Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Director Doug Beck on Wednesday released his plans for the next stage of his agency, much of it focused on enhancing and strengthening existing partnerships between the commercial technology sector and the Defense Department, ratcheting up the adoption of commercial offerings to meet warfighting needs at scale, and scaling his organization to enhance its effectiveness.
In his introduction to DIU 3.0: Scaling Defense Innovation for Strategic Impact, Beck outlines good news and bad news about current geopolitical tensions. The good news is that stakeholders in government and industry are clear-eyed about the challenges posed by China and are moving to strengthen America’s strategic competitiveness.
The bad news is that time is short. China’s President Xi Jinping one way or another plans to reunify Taiwan while he is still in charge, yet many ongoing DoD weapons modernization programs will not be ready until the 2030s and benefits from the Biden administration’s effort to reshore microelectronics capacity will take time, Beck highlights.
“For the Department of Defense to meet this challenge from the PRC—while simultaneously addressing other threats facing the nation—it must complement its more traditional defense acquisition pathways with disruptive innovation from the tech sector,” he says. “And it must do so with the focus, speed, and scale necessary to deter major conflict, or win if forced to fight.”
Beck’s DIU 3.0 plan has eight lines of effort, two of which are focused on retooling and scaling the organization, and fully leveraging its authorities and position within the DoD command chain.
Scaling the organization beyond the current “insufficient” staffing levels, includes hiring more individuals with “dual fluency,” that is talented people comfortable at the intersection of technology and national security. Beefing up DIU will require taking advantage of hiring mechanisms already in use by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Space Development Agency, and others to attract and retain talent more quickly, Beck says.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has already approved an increase in DIU staffing, which includes the addition of two new senior deputies last fall, Aditi Kumar, who is managing the Replicator Initiative, international, and policy efforts, and Kirstin Riesbeck, who oversees human resources, finances, and acquisition efforts.
DIU also needs to take fully advantage of its direct report and support role to Austin and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks and its relationships with the technology sector and the DoD innovation ecosystem, Beck says.
“DIU 3.0 can and must capitalize on that unique position of two worlds to help the Department and the broader U.S. government achieve a renewed level of collaboration with the private sector, reminiscent of the teamwork that helped win World War II and the Cold War,” he says.
A strengthened DIU will help with the other six lines of effort, including the need to narrowly target DoD to the most critical warfighting gaps and then scale the adoption of commercial capabilities to meet these needs. DIU 2.0 had a broader focus on capability gaps and transitioning commercial prototypes to fielded capabilities, Beck says.
To better close gaps, DIU will expand and further deepen its embedded personnel with U.S. combatant commands (COCOMs). DIU already has “embeds” with U.S. European Command to help in its support of Ukraine and with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Kumar, whose official title is deputy director strategy, policy & national security partnerships, last fall was at a DIU-hosted event in Poland focused on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) as part of her work with EUCOM. This work is a priority in DIU 3.0, she said in January a talk at the Hudson Institute.
“It was absolutely eye-opening,” Kumar said. “We had warfighters from Ukraine straight from the frontlines there. We had [the] commercial sector there, both Ukrainian companies, European companies [and] American companies, all focused on the common challenge of UAS and how to improve the capabilities that we’re delivering to the Ukrainians in an environment that is incredibly contested. The statistic that I heard there was the technology needs to keep basically on a three-month cycle.”
In December, INDOPACOM’s new Joint Mission Accelerator Directorate (JMAD) reached initial operating capability. The JMAD’s chief technology officer is a DIU embed.
The JMAD is accelerating the command’s technology needs around the Joint Fires Network, its Mission Network, the Pacific Multi-Domain Training and Experimentation Capability, and STORMBREAKER, which is an artificial intelligence-based toolkit for planning, wargaming, analysis, and execution of joint operational, multi-domain plans.
Another of Beck’s lines of effort under DIU 3.0 is to strengthen partnerships with “engines of scale” at DoD such as the service acquisition executives, the Navy’s new Disruptive Capabilities Office, the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, COCOMs, and others to make sure there is demand for commercial systems. If not, then “DIU does not work on anything where that agreement is not in place,” Beck says.
The remaining lines of effort include better coordinating with other innovation partners across DoD and the services on teamwork, priorities, best practices, and clearer pathways for the commercial sector into the innovation ecosystem; strengthening partnership with international allies and partners to ensure reciprocal benefits; continue to strengthen partnerships and trust with the commercial sector to clarify DoD’s demand signals; and build on that trust by demonstrating that the department will acquire commercial solutions at scale.
DIU was created in 2015 to leverage commercial research and development that was vastly outpacing DoD efforts. The second iteration of the agency, which continues, has been focused on quickly leveraging commercial solutions through prototypes and experimentation, and in some cases fielding these technologies, and building relationships with the private sector.
The DIU 3.0 report was released through the Center for a New American Security. Beck also produced a more detailed plan for government use.