The Foundations of Innovation (Part 1 of 5) – A Model of Innovative Change
How should we scope and understand the dynamic processes behind innovation, in order to better set ourselves up for success? Stealing from John Boyd’s formulation of “people, ideas, and hardware”,...
View ArticleThe Innovation that Wasn’t: U.S. Cavalry, Their Weapons, and Their Training...
Written for Innovation Week by Major Andrew J. Forney, US ARMY During the winter of 1879, Army officers reported to Chicago to decide whom to blame for the disaster at the Little Bighorn. Ostensibly...
View ArticleThe Foundations of Innovation (Part 2 of 5): Ideas
Written by Dave Lyle for our Innovation Week. Innovation starts with ideas – the realization that something new is possible once old things are seen in new ways. Thus, it’s very important to understand...
View ArticleDEF 2014 and the Guardians of the Machine
This piece by Mikhail Grinberg is featured as part of our Innovation week in honor of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. It is also featured at The Bridge. In December 1918, a few weeks after The Great...
View ArticleBuilding a DoD Outpost in Silicon Valley: DEF Innovation Competition
As part of our continuing Innovation Week (or two weeks – call it innovation), we will be posting the contestant pieces from the DEF Innovation Contest. Originally posted at the DEF Website. On Sunday,...
View ArticleSea Control 59 – Innovation from Kosovo to Baghdad
Maj. Gen. David M. Edgington (USAF, Ret) joins us to discuss leadership and innovation through his work during Kosovo, the Surge in Iraq, and Air Force acquisitions. DOWNLOAD: Sea Control 59 –...
View ArticleMembers’ Roundup Part 8
Welcome back to another edition of the Member Round-Up and the first for 2015. It has been two weeks since I last posted and CIMSECians have been busy across various blogs, journals and websites...
View ArticleInnovation at the Naval Postgraduate School: JIFX 15-2
The U.S. Navy looks set to lead a bit of joint maritime innovation experimentation in February. According to the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)’s Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX)...
View ArticleTo Safeguard the Seas
The United States Navy is the most preeminent naval force in the world. Following Alfred Mahan dictum that “a truly powerful nation must have thriving international trade, a merchant fleet to carry...
View ArticleThe Importance of Space in Maritime Security
Honorable Mention – CIMSEC High School Essay Contest As long as man has walked the Earth and gazed into the stars, he’s asked “what’s out there what’s waiting for me?” Today, our country asks that very...
View ArticlePeeling Back the Layers: A New Concept for Air Defense
By Bryan Clark The newest concept being forwarded by U.S. Navy surface fleet leaders is “distributed lethality”, in which almost every combatant and noncombatant surface ship would wield offensive...
View ArticleThe Thinking Professional v. The Practical Officer
On Thursday evening CIMSEC held the first annual Forum for Authors and Readers (#CFAR15). The opening keynote talk was delivered by BJ Armstrong, a member of the Center as well as a PhD Candidate in...
View ArticleThe Coast Guard’s Role in 21st Century Seapower
By David Van Dyk With standing room only and camera crews capturing their footage, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford and...
View ArticleCan Small AUVs Work at Sea?
This post published on NavalDrones.com and was republished with permission. It may read in its original form here. The researchers at CoCoRo continue to push the limits of autonomy and swarming...
View ArticleNavy Introduces Innovation Qualification Pin
[Editor’s Note: This is satire.] (AP Wire) At an InVenture Place event in Akron, Ohio – Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has announced the upcoming development of a Navy Innovation Qualification (IQ)...
View ArticleMissing an Opportunity for Innovation: A Conceptual Critique of Distributed...
100 years ago today, in bunkers and boardrooms across Europe, the military and political leaders of a Europe that was being drowned in its own blood were attempting to solve the stagnant enigma of the...
View ArticleThe Future of China’s Military Innovation
Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation, edited by Tai Ming Cheung. Johns Hopkins Press, 2014. 304pp. $24.95 Review by Dr. Jeffrey Becker Can China’s defense industry...
View ArticleOperating in an Era of Persistent Unmanned Aerial Surveillance
By William Selby In the year 2000, the United States military used Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) strictly for surveillance purposes and the global commercial UAS market was nascent. Today, the...
View ArticleReturn of the Clandestine Merchant Raider?
By Chuck Hill Since before recorded history, merchant vessels have been adapted for offensive purposes by navies, pirates, and privateers to destroy enemy commerce or to launch attacks ashore....
View ArticleEnter the SCAGTF: Combined Distributed Maritime Ops
By Nicolas di Leonardo SURFACE * CYBER * AIR * GROUND * TASK FORCE “…The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” –Sun Tzu, The Art of War In modern parlance, winning without...
View ArticleChina’s Military Modernization: The Legacy of Admiral Wu Shengli
CIMSEC content is and always will be free; consider a voluntary monthly donation to offset our operational costs. As always, it is your support and patronage that have allowed us to build this...
View Article10 Things You May Have Missed in DoD’s Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy
CIMSEC content is and always will be free; consider a voluntary monthly donation to offset our operational costs. As always, it is your support and patronage that have allowed us to build this...
View ArticleOCT 2: Athena East Innovation Competition
CIMSEC content is and always will be free; consider a voluntary monthly donation to offset our operational costs. As always, it is your support and patronage that have allowed us to build this...
View ArticleSea Control 94 – The Athena Project
We discuss the Athena Project, a naval innovation competition started on the USS BENFOLD in 2013 by Dave Nobles – our guest today. This podcast is meant to help set the stage for our Athena East Oct...
View ArticleA Post-It Rebel Goes to Sea
This article originally appeared on Medium and was republished with the author’s permission. You can read it in its original form here. By Anne Gibbon Design thinking is beloved by many, and is more...
View ArticlePeople Not Parts: Returning Ingenuity and Tenacity to our Officer Corps
By Ian Akisoglu Since the end of the Second World War, the military dominance of the United States has rested on its relative technological superiority over its adversaries, what has been underwritten...
View ArticleUnleashing Unit Lethality: Revising Operational & Promotion Paradigms
Distributed Lethality Topic Week By ENS Daniel Stefanus As the US Navy begins to pivot away from dependent tactical group paradigms and towards more independent striking units under distributed...
View ArticleTom Ricks on Writing, Reading, and Military Innovation
By Christopher Nelson Tom Ricks is no stranger. If you follow the US military, then you’ve probably stopped by his blog “The Best Defense” over at Foreign Policy magazine on more than one occasion....
View ArticleSea Control 111 – Vietnam-Era Drones (QH-50)
We discuss the Vietnam-era drone, the QH-50 DASH, with Peter Papadakos – engineer, historian, and son of the DASH’s inventor. We go through the program’s origins, its original purpose, the field...
View ArticleAthena Project San Diego Innovation Jam Roundup
This piece was originally published by the Athena Project. It is republished here with permission. Read it in its original form here. By Dave Nobles Wednesday’s Innovation Jam onboard USS ESSEX (LHD 2)...
View ArticleCircles in Surface Warfare Training
By Steve Wills Surface fleet leadership engaged in a number of innovation attempts beginning in the 1970s and culminating with the commissioning of the Basic and Advanced Division Officer Courses...
View ArticleSea Control 115 – Blue Water Metrics and Monitoring Oceans
Blue Water Metrics, 2nd Place Winner of Tuft’s 100K New Ventures contest, is on a quest to crowdsource data collection on the health of our seas; in short, the use of pre-existing maritime platforms,...
View ArticleWhat Happens to Naval Innovation Deferred?
By Roger Misso So far this year, we have seen the effective termination of the CNO’s Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC) and the announced ending of the Strategic Studies Group (SSG). Recently, we have also...
View ArticleLearning to Innovate
By Philip Cullom Last month, Roger Misso published an article on this site entitled “What Happens to Naval Innovation Deferred?” and this post addresses a number of the points raised in that...
View ArticleThe Baltic Sea and Current German Naval Strategy
The following article is adapted from part of the 2015 Kiel Conference proceedings. By Dr. Sebastian Bruns With the deteriorating relations between the West and Russia in the wake of Crimea’s...
View ArticleThe Military Mind in the Age of Innovation
This article originally featured at The Strategy Bridge and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here. By Brad DeWees Is the “military mind” compatible with the values that...
View ArticleI Held an Amazon “Flipped” Meeting At My Squadron and Here’s What Happened
By Jared Wilhelm The Innovation Imperative Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson frequently talks about High Velocity Learning (HVL) and Innovation. You can tell his focus on this topic is...
View ArticleA Cyber Vulnerability Assessment of the U.S. Navy in the 21st Century
By Travis Howard and José de Arimatéia da Cruz Introduction The United States Navy is a vast, worldwide organization with unique missions and challenges, with information security (and information...
View ArticleEmbracing Creativity: A Leadership Challenge
Leadership Development Topic Week By David Andre “It’s not uncommon for discussions of competence and character to put the matters of creativity and compliance in tension…” — Admiral John Richardson,...
View ArticleInnovative Leadership Development: Why and How
Leadership Development Topic Week By Joe Schuman Introduction What makes a leader? According to the Navy Leadership Development Framework (NLDF), effective leaders demonstrate qualities such as...
View ArticleDesign Thinking for Military Advantage
In collaboration with U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFFC) and Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command (NCDOC) Introduction The United States Navy has a proud tradition of mission accomplishment, regardless...
View ArticleFinding New Ways to Fight, Pt. 1
How the Mad Foxes of Patrol Squadron FIVE are harnessing their most powerful resource – their people – in an effort to cut inefficiencies and improve productivity. By Kenneth Flannery with Jared...
View ArticleThe Battle of Locust Point: An Oral History of the First Autonomous Combat...
Fiction Topic Week By David R. Strachan TOP SECRET/NOFORN The following classified interview is being conducted per the joint NHHC/USNI Oral History Project on Autonomous Warfare. This is the first of...
View ArticleGame-Changing Unmanned Systems for Naval Expeditionary Forces
By George Galdorisi Perspective In 2018 the United States remains engaged worldwide. The 2017 National Security Strategy addresses the wide-range of threats to the security and prosperity of United...
View ArticleFinding New Ways to Fight, Pt. 2
How the Mad Foxes of Patrol Squadron FIVE are harnessing their most powerful resource – their people – in an effort to cut inefficiencies and improve productivity. By Kenneth Flannery and Jared Wilhelm...
View ArticleNarcosubs: Technological Innovation in the War on Drugs
By Javier Guerrero C. Last year, the Colombian Navy detected and captured the first electric narco-submarine.1 Demonstrating the innovative capacities of Colombian drug traffickers, narco-submarines,...
View ArticleLearning War and The Evolution of U.S. Navy Fighting Doctrine with Author...
By Christopher Nelson Author Trent Hone joins us today to talk about his new book Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945. This is a great book. And as others have...
View ArticleLeading Military Innovation, Past and Present
By Mie Augier and Wayne Hughes Introduction Recently, senior decision makers and leaders, including the CNO, CMC, and SecNav, have expressed a belief in the centrality of military innovation and...
View ArticleInnovative Thinking: The Role of Professional Military Education
By Mie Augier and Wayne Hughes “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”1 – Variously attributed to Thucydides...
View ArticleUncle Sam’s Canoe Club: Developing A Maritime Militia for the United States
By Jasper Campbell Introduction Much has been made about the threat of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) and its contributions to the burgeoning People’s Republic of China (PRC)...
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