Warfare is ever changing, and today we see the most technologically dynamic battlefield in history. Our rigid acquisition system and our legacy technical architectures, unfortunately, put us at a disadvantage to meet this threat. One action that would have an outsized impact on bringing this divergence into alignment is for the Department of Defense to further embrace Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA) as a warfighting capability that is essential for 21st century warfare.
MOSA is a mission system architecture that uses widely practiced, consensus-based standards like the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE). By implementing and promulgating MOSA to our combat systems portfolios, we will be able to rapidly transition critical battlefield capability as well as expand the industrial production potential of the Defense Industrial Base.
The conflicts in the Middle East as well as Eastern Europe have shown us how much more of a technologically dynamic battlefield we may face. Many of our weapon systems deployed by our allies have seen incredible success, yet some have rapidly became mitigated or neutralized by adversaries swiftly introducing new technology, especially in counter navigation and electronic warfare. This is the environment we can expect if we enter conflict and we will need to have flexible warfighting platforms and mission systems that can adopt advanced capability promptly to remain effective.
A solution to this, which is also a best practice the DoD, is embracing MOSA. To keep pace on the battlefield, we will need to be able to field architectures that can adopt new functions and capabilities developed.
Utilizing open standards and sharing capabilities is nothing new in our warfighting systems, however with far more advanced and complicated platforms, the architectures have lost this flexibility. In World War II we were able to rapidly adapt and introduce new capabilities such as radar, sonar, chaff and flares, all introduced during the conflict with little or no development prior.
We are starting to combine cross-service architectures to adopt in our weapon systems to enable this sharing of advanced capability and the ability to save schedule and costs with joint development. The Navy’s Hypersonic Weapons program has aligned to Weapon Open System Architecture (WOSA) along with the Army and Air Force enabling the adoption of joint communication systems and other functions. The Navy has also partnered with the Air Force on next generation air dominance capabilities, by aligning joint architectures to share mission system capabilities. This will reduce redundant development efforts, but more importantly, will allow services to transition countermeasure and next-generation offensive functions on multiple platforms at the speed of relevance. This is the type of rapid innovation across services and platforms we need to address critical vulnerabilities that are most likely to appear on the 21st century battlefield.
Another challenge we face is our industrial base’s production capacity, especially with munitions. Our economy has shifted dramatically from the World War II manufacturing powerhouse to a service-based economy. To help expand the industrial base capacity, we can start distributing the production utilizing MOSA. Even the most complex weapon systems have numerous components that do not necessarily require the large prime contractor to solely develop. Utilizing small business and non-tradition defense contractors, many modules of weapon systems could be produced by multiple providers if the architectures enables it. This distribution would allow there to be multiple and distributed production capacity more suited for scaling of munition production if needed.
We are at a point in time where we can bear witness to the 21st-century battlefield and learn the lessons that will hopefully allow us to be prepared for 21st-century combat and able to avoid it. These lessons are showing us continually that the high technological battlefield will need to be able to rapidly adopt new capability and scale munitions production.
MOSA is an answer to these critical elements of warfare, enabling a rapid sharing of capability, reduction of redundant development, and the distribution of our industrial base. We must further the alignment and standardization of architectures like we have in hypersonics and next-generation aircraft. We must deploy these architectures to our R&D programs and test platforms to enable rapid transition of advanced capability from early development to a Program of Record (PoR) without major redesign and reconfiguration.
We have done this before when duty called and we are well on our way. We need to take the lessons we see in the conflicts around the world to see MOSA as the critical combat capability of the 21st century.
Guertin is the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition; Glassman is a senior adviser for the office.
