Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation

Strategy and History

by Terry C. Pierce, Pierce Terry, John Goering (Editor)

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.

He shows how more common innovations however, have been those of integrating new technologies to help perform existing missions better and not change them radically. The author calls these 'sustaining innovations'. The recent innovation history suggests two interesting questions. First, how can senior military leaders achieve a disruptive innovation when they are heavily engaged around the world and they are managing sustaining innovations? Second, what have been the external sources of disruptive (and sustaining) innovations?

This book is essential reading for professionals and students interested in national security, military history and strategic issues.

Genres: Military Fiction

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Terry C. Pierce is a Captain, USN, retired. He commanded the USS Whidbey Island LSD-41 and was Chief of Staff, Amphibious Force 7th Fleet. He was the speechwriter for Admiral Mike Boorda, Chief of Naval Operations. He retired as the Director of the Center of Innovation at the United States Air Force Academy. He holds doctorate and master's degrees from Harvard. He is the author of Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation (Frank Cass, 2004). He is the author of Without Warning: The Saga of Gettysburg, A Reluctant Union Hero, and the Men He Inspired (Heart Ally Books, June 2020).

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.