Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation

Strategy and History

by Terry Pierce

Occasionally, during times of peace, military forces achieve major warfighting innovations. Terry Pierce terms these developments 'disruptive innovations' and shows how senior leaders have often disguised them in order to ensure their innovations survived.

Genres: Military Fiction

284 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

TERRY PIERCE is the author of over twenty-seven children's books, including Hello, Meadow!, Eat Up, Bear!, Love Can Come in Many Ways, Soccer Time!, Mother Earth's Lullaby, Mama Loves You So, My Busy Green Garden, Blackberry Banquet, and Tae Kwon Do! (Random House Step-Into-Reading, Bank Street College Best Children's Books 2007).

A former Montessori teacher, she now writes full-time and teaches online children's writing courses through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

Reviews

[Jonathan Jeckell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I disagreed with many ways the author applied the disruptive innovation model, especially his idea of the need to disguise the disruptive innovation as a sustaining one. That leads to the organization snapping back to what they know and the old way of doing it, rather than giving the new doctrine, technology, etc. an objective look. He also downplayed the role civilians play in driving military innovation...so Congress's role in funding has nothing to do with it?! "The Innovator's Dilemma" states that organizations refine their resources, processes and values to optimize against their current mission, which makes it difficult for a well run organization to divert missions, especially while the current one is valued by its stakeholders, and particularly when the new mission lacks data and metrics to validate. So perhaps he meant that both sides of the argument would have allies in Congress and moot the influence of an outside civilian champion. Either way, threats to the organization's resources and clear proof of superior performance in combat were key in every example.

Although I use the disruptive innovation model a lot myself, most of the time events are driven by the confluence of many models simultaneously, not just one. There were several cases the author claimed were disruptive, but I'm not convinced they meet all the criteria, nor do I think that disruptive innovation theory alone explains some of the events he describes.

All of my kvetching aside, this book really provoked me into thinking more clearly about how disruptive innovation theory and other innovation theories work in a military context. Agree with the author's conclusions in every case or not, it was very interesting and gave me a lot to consider. If nothing else, it covered some very important chapters in the struggles of US Navy and Marine Corps (with an example from the Imperial Japanese Navy) to adapt and prepare for the next conflict.