Military Research and Development: Why - What - How?

WHAT IS MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT?

The military R&D includes basic research, applied research and demonstrations/validation. The R&D in US DoD is extended with Test and Evaluation (T&E) which means engineering manufacturing development, testing and evaluation of components, systems, and system of systems, and operational system development (RDT&E).

For example, US DoD has invested the following in defence related RDT&E functions past 20 years:

Nevertheless the 11-14% annual investment to their RDT&E, the US DoD thinks that they have lost their technical advantage because the sensitive information has been stolen from their defence industry base of knowledge, more advanced civilian technology is used by adversary militaries and the challenges  within defence industry of US. 

Despite the previous innovations from microchips to GPS systems, the US DoD R&D control is loosening together with privatisation and globalisation. The new global R&D environment diffuses faster different technologies, has lower barriers to entry and provides easier access to scientific information.

European Union includes Research and Technology in Military R&D. They decided late 2016 to start investing in military-oriented research, namely electronics, advanced material, encrypted software, and robotics.  European Defence Agency (EDA) has recently established a defence capability development programme trying to improve cooperation between its members. EDA support the science and technology capability areas  with strategic research agenda aiming to identify potential technologies, assessing their possibilities in military utilisation and prioritisation of their funding.

European Union’s member states invest in military R&D about 1.4 % of their GDP (avg. 4% of their total defence expenditure ), where US is investing 3.32% and China 1.64% of their GDP.  See the trend in EU member’s investments in defence R&D below.

WHY ARMED FORCES DO R&D?

The rational and amount for Armed Force to invest in R&D can be analysed from their defence strategy:

• The US defence strategy is to dominate their possible adversaries by technical advantage being a Pathfinder or at least sustain their technical advantage by protective measures. Therefore, they have a significant base of research and development enterprises and defence industry that seek innovations to apply in military missions. Subsequently, they invest 3,32% of their GDP to military-related R&D.
• The defence strategy of EU members is mainly maintaining sufficient forces and build their capabilities more in an evolutionary manner, i.e., in smaller increments supporting their national industrial base. Therefore, the R&D investments in EU are parallel, competing and slowly applied in the defence industry. Subsequently, the EU members average R&D investment is below 1.5% of GDP.
• China is accelerating the evolution of its military force first by claiming asymmetric means of effect and secondly using its manufacturing power to gain the US technical advantage . Furthermore, they use efficiently the technical innovations made in the civilian sector to gain military effect. Subsequently, they use 1.64% of their GDP in military R&D (8-10% of their defence budget). 

The strategic analysis is based on Gattorna’s four postures illustrated in the following Figure.

In conclusion, the amount and focus of military-related R&D should be aligned with national or coalition specific military strategy. China has been gradually but steadily increasing theirs to gain more military might over the regional sources of energy and materials. European Union has been reawakening by Russian commercial and regional aspiration and is trying to gain some technical advance over Russian operational dominance in land warfighting. Despite their continuous investments in R&D, US has not been able to battle against the accelerated development of open information technology.

When considering the diverse levels of military RDT&E with some examples of different strategies, the following distribution in R&D emphasis may occur:

	Pathfinder US DoD/China	Protectionist US DoD	Evolutionary EU	Operational Russia
Basic Research	Governmental investment in foundational sciences. “Race for the Ring of Gyges.”[1]	Defending their existing Base of Knowledge	N/A	N/A
Applied Research	Boosting national engineering and technology competencies	Investing in critical applications: information, ISR, autonomous, guidance	Trying to improve alignment in applications development	N/A
Experimenting and Validation	Several experimental and prototype programmes parallel	Trying to find civilian solutions applicable to military	Open experimenting and validation sessions/exercises to all members and industry	N/A
Testing and Evaluation	System of Systems integration	Spiral development shortening the DevOps cycle	Permanent Test and Evaluation Environment to provide continuous and integrated improvement	Prototyping forces develop the cull capability (people, process, and technology)
Manufacturing Development	Using both civilian and defence industry to provide best products	Faster, cost-efficient, in-field	Normal government support to their national Defence Industry	N/A
Operational Development	Using innovations collected from field	Improving the use of existing and gradually evolving technology. Protecting their details and parameters from being captured.	Iterative roll-outs to training of troops	Systematic improvement of operations capabilities through training and lessons in operations

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[1] https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/china-has-its-darpa-but-does-it-have-the-right-people/

In conclusion, the military R&D methods and investments are guided by their strategies:

• Pathfinder establishes as wide as possible R&D in building national level dominance, and the applies it from basic research to operational development as fast as it can.
• Protectionist tries to prevent the adversaries from catching up their technical advantage by securing their bases of knowledge, improving the existing systems gradually and preventing the capture of their military equipment in the field.
• Evolutionary attempts to keep up with normal military development but with minimised investments. They prefer to buy their military systems from pathfinders/protectionists and focus on some niche areas of their national defence industry.
• Operational dominance seeker tries to improve their existing forces equipped with existing armament by training them, developing operational capabilities and improving their performance to fulfil the military missions better.

WHAT ARE THE FOCUS AREAS FOR MILITARY R&D?

The paper is using US DoD categorisation of military Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) where European Research and Technology is included. The following table provides examples of contemporary focuses of some of the military R&D agencies within these categories.

	U.S. DARPA[1]	E.U. EDA[2]	Russia SFLMRD[3]	Sweden FOI[4]
Basic Research	Biomedical technology, ICT, tactical technology, materials, electronics	Materials and structures, Energy, technologies for components and modules		Security Policy, crisis preparedness and the safety and security of society
Applied Research	Aerospace systems, space technology, advanced electronics, C3, NEC, sensors	RF sensor technologies, Electro-optical sensors, CBRN protection, Guidance, and Navigation systems, CIS and Networks	coordination of activities of scientific organizations and high schools of the Ministry of Defence, scientific organizations of the Russian Academy of Science, other ministries and agencies	Aeronautics, CBRN, decision support and information fusion, electronic warfare, sensors, and signatures, underwater technology
Experimenting and Validating	Small business innovation research	Battle lab, modelling, and simulation	Create modelling and laboratory and experimental basis	Combat simulation, methodological and investigative support
Testing and Evaluation		System of systems, cyber research	scientific complex of the Armed forces, its composition, structure, and staff size with due regard to its actual needs	Weapons, protection, and security
Manufacturing Development		Aerial systems, ground systems, Naval systems
Operational Development	Mission support	Ammunition technology	study of the other most actual problems

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[1] https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/DARPA_FY18_Presidents_Budget_Request.pdf

[2] https://www.eda.europa.eu/industry-info/research-technology

[3] http://eng.mil.ru/en/science/sflmrd/about.htm

[4] https://foi.se/en/our-knowledge.html

Subsequently, the strategic emphasis can be seen in titles and the categories the military focus. The Russian SFLMRD is focusing on fulfilling operational needs and solving actual problems on the battlefield. On the contrary, DARPA is emphasising the basic and applied research with extension to small companies’ innovations.

The Pathfinder DARPA is investing in innovative technologies to gain strategic advantage, whereas the Swedish FOI is focusing on researching force protection, information technology, and security policies as support to evolutionary Defence Forces.

SOURCING OF THE DEFENCE RELATED R&D

GOVERNANCE OF MILITARY R&D

Military-related R&D is a part of holistic capability portfolio. The R&D functions are distributed through the life-cycle of each military capability, so the Commander in Chief can manage their development, acquisition, migrations, mid-life updates and disable. The portfolio has four folders arranged through the life-cycle: R&D, Development, Operation and Enemy capabilities. The portfolio should foresee 15 to 20 years ahead to have timely issued R&D tasks and their outcomes. 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AS PART OF MILITARY FORCE GENERATION

The military R&D is executed through the life-cycle of military capabilities when they are generated and when improved during force utilisation. The traditional R&D is very material and technology-oriented, but there have also been enemy capability-oriented research (intelligence) and people and process development studies. The classic categories of research and development are basic, applied, experimenting, test, and evaluation, manufacturing development and operations development. They extend through the military capability life-cycle as pictured in the following Figure.

SOURCING OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Sourcing the military-related Research and Development are based on the strategic posture. More important it is for the strategic advantage closer it is to Armed Forces (USA). Additionally, more operationally oriented it is, closer it should be to troops (Russia). The following figure provides one example of R&D sourcing in case of evolutionary strategy. Shorter the loop in providing iterative improvements to troops in operation, closer the on-demand R&D needs to be the Test & Evaluation Environment. There are ongoing fields in R&D, for example, continuous improvement in CBRN protection performance, stability, and performance of propellants, capturing EW signatures, white-listing in cyber environment and features of enemy systems. These functions are typically in-sourced within the Armed Forces. More digitalized the force is, closer the test and evaluation environment is with the Armed Forces. Some countries (Finland) have, although, integrated teams in executing the continuous T&E in support of fighting forces. The manufacturing development is mainly outsourced to the defence industry. The military may facilitate the experimenting events or exercises, but the content is mainly provided by the Defence Industry (NATO CWIX). Defence Universities, Colleges, and Institutes are providing applied and basic research services in military sciences, but private and public universities, governmental R&D agencies, and coalition enterprises provide other areas of science. Despite the sourcing, the military capability portfolio provides a tool for short and long-term governance.