Gaining a Critical Edge in the Great Power Competition

Report issued by The Common Mission Project urges the creation of a new doctrine to guide defense innovation

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- If the United States is to compete effectively with China, Russia and other near-peer competitors, the Department of Defense must create an innovation doctrine to harness the country's arsenal of innovation, says a report published today by The Common Mission Project (CMP), the nonprofit partner of innovation company BMNT Inc.

The report, Developing a 21st Century Doctrine for Innovation, calls on the DoD to develop a common lexicon and culture to speed the way DoD solves critical national security challenges in order to break through current structural and cultural barriers to innovation.

This approach should be problem- instead of requirement-based; encourage rapid discovery rather than deliberation; encourage iteration at scale; build and foster an ecosystem of problem-solvers; and treat innovation as a warfighting function, say the report's authors, BMNT CEO Peter Newell, former director of the U.S. Army's Rapid Equipping Force; Stanford adjunct professor Steve Blank, co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation; and Steven Spear, a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

The recommendations were drawn from discussions at the Red Queen Innovation Offsite earlier this year. This annual event convenes leaders from the government and private sector to address issues related to innovation in government and society. It has produced transformative innovation practices and ecosystems for the DoD.

Creating an innovation doctrine would allow the country to better manage the pace of disruption by providing a reliable way to define critical problems, develop workable solutions and quickly get solutions into the hands of the people who need them most, the report says. 

"Our world once operated at the pace and purpose of industrial production – decadelong clock speeds. Today's digital-era operates in minutes, hours, days, and perhaps at the longest weeks and months. It is not that our system planning, programming, budgeting, and execution system is broken. The problem is our system is optimized for a reality and context that no longer exists," the report's authors say.

Read the full report here.

Contact: Terri S. Vanech, BMNT Communications Manager, 203-918-1270, [email protected].

SOURCE BMNT Inc.