanese Zero over the US Navy Wildcat fighters early in the war. The “Thatch Weave” became the standard Navy and Air Force air superiority tactic in the conflict. (RELATED: Pitfalls and Obstacles Plague Defense Modernization)

Peacetime Innovation

The primary difference between German and American military innovation is who has done it successfully during peacetime. The Germans have generally been ahead of us there. Perhaps the prime example is the development of what we now call the “Blitzkrieg,” although the Germans never called it that. This combined arms concept of armored vehicles, aircraft, and advanced communications all operating under decentralized execution within an overall strategic plan stunned the world early in the war. It came about through a comprehensive study of what went wrong during World War I.

The Germans found a way to let good ideas bubble up from below, and were willing to test them in war games and field experiments. To some extent, the Americans did this successfully in the years between the World Wars with armored warfare (Louisiana Maneuvers), Navy carrier aviation (Naval War College Orange War Games), and the Marine Corps with amphibious warfare (Culebra Exercises). However, all of these were top-down driven, but they did allow for input from outside and below.

They generally fail. The most spectacularly unsuccessful of these was the Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, Virginia. It was designed to create innovative new joint war-fighting concepts and was ultimately strangled by its own internal bureaucracy.

This is not to say that we can’t innovate in peacetime. Stealth technology evolved from Air Force and CIA efforts to develop spy planes invisible to radar. After experience in Mogadishu in Somalia, the Marine Corps realized that it had to improve in urban warfare. Its wargames led to innovations in tactics and technology that helped enormously in the battles of Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq. Again, these were top-down efforts.

That said, most attempts at peacetime top-down innovation flounder. The Navy Littoral Combat Ship and Landing Ship Medium programs have been disasters, and the Marine Corps’ China-based strategy will likely be obsolete before it is ever fielded. (RELATED: The Marine Corps Has Gone Off the Rails)

All this revolves around concern over China. Many of us who have been studying the situation are concerned that any conflict with Beijing will be a long and attritional affair that we are ill-prepared to fight.

The stranglehold that the few big defense contractors and corrupted retired admirals and general officers have on the defense industry, particularly shipbuilding, virtually ensures that we will have a few gold-plated ships, aircraft, drones, and precision-guided missiles against hordes of cheaper but “good enough” Chinese systems. There are a number of innovative ideas out there for fixes, but many of the best are coming from below or outside, and most are dead on arrival long before they hit the desk of a real decision maker.

The administration has vowed to fix the situation, but I am concerned that it may be too late, and so do most of my colleagues.

READ MORE from Gary Anderson:

The Most Dangerous War Game Finally Happened

Is Climate Change Destroying the Environment?

It’s Time for Trump to Wield the Stick Against Putin

Gary Anderson lectures on Red Teaming and Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and has played the Chinese role in many war games over the last three decades.