Innovation: The War Fighter’s Edge

Editor’s Note: 2nd Lt. Savanah Sellars is a Public Affairs Officer at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. She was one of four 633d Air Base Wing Airmen selected by Col. Sean Tyler and Chief Master Sgt. Kennon Arnold to attend the 2018 AFA Air Warfare Symposium. This article is a commentary of what she learned at the symposium.

There have been less than 60 days in 2018. In those 60 days, at Joint Base Langley-Eustis alone, we’ve flown more than 1,500 sorties, had nearly 250,000 people come through the gates, and seen approximately 35,000 patients at the hospital.

Those accomplishments are commendable. But it is this fact, the fact that we quantify our success simply by a number of completed repetitions that leads us to prioritizing short-term achievements, which detract from long-term victories. This concept of revolutionary, long-term change and many others were discussed at the 2018 Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium titled, “Innovation: The War Fighter’s Edge.”

The two-day conference featured notable military and civilian speakers and panelists, including the Secretary of the Air Force, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force and directors of universities and companies such as Alphabet, Inc. and Lockheed Martin. While these speakers introduced complex ideas that are piercing the fields of artificial intelligence and other cyber technologies, the bottom line of many of their presentations was this: it is time to start looking toward long-term change, using innovation, to produce military excellence.

The Honorable Heather Wilson, Secretary of the Air Force, shared this idea in her presentation, “State of the Force.” By drawing comparisons to Hap Arnold and his vision in 1945 of a war that “may be fought by airplanes with no men in them at all,” Secretary Wilson calls the members of the Air Force toward an innovation culture, in which ideas are pursued relentlessly and applied quickly, changing the way we do business.

“It’s time to take risks. It’s time to productively fail,” said Wilson.

But as with any change, there are always tribulations before triumphs. This sentiment was shared repetitively during the symposium, from the Young Innovators Panel, in which Airmen, who are now CEOs, presidents, and founders of companies, discussed their sometimes complicated paths to success, to the keynote speaker, Dr. Jeff DeGraff, a professor at the University of Michigan, who presented the idea of happy persistence. Happy persistence is necessary, not only because change breeds adversity, but because true innovation causes disruption among organizations.

While innovation is making new things better, disruption is making old things obsolete, said Mr. Peter Wicher, director of strategic relations, Singularity University. We need to stop thinking about becoming 10 percent better, but rather 10 times better. Growth is exponential, not linear.

Nearly all the presentations and panels during the AFA Symposium, whether pertaining to intellectual growth, innovation, long-term change, disruption, rapid capability, or transformation, led to one conclusion – we, as an Air Force, are preparing for a future in which we may face a near peer adversary.

“While we’re not up against any Goliath’s today,” said Gen. David Goldfein, Chief of Staff of the Air Force. “We need to start thinking and acting more like David. Like a competitor in the ring who doesn’t assume overmatch. It’s time to get edgier and hungry. It’s time to think big, start small, and scale fast.”

As stated in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, “America has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield.”

The 2018 AFA Air Warfare Symposium made it clear that the time is now – the time to not only to complete the task at hand, but to look to the future, to think big, exponential, disruptive thoughts, rapidly integrate those ideas at all levels, and support the development of a culture in which your subordinates feel empowered to do the same.