Defense Science and Technology Strategy
May 1996

The five guiding management principles cited in the Defense S&T Strategy have been adopted by the military departments and defense agencies as the centerpiece of the S&T management strategy. They are designed to place in the hands of U.S. operational forces the best mixture of capabilities possible, in the short and long term, by leveraging the best resources in DoD and the Nation:

The S&T program is planned, programmed, and conducted by the military departments and the defense agencies. The departments are responsible for training and equipping the military forces, and they use the S&T program to provide warfighting and system options for their components. The defense agencies are responsible for specified generic and cross–service aspects of S&T. They also execute designated programs in support of national security objectives. DARPA is charged with seeking breakthrough technology and with investing in technologies that are dual use, serving as bases for both defense and commercial applications.

The Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) is responsible for the overall quality and content of the DoD S&T program. DDR&E, aided by the Defense Science and Technology Advisory Group (DSTAG) and the Reliance Executive Committee, ensures that the program responds to the needs of the U.S. military and to the national goals embraced in the program’s vision. DDR&E assesses service/agency compliance with program guidance by means of Technology Area Review and Assessment (TARA) panels. Each TARA panel, composed primarily of outside technology experts and chaired by DDR&E technical staff, reviews the Defense Technology Area Plan (DTAP) prepared by joint expert teams of senior service and agency technologists. The process to update the DTAP, Joint Warfighting Science and Technology Plan (JWSTP), Defense Technology Objectives for the JWSTP and DTAP, and Basic Research Plan (BRP) is managed by the Reliance Executive Staff; the TARA process is managed by DDR&E. The relationship between the 10 defense technology areas and the 19 technology areas that are the basis for the taxonomy of Chapter IV of ASTMP is shown in Table I–3. The DTAP–JWSTP–DTO–TARA relationship and process instituted by the DDR&E with the DSTAG (Figures I–30 and I–31) are intended to make Defense S&T even more responsive to the warfighter and acquisition customers, increase the relevance and efficiency of the Defense S&T Reliance organization and process, and improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of S&T strategic planning, programming, and assessment. The Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Advanced Technology) is responsible for creation and oversight of ACTDs. Figure I–32 shows how Army and defense strategies relate to national plans and strategies.

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Figure I-32. Army S&T Vision Strategy

Military needs must determine what aspects of S&T the DoD pursues, and with what priority. It is the warfighter who enunciates those needs in this post–cold–war environment of widespread local warfare, potential for major regional conflicts, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and peacemaking operations. The JCS have identified 10 future joint warfighting capabilities (JWCs) most needed by the U.S. combatant commands. These needs, coupled with technological opportunity, guide S&T:

Information Superiority combines the capabilities of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C⁴I) to acquire and assimilate information needed to dominate and neutralize adversary forces and effectively employ friendly forces. It includes the capability for near–real–time awareness of the location and activity of friendly, adversary, and neutral forces throughout the battlefield area. It also includes a seamless, robust C⁴ network linking all friendly forces to provide common awareness of the current situation throughout the battlefield area. Information superiority encompasses information warfare—that is, the capability to affect an adversary’s information, information–based processes, information systems, and computer–based networks while defending one’s own information, information–based processes, information systems, and computer–based networks.

Precision Force is the capability to destroy selected targets with precision while limiting collateral damage. It includes precision guided munitions, surveillance, targeting capabilities, and the "sensor–to–shooter" C⁴I capabilities necessary for responsive, timely force application.

Combat Identification is the capability to differentiate potential targets as friend, foe, or neutral in sufficient time, with high confidence, and at the requisite range to support weapon release and engagement decisions.

Joint Theater Missile Defense is the capability to use the assets of multiple services and agencies to detect, track, acquire, and destroy enemy theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. It includes the seamless flow of information on missile launches and cruise missiles (before and after launch) within the framework of joint counterair operations by specialized surveillance capabilities, through tracking by sensors from multiple services and agencies, to missile negation or destruction.

Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) is the capability to operate and conduct military operations in built–up areas and to achieve military objectives with minimal casualties and collateral damage. It includes precise weapons, surveillance, navigation, and communications effective in urban areas.

Joint Readiness and Logistics, and Sustainment of Strategic Systems is the capability to enhance readiness and logistics for joint and combined operations. It includes capabilities for enhanced simulation for training; improved and affordable operations and maintenance (O&M) and life–cycle costs; mobility and sustainability (e.g., transportation support technologies, such as airlift, sealift and ground transportation); and near–term visibility of people, units, equipment, and supplies that are in storage, in process, in transit, or in theater, linked with the ability to act on this information. It also includes sustainment of strategic systems, which is the capability to sustain and upgrade existing strategic systems and to engineer, design, and develop strategic systems, including maintaining system safety; reducing system O&M cost; reducing reliance on existing strategic systems with advanced computing, simulation technologies, and advanced diagnostics; and retaining the engineering core competency for retrofit and replacement of materials unique to strategic systems.

Force Projection/Dominant Maneuver is the capability for fast deployment and timely employment and maneuver of joint forces to rapidly dominate across the full range of military operations with minimal casualties. This capability supports requirements to rapidly deploy and employ a decisive force with minimal use of lift resources and forward–based requirements. It includes enhanced capabilities in operational and tactical maneuver, joint countermine, individual and platform mobility, situation awareness, sustained logistics support, reconnaissance and intelligence, and integration of air–, land–, and sea–based maneuver and weapon systems. Joint countermine is the capability for assured, rapid surveillance, reconnaissance, detection, and neutralization of mines to enable forced entry by expeditionary forces. It also includes the capability to control the sea and to conduct amphibious and ground force operational maneuvers against hostile defensive forces employing sea, littoral, and land mines. For land forces, dominance means the ability to conduct in–stride tempo operations in the face of severe land mine threats.

Electronic Combat is the capability to disrupt or degrade an enemy’s defenses throughout the area and time required to permit the deployment and employment of U.S. and allied combat systems. It includes the capabilities for deceiving, disrupting, and destroying the surveillance and command and control systems as well as the weapons of an enemy’s integrated air defense network; and the capabilities for recognizing attempts by hostile systems to track or engage.

Chemical/Biological Warfare Defense and Protection and Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is the capability to detect and evaluate the existence of a manufacturing capability for WMD, and to identify and assess the weapon capability of alert and launched WMDs on the battlefield to permit the appropriate level of counterforce and force protection to be executed promptly. It includes counterforce against hardened WMD storage and production facilities and the capability for standoff detection of biological agents—our single most pressing need. Capabilities in both point and standoff detection of chemical and biological agents, combined with the ability to assess and disseminate threat information in a timely manner, are critical to protecting fielded forces.

Combating Terrorism is the capability to oppose terrorism throughout the threat spectrum, including antiterrorism (i.e., defensive measures to reduce vulnerability) and counterterrorism (i.e., offensive measures to prevent, deter, and respond). This capability includes personnel protection, assault, explosive detection and disposal, investigative science and forensics, physical security and infrastructure protection, surveillance, and collection, and enhanced support to allied land, sea, air, and riverine forces in the form of improved detection, monitoring and tracking, intelligence and logistics communications, training, and planning.