Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, right, meets with Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet and new chairman of the first DOD Innovation Advisory Board, during the RDSA Security Conference in San Francisco, March 2, 2016. (Image credit – Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Tim D. Godbee / DOD)
Tensions Arise between DOD and Congress over Future of Defense Innovation and Research
During this year’s appropriations cycle, the Defense Department has heavily promoted its Third Offset Strategy as a framework for fostering military innovation. First announced
Congress has broadly supported the Third Offset concept. However, legislation advanced before the summer recess also exhibited lawmakers’ concerns about the strategy’s overall bearing on the shape of DOD’s Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) programs.
Third Offset prioritizes late-stage development rather than research
DOD has been reluctant to reduce the Third Offset concept to a rigid plan or to a specific set of technology development projects. At an April 12 hearing
Today, the Third Offset Strategy is not a document that you can go find in a drawer somewhere in the Pentagon. Instead the term really described the broad nature of capabilities that the Department expects to realize over the coming years by pursuing developments in advanced technologies, by conducting experimentation with prototype systems, to increase emphasis on war gaming, to help us understand new concepts and by emphasizing the need to innovate across the entire DoD enterprise.
We want to get our [testing] ranges busy again. We want to get new systems out on those ranges. Whether we procure them all or not, we want to learn from those systems and inform what we need in the future.
By comparison, basic research, which might not realize benefits for decades, is not central to the Third Offset Strategy, and DOD has not emphasized it in hearings or its budgetary requests. This situation contrasts with DOD’s active promotion of basic research beginning in 2007. Between fiscal years 2008 and 2014, basic research budgets increased from $1.6 billion to $2.1 billion. Last year, Congress appropriated $2.3 billion to basic research. However, in its own requests last year and this year, DOD has aimed to maintain a basic research funding level of about $2.1 billion.
FY17 DOD RDT&E Appropriations Summary Table
Funding Line |
FY16 Enacted |
FY17 Request |
Change 16-17 |
House |
Change 16-17 |
Senate |
Change 16-17 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RDT&E |
69,737 |
71,392 |
2.4% |
70,293 |
0.8% |
70,801 |
1.5% |
Science & Technology |
12,996 |
12,501 |
-3.8% |
13,030 |
0.3% |
13,364 |
2.8% |
Basic Research (6.1) |
2,309 |
2,102 |
-9.0% |
2,124 |
-8.0% |
2,265 |
-1.9% |
Applied Research (6.2) |
4,996 |
4,815 |
-3.6% |
4,962 |
-0.7% |
5,115 |
2.4% |
Advanced Technology Development (6.3) |
5,691 |
5,584 |
-1.9% |
5,943 |
4.4% |
5,984 |
5.2% |
Other Accounts (6.4 - 6.7) |
56,741 |
58,891 |
3.8% |
57,263 |
0.9% |
57,437 |
1.2% |
* All figures are in millions of nominal U.S. dollars and the percentages are calculated based on the unrounded figures. Overseas Contingency Operations spending is excluded.
Defense Secretary Carter promoting special innovation initiatives
As part of its Third Offset emphasis on innovation, DOD has also undertaken a series of special initiatives. In early 2015, the department began work on a Long-Range Research and Development Plan to identify projects that could contribute to new military advantages in the 2025–2030 timeframe. A classified report on that effort was completed this year. In April 2015, DOD also announced
This year, Secretary Carter has taken a personal stake in these initiatives. In February, he began
Congress looks to shape Third Offset priorities
Last year, the Senate Armed Services Committee welcomed the announcement of the Third Offset Strategy, and specifically authorized $400 million in unrequested funds to support a Technology Offset Initiative. The amount was reduced to $100 million in the final omnibus spending bill.
This year, the committee became frustrated with DOD’s inability to match the Third Offset concept to funds explicitly dedicated to it. Its May 18 report
As reported in FYI #69
Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee has moved to exercise some control over Carter’s special initiatives. Its report