America has some bad enemies right now.
Authoritarian regimes’ military and economic challenges to Western principles and democratic institutions make this a moment of great upheaval and uncertainty.
In particular, China’s emergence as a global powerhouse portends unseen threats to the United States and the West’s status quo.
President Biden highlighted the importance of China’s rise to the United States economy in his newly unveiled National Security Strategy.
2020/21 China has built almost as much renewables as the rest of us combined. pic.twitter.com/T7B2YQtocx
— Lion Hirth (@LionHirth) November 25, 2022
Why is China Our Enemy?
The strategic conflict with China now includes all aspects of daily life. However, the United States’ approach to global security and the political economy has not changed.
The United States and its allies need to employ a cutting-edge armory of democratic tools, or “arsenal of innovation,” to preserve our economic and security footing and the status quo in international affairs.
After WWII, the United States took the initiative to establish a global economic system based on free markets and open trade.
Over the past seventy years, revisionist players like the Chinese Communist Party, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, the Islamic dictatorship in Iran, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia have posed threats to the United States and Western-led institutions.
To influence the global system in the short term and take control of it in the long run, these players are currently striving to redefine international laws and norms, both de facto and de jure. They are gaining the economic and military might to do so.
Why does China keep aggressively surrounding itself with US military bases? https://t.co/LntfZXg8Vv
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) November 25, 2022
As a result of increased strategic rivalry in the modern era, the United States must revalorize its whole foreign policy. What if we could create a new way of working together and thinking for the Department of Defense (DOD) or any other organization that is stuck in a rut?
It’s Time To Get Serious…
To stay ahead of the strategic rivalry, we need to innovate our methods of defense constantly, and a philosophy of innovation would specify these methods.
In this context, “doctrine” refers to a set of theoretical or belief-based rules intended to direct how people think about and behave in certain situations.
To quickly surface novel methods with little resources, an innovation ideology would adopt a systematic approach to problem-solving that prioritizes ideation and testing.
Innovation may be structured, disciplined, and sped up with the help of sound doctrine. Because of this, we are better equipped to adapt to the transient nature of today’s political and strategic climate.
Regardless of your profession, becoming complacent can have adverse psychological effects. This is bad enough elsewhere; when it resides in what is supposed to be the bedrock of our country’s security, it becomes just diabolical.
With the aid of doctrine, we are able to speed up the completion of our missions since the procedure it establishes frees up our innovators to concentrate on their creative and imaginative endeavors rather than the friction that unavoidably arises in the absence of a framework or method.
In fact, innovation is more of a discovery-based learning activity than a purposefully planned one. With a discovery-based strategy, you may get the little bits of knowledge that add up to enormous breakthroughs for your company. For instance, Amazon’s Web Services cloud platform was born from the company’s retailing strategy centered on the principle of “discovery.”
The military has found success with this strategy. For instance, the U.S. Navy’s carriers were refined through iterative learning to improve the feedback from battleship military conflicts with enemy navies and the resulting battle damage.
These breakthroughs resulted from massive iteration and the recruitment of problem-solvers with an experimental mindset. Such a massive operation might be organized by an ideology of invention.
For the sake of Western security and values, we believe it is essential to create and implement an innovation philosophy. The creation of an innovation doctrine should be a key priority if innovation is to become an integral part of military operations.
The next conflict will be won by the nation that can innovate fastest and on the largest scale.
