As the 2022 National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy (NDS) make clear, the United States is in the midst of a decisive decade where the terms of geopolitical competition between the world’s major powers will be set. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will advance its priorities in three interlocking ways – through integrated deterrence, campaigning, and by building enduring advantages. Accelerated technology advancement and innovation are key elements to achieving DoD priorities through these strategic ways and ensuring our national security over the long term. U.S. and allied leadership in technology and innovation has long been part of our military advantage. We must take steps to preserve our leadership and counter our competitors who have taken direct aim at this advantage. To respond to this challenge, the NDS calls for “broad and deep change in how we produce and manage military capability…to construct an enduring foundation for our military advantage.”
In accordance with the NDS, our defense science and technology enterprise must “leverage asymmetric American advantages: our entrepreneurial spirit and our diversity and pluralistic system of ideas and technology generation that drive unparalleled creativity, innovation, and adaptation.” Through these asymmetric advantages, we will create, analyze, test, acquire, and protect the knowledge and tools needed to meet the three strategic ways of the NDS.
In this Science and Technology Strategy, we establish ways to sharpen our competitive edge. We will focus on the Joint Mission, create and field capabilities at speed and scale, and ensure the foundations for research and development.