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[00:07]
A
Welcome to books, to battles, where we explore academic insights for real world air and space strategy. I'm Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, professor of Strategy and Security Studies and Deputy Commandant at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.
[00:19]
B
And I'm Colonel Corey Holland, professor of Strategy and Security Studies, also at sas. Before we get any further, we do want to note that all opinions expressed here are ours or our guests and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or war, or the United States government. And today we are joined by Most of the 660 Technology and Innovation team. Drs. Wes Hutto and Rich Muller, thank you for being here.
[00:46]
C
Glad to be here.
[00:47]
D
Thanks for having us.
[00:48]
B
And Lieutenant Colonel Ben Hojo Heidenreich.
[00:50]
E
I'm happy to be here.
[00:51]
B
I think we've had all of you on the podcast at some point, and that makes sense because we are talking about the last class that the students are going to go through.
[01:01]
A
Yeah. And so we've made it to the end, gentlemen. We've made it to the end of the year. Wes, you are course directing this year's iteration of the course. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach to the class this year?
[01:14]
D
Yeah, sure. I mean, the course is on technology and military innovation. And so we ask several questions about how does technology develop? What does military innovation look like? Can you do such a thing as military innovation? How does it happen, whether naturally or forced by bureaucratic, political, organizational actors? What are all of the challenges that go into innovating within the US Armed services? And how does it shift? Or how has it shifted the character of war or not?
[01:48]
B
Yeah. So the Chinese challenges to innovation, that's something that I wanted to ask you guys about. Where do you see the biggest challenge to innovation coming from? Or what are the students sort of finding out in their discussions?
[02:06]
C
Well, I think many of them have worked in military organizations all their careers, and they have noted that bureaucracies are not designed to innovate. They're not designed to change. They're designed to stabilize and to preserve operating routines. In most cases, or in many cases, that's a good thing. It's sort of like ballast in a ship. It keeps it straight up and heading in the right direction. But that makes it very difficult to implement needed change. When the character of war has changed, when the international environment has shifted, when the political landscape has changed, you need to acquire those flexible skills to recognize a new idea, implement it, and then, you know, the idea of innovating, of getting it institutionalized as opposed to simply having a bright idea that goes nowhere.
[02:53]
E
Yes. And I think, you know, most people with change, like, really go back to what feels good. And it doesn't feel good to continually change or identify ways that you can do things differently than you currently do today because you're good at the things you do today. And I just want to keep doing the same things that I do today.
[03:10]
D
The other two questions, I think that's so good. The other point is that I would make and that I enjoy making to students is that when we say military innovation today or when people talk about being innovative, it rings the same way that people speak about being strategists. Right. Like, everybody is an innovator. And I think it's a very, in our contemporary lexicon, a very sexy term.
[03:39]
A
Buzzword.
[03:40]
D
Exactly. But when you get down to what innovation looks like on the ground in a military service and how that innovation is, as Dr. Mohler said, can be institutionalized, what it looks more like is a lot of grunt work. And my favorite thing about one of the books that we read, Steven Rosen's Winning the Next War, is Rosen demonstrates essentially how boring innovation really can be. You know, to institutionalize naval aviation before World War II. Right. Which was an innovative practice. Admiral William Moffett basically changed the promotion schedule. Right. And created a career field and pulled people that had similar ideas to him into that career field and helped promote those people to higher ranks so that they could continue to institutionalize this idea about naval aviation or naval carrier aviation. And so, like, when you really get into the nuts and bolts of military innovation, I think a lot of the airport books will describe a very buzzwordy enterprise that's very hot and Silicon Valley esque. And I think that when we talk about military innovation, what you get in terms of longevity from innovative practices or what you have to put into those types of things is actually very rudimentary and tedious and bureaucratic grunt work.
[05:13]
A
Yeah. I think you actually answered the question I was going to ask, which is, how do you in this course get past that sort of buzzword? Bingo. Innovation. How do you get past the bumper sticker that is innovation and actually get students to consider the topic from a more in depth perspective?
[05:33]
C
Well, I think we start by recognizing that that is a problem. Previous course director would talk about innovation theater. We're going to have Innovation Friday, and we're all going to innovate, and everyone needs to show up with an innovation. And that's all well and good to kind of raise people's consciousness about It But a lot of our books are process focused and they talk about the, the actual day to day struggles that innovators have, that organizations have trying to reinvent themselves in the wake of defeat, in the wake of budget cuts, in the wake of changing leadership. All of those things are important. I would have to disagree with our current course director just slightly. I thought the development of naval aviation was an exciting story and it wasn't boring at all. But it's all a matter of opinion.
[06:26]
E
And I think there's this idea that the technology is going to happen or the innovations just kind of happen and then people kind of grab onto them and, and use them when in fact it takes a lot to, to make those changes. And as we were in pursuit of power, like we read about a lot of technologies that come in and states either accept those technologies or innovations or they don't. And in, and in a lot of those cases, if they don't, then they end up kind of falling to the wayside to, to the, to the states that do. And a lot of those decisions though are made on political decisions or economic decisions. And really it comes down to like what, what problem are you trying to solve? What is the strategy? Where is this fitting into what we're trying to do then the reason that we're trying to innovate because a lot of those people that come up with these great ideas to do something have to gain, buy in and they have to do that by saying, well here's, here's the end state that we're trying to get to. Here are the things that we need to do and you either believe it or you don't.
[07:21]
A
Drones sound great, but unless you like, what problem are you actually looking to solve with a drone?
[07:27]
D
And I just to sort of piggyback on to some of this discussion. Wendy, you mentioned that this is the last course, right? And so as being the last SAS course, we as the teaching team are sort of hyper aware that this is a SAS course. And so there is some intellectual rigor, right? We, we talk about economic structures the first couple of days of the course and how, how those drive technological development. And then we talk about the various, I would say variables because I'm a political scientist, the variables that sort of get in the way of successful innovative practices like organizational cultures or standards of procedures or bureaucratic processes. And so there's a SAS element to this about how do we take a step back and analyze from sort of an as objective as we can possibly be the process of innovation and how this has happened historically. And then there is the, the point that we are the last course before our students go back into their operational life. And so there is a pull from the course to try and contribute to how they think about their own practices in their operational world. And so to all of these texts there is a follow on question which is, okay, what are the practical lessons from these things that you can take with you as you go out and you're in future a futures command or you're in a strategist position and you're trying to take an idea or a new technology or a new technological system and advocate on behalf of that system to solve some problem that you're defining in the field and out in the operational world. And I think that these books in this course can, can provide some, some lessons for, for that type of practice to the student.
[09:25]
C
And we're also keenly aware that as this is the last course of the year, the students are very busy. They're, they're wrapping up their thesis projects, comprehensive exams are looming. So while we want to offer them a thought provoking and rigorous course, we also have an eye towards getting them ready to academically wrap up the year through. In the syllabus there are call outs to prior courses as they review their whole academic journey. This year they're supposed to reflect and we will try to tease it out in class to reflect on earlier courses they've had. Which books presented ideas early in the year that connect to the, in many cases cutting edge books they're reading in this course. Parenthetically, as we talk about books and how this course has evolved, this was one of the very first courses I taught at SAS during my first year here. This was back in 2006 and of the 12 books that are offered up to the students this year, only two of them were in the course back then. William McNeil's pursuit of power and Steven Rosen's Winning the Next War. All the other books are new, many of them new this year. So this course doesn't only talk about emerging and cutting edge technology and innovative ideas, but it, the readings reflect that and model that.
[10:42]
B
Well to me it's interesting that you get has that we have paired technology and innovation almost saying that in order for something to be innovative, it has to incorporate some kind of a technology. Do you explore innovative concepts, innovative organizations, innovative structures or things like that? And what kind of questions are the students asking from that position?
[11:07]
D
Yeah, so when we talk about military innovation in the course, we're very careful not to tie technology directly to Military innovation. We talk about ideas, technologies and technological systems. So whether it's new platforms or new technologies, or whether it's new ways to put old technologies together, or whether it's ideas about organization or force structure, some of the books deal with those things. Now often those things are happening simultaneously or parallel to one another in a lot of our stories. The book that we're reading for this Friday actually Military Transformation from the Cold War or in the Post Cold War Era by Theo Farrell and Sten Renning and Terry Tariff. This book traces the essentially the discovery of the military technological revolution or the RMA by the army, by the US army, the, the British army and the French army in the post Cold War period. And how they took some of those precision guided munitions or GPS technologies and tried to integrate them into smaller or medium sized forces that can be expedition, expeditionary and nature. Right. As sort of military operations other than war sort of crept up in the 1990s as a NATO sort of mission set. These armies tried to adapt in that way and that blended these new ideas about force structure, these new technologies, and these technological systems of involving old technologies altogether. And so when we talk about military innovation in the course, not innovation broadly, but military innovation specifically, um, we try and separate those, those things from one another and then and, and sort of take a step back and see how they, they, they talk to one another and integrate.
[13:08]
A
You know, I'm kind of reminded, I forget which pro project I was doing not too long ago. I had to look up the definition of technology. And of course there's a whole academic. Like any concept, there is an academic debate over it. And ultimately though, what I took from it was that technology is just something that helps you do something. And I think ideas, concept, if you think about technology in that sense, ideas and concepts are readily amenable to what the things you're talking about in terms of innovation.
[13:38]
B
The worst one that I, not worst, but the one that took the most sort of mental stretch for me was bookkeeping as a technology, specifically in the antebellum South.
[13:50]
C
Yeah, I was there.
[13:52]
E
Wouldn't it be.
[13:52]
C
I was a beneficiary back at the Ohio State University. I had a number of courses with Alan Bierschend, who's a distinguished German historian, but also a historian of technology. And his working definition of technology was nothing more than the application of human ingenuity to real world problems, which encompasses much more than the hardware.
[14:12]
B
So it's just, it's problem solving.
[14:14]
C
Yeah. And the bookkeeping example would fit in perfectly that it was A technique that developed to solve a problem that was plaguing businessmen in a certain era. And you know, I've carried that forward. And we do try to disabuse the students that this is a course about hardware. Although there's plenty of hardware in it, it's much more than that.
[14:34]
E
And I think that's one of the things that the students really pick up on is that, hey, I thought we were going to be talking about specific instances of technology and kind of this, you know, you think about the dry history of a technology and the way the parts come together and the way the parts move. And that's absolutely not what the course and how they use these to in fact solve problems. Like why is the military changing. Why are these states changing the way that they wage war? It's because they're trying to solve a problem in one way or another and finding a technology or an innovation that can do it, or in this case, technology.
[15:07]
A
So I think these are, this is all great discussion and fodder for I'm sure what happens in each of your seminars. What are. You've already mentioned some of the books that are in the course this year. Can you talk a little bit more about maybe, you know, the, the core book that you're most looking forward to teaching or that you. Since we're already what, a week and a half into the course that you've, what's the book that you were looking forward to teaching the most?
[15:31]
B
We're exactly halfway through the last course as we were recording this, and it will come out with two days left in the course.
[15:39]
C
So I'm already getting misty eyed thinking the course is half over.
[15:42]
E
But anyway, there's, yeah, I'll, I'll go for it. Cause I, I really. So I, I really like this course for a number of different reasons. One, because like we said, it's at the end of the course and you get to kind of incorporate a lot material from the previous SAS courses and really get a really good discussion that, that comes out of that. But I think if I had to pick one more, I guess less of a book but more of a day would be military power at the end. Because we come back and essentially say, actually none of this is new. We're still doing the exact same thing and there's no real revolution that we're, that we're going to expect or that has occurred Since World War I when we kind of finally tuned what, what military power is.
[16:22]
D
I think Flying Camelot is probably my favorite book to put in front of the students, I would agree with Colonel Heidenreich for everything that he just said. I really do enjoy putting military power in front of the students to challenge the conception. So we've sort of built up over the course of the entire course. But Flying Camelot is sort of this iconoclastic look at John Boyd and the development of the FX program throughout the 1960s and 70s or the late 60s 70s, early 80s. And this idea that this small segment of individuals in the Air Force that were very drawn to what the author calls Michael Hankins, a white scarf culture of pilots developed out of World War I. Probably mythical, not real, but they had this idea about how fighters should operate. You know, low tech, close air battles, lots of maneuvering, and they were totally out of step. The book tells this story about how they were entirely out of step with the way that technology was developing at the time. But Boyd, some, for, for, for one reason or another was, was a fairly, fairly successful is get at getting his ideas in front of important people that could, that could sort of pass them along. It does tell the story about his eventual failure, which I, I always enjoy because you know, we have this idea,
[17:46]
B
enjoy the failure of Jaimos.
[17:48]
D
I enjoy watching John Boyd fail over and over again, one year at a time. Yeah, but it tells this story. A lot of the times when we talk about bureaucracies and innovation, we tell
[17:58]
A
a story about success.
[17:59]
D
Yeah, we tell a story about how no, the bureaucracy just failed in this degree, but in this story, the Air Force, the big Air Force bureaucracy says close maneuvering doesn't make any sense in a world of radar and heat seeking missiles essentially. And you know, in the next war, you, John Boyd or you Air Force pilot will likely not even see the person that you're shooting at in real, you know, with your eyeballs. And so this type of technology just doesn't really make sense. So we're going to focus on the F16 as a multirole fighter or the FF8. The F15 is a multi role fighter. It's a story about both of them, them.
[18:41]
B
So it's a story basically casting the bureaucracy as the good guys.
[18:45]
D
The bureaucracy actually works the way it should work in this story.
[18:51]
A
And I won't needle you, but I know I pitched another book to you when you're working on the syllabus of a technological failure. You did story that didn't end up in the syllabus. That's okay.
[19:00]
D
That is true. It did not end up in the syllabus. So maybe next, maybe you can't you
[19:05]
B
can't just tease us like that.
[19:07]
C
It was.
[19:07]
A
It was Dark Soul Star. It's a revisionist history of the space shuttle program and looking at the space shuttle as, yeah, they did it, but they probably shouldn't have. And this was an instance of the space shuttle being a technological failure for many reasons, not the least of which was competing priorities and requirements levied on it by multiple agencies, including the Department of Defense, insufficient budgeting, immature technology. So I'll. I'll pitch that one as another.
[19:36]
D
Stay tuned, dear listener, because perhaps next year Dark Star will make it into the syllabus.
[19:41]
C
Or.
[19:41]
B
Or you could go. You could go with. You could go with a book on Ferguson's rifles, which were some of the first breech loading.
[19:50]
D
You know, this was information or gathering podcast. I didn't realize that you would be broadcasting.
[19:56]
B
We're. We're pitching. We're pitching our ideas here because Whitney and I are both scared that we're going to have to teach this potentially. And so we're trying to get our books in there. And really, it's. It, you know, no, it's really because
[20:07]
A
I love Dark Star because I hate the space shuttle program.
[20:10]
B
Okay. For me, it's like, I want one book, you know, because I'm gonna have to retire, you know, here in the next year or two. I want one American Revolution book to make it into the syllabus. If I can do that, I can. I can retire and consider myself a successful member of the SAS faculty.
[20:27]
C
You know, one year at acsc, we did read Washington's Crossing, which was quite a good.
[20:31]
B
Yeah, that's. That is a fantastic.
[20:33]
C
Touched a lot of things that were
[20:35]
B
happening at the time, but probably not anything with having to do with technology and innovation, which I do want to get back to because Rich has got look for.
[20:44]
C
I am anticipating flying Camelot because I actually live through a lot of that stuff. John Boyd came to a university during my time here. The book also talks about John Warden, who in many ways was the antithesis of. Of Boyd. Although the book that I really got a lot out of and the students responded to very well was Trent Hone's Learning War, about how the United States Navy functioned as a learning organization in terms of its fleet tactics, in terms of its gunnery, and how organizationally the service grew up to where it was very effective. But the book also ends with a cautionary note that as the Navy grew to enormous dimensions During World War II, the innovative spark kind of went out in order to establish these as the operating principles. The Navy was Forced to become more dogmatic and actually dictate what the tactics would be. In the age of individual skippers developing innovative tactics and then bubbling up to the top, they had to kind of put the lid on that in order to fight a war on that scale. So it's a great book about, you know, the positive aspects of organizational learning, but also, you know, the other cost of. Of innovation.
[22:06]
B
Thanks, you guys. And what I want to talk about is the innovative. Did you like. You like that? The innovative evaluation that you have of the students? Because we're not doing a paper. Because quite honestly, just for everybody who is not a SAS student or who has not gone through it, the way that this works is this course will end and then they will get a slight break to finish their theses and prep for comps. Then they will do. We will have a week where they have. Where they're doing comps, and then they graduate the week after that. So this is. Happens fast and furious, so not really a whole lot of time to grade a paper. And quite frankly, they. I think that they would whistle a little bit about having to do a paper. So you guys have come up with a different way of doing an evaluation. Can you talk through the mother of all briefings?
[22:59]
D
Yes, we call it the moab. The mother of all briefings.
[23:03]
B
Wes seems very excited about the moab.
[23:06]
C
Very exciting.
[23:08]
D
Yes, I'm always excited. There's a picture of. I can't remember, Schwarzkopf. There's a picture of General Schwarzkopf and his mother of all briefings which went so well. We know. Yeah. So essentially, the students are broken into teams and they're expected to choose a contemporary technology idea or technological system. And then there they are to. And this is to leverage them being able to prep for comprehensive exams. They're to look back into the SAS curriculum to find an historical analogy of a similar technology. Technology, technological system or idea with some connective tissue to the analogy. Right. So. And then they're going to explore this historical analogy. This is a present in a presentation. They're going to explore this. This. This histor or technology and the challenges that it encountered, the bureaucratic, organizational, cultural challenges that it encountered to its implementation. And then they're going to draw lessons from this historical tech, this, this story that they've told for the contemporary technology that advocates of are attempting to try and get implemented into. Into the military, into the. Into the military or the US Armed services, and the organizational cultural challenges it might face or the bureaucratic challenges that it might face.
[24:32]
B
So rich as A historian. How do you feel about this, this assignment, specifically, the drawing lessons learned from the historical analogies.
[24:43]
C
I think I've said this on earlier podcasts. Yes, you can learn lessons from history, although I prefer insights to lessons. Lessons imply sort of a dogmatic. You can take. This is your takeaway. This is what you must do. Insights are more. It's a more useful concept. What happened with this earlier innovation that might inform those practitioners trying to engage in a current innovative process? What kind of red flags might there be? What kind of complexities? What kind of unexpected wrinkles they might encounter? So while I would use insights rather than lessons, I'm actually very comfortable. This is, this has been an all hands on deck exercise in previous years. The rest of the faculty comes in and they will fire questions at the students, both to just to test the robustness of their research, but also to prepare them for comps where they will get questions from a panel of faculty and they'll have to think on their feet.
[25:43]
B
And so how many students are in each one of these teams and about how long do they have? 3 or 4. 4 through 4.
[25:50]
D
And they have 50 minutes for each presentation. 25. Roughly 25 minutes for their presentation and 25 minutes for Q and A.
[25:57]
E
All right.
[25:58]
B
Yeah. And we're able to get through all
[25:59]
D
of that in a day from 8 to 3.
[26:01]
B
It's a long day.
[26:02]
D
It is a long day. It's a fun day.
[26:06]
A
I signed up for my three.
[26:07]
B
I've.
[26:08]
D
Yes. Traditionally, the SAS faculty participates. Every single one in every one.
[26:13]
B
Every single one of them. I. I must, I must have missed that last year. Hojo, have you taught this course before? I have.
[26:20]
E
This is my third time teaching it.
[26:21]
B
Okay. So, you know, this podcast is coming out, like I said, two days before, so I think this is past the good idea cutoff point for any of our students. What has been one of the favorite analogies that you have seen in your. In your time?
[26:37]
E
So, and this is not. This is one that did not make the cutting room. Right. So I was presented. And this is, this is. So this is one of the, I guess, benefits and limitations of our emphasis on telling students to be creative and think outside the box and do things that, you know, other people wouldn't think of. So I got, I got one analogy pitched to me about a wall and iron dome.
[27:05]
A
And I. Athens wall.
[27:08]
E
No, just, just, just a wall.
[27:10]
C
A wall.
[27:10]
E
No, but that's the way, the way a wall works. Yes. It won't like on a castle wall,
[27:17]
B
but like southern border, northern.
[27:19]
E
Well, doesn't matter because the analogy still holds is what I'm. Is what I'm being told, because the wall is going to keep all of your adversaries outside the wall, and then you can build defenses. So this is like, think Iron Dome. And now I'm selling this tech, this analogy, as though.
[27:35]
B
Right.
[27:36]
E
It became a thing, but then think Iron Dome. And it's just keeping things outside so it. It never saw the light of day. I don't know what the analogy turned out to be from that point, but it was. It was one of those.
[27:49]
B
Reminds me of the Simpsons bubble. You know, just. Just put the bubble over the. The Simpsons town.
[27:56]
C
I have one they're pursuing and they will brief this. And I just mentioned it because I've. You've been doing these for a while and I've never seen this particular one. Their historical analogy is underway replenishment. The U.S. navy developed fleet oilers to accompany the fleet, and the ability to refuel the battle line at sea was an enormous advantage tactically, operationally, and even strategically. Prime Minister Tojo of Japan said the ability of the US Fleet to operate away from bases for long periods was one of the military factors that defeated Japan. So they're using it to illuminate some emerging technologies about power supplies for current operating units. And I thought that was very original, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
[28:49]
E
And just to make sure the emphasis is not on them doing external research at this point in the curriculum. They're already doing research, so I require archival. So the thought is that they would have something not just from this SaaS course, but throughout SAS of like a technology that you've encountered and then how do you apply it to future?
[29:11]
A
So in that way, I mean, this is also not just a preparation for comps, but also sort of a summation of the year and sort of an ability. It gives them the opportunity, should they wish to avail themselves of thinking back on the year here, making sense and thinking about all the things that they've encountered and thinking about it in that sense and being a very comps prep, but also just for themselves, putting together the story of the year.
[29:36]
E
Absolutely.
[29:37]
D
Yeah. I like that. I like the way you said that. I was going to suggest that we're leveraging things that they're already doing. Hopefully, you know, they're. Hopefully at this point in the year, they are thinking about and going back through their old course notes and prepping for comps. And when we designed this. This evaluation, we were trying to. We were very, very cautious about where we are in the year as, as, as Rich said earlier. And we were trying to think about how we can best leverage the things that they were already doing to get them to produce something that is, that reflects the technology and military innovation literature,
[30:16]
B
but it's also useful to them in what's going to be coming in the next couple of weeks for them as well. All right.
[30:24]
A
Well gentlemen, as we come to the end of our time here, any final thoughts on tech and innovation, a book you might want to recommend to our listeners? I almost said readers, but I guess kind of listeners, slash readers.
[30:38]
D
A new book that I've been recommending to a lot of people is Jacqueline Schneider's and Julia McDonald's the hand behind Unmanned. It makes a great pairing with Christopher Fuller's See It, Shoot it from that was assigned in our 628 air power course, Contemporary Air power course. And it essentially tells this story of the development of the US Drone arsenal, starting with Andy Marshall and the RMA and building all the way through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into today.
[31:14]
A
You recommended that to the faculty as well. And I picked it up and I started reading, I got it, I started reading it and within 10 pages I was like, it spurred a research idea for me and I was like, oh no, I have to put this down otherwise I'm going to be sidetracked for months to come. So I've started it. I do think it's fantastic. I just can't read it right now because I don't have the time. Gentlemen.
[31:35]
C
Well, in terms of a book recommendation, yes, the Hand behind Unmanned or Uncrewed is we like to say these days is real good. I would return to the book I anticipated the most, which was Learning War because it brought the innovation process to life. It's filled with larger than life characters. But you can also trace the organizational story. And I was very gratified by the students reaction to it. And generally the students are good judges of what of utility to them in the future. So I would push that and I
[32:12]
E
would go with Flying Camelot. If you have not read it and for the same reasons that Wes and
[32:18]
C
Rich brought up earlier, I will also say teaching the final course of the year as the Book A day club is about ready to adjourn. It's always tough to teach the final course and sometimes you always say, well, that's kind of a lost course because the students minds are elsewhere. This I think students are still with it. They're still with us and I think it'll bring the year to a close with style, and it's great to be part of it.
[32:45]
A
That's a great way to end this episode.
[32:47]
B
Thank you. Wes, Rich, HoJo, I appreciate you all being there.
[32:51]
D
This was great.
[32:52]
B
All right. And for you out there, we'll see you next week.
[32:55]
A
Thank you for tuning in to Books to Battles. We hope you enjoyed today's discussion. If you liked today's episode, please be sure to like and subscribe. Subscribe and even tell a friend about us. Also, don't forget to send us any questions you'd like answered or suggest future episodes. You can contact us@bookstobattlesu.af edu. For Colonel Corey Holland, I'm Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb. And don't forget, strategy doesn't stop at the page.

Summary7 min read

Podcast Summary: Books to Battles

Episode: SAASS 660: Technology and Innovation

Date: April 29, 2026
Host(s): Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb (A), Col. Corey Holland (B)
Guests: Dr. Wes Hutto (D), Dr. Rich Muller (C), Lt. Col. Ben “Hojo” Heidenreich (E)

Overview

This episode dives into the “Technology and Innovation” course—the final class of the year at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS). The faculty panel discusses the course’s structure, its emphasis on demystifying “innovation” beyond buzzwords, and its rigorous approach to understanding how technology and new ideas shape, and are shaped by, military institutions. The team reflects on barriers to innovation, debates around “innovation theater,” historical case studies, key readings, and the culminating ‘Mother of All Briefings’ assignment. The conversation is rich with practical and theoretical insights for military professionals and scholars alike.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Course: Technology & Military Innovation

Course Goals:
Dr. Wes Hutto emphasizes the probing questions posed to students:
- How does technology develop and innovate within militaries?
- What challenges and organizational obstacles exist?
- How has innovation changed (or not changed) the character of war?
  [01:13] D: “We ask several questions about how does technology develop? … Can you do such a thing as military innovation? … What are all of the challenges that go into innovating within the US Armed services?”
Bureaucracy & Resistance to Change:
Dr. Rich Muller notes bureaucracy’s double-edged sword—preserving useful routines but making change difficult.
[02:05] C: “Bureaucracies are not designed to innovate... They're designed to stabilize and to preserve operating routines... That makes it very difficult to implement needed change.”

2. Demystifying Innovation—Beyond Buzzwords

Innovation as Process, Not Slogan:
The team critiques superficial “innovation theater” and stresses innovation is often tedious, incremental, and institutional.
[03:40] D: “When you get down to what innovation looks like on the ground in a military service … what it looks more like is a lot of grunt work.”
- Example: Admiral Moffett’s career-focused approach to institutionalizing naval aviation pre-WWII.
  [04:12] D: “…to institutionalize naval aviation before World War II … Admiral William Moffett basically changed the promotion schedule… and helped promote those people to higher ranks … what you get in terms of longevity… is actually very rudimentary and tedious and bureaucratic grunt work.”
- Concept of “innovation theater”:
  [05:32] C: “Previous course directors would talk about innovation theater. We're going to have Innovation Friday, and we're all going to innovate…”
Innovation Linked to Strategy:
Lt. Col. Heidenreich reminds listeners that the value of innovation depends on problem identification and strategic fit, not novelty for its own sake.
[06:25] E: “It comes down to like what problem are you trying to solve? … A lot of those people that come up with these great ideas to do something have to gain, buy in …”

3. Analytical Approach & Course Integration

Connecting Theory to Practice:
Course readings and discussions are directly linked to students’ operational careers, encouraging practical application of deeper theoretical and historical insights.
[07:26] D: “…there is a pull from the course to try and contribute to how they think about their own practices in their operational world.”
Reflection on Curriculum:
The final course encourages review of prior coursework, integrating foundational to cutting-edge ideas. Course readings update frequently to reflect current debates and discoveries.
[09:25] C: “This course doesn't only talk about emerging and cutting edge technology and innovative ideas, but it, the readings reflect that and model that.”

4. What Counts as Technology & Innovation?

Broad Definitions:
The team pushes students to see technology as more than hardware—encompassing concepts, processes, and organizational ideas.
[13:52] C: “…his working definition of technology was nothing more than the application of human ingenuity to real world problems, which encompasses much more than the hardware.”
Examples:
From bookkeeping in the antebellum South to modern drones, technology is defined by problem-solving utility.
[14:13] C: “The bookkeeping example would fit in perfectly … A technique that developed to solve a problem that was plaguing businessmen in a certain era.”

5. Highlighted Readings & Case Studies

Books Driving Discussion:
- Winning the Next War (Steven Rosen): The grind of institutionalizing change.
- Military Transformation in the Post–Cold War Era (Farrell, Renning, Tariff): Blending force structure, tech, and strategic needs.
- Learning War (Trent Hone): The U.S. Navy as a learning organization, balancing innovation and institutionalization.
- Flying Camelot (Michael Hankins): John Boyd and USAF fighter design—a cautionary tale of innovation, bureaucratic resistance, and occasional success. [16:21] D: “Flying Camelot is probably my favorite book to put in front of the students…”
Memorable Moment:
The faculty jokingly campaigns for their favorite books to make the syllabus, reflecting the continual evolution of the course—and their personal stakes. [19:00] D: “That is true. It did not end up in the syllabus. So maybe next, maybe you can't you” [20:06] A: “I love Dark Star because I hate the space shuttle program.”

6. Assessment: The Mother of All Briefings (MOAB)

Purpose & Mechanics:
Teams pick a modern technology or idea, identify a historical analogy drawn from the SAASS curriculum, compare organizational challenges across eras, and present insights (not strict “lessons”) in a faculty Q&A. [22:59] D: “Yes, we call it the moab. The mother of all briefings… students are broken into teams… expected to choose a contemporary technology idea or technological system… look back into the SAS curriculum to find an historical analogy…” [24:42] C: “I think I've said this on earlier podcasts. Yes, you can learn lessons from history, although I prefer insights to lessons. Lessons imply sort of a dogmatic… Insights are more… what kind of red flags might there be? What kind of complexities? What kind of unexpected wrinkles they might encounter?”
Originality & Creativity:
Unusual analogies are encouraged (e.g., fleet underway replenishment as a precursor to modern operational sustainment). [27:55] C: “Their historical analogy is underway replenishment. The U.S. navy developed fleet oilers to accompany the fleet… an enormous advantage tactically, operationally, and even strategically.”
Integration & Relevance:
The assignment is designed to dovetail with preparation for year-end comprehensive exams and encourage cumulative reflection. [29:10] A: “…not just a preparation for comps, but … a summation of the year and … putting together the story of the year.”

Notable Quotes and Moments

On Bureaucracy and Innovation:
[02:05] C (Dr. Muller): “Bureaucracies are not designed to innovate. They're not designed to change. They're designed to stabilize…”
On “Innovation Theater”:
[05:32] C: “We're going to have Innovation Friday, and we're all going to innovate, and everyone needs to show up with an innovation.”
On Technology’s Definition:
[13:52] C: “Technology was nothing more than the application of human ingenuity to real world problems, which encompasses much more than the hardware.”
On the Tedium of Real Innovation:
[04:12] D (Dr. Hutto): “What you have to put into those types of things is actually very rudimentary and tedious and bureaucratic grunt work.”
On Book Recommendations:
[30:37] D: “A new book that I've been recommending... is Jacqueline Schneider's and Julia McDonald's The Hand Behind Unmanned.”
[31:34] C: “I would return to the book I anticipated the most, which was Learning War because it brought the innovation process to life.”
[32:12] E: “I would go with Flying Camelot.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

Course Introduction & Overview: [00:47–01:13]
Innovation & Bureaucratic Inertia: [02:05–03:39]
De-buzzwording "Innovation": [03:40–06:25]
Practical Application & Course Integration: [07:26–09:25]
How the Course Adapts and Evolves: [09:25–10:41]
Expanding the Definition of Technology: [13:07–14:33]
Featured Books & Teaching Highlights: [15:06–18:45]
MOAB Assignment Explained: [22:59–24:32]
Faculty Stories of Memorable Analogies: [26:36–28:49]
Final Book Recommendations: [30:23–32:44]

Conclusion

The episode closes with each instructor recommending a book that has shaped their thinking and teaching, emphasizing that the course, like the field itself, must evolve with new scholarship and operational realities. The faculty express pride in their students’ engagement and analytical growth, and optimism that the year will end with “style.”

Final Thought:
[32:17] C (Dr. Muller): “Teaching the final course of the year as the Book-A-Day club is about ready to adjourn… This I think, students are still with it. They're still with us, and I think it'll bring the year to a close with style, and it's great to be part of it.”

Essential for:

Anyone involved in military education, innovation, or organizational change
Listeners interested in the realities behind “innovation” in government or large institutions
Students and academics exploring the interplay of ideas, technology, and military effectiveness

Loading summary

Transcript106 lines

[00:07]
A
Welcome to books, to battles, where we explore academic insights for real world air and space strategy. I'm Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb, professor of Strategy and Security Studies and Deputy Commandant at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies.
[00:19]
B
And I'm Colonel Corey Holland, professor of Strategy and Security Studies, also at sas. Before we get any further, we do want to note that all opinions expressed here are ours or our guests and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or war, or the United States government. And today we are joined by Most of the 660 Technology and Innovation team. Drs. Wes Hutto and Rich Muller, thank you for being here.
[00:46]
C
Glad to be here.
[00:47]
D
Thanks for having us.
[00:48]
B
And Lieutenant Colonel Ben Hojo Heidenreich.
[00:50]
E
I'm happy to be here.
[00:51]
B
I think we've had all of you on the podcast at some point, and that makes sense because we are talking about the last class that the students are going to go through.
[01:01]
A
Yeah. And so we've made it to the end, gentlemen. We've made it to the end of the year. Wes, you are course directing this year's iteration of the course. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach to the class this year?
[01:14]
D
Yeah, sure. I mean, the course is on technology and military innovation. And so we ask several questions about how does technology develop? What does military innovation look like? Can you do such a thing as military innovation? How does it happen, whether naturally or forced by bureaucratic, political, organizational actors? What are all of the challenges that go into innovating within the US Armed services? And how does it shift? Or how has it shifted the character of war or not?
[01:48]
B
Yeah. So the Chinese challenges to innovation, that's something that I wanted to ask you guys about. Where do you see the biggest challenge to innovation coming from? Or what are the students sort of finding out in their discussions?
[02:06]
C
Well, I think many of them have worked in military organizations all their careers, and they have noted that bureaucracies are not designed to innovate. They're not designed to change. They're designed to stabilize and to preserve operating routines. In most cases, or in many cases, that's a good thing. It's sort of like ballast in a ship. It keeps it straight up and heading in the right direction. But that makes it very difficult to implement needed change. When the character of war has changed, when the international environment has shifted, when the political landscape has changed, you need to acquire those flexible skills to recognize a new idea, implement it, and then, you know, the idea of innovating, of getting it institutionalized as opposed to simply having a bright idea that goes nowhere.
[02:53]
E
Yes. And I think, you know, most people with change, like, really go back to what feels good. And it doesn't feel good to continually change or identify ways that you can do things differently than you currently do today because you're good at the things you do today. And I just want to keep doing the same things that I do today.
[03:10]
D
The other two questions, I think that's so good. The other point is that I would make and that I enjoy making to students is that when we say military innovation today or when people talk about being innovative, it rings the same way that people speak about being strategists. Right. Like, everybody is an innovator. And I think it's a very, in our contemporary lexicon, a very sexy term.
[03:39]
A
Buzzword.
[03:40]
D
Exactly. But when you get down to what innovation looks like on the ground in a military service and how that innovation is, as Dr. Mohler said, can be institutionalized, what it looks more like is a lot of grunt work. And my favorite thing about one of the books that we read, Steven Rosen's Winning the Next War, is Rosen demonstrates essentially how boring innovation really can be. You know, to institutionalize naval aviation before World War II. Right. Which was an innovative practice. Admiral William Moffett basically changed the promotion schedule. Right. And created a career field and pulled people that had similar ideas to him into that career field and helped promote those people to higher ranks so that they could continue to institutionalize this idea about naval aviation or naval carrier aviation. And so, like, when you really get into the nuts and bolts of military innovation, I think a lot of the airport books will describe a very buzzwordy enterprise that's very hot and Silicon Valley esque. And I think that when we talk about military innovation, what you get in terms of longevity from innovative practices or what you have to put into those types of things is actually very rudimentary and tedious and bureaucratic grunt work.
[05:13]
A
Yeah. I think you actually answered the question I was going to ask, which is, how do you in this course get past that sort of buzzword? Bingo. Innovation. How do you get past the bumper sticker that is innovation and actually get students to consider the topic from a more in depth perspective?
[05:33]
C
Well, I think we start by recognizing that that is a problem. Previous course director would talk about innovation theater. We're going to have Innovation Friday, and we're all going to innovate, and everyone needs to show up with an innovation. And that's all well and good to kind of raise people's consciousness about It But a lot of our books are process focused and they talk about the, the actual day to day struggles that innovators have, that organizations have trying to reinvent themselves in the wake of defeat, in the wake of budget cuts, in the wake of changing leadership. All of those things are important. I would have to disagree with our current course director just slightly. I thought the development of naval aviation was an exciting story and it wasn't boring at all. But it's all a matter of opinion.
[06:26]
E
And I think there's this idea that the technology is going to happen or the innovations just kind of happen and then people kind of grab onto them and, and use them when in fact it takes a lot to, to make those changes. And as we were in pursuit of power, like we read about a lot of technologies that come in and states either accept those technologies or innovations or they don't. And in, and in a lot of those cases, if they don't, then they end up kind of falling to the wayside to, to the, to the states that do. And a lot of those decisions though are made on political decisions or economic decisions. And really it comes down to like what, what problem are you trying to solve? What is the strategy? Where is this fitting into what we're trying to do then the reason that we're trying to innovate because a lot of those people that come up with these great ideas to do something have to gain, buy in and they have to do that by saying, well here's, here's the end state that we're trying to get to. Here are the things that we need to do and you either believe it or you don't.
[07:21]
A
Drones sound great, but unless you like, what problem are you actually looking to solve with a drone?
[07:27]
D
And I just to sort of piggyback on to some of this discussion. Wendy, you mentioned that this is the last course, right? And so as being the last SAS course, we as the teaching team are sort of hyper aware that this is a SAS course. And so there is some intellectual rigor, right? We, we talk about economic structures the first couple of days of the course and how, how those drive technological development. And then we talk about the various, I would say variables because I'm a political scientist, the variables that sort of get in the way of successful innovative practices like organizational cultures or standards of procedures or bureaucratic processes. And so there's a SAS element to this about how do we take a step back and analyze from sort of an as objective as we can possibly be the process of innovation and how this has happened historically. And then there is the, the point that we are the last course before our students go back into their operational life. And so there is a pull from the course to try and contribute to how they think about their own practices in their operational world. And so to all of these texts there is a follow on question which is, okay, what are the practical lessons from these things that you can take with you as you go out and you're in future a futures command or you're in a strategist position and you're trying to take an idea or a new technology or a new technological system and advocate on behalf of that system to solve some problem that you're defining in the field and out in the operational world. And I think that these books in this course can, can provide some, some lessons for, for that type of practice to the student.
[09:25]
C
And we're also keenly aware that as this is the last course of the year, the students are very busy. They're, they're wrapping up their thesis projects, comprehensive exams are looming. So while we want to offer them a thought provoking and rigorous course, we also have an eye towards getting them ready to academically wrap up the year through. In the syllabus there are call outs to prior courses as they review their whole academic journey. This year they're supposed to reflect and we will try to tease it out in class to reflect on earlier courses they've had. Which books presented ideas early in the year that connect to the, in many cases cutting edge books they're reading in this course. Parenthetically, as we talk about books and how this course has evolved, this was one of the very first courses I taught at SAS during my first year here. This was back in 2006 and of the 12 books that are offered up to the students this year, only two of them were in the course back then. William McNeil's pursuit of power and Steven Rosen's Winning the Next War. All the other books are new, many of them new this year. So this course doesn't only talk about emerging and cutting edge technology and innovative ideas, but it, the readings reflect that and model that.
[10:42]
B
Well to me it's interesting that you get has that we have paired technology and innovation almost saying that in order for something to be innovative, it has to incorporate some kind of a technology. Do you explore innovative concepts, innovative organizations, innovative structures or things like that? And what kind of questions are the students asking from that position?
[11:07]
D
Yeah, so when we talk about military innovation in the course, we're very careful not to tie technology directly to Military innovation. We talk about ideas, technologies and technological systems. So whether it's new platforms or new technologies, or whether it's new ways to put old technologies together, or whether it's ideas about organization or force structure, some of the books deal with those things. Now often those things are happening simultaneously or parallel to one another in a lot of our stories. The book that we're reading for this Friday actually Military Transformation from the Cold War or in the Post Cold War Era by Theo Farrell and Sten Renning and Terry Tariff. This book traces the essentially the discovery of the military technological revolution or the RMA by the army, by the US army, the, the British army and the French army in the post Cold War period. And how they took some of those precision guided munitions or GPS technologies and tried to integrate them into smaller or medium sized forces that can be expedition, expeditionary and nature. Right. As sort of military operations other than war sort of crept up in the 1990s as a NATO sort of mission set. These armies tried to adapt in that way and that blended these new ideas about force structure, these new technologies, and these technological systems of involving old technologies altogether. And so when we talk about military innovation in the course, not innovation broadly, but military innovation specifically, um, we try and separate those, those things from one another and then and, and sort of take a step back and see how they, they, they talk to one another and integrate.
[13:08]
A
You know, I'm kind of reminded, I forget which pro project I was doing not too long ago. I had to look up the definition of technology. And of course there's a whole academic. Like any concept, there is an academic debate over it. And ultimately though, what I took from it was that technology is just something that helps you do something. And I think ideas, concept, if you think about technology in that sense, ideas and concepts are readily amenable to what the things you're talking about in terms of innovation.
[13:38]
B
The worst one that I, not worst, but the one that took the most sort of mental stretch for me was bookkeeping as a technology, specifically in the antebellum South.
[13:50]
C
Yeah, I was there.
[13:52]
E
Wouldn't it be.
[13:52]
C
I was a beneficiary back at the Ohio State University. I had a number of courses with Alan Bierschend, who's a distinguished German historian, but also a historian of technology. And his working definition of technology was nothing more than the application of human ingenuity to real world problems, which encompasses much more than the hardware.
[14:12]
B
So it's just, it's problem solving.
[14:14]
C
Yeah. And the bookkeeping example would fit in perfectly that it was A technique that developed to solve a problem that was plaguing businessmen in a certain era. And you know, I've carried that forward. And we do try to disabuse the students that this is a course about hardware. Although there's plenty of hardware in it, it's much more than that.
[14:34]
E
And I think that's one of the things that the students really pick up on is that, hey, I thought we were going to be talking about specific instances of technology and kind of this, you know, you think about the dry history of a technology and the way the parts come together and the way the parts move. And that's absolutely not what the course and how they use these to in fact solve problems. Like why is the military changing. Why are these states changing the way that they wage war? It's because they're trying to solve a problem in one way or another and finding a technology or an innovation that can do it, or in this case, technology.
[15:07]
A
So I think these are, this is all great discussion and fodder for I'm sure what happens in each of your seminars. What are. You've already mentioned some of the books that are in the course this year. Can you talk a little bit more about maybe, you know, the, the core book that you're most looking forward to teaching or that you. Since we're already what, a week and a half into the course that you've, what's the book that you were looking forward to teaching the most?
[15:31]
B
We're exactly halfway through the last course as we were recording this, and it will come out with two days left in the course.
[15:39]
C
So I'm already getting misty eyed thinking the course is half over.
[15:42]
E
But anyway, there's, yeah, I'll, I'll go for it. Cause I, I really. So I, I really like this course for a number of different reasons. One, because like we said, it's at the end of the course and you get to kind of incorporate a lot material from the previous SAS courses and really get a really good discussion that, that comes out of that. But I think if I had to pick one more, I guess less of a book but more of a day would be military power at the end. Because we come back and essentially say, actually none of this is new. We're still doing the exact same thing and there's no real revolution that we're, that we're going to expect or that has occurred Since World War I when we kind of finally tuned what, what military power is.
[16:22]
D
I think Flying Camelot is probably my favorite book to put in front of the students, I would agree with Colonel Heidenreich for everything that he just said. I really do enjoy putting military power in front of the students to challenge the conception. So we've sort of built up over the course of the entire course. But Flying Camelot is sort of this iconoclastic look at John Boyd and the development of the FX program throughout the 1960s and 70s or the late 60s 70s, early 80s. And this idea that this small segment of individuals in the Air Force that were very drawn to what the author calls Michael Hankins, a white scarf culture of pilots developed out of World War I. Probably mythical, not real, but they had this idea about how fighters should operate. You know, low tech, close air battles, lots of maneuvering, and they were totally out of step. The book tells this story about how they were entirely out of step with the way that technology was developing at the time. But Boyd, some, for, for, for one reason or another was, was a fairly, fairly successful is get at getting his ideas in front of important people that could, that could sort of pass them along. It does tell the story about his eventual failure, which I, I always enjoy because you know, we have this idea,
[17:46]
B
enjoy the failure of Jaimos.
[17:48]
D
I enjoy watching John Boyd fail over and over again, one year at a time. Yeah, but it tells this story. A lot of the times when we talk about bureaucracies and innovation, we tell
[17:58]
A
a story about success.
[17:59]
D
Yeah, we tell a story about how no, the bureaucracy just failed in this degree, but in this story, the Air Force, the big Air Force bureaucracy says close maneuvering doesn't make any sense in a world of radar and heat seeking missiles essentially. And you know, in the next war, you, John Boyd or you Air Force pilot will likely not even see the person that you're shooting at in real, you know, with your eyeballs. And so this type of technology just doesn't really make sense. So we're going to focus on the F16 as a multirole fighter or the FF8. The F15 is a multi role fighter. It's a story about both of them, them.
[18:41]
B
So it's a story basically casting the bureaucracy as the good guys.
[18:45]
D
The bureaucracy actually works the way it should work in this story.
[18:51]
A
And I won't needle you, but I know I pitched another book to you when you're working on the syllabus of a technological failure. You did story that didn't end up in the syllabus. That's okay.
[19:00]
D
That is true. It did not end up in the syllabus. So maybe next, maybe you can't you
[19:05]
B
can't just tease us like that.
[19:07]
C
It was.
[19:07]
A
It was Dark Soul Star. It's a revisionist history of the space shuttle program and looking at the space shuttle as, yeah, they did it, but they probably shouldn't have. And this was an instance of the space shuttle being a technological failure for many reasons, not the least of which was competing priorities and requirements levied on it by multiple agencies, including the Department of Defense, insufficient budgeting, immature technology. So I'll. I'll pitch that one as another.
[19:36]
D
Stay tuned, dear listener, because perhaps next year Dark Star will make it into the syllabus.
[19:41]
C
Or.
[19:41]
B
Or you could go. You could go with. You could go with a book on Ferguson's rifles, which were some of the first breech loading.
[19:50]
D
You know, this was information or gathering podcast. I didn't realize that you would be broadcasting.
[19:56]
B
We're. We're pitching. We're pitching our ideas here because Whitney and I are both scared that we're going to have to teach this potentially. And so we're trying to get our books in there. And really, it's. It, you know, no, it's really because
[20:07]
A
I love Dark Star because I hate the space shuttle program.
[20:10]
B
Okay. For me, it's like, I want one book, you know, because I'm gonna have to retire, you know, here in the next year or two. I want one American Revolution book to make it into the syllabus. If I can do that, I can. I can retire and consider myself a successful member of the SAS faculty.
[20:27]
C
You know, one year at acsc, we did read Washington's Crossing, which was quite a good.
[20:31]
B
Yeah, that's. That is a fantastic.
[20:33]
C
Touched a lot of things that were
[20:35]
B
happening at the time, but probably not anything with having to do with technology and innovation, which I do want to get back to because Rich has got look for.
[20:44]
C
I am anticipating flying Camelot because I actually live through a lot of that stuff. John Boyd came to a university during my time here. The book also talks about John Warden, who in many ways was the antithesis of. Of Boyd. Although the book that I really got a lot out of and the students responded to very well was Trent Hone's Learning War, about how the United States Navy functioned as a learning organization in terms of its fleet tactics, in terms of its gunnery, and how organizationally the service grew up to where it was very effective. But the book also ends with a cautionary note that as the Navy grew to enormous dimensions During World War II, the innovative spark kind of went out in order to establish these as the operating principles. The Navy was Forced to become more dogmatic and actually dictate what the tactics would be. In the age of individual skippers developing innovative tactics and then bubbling up to the top, they had to kind of put the lid on that in order to fight a war on that scale. So it's a great book about, you know, the positive aspects of organizational learning, but also, you know, the other cost of. Of innovation.
[22:06]
B
Thanks, you guys. And what I want to talk about is the innovative. Did you like. You like that? The innovative evaluation that you have of the students? Because we're not doing a paper. Because quite honestly, just for everybody who is not a SAS student or who has not gone through it, the way that this works is this course will end and then they will get a slight break to finish their theses and prep for comps. Then they will do. We will have a week where they have. Where they're doing comps, and then they graduate the week after that. So this is. Happens fast and furious, so not really a whole lot of time to grade a paper. And quite frankly, they. I think that they would whistle a little bit about having to do a paper. So you guys have come up with a different way of doing an evaluation. Can you talk through the mother of all briefings?
[22:59]
D
Yes, we call it the moab. The mother of all briefings.
[23:03]
B
Wes seems very excited about the moab.
[23:06]
C
Very exciting.
[23:08]
D
Yes, I'm always excited. There's a picture of. I can't remember, Schwarzkopf. There's a picture of General Schwarzkopf and his mother of all briefings which went so well. We know. Yeah. So essentially, the students are broken into teams and they're expected to choose a contemporary technology idea or technological system. And then there they are to. And this is to leverage them being able to prep for comprehensive exams. They're to look back into the SAS curriculum to find an historical analogy of a similar technology. Technology, technological system or idea with some connective tissue to the analogy. Right. So. And then they're going to explore this historical analogy. This is a present in a presentation. They're going to explore this. This. This histor or technology and the challenges that it encountered, the bureaucratic, organizational, cultural challenges that it encountered to its implementation. And then they're going to draw lessons from this historical tech, this, this story that they've told for the contemporary technology that advocates of are attempting to try and get implemented into. Into the military, into the. Into the military or the US Armed services, and the organizational cultural challenges it might face or the bureaucratic challenges that it might face.
[24:32]
B
So rich as A historian. How do you feel about this, this assignment, specifically, the drawing lessons learned from the historical analogies.
[24:43]
C
I think I've said this on earlier podcasts. Yes, you can learn lessons from history, although I prefer insights to lessons. Lessons imply sort of a dogmatic. You can take. This is your takeaway. This is what you must do. Insights are more. It's a more useful concept. What happened with this earlier innovation that might inform those practitioners trying to engage in a current innovative process? What kind of red flags might there be? What kind of complexities? What kind of unexpected wrinkles they might encounter? So while I would use insights rather than lessons, I'm actually very comfortable. This is, this has been an all hands on deck exercise in previous years. The rest of the faculty comes in and they will fire questions at the students, both to just to test the robustness of their research, but also to prepare them for comps where they will get questions from a panel of faculty and they'll have to think on their feet.
[25:43]
B
And so how many students are in each one of these teams and about how long do they have? 3 or 4. 4 through 4.
[25:50]
D
And they have 50 minutes for each presentation. 25. Roughly 25 minutes for their presentation and 25 minutes for Q and A.
[25:57]
E
All right.
[25:58]
B
Yeah. And we're able to get through all
[25:59]
D
of that in a day from 8 to 3.
[26:01]
B
It's a long day.
[26:02]
D
It is a long day. It's a fun day.
[26:06]
A
I signed up for my three.
[26:07]
B
I've.
[26:08]
D
Yes. Traditionally, the SAS faculty participates. Every single one in every one.
[26:13]
B
Every single one of them. I. I must, I must have missed that last year. Hojo, have you taught this course before? I have.
[26:20]
E
This is my third time teaching it.
[26:21]
B
Okay. So, you know, this podcast is coming out, like I said, two days before, so I think this is past the good idea cutoff point for any of our students. What has been one of the favorite analogies that you have seen in your. In your time?
[26:37]
E
So, and this is not. This is one that did not make the cutting room. Right. So I was presented. And this is, this is. So this is one of the, I guess, benefits and limitations of our emphasis on telling students to be creative and think outside the box and do things that, you know, other people wouldn't think of. So I got, I got one analogy pitched to me about a wall and iron dome.
[27:05]
A
And I. Athens wall.
[27:08]
E
No, just, just, just a wall.
[27:10]
C
A wall.
[27:10]
E
No, but that's the way, the way a wall works. Yes. It won't like on a castle wall,
[27:17]
B
but like southern border, northern.
[27:19]
E
Well, doesn't matter because the analogy still holds is what I'm. Is what I'm being told, because the wall is going to keep all of your adversaries outside the wall, and then you can build defenses. So this is like, think Iron Dome. And now I'm selling this tech, this analogy, as though.
[27:35]
B
Right.
[27:36]
E
It became a thing, but then think Iron Dome. And it's just keeping things outside so it. It never saw the light of day. I don't know what the analogy turned out to be from that point, but it was. It was one of those.
[27:49]
B
Reminds me of the Simpsons bubble. You know, just. Just put the bubble over the. The Simpsons town.
[27:56]
C
I have one they're pursuing and they will brief this. And I just mentioned it because I've. You've been doing these for a while and I've never seen this particular one. Their historical analogy is underway replenishment. The U.S. navy developed fleet oilers to accompany the fleet, and the ability to refuel the battle line at sea was an enormous advantage tactically, operationally, and even strategically. Prime Minister Tojo of Japan said the ability of the US Fleet to operate away from bases for long periods was one of the military factors that defeated Japan. So they're using it to illuminate some emerging technologies about power supplies for current operating units. And I thought that was very original, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
[28:49]
E
And just to make sure the emphasis is not on them doing external research at this point in the curriculum. They're already doing research, so I require archival. So the thought is that they would have something not just from this SaaS course, but throughout SAS of like a technology that you've encountered and then how do you apply it to future?
[29:11]
A
So in that way, I mean, this is also not just a preparation for comps, but also sort of a summation of the year and sort of an ability. It gives them the opportunity, should they wish to avail themselves of thinking back on the year here, making sense and thinking about all the things that they've encountered and thinking about it in that sense and being a very comps prep, but also just for themselves, putting together the story of the year.
[29:36]
E
Absolutely.
[29:37]
D
Yeah. I like that. I like the way you said that. I was going to suggest that we're leveraging things that they're already doing. Hopefully, you know, they're. Hopefully at this point in the year, they are thinking about and going back through their old course notes and prepping for comps. And when we designed this. This evaluation, we were trying to. We were very, very cautious about where we are in the year as, as, as Rich said earlier. And we were trying to think about how we can best leverage the things that they were already doing to get them to produce something that is, that reflects the technology and military innovation literature,
[30:16]
B
but it's also useful to them in what's going to be coming in the next couple of weeks for them as well. All right.
[30:24]
A
Well gentlemen, as we come to the end of our time here, any final thoughts on tech and innovation, a book you might want to recommend to our listeners? I almost said readers, but I guess kind of listeners, slash readers.
[30:38]
D
A new book that I've been recommending to a lot of people is Jacqueline Schneider's and Julia McDonald's the hand behind Unmanned. It makes a great pairing with Christopher Fuller's See It, Shoot it from that was assigned in our 628 air power course, Contemporary Air power course. And it essentially tells this story of the development of the US Drone arsenal, starting with Andy Marshall and the RMA and building all the way through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into today.
[31:14]
A
You recommended that to the faculty as well. And I picked it up and I started reading, I got it, I started reading it and within 10 pages I was like, it spurred a research idea for me and I was like, oh no, I have to put this down otherwise I'm going to be sidetracked for months to come. So I've started it. I do think it's fantastic. I just can't read it right now because I don't have the time. Gentlemen.
[31:35]
C
Well, in terms of a book recommendation, yes, the Hand behind Unmanned or Uncrewed is we like to say these days is real good. I would return to the book I anticipated the most, which was Learning War because it brought the innovation process to life. It's filled with larger than life characters. But you can also trace the organizational story. And I was very gratified by the students reaction to it. And generally the students are good judges of what of utility to them in the future. So I would push that and I
[32:12]
E
would go with Flying Camelot. If you have not read it and for the same reasons that Wes and
[32:18]
C
Rich brought up earlier, I will also say teaching the final course of the year as the Book A day club is about ready to adjourn. It's always tough to teach the final course and sometimes you always say, well, that's kind of a lost course because the students minds are elsewhere. This I think students are still with it. They're still with us and I think it'll bring the year to a close with style, and it's great to be part of it.
[32:45]
A
That's a great way to end this episode.
[32:47]
B
Thank you. Wes, Rich, HoJo, I appreciate you all being there.
[32:51]
D
This was great.
[32:52]
B
All right. And for you out there, we'll see you next week.
[32:55]
A
Thank you for tuning in to Books to Battles. We hope you enjoyed today's discussion. If you liked today's episode, please be sure to like and subscribe. Subscribe and even tell a friend about us. Also, don't forget to send us any questions you'd like answered or suggest future episodes. You can contact us@bookstobattlesu.af edu. For Colonel Corey Holland, I'm Dr. Wendy Whitman Cobb. And don't forget, strategy doesn't stop at the page.