NSW has a truly unique culture where excellence is the expected norm and innovation is continuously pursued at all levels. Innovation is in our core values, our ethos and, quite frankly, in our DNA. As such, our highly creative force is constantly feeding the innovation of tactics, techniques, procedures, and utilization of technologies adapted to the battlefield. It is a culture that is the envy of even the most innovative corporations.

Because innovation is in our DNA, we do not only focus on incremental or sustaining innovation, we have a team and processes to focus on our pursuit of “Big I” Innovation. That is the categorization of our innovation efforts focused on NSW’s strategy to develop future capabilities to disrupt the future battlefield across the spectrum of conflict, to ensure we are not disrupted by the adversary, and to provide unique and niche solutions to our nation’s hardest security problems. Our “Big I” efforts also include in-depth pursuit of applications of accelerating technology sectors to our existing capabilities to provide immediate exponential improvements of 10 times or greater to increase our mission effectiveness, reduce operational risk, increase readiness, and increase business efficiency.

By harnessing and capitalizing on commercial investment in specific technology sectors, we are able to see those trends in development and application and then apply them to our operational imperatives and mission objectives to develop pathways for partnered development of dual-use technologies.

Our efforts in artificial intelligence/machine learning (ML) and autonomy, augmented and virtual reality, and the application of Internet of Things are focused on hyper-enabling NSW-Joint SOF operations. This comes in many applications, one of which is autonomy of robots, drones, and undersea vehicles to conduct mission critical tasks both today and in more challenging operational environments of the future. Our operational imperatives of increasing precision with certainty, reducing risk, and moving from a constrained footprint or scarcity model to an abundance model, drive some of our early investments in these sectors. In the backdrop, our SOF operator as the leader, mature decision-maker, and tactical expert requires an interface to effectively utilize the technology growing in complexity and autonomy. The hyper-enabled NSW team will be a human-machine team in many ways that we previously teamed with other capabilities such as the Combat K-9, but will be more complex. It will be saturated with data and intelligence and will require a greater understanding of how to increase the speed of decision making while decreasing the cognitive load on a leader under combat conditions.

NSW has a truly unique culture where excellence is the expected norm and innovation is continuously pursued at all levels. Innovation is in our core values, our ethos and, quite frankly, in our DNA.

We see AI/ML as a significant path to autonomy of a suite of networked systems to enable battlespace awareness, increase capacity of a small SOF team, automate traditional operator/enabler functions, enable operations at a distance, and reduce the risk to our force. Our work in AR/VR has multiple fronts. First, we are focusing on our training, mission planning, and rehearsal simulation environment. Being able to replicate a training environment as many times as desired without overtaxing our high-demand, low-density assets has a significant rate of return. This is driving our way ahead for AR/VR in training for tasks involving Joint Terminal Attack Controller, Static Line Jump Master, etc. As our operator adoption of this technology in the training environment increases, it then increases the openness to adoption in the operational environment.

We can see a future where the concept of telemedicine on the battlefield is enabled by the combat medic using augmented reality and reaching back to a combat surgeon for support and advice to conduct lifesaving actions. This future reality is also enabled through our pursuit of the NSW operator being a part of the Internet of Things with smart sensors, computing on the edge, and distributed and secure communications across the team. This future operational concept not only increases survivability of the team in extremis, but also provides a senior military leader with a more palatable risk matrix for conducting certain missions in future operating environments.

NSW – and SOF writ large – plays a critical role in countering the approach of our adversaries who are opting to maneuver in the gray zone. Our laser focus on “Big I” is instrumental in support of USSOCOM and the Navy’s efforts to effectively project the future environment and develop advantage through deep creative thought, exploration, and experimentation. I am confident that if we can continue to lead in these kinds of innovations and stay ahead of our adversaries, we can compete and win short of conflict.

Do you feel that NSW is “right-sized” to meet current operational needs? Can you talk about any potential changes you are considering to better position NSW for the third decade of this century?

In light of the recent Comprehensive Review by the Chief of Naval Operations and the Strategic Review by the Secretary of the Navy, we are examining the NSW force structure. Acknowledging that manpower requirements have outpaced authorized and actual growth, we’ve spent the last year taking a hard look at how we can best use the resources we have to optimize the impacts we’re making on the battlefield. We’ve looked at how to redirect resources and merge assets to build depth and agility, meet transregional threats, and provide increased combat lethality to the Theater Special Operation Commands. Optimizing our force, similar to the realignment we underwent in the late ’90s, is paramount to meeting current operational demands and providing greater agility to meet future requirements.