Acquiring a Mosaic Force

📖 The Scoop

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a vision for Mosaic Warfare, conceived as both a warfighting concept and a means to accelerate capability development and fielding. Mosaic Warfare entails a more fractionated, heterogenous force that can be dynamically composed on tactical timelines. It entails shifting away from monolithic platforms, which can be slow to develop and field, to simpler force elements that can be developed and fielded quickly and integrated at mission execution. The Mosaic Warfare vision is more challenging to transition than a single program or technology. Anticipating this, DARPA asked RAND Corporation researchers to examine the opportunities and challenges associated with developing and fielding a Mosaic force under existing or alternative governance models, as would be required for the vision to move from DARPA to widespread acceptance by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The researchers designed and executed a policy game that immersed players in acquiring a Mosaic force. During the game, players first operated within the authorities, responsibilities, and constraints of DoD's existing acquisition governance model for setting requirements, allocating resources, and overseeing acquisition. Then, they operated under an alternative governance model that centralized some of those authorities within a new office while still requiring joint service, combatant command (COCOM), and Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) approval before fielding new capabilities. In this report, the researchers present insights on the challenges and opportunities of acquiring a Mosaic force under the current and the alternative model and highlight other acquisition models worth exploring.

Genre: History / Military / General (fancy, right?)