Lessons from the Military Innovation Literature
There exists a consensus in modern military circles about the importance of innovation and adaptation. As the Chief of Army states, ‘The side that adapts fastest gains the edge.’[1] Retired Major General Mick Ryan likewise argues that ‘an important virtue for military organizations to develop in peacetime, and nurture constantly in war, must be adaptability to unexpected events’.[2] Based on his experience as chief of staff of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny came to a similar conclusion: ‘In the future high-tech war the winner will be the one who adapts to the technological conditions of the battlefield faster than the enemy.’[3] Academic security specialists similarly argue that innovation and adaptation are key drivers of state power. John Mearsheimer, for instance, argues that ‘great powers prize innovation’ because it offers ‘new ways to gain advantage over opponents’.[4] Andrew Krepinevich agrees: ‘Militaries that succeed in leading the way into a new and far more effective way of waging war during periods of military revolution can gain an enormous advantage over their rivals.’[5] Innovation and adaptation are closely interconnected but distinct concepts. Both involve some kind of change in the ways that armies operate, what Kendrick Kuo calls a ‘new institutionalized technique of organized violence intended to convert a service’s resources into mission success’.[6]
This definition of innovation and adaptation is sufficiently general that it can include (but is not limited to) the introduction into service of new technologies such as weapons; hence it will be the definition used in this article. Some historical examples of innovation (for instance, the Stosstrupp tactics of World War I[7] or Maurice of Nassau’s system of drill, volley and countermarch[8]) were new ways of using existing physical technology. At the same time, even a seemingly purely technological innovation involves the introduction into service of a new operating concept and organisational change as much as it involves the introduction of a new physical artefact.[9] What, then, is the difference between an innovation and an adaptation? Some scholars argue that innovation and adaptation are not so much distinct concepts as ends of a spectrum,[10] while others claim that an adaptation is a subset or type of innovation.[11] Williamson Murray’s influential definition argues that an innovation is associated with peacetime while an adaptation is associated with war,[12] a definition also adopted by Barno and Bensahel.[13] However, many historical adaptations come about in peacetime as a response to potential threats from enemy weapons systems or doctrines—for instance, the US Marine Corps concept of stand-in forces was, in part, a reaction to the proliferation of long-range fires, mines and other smart weapons.[14] Conversely, many examples of innovation in the literature were developed during war. Rosen gives multiple instances, such as the invention of strategic targeting (by the US Air Force) during, rather than before, World War II.[15] This article therefore proposes to view adaptation as a ‘counter-innovation’—a type of innovation designed to counter some new challenge, including but not limited to an enemy innovation.
Innovation and adaptation are thus closely interlinked—if adaptation is a type of innovation, then the drivers of adaptation and of innovation should be similar and an army that is good at one should also be good at the other. This is a tendency, not an infallible rule. There could be an army that is good at adaptation but not innovation, or vice versa, though, in general, competence in one should go hand in hand with competence in the other. This article examines what the literature on military innovation and adaptation has to say on the current state of the military profession in Australia. Most of the article will focus on what scholars say makes an army good at innovation and adaptation. Equally, the literature also makes an important related point: innovation is not always an unalloyed good and, where it is seen as a silver bullet which can resolve mismatches between commitments and resources, it can be harmful to the army’s overall effectiveness. I will conclude, therefore, by making recommendations about how to make (or keep) the Army innovative and adaptive. I will also conclude, however, by discussing how to make innovation ‘safe’—that is, how to ensure that the Army strikes the right balance between exploring the new and exploiting the existing.
This article divides the literature on fostering military innovation and adaptation into three themes: organisational culture, organisational structure and command style. This is a division by theme rather than by author. Many authors in the military innovation literature stress two or more of these themes simultaneously. Dividing my article in this manner, however, means the themes should be applicable to the current Australian context, starting with organisational culture.
Organisational Culture and Innovation
Organisational culture is an important variable in many studies of military innovation and adaptation. As the National Defence Strategy has it, ‘Culture is fundamental to achieving the Defence mission.’[16] Organisational culture here refers to the culture of the army or military organisation itself rather than the broader culture of the nation. Williamson Murray argues that the ‘organizational culture of particular military organizations formed during peacetime will determine how effectively they will adapt to the actual conditions they will face in war’.[17] He further claims:
Even more important than technology in innovation and adaptation has been the creation of military cultures amenable to careful historical and experiential learning, honest analysis, and imaginative, realistic thinking about the future possibilities of weapons systems.[18]
Meir Finkel argues, ‘Flexibility or its lack is in many cases the result of the military culture.’[19] The ability of some militaries, such as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), to innovate successfully has been attributed to a culture of ‘improvisation’, or of ‘asking questions’.[20] Conversely, the inability of certain European militaries to adapt successfully to the battlefield of World War I has been attributed to the ‘deeply inbred conservative cultures of Europe’s military institutions’.[21]
What is organisational culture? Austin Long defines it as a ‘set of beliefs about the organization and its mission’.[22] Elizabeth Kier, for her part, defines it as a ‘set of basic assumptions and values that shape shared understandings, and the forms or practices whereby these meanings are expressed, affirmed, and communicated to the members of the organization’.[23] The question, then, is how the Army might shape these beliefs, values, forms and practices in a manner which promotes innovation and adaptation.
One way in which this can be accomplished is by a consistent rhetorical strategy to promote innovation and adaptation coming from the top of the organisation. As Farrell, Rynning and Terriff note, ‘Change has to be championed from the top’, with ‘innovation champions’ being the key.[24] In this regard, the current Chief of Army’s emphasis on innovation and adaptation is an important step, but it must also be maintained by his successors and subordinates within the organisation. An important part of this rhetorical strategy is not simply to say that innovation and adaptation are good and that we must have more of them; it also must include a recognition that the corollary of increased innovation and adaptation is tolerance of failure. The future battlefield is likely to be dominated by uncertainty as much as, if not more than, the battlefields of the past. Consequently, it will be very hard to determine, in advance, which innovations are likely to succeed and which will fail. In fact, most likely most innovations will not be successful. If failure is not tolerated, then this will serve to dampen the ability to innovate at all. Of course, a military organisation must strive to avoid unnecessary errors which could cost lives, but an organisational culture which promotes innovation would accept a higher level of failure from military personnel where those failures are the result of an honest attempt to devise new solutions to complex and novel problems. In this regard, Army’s new emphasis on ‘successful failure’[25] is most welcome—indeed, the phrase parallels the concept of ‘creative destruction’ familiar to the economics of innovation since Schumpeter.[26]
However, a cautionary note should be sounded. Theorists note that organisational culture cannot simply be reduced to the official rhetoric of the organisation or of its leaders. Note that Kier talks about the ‘the forms or practices whereby these meanings are expressed, affirmed, and communicated to the members of the organization’.[27] Sometimes the practices of an organisation belie the official rhetoric. The official publications of the British Army prior to both World War I and World War II, for instance, stressed decentralised control and the exercise of initiative by lower-level leaders.[28] In practice, however, in both world wars the British Army’s command practices were far more rigid and centralised, at least for substantial portions of both wars.[29]
Returning to the present day ADF, there is a danger of official rhetoric from the Chief of Army or other agencies within Army, such as the Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation and Coordination Office (RICO), about ‘successful failure’ being rendered ineffective if the practices of the Army continue to communicate a ‘zero defects’ approach in all matters. Moreover, the concept of ‘successful failure’ must continue to be practised consistently through the tenure of multiple chiefs of army. It is these mutual expectations, formed over constant practice, which create the shared understandings vital to organisational culture. It is especially important that, if the Army wishes to create a culture based around ‘successful failure’, it refrain from punishing failed but honest experimentation even in relatively tough cases. As the economist David Kreps said of corporate culture:
The organization will be characterized by the principle[30] it selects. It will (optimally) try to promote understanding of that principle in the minds of its hierarchical inferiors. In order to protect its reputation for applying the principle in all cases, it will apply the principle even when its application might not be optimal in the short run. It will apply the principle even when it serves no direct organizational objective, if doing so helps to preserve or clarify the principle.[31]
To fully embed a culture of innovation, however, the rhetorical emphasis on successful failure must persist over time and must be accompanied by actions which credibly communicate Army’s commitment to this principle.
Organisational Structure
Organisational structure is another important element identified by the literature on military innovation and adaptation. The organisational theorists Argyris and Schön define organisational structures as consisting of five factors: channels of communication, information systems, the spatial environment of the organisation, the organisation’s procedures and routines, and its systems of incentives.[32]
Many writers on military innovation and adaptation especially stress the importance of the first two components—channels of communication and information systems. The starting point is that military innovations often emerge from the bottom up via experimentation within lower command echelons. The question then is: how might successful innovations pioneered by one unit spread to others? This enquiry implies the necessity of an institutional mechanism to gather innovations from frontline units and then communicate them to others. Barno and Bensahel, for instance, note:
Organizations must have both a culture and mechanisms that encourage the best ideas to flow up the chain of command. Newly devised changes must be effectively disseminated throughout the force and accompanied by necessary training.[33]
Meir Finkel, for his part, notes that armies which have successfully adapted to surprise on the battlefield have, among other things, a ‘mechanism for quickly relaying information from one unit that encountered and overcame a surprise situation to other units in a similar situation’.[34] Michael Hunzeker’s ‘assessment, command and training’ (ACT) theory argues that one crucial component of battlefield learning is the existence of just such an institutionalised mechanism to gather lessons learned from frontline units and rapidly disseminate them to others.[35] Closely examining the cases of Britain, Germany and France in the First World War, Hunzeker argues that Germany was able to adapt more rapidly than the others in part because of the institution of the Great General Staff, which performed such a function for the German army.[36] This points to the importance of doctrine as a means of storing successful innovations and adaptations and communicating them to frontline units.
In this respect, the ADF’s procedures are in line with the best practices identified in the military innovation and adaptation literature. The ADF’s Battle Lab system collects lessons learned from frontline units, updates doctrine accordingly where necessary and communicates those lessons to others.[37]
The Army also has an extensive structure for promoting technological innovation. The makerspace initiative provides workshops for ADF personnel both to develop new innovations and, perhaps more importantly, to think innovatively at nine locations across Australia.[38] Makerspace has already welcomed over 10,000 attendees since its foundation in 2019, resulting in some impressive innovations which have seen success even outside the military context. These include, among others, Lieutenant Jon Stevens’s non-sterile intravenous fluid bag.[39] Makerspace sits within RICO, which, among other roles, seeks to ‘explore, innovate and lead the investigation of disruptive technology’[40]. In addition to Makerspace, RICO sponsors other innovation-related activities, including Army innovation days and ‘hackathons’[41]. The Army has other initiatives to promote innovation and adaptation. These include brigade-level ‘good ideas expos’,[42] for instance, and the re-rolling of one squadron from the 1st Armoured Regiment as an experimental unit designed ‘to explore pathways for getting emerging technology into the hands of the warfighter quickly, and at scale’.[43]
The innovation and adaptation literature would laud the existence of these initiatives—the more experiments there are, the better the chances good ideas will emerge—but might make two suggestions. First, there should be a regularised pathway to take technological innovations which emerge via this ecosystem into service. Innovation days and hackathons are good, but new innovations should regularly be put in front of decision-makers with the relevant authority to make orders. Second, the innovation literature, as we have seen, does not make a strict ‘hard and fast’ distinction between tactical and technological innovation. Indeed, as Williamson Murray points out, ‘What matters in technological adaptation as well as technological innovation is how well new and improved technologies are incorporated into effective and intelligent concepts of fighting.’[44] The tank as a physical artefact entered into service in 1916, but it was not until much later, after decades of debate and experience, that armies reached a consensus on how tanks should best be employed on the battlefield[45] (see the discussion of Kuo’s work below). Consequently, there should be the closest integration between Army’s tactical (Battle Lab) and technological (RICO) innovation and adaptation structures.
Another way in which the Army might be able to bridge the gap between technological and tactical innovation is through Holmes’s idea of the ‘combat campus’, which would be placed at major base locations to create ecosystems of innovation.[46] This concept would include a ‘curriculum focussed on diverse knowledge interaction and a physical space where military and non-military experts can co-create’.[47] It would also combine knowledge from science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) and humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS). Participants would be educated on ‘technological literacy, maker space use, design thinking theory and subjects that improve a military practitioner’s knowledge of adjacent possibilities’.[48] The HASS component could include, for instance, military history as a source of ideas about future tactical developments or operational concepts for new technologies.
Command Style
Another consistent thread in the literature on military innovation and adaptation is the importance of command style, especially of a decentralised system of command and control such as mission command. Finkel writes, ‘The decentralized (mission) command method [is] … a key to recovery from technological and doctrinal surprise’.[49] Barno and Bensahel argue that ‘strengthening mission command’ is a key way to ensure that US forces remain able to adapt on the battlefield.[50] Shamir and Luttwak attribute much of the innovation and adaptation associated with the IDF to its practice of mission command,[51] while Hunzeker,[52] Murray,[53] Barno and Bensahel[54] and Finkel[55] argue that the ability of the German army to adapt in the world wars was partly due to its embrace of decentralised command and control.
There are a number of reasons why one might imagine decentralised command and control would imply a greater ability to innovate and adapt. First, decentralisation implies that lower-level leaders are able to experiment with both new tactics and new technologies (as can be seen with the experimental use of drones initially at the small-unit tactical level by Ukrainian forces). Now, in an environment of radical uncertainty, the chances are that the majority of such experiments will fail. However, the more experiments there are, the more likely it is that at least one of them will succeed, and, once one of them has succeeded, it can form the basis for an innovation which can then be spread to the rest of the army. Second, if different small units are allowed to experiment with new tactics or technologies, they can fail more ‘safely’. The consequences of failure would normally be limited to that one unit. By contrast, one innovation imposed top-down on an entire army would be catastrophic should it fail.
There is an important caveat to this emphasis on the importance of decentralisation for innovation. As Rosen points out, one might imagine that centralisation could in principle imply more innovation or adaptation because, in a centralised army, new innovations can be driven through by the higher command against possible resistance by more conservative elements at lower command echelons.[56]
Hunzeker’s ACT theory provides a convincing resolution to the tension between the paradoxical need for both centralisation and decentralisation to generate innovation and adaptation. ACT theory argues that it is a combination of moderate decentralisation in decision-making, on the one hand, and centralised training and doctrinal development and dissemination, on the other, which best promotes adaptation.[57] Decentralisation in the form of mission command constitutes moderate decentralisation because it allows for experimentation and independence within the context of a shared doctrine and set of training standards. Mission command thus represents a sweet spot for innovation and adaptation because it combines the decentralisation necessary for low-level experimentation with the centralised training and doctrine necessary to overcome excessive parochialism or conservatism on the part of some lower-level units.[58]
Consequently, a large part of the question of how the Army can become/remain innovative and adaptive revolves around the question of mission command. On the face of it, the prospects would seem good, given that mission command has been accepted doctrine in the Australian Army for some time.[59] The question, however, is whether this momentum can be maintained. Here the literature points to a number of potential issues on the horizon.
The first is the problem of increasing regulatory compliance. Barno and Bensahel note that the practice of mission command in the US military is being stifled by excessive regulation. They report that in the US Army there are almost 500 different regulatory publications with which soldiers are expected to comply, and that it would take the average company commander 451 days to complete all of the annual training they are expected to undertake.[60] In the Australian context, too, regulatory compliance can prove an obstacle. Defence in general should consider, for instance, whether the Defence Work Health and Safety Strategy does not overly impinge on the flexibility and autonomy necessary for the achievement of mission command.[61] The ADF must avoid the trap (common to many organisations) whereby its members come to focus on the organisation’s procedures as an end in themselves, rather than the goals these procedures are designed to promote.[62]
The second issue relates to the potential problem of scaling up in the event of a large-scale conflict. Amos Fox notes that unit proficiency is one key variable in determining the degree of centralisation a commander should exercise.[63] My historical research has found that one factor which has led to a greater degree of command decentralisation (independent of organisational or national culture) is the existence of a high proportion of well-trained soldiers in the army. Where states have embarked on crash mobilisation during wartime—or where wartime losses have severely thinned the ranks of experienced personnel—even armies such as the Wehrmacht, with an organisational culture stressing decentralisation, have resorted to centralised command and control.[64] Clearly, this is not a problem for the ADF at present. If, however, the ADF were to be compelled to embark on a process of rapid mobilisation, it might need, at least initially, to employ more centralised command styles as new recruits were trained to the required levels of proficiency. This centralisation in turn might serve to dampen innovation and adaptation.
While scaling in response to mobilisation events presents challenges, it is nevertheless the case that an influx of large numbers of new recruits from the civilian world may have compensating benefits in terms of innovation and adaptation. Luttwak and Shamir point to the close linkages between military and civilian life in Israel as a key factor in the IDF’s ability to innovate and adapt.[65] Most IDF personnel are not professional soldiers in the Western sense and have permanent civilian careers. They therefore bring into the service fresh ways of thinking which can spur new innovations. This dynamic works in the opposite direction too. Because most Israelis in the civilian economy have military experience (and senior IDF officers are expected to have a second civilian career), the Israeli civilian economy is well suited to the needs of the military and there exist bonds of trust between the military and the civilian economy which allow for rapid innovation.[66] The same dynamics may be observed in Ukraine—the influx of large numbers of civilians into the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has been attended by new ways of thinking, and this may have been key to many of the innovations achieved in operations against Russian forces. The Birds of Magyar squad, for instance, which pioneered the use of first-person-view (FPV) and kamikaze drones, were mobilised as part of the military reserve component of the AFU.[67]
Thus, while the issue of rapid mobilisation might appear to pose a challenge to the ADF’s ability to innovate and adapt in wartime, it also points the way to a solution: an expansion of the reserves. This would have two benefits. First, it would provide the ADF with a pool of personnel with some level of military training at the outset of war. These individuals could therefore be trusted with a greater degree of decentralised command, which is more likely to generate innovation and adaptation than centralised command is. Second, as seen in Israel and Ukraine, reservists bring into the service fresh ideas and habits of mind from the civilian world. When applied to military problems, these characteristics can bring about innovations and adaptations which a military composed only of full-time professionals might overlook. In this respect, one proposed innovation worth considering is Mike Kalms’s idea of lateral hires from outside the military at the O6/O7 level.[68]
Bad Innovations?
The discussion up to this point has assumed that innovation and adaptation are good things and that the only question is how we can have more of them. Yet there are many examples in military history of innovations and adaptations which have worked less effectively than that which they were designed to replace. One relatively harmless example in terms of organisational structure is the Pentomic division with which the US Army experimented during the Cold War.[69] In some cases, the disruption caused by failed innovations has compelled militaries to return to the old way of doing things. Presumably it would have been better had the damaging innovation not been introduced at all.
Scholars of both civilian and military innovation suggest that we may have an inherent bias to recall only successful innovations and forget the ‘next big things’ which did not live up to their promise.[70] We often, therefore, hold up those who resisted innovation to ridicule, because we are only considering the innovations which succeeded and not those which failed, forgetting that the protagonists at the time did not know (and arguably could not have known) which innovations were which. This tendency may lead to a bias amongst modern-day decision-makers to be too accepting of new innovations to avoid a ‘false negative’ (i.e. missing a good innovation) at the expense of an increased risk of a 'false positive’ (i.e. promoting a bad innovation).
The political scientist Kendrick Kuo’s research discusses the problem of ‘bad innovation’ at length. Kuo points to several military innovations which ended up failing in sometimes very harmful ways. He argues that bad innovations not only fail in their intended purpose but lead to the cannibalising of existing capabilities and a loss of capability in previous techniques which had been proven to work.[71] After a bad innovation has failed, Kuo argues, armies are compelled to return to previous ways of doing things which they had mistakenly abandoned. His research especially focuses on the British Army’s interwar innovation in armoured warfare. Whereas the historical stereotype has the British—and French—armies rejecting the importance of the tank as a military innovation (sometimes attributed to the inherent conservatism of cavalry regiments) and therefore losing badly to the Germans in the early years of the Second World War, Kuo’s work shows this interpretation of history is wrong. In fact, Kuo demonstrates that the British were highly innovative in their ideas about armoured warfare and the organisational structure designed to support it but that this mindset made the British Army less effective; namely, the British believed that tanks were best employed in large, armour-heavy formations with little support from other combat arms, especially infantry.[72] In many ways this represented a more radical innovation than the German concept of the combined arms Panzer division, in which infantry and artillery support played crucial supportive roles.[73] The problem was that the more innovative British concept that favoured an ‘armour-heavy’ formation was less well suited to the 1940s battlefield. In fact, prior British practice adopted at the end of World War I, involving combined action by infantry, artillery and armour, was more effective than the armour-heavy innovation which replaced it, and the British were forced to return to the former way of doing things.[74]
According to Kuo, the British made this mistake due to the mismatch they faced between their interwar resources and their commitments. Following World War I, the British had to defend a worldwide empire in the context of financial austerity. The problem was exacerbated by the rise of fascism and militarism in Germany, Italy and Japan. In this context, British policymakers saw radical innovations, such as the armour-heavy formation, as a silver bullet which would allow them to fulfil their global commitments with fewer resources. Consequently, the British Army pushed through the armour-heavy formation despite evidence from many sources, including field exercises, that it could not fulfil the role that its proponents envisaged for it. Instead, proponents of the armour-heavy formation, such as Basil Liddell Hart, misinterpreted this evidence to suggest that the exercises had been more successful than they had in fact been, and these interpretations were accepted by decision-makers.[75]
The overall lesson, according to Kuo, is that damaging innovations are most likely to emerge when policymakers face a radical mismatch between their security commitments and the resources allocated to them.[76] The implication is that, rather than relying on innovation to save the day, policymakers would be better advised either to scale back their commitments or to increase the resources devoted to them.
Obviously, Australia is not a global power like 1930s Britain or the contemporary United States, and we are not faced with decisions such as whether we prioritise Europe, the Middle East or Asia. But Kuo’s work does remind us that questions of innovation and adaptation are closely connected to broader issues of national strategy. One obvious implication of Kuo’s work is that innovation should not serve as a substitute for higher defence spending in response to a given threat environment. Another implication is that we should not imagine that innovation reduces the need for allies or for higher defence spending, nor that it allows us to successfully take on much larger countries than ourselves. Of course, questions of national strategy, alliances and decisions over war and peace are properly decisions for politicians and the democratic public rather than soldiers. Nevertheless, the ADF (especially the senior leadership) can help in this regard by managing the expectations of politicians and the public as to what military innovation can realistically do. This is an issue of advice and public communications, which are both legitimate functions of the military leadership in a democratic society.
Kuo describes how the standard measures we use to judge a military innovation in peacetime have been circumvented in cases of bad innovation. Wartime innovations and adaptations can be tested through their application on the battlefield. In peacetime, however, the tools we have to assess a given innovation—exercises, wargames and computer simulations—are different.[77] These are imperfect substitutes for the test of combat, since they inevitably depend on assumptions about operational conditions, the enemy and so on which may diverge from reality in important respects.[78] It will be very difficult indeed to tell exactly which military innovations are likely to be successful before they are actually used in combat. At least, however, when the tools we do have suggest that a given innovation is not working as promised, this information must not be overlooked, distorted or brushed under the carpet. Venture capital firms and specialist ‘innovation units’ within established firms are known for rejecting the majority of proposals.[79] Alphabet’s famous innovation unit, Google X, is famed for its use of ‘kill metrics’ designed to help decide when to kill off a project, ideally quickly, in order to prevent further waste of resources. The ‘kill metrics’ are devised by the team which proposes a given innovation in order to ‘help identify the riskiest parts of a project from the start, before the team is too emotionally invested’.[80] Applying the same logic, the developers of new innovations within the ADF should similarly be required to develop ‘kill metrics’ for their ideas.
What may be more controversial in Kuo’s recommendations is his caution against putting innovations into service too quickly. Many experts in the military, business, think tank and policy worlds have bemoaned the bureaucratic delays in the military innovations process in Australia, the United States and elsewhere. The US Department of Defense’s specialist innovation unit DIUx (now DIU) was established in part to expedite the adoption of innovative new technologies in the US military.[81] The slowness of the US defence procurement process had been a major deterrent to technology startups in working with the US Department of Defense, since tech firms often require rapid turnaround in procurement decisions in order to satisfy their financial backers.[82] Luttwak and Shamir contrast the speed with which the Israelis took the Iron Dome system into service with the delays prevalent in the US defence procurement system.[83] Similar concerns have been raised with respect to the defence innovation ecosystem in Australia. The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) argues, ‘Strategically important and urgent projects, and low-complexity projects, must both be streamlined.’[84] Similarly, the National Defence Strategy (NDS) speaks of ‘deliberate choices to prioritise the introduction of next generation capabilities asap’,[85] prioritising ‘lifting Australia’s capacity to rapidly translate disruptive new technologies into ADF capability’. The Integrated Investment Program (IIP) likewise speaks of ‘a cultural shift empowering greater initiative to achieve agreed capability outcomes with speed’.[86] As such, the One Defence Capability System (ODCS) has been designed to reduce delays in capability acquisition,[87] and Defence has adopted ‘a minimum viable capability model’.[88] These developments respond to the idea, expressed by Vice Admiral Johnston, that we ‘need to abandon the pursuit of the perfect solution or process and focus on timely and relevant capability delivery’.[89] Perhaps, as the DSR argues, ‘strategically important’ projects should be expedited, but if a project is strategically important then it is also important not to get it wrong.
One area that causes consistent problems for defence innovators is the vetting process. Vetting here refers to the whole suite of compliance checks through which a new innovation must pass before entering into service, from technological feasibility to compliance with national procurement regulations. Excessive delays in the vetting process might mean that innovations make their way into service too slowly, raising the risk that the Army’s capacities will be obsolete at the outbreak of war. Kuo, however, argues:
Although methodical and deliberate development of new weapons and concepts is slower, it reduces costly errors in producing and deploying new capabilities at scale. In contrast, bypassing rigorous vetting procedures in favour of rapid and dramatic reforms tends to obscure downside risks, particularly in complex organisations with multiple stakeholders.[90]
Acknowledging the intractable nature of this issue, the NDS and the IIP are enshrining an approach which will expedite the vetting process.
So again we are faced with a dilemma—if we speed up the process of entering innovations into service, we risk bad innovations that may be less effective than the techniques they replace. On the other hand, if we do not speed up the process we may end up fighting with techniques which are obsolete and hard to change.
While this trade-off exists, its potential consequences may be less severe than they first appear. Many of the vetting procedures which delay the introduction of new innovations into service are directly related not to battlefield performance but to alternative considerations, such as whether the tender process was fair and competitive to the firms which participated.[91] Such procedures could generate significant delays by giving firms incentives to dispute any contract they did not win.[92] Procedures such as these could therefore be moderated or streamlined without necessarily generating the type of downside risks with which Kuo is concerned.
Based on the analysis presented here, there is scope to streamline those vetting procedures which do not directly relate to military effectiveness. Such measures have the potential to mitigate the risks that arise when speed (of innovation) is prioritised over risk (of its failure). Despite such mitigating measures, however, the risks are not entirely eliminated. It is therefore advisable to have some idea of how we might manage the trade-off between speed and risk.
A key variable in deciding whether to go fast or slow in innovation lies in how soon, we believe, Australia may be engaged in a large-scale conflict. This variable speaks to the DSR’s concept of ‘urgent’ projects. For example, if Australia were already engaged in a large-scale conflict, of course vetting procedures would have to be streamlined to the extent that new innovations could enter into service very quickly, as is the case in Ukraine today. If we are not engaged in a conflict at present but believe we will be soon, the process likewise has to be relatively fast, even at the cost of risking more failures. However, the more we believe that we have time to prepare, the more rigorous, and hence slower, the vetting procedures can afford to be. Since we would not (by stipulation) be receiving direct battlefield feedback as to the effectiveness of the innovation in such a scenario, it would take much longer to get a clear idea—from exercises, wargames and simulations—of how effective an innovation is likely to be. Hence a slower and more rigorous process would not only be possible but also be advisable.
Where does Australia stand in this regard? Clearly the timelines have shortened. The Defence Strategic Update, DSR and NDS all confirm that Australia no longer has a 10-year window of strategic warning time for conflict.[93] The NDS talks about three critical periods over which the government will evolve the ADF’s structure, posture and preparedness: 2025 for immediate enhancements, 2026–2030 for the accelerated acquisition of critical capabilities, and 2031 for the delivery of an ADF that is fit for purpose across all domains.[94] At the same time, however, we are likely to have more warning time for some contingencies than for others. For example, the risk of a high-intensity, peer-to-peer conventional conflict in the Asia-Pacific region within the next five years is judged relatively high by many analysts.[95] A direct attack on Australia’s northern approaches, by contrast, would likely be further in the future.
A second key variable in deciding whether ‘to go fast or slow’ lies in the reversibility of the innovation—how quickly and cheaply the technique embodied in an innovation could be reversed if it turned out not to work as promised. If an innovation can be easily reversed, there is far less need for extensive vetting procedures. In this regard, the complexity of a project is one factor which helps to determine how reversible an innovation is. As the DSR states:
Low-complexity projects, such as like-for-like replacements and off-the-shelf acquisitions, are consuming too much time and resources. The default for these should be single source and other measures to streamline approvals and acquisition.[96]
However, we must be careful to specify precisely what we mean by ‘complexity’ in this context. What is important here is not so much the complexity of a product (e.g. how many components and subcomponents go into making it) but how easy it is to replace. Here Horowitz’s concept of organisational capital and financial intensity comes into play. Horowitz classifies military innovations according to their financial intensity and the amount of ‘organisational capital’ they require to be implemented. The higher the unit cost of a technology and the more specific this technology is to the military, the more financially intense it is. Similarly, the more an innovation requires ‘not just changes in education, recruitment, and training but also wholesale shifts in force structure and plans for the use of force’, the more organisational capital it may be said to require.[97] The introduction of the aircraft carrier in the interwar period, for instance, was financially intense and required significant organisational capital.[98] If an innovation is financially intense and/or requires significant organisational capital, it will be hard to reverse if it does not turn out well.
It stands to reason that the more an innovation is financially intense and/or requires significant organisational capital, the less the vetting procedures should be streamlined for it, and vice versa. For example, for a capability such as the smaller FPV drones used by the Ukrainians there is no harm in moving faster; these are low-financial-intensity capabilities.[99] The same is true to a lesser extent for more expensive, bespoke, uncrewed vehicles, such as the Ghost Bat or Ghost Shark.[100] On the other hand, the organisational structure innovation represented by the long range fires regiment concept is an idea that might require a slower, more deliberate approach, since it requires significant organisational capital and is, in part, designed for contingencies (such as a threat to Australia’s northern approaches) which likely lie sometime in the future.[101] Indeed, Kuo himself cautions about the US Marine Corps’ ‘push to stand up the marine littoral regiments’, noting, ‘Whether these moves bridge what appears to be a yawning gap between future mission obligations and available forces remains to be seen.’[102]
In short, Kuo’s work sensitises us to the possibility that innovation is not an unalloyed good. We cannot tell for sure which innovations are likely to prove effective on the battlefield and which will not, so some mistakes are inevitable. Mistakes, moreover, are more likely where innovation is seen as a magical remedy to the problems of mismatch between our strategic goals and our resources. The NDS states, ‘Australia’s middle power status means we must seek an advantage in innovative ways’,[103] but we must not imagine that ‘innovative ways’ can compensate for our only being a middle power. If we are to embark on conflicts with larger powers, we will need to devote significant resources to defence and to fight alongside dependable and capable allies. While the ADF itself cannot determine Australia’s strategic goals nor the resources devoted to them, it can help to educate the public and policymakers about this danger and to caution against seeing innovation as a panacea. The ADF and Defence more generally also have to ensure that, in streamlining the process whereby innovations are brought into service, we do not incur unacceptable risks of allowing bad innovations to slip through the net. There is a trade-off between speed and risk. Although this trade-off can be mitigated, it cannot be eliminated entirely. For reversible innovations, speed should be preferred over risk mitigation, and vice versa. Similarly, if we believe that conflict is imminent, speed is of the essence. By contrast, if we have time, the focus should be more strongly on risk mitigation.
Conclusion
This article has examined the literature on military innovation and adaptation. It has defined adaptation as a type of innovation—a ‘counter-innovation’—which justifies treating the two concepts as closely related. The article divided the literature into three themes: organisational culture, organisational structure and command style. It also examined the cautionary work of Kendrick Kuo, which notes that innovation can often go wrong and can lead to the replacement of tried and tested methods and the cannibalisation of existing capabilities. Kuo argues that these bad innovations will be more likely where there exists a mismatch between strategic commitments and resources, which innovation is seen as a silver bullet to resolve.
The organisational culture perspective reminds us that if we wish to establish a culture of risk taking, experimentation and adaptation in the ADF then this must be backed up both rhetorically from the top (as it is at present) but also with actions throughout the organisation. Organisational cultures reside in the shared understandings and expectations developed over time within an organisation and are often tacit and informal in nature. Rhetoric which is not backed up by action will not generate a desired cultural change as it will not shape these understandings and expectations. Backing up the rhetoric of ‘successful failure’ might mean, for example, very visibly refraining from punishing failed experimentation, or even admonishing those who punish failed experimentation.
The organisational structure perspective points to the importance of having an easily accessible ‘one-stop shop’ for gathering and transmitting lower-level innovations from frontline units to their peers. The ADF’s Battle Lab system is laudatory in this regard, though the military innovation literature would suggest the necessity for much tighter collaboration between Battle Lab and Army’s technological innovation infrastructure (e.g. RICO and its associated activities). The innovation and adaptation literature teaches us that technological innovation and tactical innovation are inextricably interlinked, so the relevant institutional infrastructures in the ADF should work together as closely as possible. Holmes’s combat campus concept shows us one way in which this might work in practice.
The literature on military innovation also tends to stress the importance of decentralised command styles, and mission command in particular, for both innovation and adaptation. All else being equal, a more decentralised command style should generate more innovation. The reason is simple—the more independent experiments there are in solving a problem, the more likely it is that at least one of them will succeed, even if most of them fail. Once a successful innovation is hit upon, it can then be dispersed among the rest of the Army. It is true that, in theory, decentralised command styles might stymie innovation if they imply that enlightened, innovative superiors cannot enforce beneficial innovations on conservative lower-level units. However, Hunzeker’s ACT theory offers a convincing rebuttal to this objection—provided decentralised command styles are combined with centralised training and doctrine, this problem should be overcome. Moreover, lower-level units should have incentives to adopt beneficial innovations which their peers have shown to work in similar circumstances.
Given these considerations, preserving mission command in the Australian Army is important for its ability to innovate and adapt. At present, mission command is official doctrine but is threatened by several developments, especially regulatory compliance and the increasingly complex interdependence of modern military operations. The practice of mission command may also be at risk if, in future, Australia is compelled to embark on a process of ‘crash mobilisation’. The need for regulatory compliance can be reduced, for instance. At the same time, expansion of the reserves can provide the basis for a potential future mobilisation without jeopardising mission command and its ability to foster innovation and adaptation. Indeed, expansion of the reserves can actually foster innovation and adaptation, since it provides for the cross-pollination of ideas and practices between the civilian and military spheres. Many military analysts have noted that reserve forces play precisely this role in other armies, such as those of Israel and Ukraine.
Finally, this article has examined Kuo’s countervailing view that innovations can be bad as well as good. While his argument is most obviously directed at a civilian, and an American, audience, it is also relevant for an Australian military one. The relevance of this component of Kuo’s argument is partly in the realm of civil–military relations: the ADF should strive to educate policymakers and the public that, while innovation and adaptation are important, they complement and are not a substitute for strong allies and sound strategic decision-making. At the same time, Kuo’s work also points to the fact that in expediting the vetting processes there are costs and risks involved which stand between an innovation and its entry into service. Where there are parts of the vetting process that are duplicative or aimed at satisfying requirements that are not related to military efficiency, it makes sense to streamline or even eliminate them. Yet whether it always makes sense to ‘move fast’ depends on context. The less time we believe we have before the ADF is likely to face high-intensity combat, the faster we should move. The type of innovation is also important. The more reversible it is—that is, the less financially intense it is and the less it requires fundamental organisational change to implement—the faster the vetting process can proceed.
To conclude, then, I present a number of ‘next steps’:
- Army’s attempts to implement a culture of innovation and adaptation are laudable but must be carried through the tenure of multiple chiefs of army and backed with credible action to support the message—namely, honest but failed experimentation must not be punished.
- Army should strive to maximise cooperation between its technological (e.g. RICO) and tactical (Battle Lab) infrastructures.
- Army should strive to preserve a command style based on mission command. This means reducing as much as possible the regulatory burden at all command echelons.
- An expansion of the reserves is desirable on a number of grounds. First, it would allow Army to benefit from a larger pool of trained personnel in the event of national security contingencies, and, second, it would allow for an influx of fresh perspectives and new ideas into Army.
- Streamlining vetting procedures for new innovations, as the ODCS is intended to do, is desirable where these vetting procedures do not relate to military considerations per se. If these vetting procedures do relate to military considerations, however, the desirable degree of streamlining is related to how reversible a given innovation is. If a proposed innovation can be easily reversed in case of failure then ‘moving fast’ is advisable; if it cannot, more caution is required.
Endnotes
[1] Lieutenant-General Simon Stuart, ‘The Challenges to the Australian Army Profession’, speech, Army (website), at: https://www.army.gov.au/news-and-events/speeches-and-transcripts/2024-11-25/challenges-australian-army-profession (accessed 11 March 2025).
[2] Mick Ryan (Retd), ‘Winning the Adaptation Battle’, Futura Doctrina, at: https://mickryan.substack.com/p/winning-the-adaptation-battle.
[3] Valerii Zaluzhnyi, ‘The Evolving Nature of Warfare Has Redefined the Fundamental Principles of Global Security: the Ukrainian Experience and the Emerging World Order’, Ukrainska Pravda, 25 April 2025, at: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/columns/2025/04/25/7509135/ .
[4] John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: WW Norton & Co., 2001), p. 166, cited in Kendrick Kuo, ‘The Promise and Surprising Peril of Military Innovation’, conference paper, at: https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2021-11/Kuo_DissArticle_20211110.pdf (accessed 5 May 2025).
[5] Andrew Krepinevich, The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers (Yale: Yale University Press, 2023), p. 443.
[6] Kuo, ‘The Promise and Surprising Peril of Military Innovation’, p. 5.
[7] Stephen Robinson, the Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War (Chatswood NSW: Exisle Publishing, 2021), pp. 169–177.
[8] Archer Jones, The Art of War in the Western World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 221–222; Geoffrey Parker, the Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 19.
[9] Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (New York: Cambridge University Press 2011), p. 317.
[10] Theo Farrell, ‘Introduction: Military Adaptation in War’, in Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga and James Russell (eds), Military Adaptation in the Afghanistan War (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), p. 7.
[11] Michael C Horowitz and Shira Pindyck, ‘What Is a Military Innovation and Why It Matters’, Journal of Strategic Studies 46, no. 1 (2022): 85–114.
[12] Murray, Military Adaptation in War, p. 5.
[13] David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 16
[14] United States Marine Corps, Force Design 2030 (Washington DC: U.S. Marine Corps, 2020), p. 3.
[15] Stephen Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1991) p. 155
[16] Department of Defence, National Defence Strategy 2024 (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. 37.
[17] Murray, Military Adaptation in War, p. 309.
[18] Ibid., p. 315.
[19] Meir Finkel, On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), p. 5.
[20] Murray, Military Adaptation in War, p. 279.
[21] Ibid., p. 60.
[22] Austin Long, The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the US and UK (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2016), p. 15.
[23] Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 28.
[24] Farrell, ‘Introduction: Military Adaptation in War’, p. 12.
[25] ‘What Does Successful Failure Look Like in an Adapting Army?’, Adapting Army Podcast, Episode 1, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/adapting-army-cove-podcast-series.
[26] Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Routledge, 2010).
[27] Elizabeth Kier, ‘Culture and Military Doctrine: France between the Wars’, International Security 19(4): 69–70.
[28] See War Office, Field Service Regulations, Vol II, Operations (General) (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1935), p. 28; and Christopher Pugsley, We Have Been Here Before: The Evolution of the Doctrine of Decentralized Command in the British Army 1905–1989, Sandhurst Occasional Papers No. 9 (Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 2011).
[29] David French. Raising Churchill’s Army (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000); Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888–1918 (Routledge, 1996).
[30] In the case of the ADF that principle might be ‘successful failure’.
[31] David M Kreps, ‘Corporate Culture and Economic Theory’, in James E Alt and Kenneth Shepsle (eds), Perspectives on Positive Political Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 93.
[32] Chris Argyris and Donald A Schön, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (New York: Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co, 2007), p. 30.
[33] Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, p. 31.
[34] Finkel, On Flexibility, p. 112.
[35] Michael Hunzeker, Dying to Learn: Wartime Lessons from the Western Front (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2021), p. 17.
[36] Ibid., p. 40.
[37] Australian Army Battle Lab, The Cove, 22 April 2024, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/australian-army-battle-lab.
[38] ‘Army Makerspace’, Australian Army Research Centre (website), accessed 11 March 2025.
[39] Sarah Krieg, ‘Invention Made in Army Makerspace Could Help Solve IV Fluids Crisis’, ABC News, 12 January 2025, at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-12/army-makerspace-solving-problems-latchford-barracks/104707680 (accessed 11 March 2025).
[40] ‘Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation & Coordination Office (RICO)’, Australian Army Research Centre (website), accessed 11 March 2025.
[41] ‘Innovation’, Australian Army Research Centre (website), at: https://researchcentre.army.gov.au/rico/innovation (accessed 11 March 2025).
[42] Richard Barrett, ‘The Innovation Warfighter: Improving Capability and Embracing Industry’, Australian Army Journal 15, no. 1 (2019)
[43] Nigel Pittaway, ‘1st Armoured Regiment Adopts Experimentation Role’, Australian Defence Magazine, 29 August 2024, at: https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/news/1st-armoured-regiment-adopts-experimentation-role .
[44] Murray, Military Adaptation in War, p. 317.
[45] If indeed this debate has even been resolved. John Stone, The Tank Debate (London: Routledge, 2000).
[46] Scott Holmes, ‘Military Revolution: Preparing the Australian Army for the Fourth Industrial Revolution’, thesis, UNSW Sydney, 2021, p. 235.
[47] Ibid., p. 236.
[48] Ibid., p. 236.
[49] Finkel, On Flexibility, p. 110.
[50] Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, p. 280.
[51] Luttwak and Shamir, pp. 42–55.
[52] Hunzeker, Dying to Learn, p. 40.
[53] Murray, Military Adaptation in War, p. 317.
[54] Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, p. 35.
[55] Finkel, On Flexibility, p. 61.
[56] Rosen, Winning the Next War, p. 39.
[57] Hunzeker, Dying to Learn, p. 17.
[58] Ibid., p. 64.
[59] Australian Defence Force, Command, ADF-P-0, Edition 1 (Canberra: ADF, 2024), pp. 22–39, at: https://theforge.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-01/ADF-P-0%20Command.pdf.
[60] Barno and Bensahel, Adaptation Under Fire, pp. 265–266.
[61] Department of Defence, ‘Defence Work Health and Safety Strategy’, Department of Defence Annual Report 2018–19 (Australian Government, 2019), at: https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department-of-defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2018-19/chapter-6---strategic-workforce-management/work-health-and-safety.
[62] Amy B Zegart, ‘Agency Design and Evolution’, in Robert F Durant (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
[63] Fox, p. 53.
[64] Charles Miller, ‘Explaining Command Style’, forthcoming at Security Studies.
[65] Luttwak and Shamir, pp. 62–69.
[66] Ibid., pp. 62–69.
[67] Oleksandra Molloy, Drones in Modern Warfare: Lessons Learnt from the War in Ukraine, Australian Army Occasional Paper No. 29, p. 10.
[68] Mike Kalms, ‘Cultural Reform in Middle Army—Melting Iron Colonels’, The Cove, 3 April 2020, at: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/cultural-reform-middle-army-melting-iron-colonels.
[69] Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Warfare (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 348–349.
[70] Vaclav Smil, Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2024), p. 11.
[71] Kendrick Kuo, ‘Dangerous Changes: When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness’, International Security 47, no. 2 (2022): 48–87.
[72] Kuo, ‘The Promise and Surprising Peril of Military Innovation’, p. 14.
[73] Ibid., pp. 28–31.
[74] Ibid., pp. 35–38.
[75] Ibid., pp. 20–26.
[76] Ibid., pp. 18–20.
[77] Ibid., p. 10.
[78] Philip Sabin, Simulating War: Studying Conflict through Simulation Games (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), pp. 19–31.
[79] Sebastian Mallaby, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future (London: Penguin, 2023), p. 7; David Rowan, No Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds (London: Bantam Press, 2019), p. 10.
[80] Rowan, No Bullshit Innovation, p. 10.
[81] Raj M Shah and Christopher Kirchoff, Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War (New York: Scribner, 2024).
[82] Ibid., pp. 126–127.
[83] Luttwak and Shamir, pp. 79–80.
[84] Australian Government, National Defence: Defence Strategic Review (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2023), p. 92
[85] National Defence Strategy, p. 37.
[86] Department of Defence, Integrated Investment Plan 2024 (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2024), p. 16.
[87] National Defence Strategy, p. 55.
[88] Ibid., p. 56.
[89] Jacob Joseph, ‘Turning Expectations into Reality More Quickly’, Department of Defence (website), 19 March 2024, at: https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2024-03-19/turning-expectations-reality-more-quickly# (accessed 9 May 2025).
[90] Kendrick Kuo, ‘How to Think about Risks in US Military Innovation’, Survival 66, no. 1 (2024), p. 93.
[91] Department of Finance, Commonwealth Procurement Rules (Australian Government, 2024), pp. 15–16.
[92] Jennifer Palkha and Andrew Greenway, ‘A State Capacity Agenda for 2025’, Niskanen Center (website), 20 December 2024, pp. 24–25, at: https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-how-we-need-now-a-capacity-agenda-for-2025/.
[93] National Defence Strategy, p. 11.
[94] Ibid., p. 28.
[95] John Culver, ‘China, Taiwan and the PLA’s 2027 Milestones’, The Interpreter, 12 February 2025, at: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-taiwan-pla-s-2027-milestones.
[96] Defence Strategic Review, p. 93.
[97] Michael Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 33.
[98] Ibid., pp. 70–71.
[99] Tim Zadorozhny, ‘Ukraine to Buy 4.5 Million FPV Drones in 2025’, The Kyiv Independent, 10 March 2025, at: https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-buy-4-5-million-fpv-drones-in-2025/.
[100] Malcolm Davis, ‘Next Steps for the Ghost Bat’, The Strategist, 12 February 2024, at: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/next-steps-for-the-ghost-bat/#:~:text=With%20these%20possibilities%20on%20the,combat%20mass%20for%20the%20RAAF.
[101] National Defence Strategy, p. 40.
[102] Kuo, ‘How to Think about Risks in US Military Innovation’, p. 87.
[103] National Defence Strategy, p. 64.