During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special operations forces because, in many cases, the head of Special Operations Command has been forced to tell combatant commanders “no” when they request capabilities.

Headlining the details outlined on Capitol Hill in recent days is the fact that SOCOM has had a flat budget since 2019, leading to a 14% decrease in purchasing power and a 5,000-person reduction in forces across the command over the last three and a half years. That includes reducing roles in communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and psychological operations, and specifically a reduction of 3,000 personnel for military information support operations.    

“SOCOM has operated under stagnant budgets. The limitation of SOF end strength was a very short-sighted decision at a time when SOF capabilities are needed more than ever. We must change course now,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. “That is why I intend to work with the DOD to rebuild SOCOM’s budget. Given SOF’s critical role in national security, this is a wise and cost-effective investment.”

That view was shared among other members of the panel, as well as their counterparts in the House.

“I would like to plus them up … A big bump up in funding for the SOF community,” Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a retired Navy SEAL, told DefenseScoop in an interview Tuesday. “I know for a fact that they are hurting for funding lines, for pots of money in certain places, through discussions with the leadership. My stance is: Hey look, I’m going to work as hard as I can with the members in [House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations] and with the committee to get you what you need, which we are having those discussions.”

A bump in funding for SOF will provide more placement and access for units forward-deployed, Luttrell said. Their global footprint and ability to flex at a moment’s notice provide a defensive posture that exceeds traditional measures, he said, whereas if conventional forces are required to show up, “we are in trouble.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, noted that, like how Space Force was excluded from taking cuts, her hope was these high-demand mission sets would be taken into consideration as well.

“[I] just would hope that if there’s someone who’s picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected, I know you’re advocating, but that we realize that the units that are in highest demand should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force,” she said.

Members of Congress led witnesses in talking about how the cuts to purchasing power and end strength have hurt special operations forces’ ability to meet the requirements of combatant commands, with SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton explaining how it’s hurt his ability to offer support.

Combatant command requests are up 35 percent in the last three years due to the need for deterrence, Fenton said. Special operations forces bring a variety of capabilities in the way of building relationships, developing access, providing indications and warnings, closing kill webs or kill chains, and giving commanders options and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have in the hopes of preventing a drawn-out conflict.

“Where we’ve had to say, ‘no,’ I’ll give you a number: Last December in one of the global force management tanks, I had to say no 41 times to request[s],” Fenton told members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on Wednesday. “It’s a high compliment that this SOF team is that value proposition to the entire department … [Why] we couldn’t do it, my sense, and I’ll wind this down for you, is two reasons: There’s certainly a capability and capacity piece against the great humans that do that work. And as you know, we’ve been reduced in the past couple years by up to 5,000. But there’s also now a fiscal constraint that’s pulling at us based on an increasingly decreasing top line that now comes into play.”

Others warned of the proposed eight percent cuts the Department of Defense is seeking across the board in a measure to reduce inefficiency and redundancy.

“I’m not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and efficient,” Colby Jenkins, the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said when asked by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., what an eight percent cut would look like.

To that, Crow added: “There’s no fat in SOCOM. You’re lean and mean as you’re supposed to be.”

Jenkins replied that special forces leaders are doing their best to avoid the negative impacts of DOD-wide budget cuts at all costs.

Aside from deterrence, the cuts in personnel and resources have also hurt SOCOM’s ability to modernize, particularly as the character of war changes, slowing its ability to adopt new technologies such as uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and autonomy.

Fenton described that due to a 14 percent reduction in buying power, which equates to about $1 billion, his command is unable to acquire capabilities that might be able to provide asymmetry on the battlefield.

To stress the importance of that, he used the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have been outmatched in terms of legacy capabilities — tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters — against the Russians, but adopted asymmetric tools to impose costs on Russian forces and stay in the fight.

“From the modernization piece first, I think first and foremost, the risk is not winning, not being able to complete the mission in the future environment,” Fenton said. “We’re taking risks there, the inability to get after the things I think that are asymmetric, that are part of the changing character of war, to do it at speed. You could add anything uncrewed, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomy, all that. I think we’re accruing high risk because we as SOCOM are not able to get after that based on a flat top line.”

Fenton noted that, additionally, the acquisition system needs significant modernization to keep up with these emerging technologies driving the changing character of warfare.

He called the current system “outdated” and “glacial,” designed for the old world of aircraft carriers and airplanes, but not suited for the modern battlefield.

“But what we’re seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition and procurement system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we’re watching the changes in minutes, hours and days,” Fenton told members of the House.

He added that requirements must be addressed and updated by reducing the number of people involved in them to enable a faster cycle between operator, commander and acquisition, such as allowing those downrange to directly inform requirements.

The cycles could also be faster.

“As I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets of time give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes,” Fenton said. “Two years might see multi-year. I think to all of us, multi-year probably needs to be five-to-10 years so we can move at the speed and evolution of what we’re seeing out on the battlefield.”

Fenton also advocated for consolidating the “colors” of money and compressing multiple funding pots. Within the DOD, funds are divided into separate categories of operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development, and they must be used only for those purposes, negating flexibility to move around additional allocated funds if needs require more in another pot.

“I think there’s a way to take a lot of that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple and really modernize there,” Fenton said.

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Additionally, the partnership — launched in 2021 between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. — is also in ongoing consultations with Canada, New Zealand and Korea to pinpoint possible new areas of cooperation under AUKUS Pillar 2, which entails the co-development of disruptive defense technologies across six focus areas, members of Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin’s team confirmed last week ahead of AUKUS’ ministerial meetings in London.

However, considering the technical intricacies and security sensitivities associated with AUKUS Pillar 1, which underpins Australia’s acquisition of its own nuclear-powered attack submarine force and the rotational basing of U.S. and U.K. subs with the Pacific nation, extending that work to other countries might occur “decades from now” and likely won’t be happening anytime soon, a U.S. military official told DefenseScoop.

“Pillar 1 is a complex, multi-year effort that requires significant detail, commitment, and investment from all participating countries. You can’t begin the process, get halfway, and then decide to include others,” the official explained.

In discussions leading up to, on the sidelines of and immediately after AUKUS’ third formal set of bi- and trilateral meetups, hosted in the United Kingdom last week, defense officials shed light on the possibilities they envision for expanding elements of the technology-enabling partnership in the years to come.

“Under Pillar 2, we do see opportunities to offer other countries the ability to work with us on specific projects. There are countries that want to work with us that bring a lot to the table, and on a project-by-project basis, we will endeavor to work with those countries, ensuring that all the right [security and intellectual property protections] are taking place,” Austin said during a press briefing alongside his AUKUS counterparts on Sept. 26.

“We don’t take that for granted,” the U.S. defense secretary added.

During the open press portions of the formal ministerial gathering — which took place in different locations across the historic Royal Naval War College — Austin and his Australian and British counterparts made multiple announcements on recent progress via AUKUS.

The military chiefs spotlighted recent momentum they’re building in terms of amending their respective export control regimes — and particularly reforms to the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) — to make it easier for the partners’ industry players to share software, hardware and technical data in a safe and compliant manner.

Among a variety of updates on Pillar 1, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and British Defense Secretary John Healey revealed that negotiations will soon kick off between their nations to produce a bilateral treaty outlining their co-development plans to generate the planned next-generation submarines, named SSN-AUKUS, in the years ahead.

Pillar 2 announcements included the results of the first-ever AUKUS innovation challenge, which was facilitated by and with the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.

Building on that success, Austin shared during the press conference that AUKUS innovation leads are now developing a “robust two-year agenda” to strengthen cooperation between their governments’ tech-focused centers of excellence.

“Over this past year, we’ve conducted several significant demonstrations and experiments across the ground, undersea, and along the electromagnetic spectrum. Taken together, all this progress will increase decision advantage for our warfighters. And we are excited to quickly field these new [and] advanced technologies across our forces,” Austin told reporters. 

“Our acquisition teams are driving integration throughout our industrial bases and our innovation ecosystems. This will maximize our combined ability to develop, produce, and sustain these capabilities together,” the U.S. defense secretary also said.

Since its rocky origin in Sept. 2021, AUKUS has been considered a key line of effort for “reinforcing deterrence” against China and promoting regional security within the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. 

Some analysts have raised concerns that potential AUKUS expansion to include other nations — like New Zealand, Canada, Japan, or South Korea — might be viewed by the Chinese government as escalatory or provoke a response. 

As Austin alluded to, and other defense officials confirmed in chats with DefenseScoop, the partnership is looking to grow its capacity and reach, specifically for Pillar 2.

“We have a project that Japan is joining. And we’re in conversations with three other [countries],” a senior U.S. defense official said during a conversation previewing the trip. 

“But again, that’s exclusively on Pillar 2 and the emerging capabilities,” they emphasized.

When asked by DefenseScoop whether that could mean any alterations to the “AUKUS” acronym down the line, the senior official said: “I think we’ll probably keep the name AUKUS — but under the projects in Pillar 2, it’s open to looking for where we can work with additional partners to help achieve the outcomes of enabling the acceleration of critical advanced technologies.” 

At the same time, largely due to the highly sensitive nature of U.S.-built submarine combat systems technologies, it’s broadly been understood since AUKUS’ inception that the partnership would not be extended to other countries for any work or assets under Pillar 1.

“The only other country we’ve done this for is the U.K., highlighting the seriousness. At this stage, opening it to more countries isn’t possible — though that could be, decades from now,” a U.S. military official told DefenseScoop.

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The news comes as defense leaders from the U.S., U.K., and Australia are gathering in London on Thursday to participate in the trilateral security partnership’s third official ministerial meetings, since its launch in 2021.

Via AUKUS, the nations aim to collaboratively modernize their military capabilities, transform procurement processes, and co-develop next-generation weapons to ultimately deter China.

The partnership’s activities are organized across two overarching “pillars.”

The first focuses on building out a conventionally armed nuclear submarine force for Australia. Meanwhile, Pillar 2 is all about speeding up the making and delivery of emerging capabilities to support joint operations in the Indo-Pacific region.

When AUKUS was unveiled in September 2021, four initial Pillar 2 capability categories were announced: cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and additional undersea assets.

About eight months later, in April 2022, AUKUS leadership added hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities, innovation and information sharing, and electronic warfare to the Pillar 2 mix for acceleration.

During a press briefing to preview the third round of AUKUS ministerial meetings this week, two senior defense officials told DefenseScoop there’s a possibility that more capability areas could be covered in Pillar 2 down the line.

“I think we have a really robust program. There are six capability areas, as you know, from the initial announcements and subsequent announcements that we’re working across with those six areas. There’s also subsets and a bunch of projects underneath all of those, and there is openness to looking at more,” a senior U.S. defense official said.

However, they and their colleague did not confirm or elaborate upon exactly which additional technologies they’re eyeing to open up to acceleration at this point.

Still, they noted that about every four months, a senior AUKUS body gets together to vet new project proposals, some of which then get moved up for final approval.

“The additional technical areas that we get into will be driven by the project proposals AUKUS looks at that we begin to execute — because the six areas compared to just what we look at in defense critical tech is many other boxes or pillars of work that could be included in these projects,” the other official said.

During his brief opening statement in the first engagement of the AUKUS ministerial meeting on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also expressed his aims to continue to build momentum with his British and Australian counterparts around joint technology-driving collaboration through the trilateral security partnership.

“I look forward to talking today about how we can maximize our historic export control exemptions to bolster innovation and industrial cooperation. And we’ll discuss ways to work even more closely together to eliminate barriers to sharing information and technology,” Austin said.

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“Supporting both the Air Force and Space Force missions at AFRL is an incredible honor,” Bonnell said in a release Thursday announcing her new roles. “I believe we are entering an ‘Exponential Age,’ where speed, adaptability, and curiosity will be the key tenets to maintain adversarial advantage. I’m excited to work with the amazing scientists, researchers, business and mission leaders at AFRL to leverage technology to rapidly augment our national security.”

As the laboratory’s first-ever CIO, Bonnell will be responsible for developing and executing an information technology strategy for AFRL. Her focus will be “catalyzing the discovery, development, and integration of warfighting technologies for air, space, and cyberspace forces via digital capabilities, IT infrastructure and technological innovation across the lab’s operations and culture,” according to her bio on the organization’s website.

She will also lead AFRL’s new Digital Capabilities Directorate — a virtual “labverse” aiming to streamline the laboratory’s modernization efforts and more quickly transition adoption-ready tech to warfighters. Stood up in March, the organization is looking to leverage techniques used by commercial companies to improve AFRL’s research and business operations.

Before joining AFRL, Bonnell was Google Public Sector’s emerging tech “evangelist,” according to the release. At Google, she helped the Defense Department and other federal agencies adopt new capabilities such as cloud, artificial intelligence and zero-trust cybersecurity strategies.

Prior to Google, she was the chief innovation officer at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where she co-founded the agency’s innovation hub known as the Global Development Lab. She also has experience working in areas of armed conflict with the United Nations.

“[Bonnell] joins AFRL at a critical moment in time, as AFRL accelerates the generation and transition of cutting-edge technologies for our warfighters,” AFRL Commander Brig. Gen. Scott Cain said in a statement. “With her visionary leadership and deep understanding of technology and how it can be harnessed to achieve mission success, she is poised to strengthen the culture of innovation and lead AFRL into a new era of digital capability.”

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In an announcement via Twitter on Tuesday, Horowitz wrote: “Life update: Yesterday, I became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities — a new OSD Policy office combining the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office with the Force Development Office. Super honored, excited, and grateful!”

This move is one element of a broad, recent reorganization effort within the Defense Department’s policy team, through which its leadership aims to “enhance OSD Policy’s work on force development, emerging capabilities, and strategy development and implementation,” a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Tuesday. 

Horowitz has more than two decades of experience in management, research and academic roles pertaining to international security issues. Most recently — as the Defense Department’s first-ever director of emerging capabilities policy — he has played a major role in updating DOD Directive 3000.09 — the overarching policy that establishes definitions and a policy framework for making and buying weapons with autonomous features.

Back in late 2021, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl launched the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office under Assistant Secretary for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities Mara Karlin.

That “initiative was consistent with the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which emphasized the need for the department to more quickly and actively adopt capabilities critical for integrated deterrence and warfighting, including the development, fielding, and incorporation of emerging capabilities,” the Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop. At the time, Horowitz was tapped to lead that hub, which was designed to lead OSD’s policy work on emerging capability-related policy for national security and defense strategy, diplomatic efforts, and interagency collaboration. 

“As part of an OSD Policy re-organization in 2023, the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office and Force Development (FD) Directorate, which resided in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Strategy and Force Development, merged to create a new DASD-led office called Force Development and Emerging Capabilities (FDEC),” the spokesperson explained. 

This new office will be led by Horowitz. In this capacity, he will report to Karlin.

Ultimately, the purpose of the reorganization is twofold, according to the Pentagon spokesperson.

“First, it consolidates two organizations responsible for resourcing and capability development to elevate the role of emerging capabilities in the development of the future force. This reorganization is important to ensure that the department maintains strategic and policy oversight on the development of capabilities that will largely define our ability to deter and build advantage vis-a-vis the [People’s Republic of China], Russia, and other competitors,” the official said. 

“Second, this move restores [the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for] Strategy as a standalone office, enabling it to focus on articulating the secretary’s strategic vision and aligning the department’s efforts to those strategic priorities,” the official added.

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The TIDE 2023 gathering, slated for Aug. 30 at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia, will be set up like a trade show and attendees may have opportunities to display and showcase their prototypes, according to a Department of Defense request for information posted on Sam.gov.

“The DoD and U.S. interagency partners use TIDE to gain situational awareness and understanding of the state-of-play of innovative technologies in a specified focus area to inform decision-making that enhances strategic and operational capabilities. TIDE 2023 seeks to discover emerging capabilities that may produce surprising impacts during future conflicts,” per the RFI.

More specifically, the Pentagon is on the hunt for “unknown” capabilities as well as “unanticipated” applications for commercial tech.

“Technology advances at a difficult pace for anyone to track, introducing novel solutions capable of previously un-heard of applications. TIDE 2023 is seeking innovative prototypes that may improve current military capabilities or unlock new approaches that are not feasible with existing technologies,” the RFI states.

Additionally, the DOD is interested in “leveraging proven existing commercially available technologies and applying them asymmetrically to achieve previously unforeseen impacts. This technology may include repurposing algorithms or sensors, modifying autonomous vehicles for new payloads, or using novel materials and chemistries for new applications.”

The department also seeks innovations — such as novel materials and manufacturing processes, or improvements in artificial intelligence and autonomy — that would enable the deployment of capabilities “at a scale or speed that challenges the adversary’s ability to react,” according to the special notice.

Moreover, the Pentagon is looking for solutions to counter adversaries’ technologies, such as tools that would disrupt their sensors, communications, or other capabilities across warfighting domains including air, land, sea, space, cyberspace, or the electromagnetic spectrum.

Technology developers in industry, academia and government that hope to be invited to participate in TIDE 2023, can respond to the RFI and submit applications describing their innovations. Responses are due by June 16.

Participation in the event could lead to “follow-on collaboration, support for further development, and/or fielding of matured capabilities,” per the RFI.

The Office of Innovation and Modernization, which is sponsoring TIDE 2023, is a component of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

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Launched in 2016 and rebranded in 2019, NSIN helps pave the way for emerging capabilities with lower technology readiness levels to reach the right Defense Department components that could benefit from their use. Its mission partners across the military lean on NSIN to scan the global market for potentially applicable capabilities that they’ve “never heard of,” according to the network’s regional director, David Schiff.

“Some of the things that we are looking at might be on that horizon where people don’t necessarily understand the applicability yet, or don’t believe in its viability yet. So we are supposed to press the ‘I believe’ button then and say, ‘I think that actually has capability.’ But we don’t just assume it, we try to connect with the subject matter experts in each branch of service,” Schiff told DefenseScoop on Tuesday during an interview on the sidelines of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space summit.

‘Don’t keep it in the shadows’

Schiff is a Navy veteran who, among other roles, also served as an executive fellow at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and as the original deputy director of NavalX — before he joined NSIN in 2021. 

Broadly, the network pinpoints acceleration, incubation and funding opportunities for a range of novel ideas and technologies that are typically very far off from being fully realized, but could lead to breakthrough solutions for major national security challenges.

For NSIN, Schiff operates as a sort of liaison in the Washington, D.C area between Defense Department components such as laboratories and warfare centers based there, that are able to take advantage of industry and academic programs that align with similar interests. 

“I am really a connector. So, I spend a lot of time making sure that if someone, for instance, at this Navy conference says, ‘I just wish I knew someone who’s good at quantum computing,’ what I’m here to do is say, ‘I can get you an industry expert, or I can get you an academic expert — which one are you looking for? From the Navy? Or are you looking for the Air Force lead in quantum or artificial intelligence?’ Because that is my job,” Schiff told DefenseScoop.

In Schiff’s view, part of the advantage NSIN provides to DOD is the “confluence of people and the collaboration between organizations that have never talked to each other before.”

A recent example of work the network embarked on — and continues to engage in — involves NAVSEA’s integrated warfare systems team, or IWS. It was initiated when an admiral at the command, who was Schiff’s colleague at NavalX, approached him about a model-based systems engineering dilemma.

While IWS officials felt good about the technical reviews they were conducting, teams across warfare centers were applying different codes, processes and tools and metaphorically “not speaking exactly the same language,” Schiff said.

After months of preparation that followed the request, in August 2022 NSIN helped launch a three-day design sprint on IWS’ challenge. Roughly 40 representatives from multiple military branches, the Missile Defense Agency, academia and industry collaborated in the pursuit. A program manager from NSIN supported the work, as well as Schiff, who operated as a key liaison. Professors from the University of California-Berkeley helped facilitate this effort and action officers from Amazon Web Services also participated. 

All the engineers and experts involved were divided into groups to look at different elements of the issues — such as those around fiber, communications and technology processes. 

“At the end of it, we didn’t solve MBSE, or model-based systems engineering, for the department. But what we did was say, ‘OK, we’ve refined the problem in six different ways and these one or two, [the command is] going to keep in-house and, like, we’re going to figure this out on our own. And then NSIN, can you help us using your college student programs with these two problems? And then, actually, we’re going to hand these back over to a warfare center that can really manage it better,’” Schiff explained. 

“So, what we’re trying to do is say, ‘Look, you’re not going to solve these huge problems in three days. But what you can do is get on the same page, align on what the concept is, figure out what the next steps moving forward are, and then get the help you need. Whether it’s from NSIN, DIU, NavalX, or the Office of Naval Research — it doesn’t matter where the help comes from — but don’t keep it in the shadows or in a cubicle,” he added.

In the aftermath of that sprint to support IWS, students affiliated with the network’s university programs are now attempting to solve software- and process-related issues that have stemmed from that original problem. 

“I can’t speak much more to it yet, because they’re still working through it — and they only started in late-January,” Schiff said.

Still learning

Even when he learns about new-ish technologies that could impact national security concerns but have higher readiness levels than NSIN seeks, Schiff feels compelled to connect their makers with others in the government that could potentially utilize them.

“I just saw something in Norfolk that was about ultrasonic modal imaging,” he noted. 

Though he didn’t know about that technique beforehand, once he learned more he immediately considered how it might make sense for a NAVSEA team focused on improving the safety and reliability of maritime assets.

“What they’re trying to do is make sure that steel plates of a certain thickness are actually essentially as strong as they’re supposed to be,” Schiff explained. Recognizing that “this UMI capability that [he] had not heard of” seemed promising for future ships and aircraft — which could help the Navy, Air Force and Army, he said — Schiff connected its intellectual property developers to others in his sprawling DOD network. 

“At least if that technology is as good as it sounds like it is, you know, I want to make sure that that gets to the right places across the Defense Department,” he told DefenseScoop.

Still, Schiff is aware of growing concerns around the over-classification of military dealings and gaps in information-sharing capabilities spanning the defense enterprise.

Throughout the Pentagon and military, in his view, “a lot of people are doing innovation in their cube or in their lab — and there’s still not a lot of cross-organizational engagement.” Schiff noted that even he, someone who is relatively well-connected in this realm, found out about a Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) program that was not on his radar on the exhibition floor at Sea-Air-Space.

“I’m still learning about things that the Navy has. But if you’re staying at your desk, or staying in your house and not engaging with other people — and you’re not engaging with people who can help translate what’s happening — then you’re really not aware of what the rest of the enterprise is doing,” Schiff said.

In the interview, he also reflected on presentations made by Rear Adm. Lorin Selby and Gen. David Berger, among others, at the conference and other recent events, which spotlighted broad concerns associated with channels for better information-sharing and the Pentagon’s potential for over-classifying details like NOFORN, or materials that are not permitted to be released to any non-U.S. citizen.

“If that’s not necessary, then don’t do that — because what you’re doing is cutting off avenues to solve a problem. And the way that the U.S. [innovated] in the 1940s and ‘50s was always with allies, right? A lot of our scientists who helped develop some of the most cutting-edge technology were from enemy countries. We took all the German scientists who had to flee — and many of whom were Jewish. That was part of the reason we beat the Germans on the Manhattan Project,” Schiff said. “So, some of the advantage we have is our diversity.” 

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That assessment by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., was shared by the heads of all the major American intelligence agencies and, Warner said, a large bipartisan group of senators.

The rise in technology and its application has shifted what national security means relative to years prior, what Warner described as “simpler times.”

“While the ongoing war in Ukraine has shown that conventional military capabilities are still important, I think the very nature of national security is undergoing a profound transformation,” he said at the top of the committee’s annual worldwide threats hearing Wednesday. “We can no longer just pay attention to who has the most tanks, airplanes or missiles. We also need to focus on technology, R&D dollars, strategic investment flows and supply chains. Because whoever leads and wins the challenges in technology domains will have an edge in national security competition in the future.”

Warner pointed to the role cyber tools have played, allowing actors to have an impact – either through espionage, subterfuge or outright destructive effects — from across the world.  

He also singled out China, who has sought to become a world power that rivals the United States and is making large investments in critical technologies to pursue those aims.

“I think the revolution in technology is not only the main arena for competition with the People’s Republic of China, it’s also the main determinant of our future as an intelligence service as well,” William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told the committee.

As the U.S. turned its focus to other priorities, China made significant investments and advancements, he noted.

“While America was focused for two decades on counterterrorism, China was racing to overtake the United States in a range of emerging and foundational technologies such as advanced wireless communication, semiconductors, quantum, synthetic biology and next-generation energy — as well as taking not only the extraction but the processing of rare earth minerals that are so critical in so many of those technologies,” he said. “The PRC has also become an active player in the international technology standard-setting bodies and is embedding itself in global supply chains.”

Others intelligence officials echoed concerns about other nations catching up to the United States.

“When I came in the Army 1984, we owned the technology — the West owned the technology. We won the Cold War and then I think we took our eye off that ball,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the committee. “Now it’s about how do we apply this asymmetric advantage that we have and this partnership of folks sitting at this table right now who worked so closely together to try and defend our nation.”

The unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment, released Wednesday, notes that new technologies, particularly in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, are being developed faster than governments and companies can shape norms.

“The convergence of emerging technologies is likely to create potentially breakthrough technologies not foreseeable by examining narrow science and technology areas, which could lead to the rapid development of asymmetric threats to U.S. interests,” it states. “The convergence of capabilities in high-performance computing, big data, and machine learning — each a critical enabler across multiple domains — could have broad yet unidentified consequences across military, commercial, and basic research applications with relevance to national defense, economic security, and political stability.”

Moreover, many advanced technologies are being developed by private industry, providing a shortcut for other nations to acquire them.

“Foreign intelligence services are adopting cutting-edge technologies — from advanced cyber tools to unmanned systems to enhanced technical surveillance equipment — that improve their capabilities and challenge U.S. defenses. Much of this technology is available commercially, providing a shortcut for previously unsophisticated services to become legitimate threats,” the threat assessment said.

Officials at Wednesday’s hearing said partnerships are key to regaining the edge and winning this global competition.

“Over my lifetime, I have seen increasingly the innovation of critical foundational technologies occurring in the context of the private sector. And our capacity to work with them to understand essentially what those innovations are and how we can help them protect themselves in this context is another aspect of this that has to be focused on and something we spend a lot of time on,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said.

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The one-page memo — addressed explicitly to senior Pentagon leadership, commanders of the combatant commands, and Defense agency and DOD field activity directors, with “Leadership to Advance Data Quality and Trustworthiness” in the subject line — marks the latest move in a broader push to ensure the department can apply the huge volumes of data its entities capture to better inform military decision-making.

With sights set on accelerating its shift to a data-centric and data-driven organization, the Pentagon released a comprehensive data strategy in September 2020.  

Then, in May 2021, Hicks released a memorandum addressed to department leadership regarding “Creating Data Advantage.” In it, she listed five “DOD Data Decrees” further guiding senior officials to make data more securely, widely and reliably accessible for broader consumption and use.

“To ensure this occurs, within 30 days of the date of this memorandum, [OSD] components are to designate a Data Officer, to develop, manage, and oversee the implementation of data management policies within their scope of responsibility, as outlined in the DOD Data Stewardship Guidebook (October 2021),” Hicks wrote in her latest memo, dated Sept. 15.

The Pentagon’s No. 2 official has also led a major organizational restructure to place a number of data- and AI-enabling components under a newly established office that was created last December. That office — headed by the DOD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) — will provide “implementing guidance to all OSD and DOD components regarding Authoritative Data Sets to ensure that data is trustworthy,” Hicks wrote in the new memo.

The CDAO’s guidance is to be reviewed and revised within one year to incorporate lessons learned as the different units pilot processes connected to this work.

“I expect leaders across the department to work collaboratively as we mature our processes to make data trustworthy,” she wrote.

Though the DOD didn’t make a public announcement on this call for new data officers to be named by mid-October, Hicks recently shed some light on her overarching blueprint to scale data applications and digital assets across the department. 

When Hicks and her team assumed their current roles, they quickly noticed that the department “was really struggling with data” and was therefore facing challenges in fully realizing AI capabilities, she said on Friday at a summit hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project.

Hicks noted that she responded by issuing the decrees, standing up the CDAO — and she intends to see data officers across components working together.

“There is absolutely religion on data, [I] never thought I would see it,” she said. “I joke sometimes that we’re bringing the Defense Department into the late 20th century. People actually want to use data to link to outcomes … As small as that sounds, as you get closer to the tactical edge that is exactly what you need. So the data piece is well underway.” 

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The alliance relatively recently announced its intent to develop detailed plans to accelerate responsible innovation and adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies across nine key technology areas, including autonomy.

At a summit in Washington on Friday hosted by the new Special Competitive Studies Project, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges David Van Wheel told reporters: “When I get back [to Europe] — I think it’s next week, already — we’re going to start negotiating with the allies on that” autonomy document.

Those involved intend to release the autonomy strategy to the public before the end of the year.

The new guidelines will come on the heels of the AI strategy that the transatlantic alliance recently released.

The guidance will likely follow “a lot of the lines that we did in the AI strategy,” Van Wheel noted, so officials will be “looking at responsible use of autonomy” and “common standards that we expect for the allies to adhere to.”

In his view, autonomy is one of a few of the overarching technology areas for which deeply exploring moral and ethical implications will be important. To help build trust, NATO intends for this strategy — like the one on AI — to include as much unclassified information as possible.

The new document will be developed as Russia and Ukraine engage in warfare that in some ways is notably different than previous fights.

“Basically, what we see in Ukraine now looks very much like a conventional, classic war. But if you look closer, then you see that innovation is playing a larger role in this war than it has done in any war in history. Innovation really gives an edge over an opponent because you have new capabilities and better capabilities to actually strike,” Van Wheel said.

“Before, all these innovations were driven by the defense sector. Nowadays, they’re all driven by the commercial sector,” he added.

AI is playing a significant role in the Ukraine-Russia war, he noted.

“The night before the invasion, an AI predicted a traffic jam on the roads in Belarus,” he said. 

Using apps, Ukrainian citizens can send alerts to their government, according to Van Wheel.

“In Ukraine, they can actually post pictures of tanks they see in the streets or enemy positions. And with the use of AI, they get a comprehensive countrywide picture of movements of the enemy,” Van Wheel said. “So, they’re doing it in a great way and we’ve definitely been learning.”

Ukraine’s success is partly due to how savvy soldiers are actually adopting and adapting with technology As an example, Van Wheel pointed to what NATO members refer to as Ukraine’s “Uber for artillery.”

“Now in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, [officials can] pinpoint to an enemy position on the map, and then AI will calculate which system is best placed to provide the fire … [After] pinpointing, they’re able to deliver fire on the target within 20 to 30 seconds. That is unbelievable,” Van Wheel said. “It’s developments like that that are now under pressure, coming to bear, that we’re trying to incorporate in our peacetime modes of work to unleash that potential that is already there to create new opportunities.”

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