DARPA DIRECTOR STEFANIE TOMPKINS: So I get to rejoin you now with the distinct pleasure of welcoming to DARPA Forward Dr. Kath Hicks, the 35th deputy secretary of defense of the United States, joining us virtually today.
Throughout her career within the Department of Defense, Dr. Hicks has provided guidance on global and regional defense policy and strategy, including for future capabilities, overseas military posture and contingency and theater campaign plans. She's also served as senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger chair and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as a senior fellow for that organization.
If you've been following her works since she was -- since she was sworn in last year, you know that she cares deeply about the issues that we're tackling here at DARPA Forward, issues such as advancing U.S. strategic capabilities, ensuring the vibrancy of the U.S. research and development innovation ecosystem and retaining talent and bringing in fresh perspectives from across the spectrum of sectors and disciplines.
Dr. Hicks, welcome to DARPA Forward, and thank you so much for joining us today.
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE KATHLEEN HICKS: Great, thank you, Stefanie.
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I know it's been said at DARPA that if you don't invent the Internet, you get a "B". And so everyone works really hard to try to earn their "A", whether it's stealth or hand-held GPS or a vaccine platform using mRNA technology.
While history always has the final say, I'll just say that from my perspective after visiting DARPA headquarters this spring, where I was briefed on several cutting-edge programs geared toward our most pressing security challenges, based on that, I have faith high marks will be in order.
And Stefanie, I'm especially grateful for the vision you've brought to creating this DARPA Forward series of events, taking DARPA's crown jewel of national security innovation on the road, getting out of D.C. and connecting with existing and emerging hot beds of science and technology, research and development, plugging into regional innovation hubs that don't often have easy opportunities to engage with our defense mission but have so much to contribute.
And it's clear why you're starting in the mountain west, because it's a place where innovation happens at the intersection of industry, academia and government -with path-breaking research and development from Colorado State University and all along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, with a vibrant private sector that includes everything from local startups working on battery technologies to multi-tech firms developing enterprise software, and with the forward-thinking Fort Collins city government that created its own futures committee to look 20, 50, even 100 years out to spot challenges and seize opportunities.
It's just the kind of mix that allows world-changing ideas to bubble up into existence, like the pioneering energy efficiency demonstration, FortZed, whose innovation ideas for a clean energy generation, distribution and use were so compelling, they took root in the broader community.
That innovative spirit is exactly why I wanted to speak with you today, because connecting with America's many innovation hubs across the country has been a priority for me as Deputy Secretary of Defense. It's why I've engaged with researchers at Caltech who are working on everything from climate and sustainability to space and autonomy, with biotechnologists in Boston who are engineering novel medical treatments, with commercial tech entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas who are using 3D printing to break the mold of how we maintain aircraft and other mechanical systems, and with electrical engineers and engine designers in Detroit who are figuring out how to make our power grids more secure and our military vehicles more energy efficient.
Like me and probably many of you, they love rolling up their sleeves to crack open a problem and craft a solution no one's thought of yet and are eager to lend their expertise to help solve the biggest challenges we face for the good of our country and the world.
As you've probably gathered over the last day and a half, in the Department of Defense, there's no shortage of big challenges that we're thinking about every day. We face a pacing challenge in the People's Republic of China, which is today the most consequential strategic competitor to the United States on the global stage. We face in Russia an acute threat to the international system, as illustrated by its ongoing, brutal war of choice against Ukraine. We face persistent regional threats, like those emanating from North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations. And we face threats that transcend national and regional borders, including pandemics like COVID-19 and climate change.
To be clear, the United States faces these many challenges with many strategic advantages, and you're one of them. All over America, we have an incredibly vibrant innovation ecosystem that is the envy of the world. DARPA's part of it and so are all of you.
Because of this innovation ecosystem, which also draws strength from our partnerships with like-minded friends and allies around the world, we're able to figure out some really wicked problems, like how to resupply and reinforce Army and Marine Corps units spread out on islands across half a hemisphere with capabilities like distributed additive manufacturing and proliferated low signature delivery systems so they can operate and be sustained no matter what an enemy does or how contested the logistics environment gets, or how we integrate sensors and fuse data across every domain while leveraging cutting edge decision support tools to enable high tempo operations, a Joint All-Domain Command and Control approach that will make us even better than we already are at joint operations and combat integration.
To help us solve these challenges, DARPA is doing what it's always done well -- looking over the horizon and around corners to prototype and experiment and drive forward science and technology breakthroughs for our national security.
For example, DARPA's engineered living materials program, where you can spray an algae-based substance onto a patch of dirt and it grows into a landing pad that's hard enough to safely take off and land a helicopter on it, a potential game changer for distributed forces operating from remote islands in the Indo-Pacific and other austere environments. And there are many more innovative technology areas we're investing in, like resilient space architectures, advanced engines, and hypersonics.
It's all part of why, in President Biden's Defense Budget Request for this coming fiscal year, we've made the largest ever investment in research and development, because innovating and innovation and modernization is key to building enduring advantage, a core pillar of our National Defense Strategy.
Of course, it's not just about the technological capabilities themselves. Equally important is how we use our capabilities, through novel and innovative operational concepts and making concept design and development part of how we do prototyping and experimentation.
That's why we're investing in creative concepts and capabilities that make our forces harder to target, whether in the air, on land or at sea, from the electromagnet spectrum -- magnetic, excuse me, spectrum to space to cyberspace.
And we're investing in novel capabilities and concepts that make it harder for potential adversaries to apply their own systems to threaten our forces or inject uncertainty into those systems. Disrupting adversary kill chains, or what the military calls C5ISRT, is a prime focus.
For decades, DARPA has had this mindset, thinking about concepts and capabilities together at the core of its use-inspired research and development. The original Assault Breaker program is a great example. In the late 1970s, DARPA integrated several technologies -- lasers, electro-optical sensors, microelectronics, data processors and radars -- that could enable U.S. forces to strike battlefield targets with pinpoint accuracy.
The result was what we now call precision-guided munitions, smart bombs, but the United States didn't develop that technology or others just for the sake of it. There was a clear use case in mind, an operational concept that we could use it to pierce and disrupt the seemingly endless ways of Soviet tanks and troops that we and our NATO allies would've faced if the war broke out in Europe.
That combination of concepts and capabilities, which was demonstrated in the early 1980s in a way the Soviets were sure to notice, gave our competitors real pause. It punctured their certainty in the effectiveness of their forces. The result was effective deterrence. We didn't have to break through any Soviet military assaults because we broke their confidence.
And the job doesn't stop with prototyping and experimentation. More than ever before, we also have to think about what comes next, like how do we transition our most effective prototypes to become mainstream systems in the field, how do we take pockets of innovation and scale what they're doing throughout the defense enterprise?
It's not that we can't do this, we can and we do, but it has got to be easier and it has got to be faster.
Think about stealth aircraft, for example. If you compare when DARPA initiated the project that led to the first experimental stealth aircraft, Have Blue, to when we fielded an operational F-117 Nighthawk. That took nearly a decade. It took another decade for stealth technology to be incorporated into an operational B-2 bomber. And another decade or two after that for stealth to become mainstreamed across much of our combat aircraft fleet in the form of the F-22 and the F-35 stealth fighters.
Perhaps that timeline was tolerable in the Cold War when our main strategic competitor was relatively lumbering and slow. But today we have to evolve faster than the threats evolve, which means our capabilities must be designed and built to be flexible, adaptable, and interoperable from the beginning. We must keep building and growing our enduring advantage.
Simply put, we don't have decades to wait for the latest and greatest concepts and capabilities to proliferate across our military forces. We have to shrink that lab-to-fab timeline from decades to years or even months, which means we've got to be thinking early and often about what happens after DARPA approves a concept and prototypes a capability. Who carries the ball forward? And how?
As we go forward, greater collaboration, thinking and acting across sectors, across borders in close coordination with our friends and allies will be even more important because there is so much great innovation happening beyond our walls, whether it's in the commercial sector or in the science and technology ecosystems of other democracies. As a nation and together with those allies and partners, we have what it takes. And any other country that might doubt our ability or ingenuity or commitment and resolve should think again. This past month should remind us of that.
Here in Washington, August is usually a pretty quiet month, but look at what has happened. President Biden signed a bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that will supercharge America's semiconductor research, development, and most importantly, production. We also got the biggest expansion of health care and benefits for veterans and their families in decades, also bipartisan. And that's not even to mention historic legislation to lower prescription drug costs, health care costs, and energy costs, and do the most we've ever done to combat the climate crisis and improve America's energy security.
President Biden said it best just last week, “We are the United States and America and there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together.” And we, the people of the United States, have it within us to bring the creativity and focus and effort that's required to win the competition for the 21st Century.
So let me close with a simple ask. Help us address the challenges I've described today, or better yet, help us solve the problems we haven't even considered yet. Think about how your expertise can help make a difference, because it could end up making all the difference. As we in the Department of Defense confront our pacing challenge. We're in a persistent competition for advantage. It's all hands on deck because we know our lead is never guaranteed. We have to earn it constantly.
And whether you're interested in the future of autonomous vehicles or powering the next generation of communications technologies or building resilience in the face of a warming planet, at DOD we've got something for practically everyone. We have some of the most fantastic problems to solve and our mission is second to none.
It's not only a chance to make a difference, it's a chance to be part of something bigger than yourselves, to change the future for the better, to make the world safer for everyone. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
DR. TOMPKINS: Thank you, Dr. Hicks. And we have questions that'll be coming in from the audience, but while they catch up, I'm going to use director's privilege to ask one of my own, so --
You've recently visited several government and research facilities around the country and you got to meet with people in the labs and discuss advanced technology priorities. During those stops, you touched on several of the themes that you just discussed, including collaborative -- collaboration across different sectors and disciplines as vital to U.S. strategic competition. This is a -- a key goal for DARPA Forward, as well. So what would you ask of those here at DARPA Forward, the researchers from across all of these different sectors and disciplines, to do to ensure we are prepared for the next great national security challenges?
DR. HICKS: Well, great. Thanks so much, Stefanie, and I'm -- I'm looking forward to the dialogue.
I have done quite a bit of visiting all sorts of entities, including our national labs, which are true treasures in the innovation system that we have here in the United States. But whether it's there or with folks in the commercial sector or universities -- and -- and I've met with folks in all those communities -- I think what really drives people forward together is the mission. And what I would ask is to keep that mission focus on what we can accomplish together, help to push us, as I said in my remarks, to look at the right problems, think about problems that maybe we haven't already identified. But you can always go to DOD websites and -- and understand very much what those challenges are we believe we face in -- in -- in the nation/state realm, and as I said, many of the trans-boundary issues that we face like climate change.
So understand the problems, help us get beyond our own thinking into, what are some of the solutions that are out there? Many of those solutions we know, and increasingly so, will come out of the non-defense sector simply because of the nature of the challenges we face and the incredible vibrancy of the ecosystem beyond defense. So making sure we can lower our barriers and work effectively with those who are trying to bring solutions is my challenge, and what I ask people on the other side of that seeming-fence to do is be ready to engage and help us understand how we can fit in better with the way in which you work to get solutions to the warfighter for ourselves.
DR. TOMPKINS: Thank you.
All right, we have our first audience question, and I'm going to tell you up front, this is a little bit unfair. I'm really glad they're not asking me. Among the many technologies that DARPA and the DOD are working on, which one would be your highest priority?
DR. HICKS: Yeah, that is unfair. So what I -- I'm not going to say it's the highest priority. I will say at the top of my list of challenges right now is making sure that we can increase speed of decision quality and speed of decision and action, and there are a lot of different technologies that come together, a lot of different organizational innovations and operational concepts that come together to make that kind of command-and-control speed of decision improve.
So that's a -- at the top of my list. Obviously, cloud enterprise, cloud capability is a piece of that. A.I. and -- and making sure we take best advantage of data, ensure we have quality data and we do all of that in a responsible way. Those are some of the technology areas I'm focused on to get to that operational end state.
DR. TOMPKINS: What are some current or future military operational challenges that you think might not be getting enough technical attention to -- to appropriate -- appropriately prepare for them?
DR. HICKS: Yes, I mentioned one of them just now. I -- I won't linger on it, because I just talked about it, which is sometimes called JADC2, which is just, we want to really make sure we're even better. You know, the United States has such a strong history of joint operations. We're pretty good at it. We want to get even better at it, and we always want to build on advantage, and we think we have a real opportunity there.
But another I think I would highlight is on improving our ability to untether on fuel, so making sure we can operate in really remote environments. There's a lot of different technologies that can be brought into play there. Autonomy is certainly part of that. A green technology in terms of whether it's a -- on the fuel side or on the, if you will, installations side of things. There's a lot of capability there. So we need to make sure that we can operate anywhere in the world where it's in the interests of the United States to protect its citizens or allies and -- and -- and pursue advantage. So that requires us to not have these hard logistics tails. Additive manufacturing is another capability that can really help us there.
DR. TOMPKINS: And thank you for that. And we've been having some great conversations already about changing some of the assumptions and weaknesses in those supply chains and logistics.
So how are we leveraging our technological advantages to help our Indo-Pacific partners to develop their own defense capabilities?
DR. HICKS: First of all, AUKUS is right at the top of that, and for those who may not be aware, AUKUS is the U.S., Australia and Great Britain coming together in an intentional way to focus on how we can achieve mutual advantage by sharing on the research and development, and ultimately, production side on technology. There are a couple of different aspects of that. The -- the -- the one big -- pillar one, it's called -- one big area is undersea warfare capability and making sure we can mutually strengthen our undersea capabilities. Again, that's an area of advantage for the United States and its Western allies. So making sure we can keep that as an enduring advantage will require us to continue staying at the cutting edge of that technology.
There are lots of other technology areas where we think there's opportunity for the three countries to work together to more rapidly advance and field -- very important -- field those capabilities. So I would put AUKUS right up at the front of that.
But we don't stop there. We have many other bilateral, trilateral, and even in the case of Asia, a quad approach where we're constantly working with others on the operational challenges they face. I'll say again, some of our Asia-Pacific partners are focused more than anything on climate change. So sometimes it's something like that where their defense communities are very focused on the existential risk, if they're island nations, for instance. And sometimes it's all the way up at the higher end of potential warfare, making sure that they can protect themselves against anything from hypersonic missile systems to nuclear capabilities that could be put forward, and everything in between. We need allies and partners where they are on the things they want to work on together. There's a lot of opportunity in that. And we also, by taking that approach, by focusing on ensuring stability in the region rather than trying to increase tensions, we become the partner of choice for many in the region. That protects us economically and it protects us in our security realm.
DR. TOMPKINS: Thank you. So I mean, we all acknowledge, and you've already said we need a new generation of innovators to be excited about finding solutions to national security challenges. You know, one of the best things here about DARPA Forward is we have been engaging with graduate students, with post-docs, with a lot of young faculty and -- and -- and young researchers, and the energy is just tremendous. Could you expand on the department's efforts to broaden the talent pipeline, and in turn, the DOD innovation ecosystem so that we're prepared for those challenges that -- that we're looking forward towards?
DR. HICKS: Sure.
So when I came into this position and -- and the Secretary and I sat down to talk through some of our initial impressions from both being back here -- and we both have a -- a pretty strong histories inside DOD -- there were a couple things that really stood out to us, and your question really hits at the intersection of two of them.
One is that the department didn't have a senior level focused set of processes or governance systems on workforce issues. It's pretty stunning, actually. You -- you often will hear out of DOD leaders throughout the decades -- you know, of course people are our priority, you know, everything is about people, but if you look at the way we spend time and focus our efforts as leaders inside the Pentagon, that was not manifesting the way in -- for instance, we were spending time on weapons systems or maybe just the overall budget process.
So to go after that, we established a Deputy's Workforce Council, which I chair. The Vice Chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff helps me lead that and we work with the senior leadership all across the department to look at workforce issues.
Another big area I noted is that we had many wonderful flowers blooming on innovation across the department. It's a vast department, we have many activities underway which are very impressive, but we weren't looking at a system.
We still probably aren't really looking at a system but we want to get much more effective so we can learn from - just as you're doing with DARPA Forward here - you're learning from each other inside DOD and then beyond DOD with those outside our walls.
But to do that, again, we need some kind of way to connect communities. And so I established an innovation steering group, which our Undersecretary for Research and Engineering now chairs. Now at the intersection of these two issues comes the -- what you might call the innovation workforce, tech talent. People can frame it up under it's, you know, STEM but it's beyond STEM talent. It also includes how we think about the acquisition workforce, those who are going out and trying to determine what we buy and how we buy, helping those who are deciding what to buy with how we buy it.
And so I've established now an innovation (Tiger Team -- mission workforce), excuse me, Tiger Team at the intersection of these two areas to take a quick look at all the work that's been done in the past -- and there is a lot -- what can we build on quickly?
We have a lot of support on Capitol Hill to help us with everything from direct hire authorities -- so the first question is, well, do we do -- use all of the direct hire authorities that we have? The answer is no. Some parts of DOD do better than others. So how do we make use of the authorities we've already been given better?
Another question is sort of where do we -- do we know where we need the talent and what talent we need? Talent identification is also a big issue. Again, some organizations have a good sense of the tech talent that they need, and I will point out that the research and engineering community is among those that's very good at understanding where their gaps are, but there are other parts of the department where we don't, and I'll point to things like our -- our data and A.I. work, where we really are starting to build from a -- a much newer base of understanding of what the department needs and develop out a plan for that workforce.
So it's going to take us a little time to work through those pieces but it won't take years. We're aiming to get on a cycle that -- for the next budget year, that we -- we have underway here in the department. We will have a number of solutions to bring forward to Congress in their next legislative cycle -- in other words, which -- which will kick off in the spring.
We know it's a challenge, we know it's hard to work with DOD, we know sometimes it's hard to work for DOD. So we're going at all pieces of that. Security clearance process reform is another big one that we know is a challenge.
And we just really applaud anyone who wants to come work with us. We thank you for sticking with us and being so mission-driven, and now, we owe it to you to make it both a -- a -- a job that's rewarding, that you're rewarded for monetarily, and that we can get you into in a reasonable amount of time.
DR. TOMPKINS: Thank you. I think that's a perfect answer on which to end the -- the session. We have tons more questions but we're super respectful of your time and very, very grateful that you were able to find the time to be with us today.
DR. HICKS: Well, thank you, Stefanie. And again, thank you for doing DARPA Forward. It's a great event series and I look forward to it continuing for years into the future.
DR. TOMPKINS: Perfect. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
