Loren Thompson Senior Contributor
I write about national security, especially its business dimensions.
Aug 14, 2023, 11:02am EDT
On August 11, the editors of Aviation Week & Space Technology posted a podcast with the provocative title, “Why AmazonAMZN Could Be The Next Big Defense Prime.” The discussion wasn’t so much about Amazon as about how software-driven projects increasingly are shaping military modernization plans.
AvWeek’s Chief Technology Editor, Graham Warwick, noted in the exchange that the Air Force’s next-generation fighter will be largely defined by its software, without which the aircraft would be unable to meet its performance requirements.
Some observers believe that the evolution of combat aircraft is inexorably progressing towards a future in which human pilots will no longer be part of the design, and software will enable every facet of aircraft operations—presumably with speed and precision that no human operator could match.
It is easy to overstate the degree to which software is eclipsing hardware in current military plans. What good is the source code without the plane? However, the Pentagon’s latest software modernization strategy, released last year, expresses what looks to be the conventional wisdom in asserting “software increasingly defines military capabilities.”
Viewed from this perspective, the Pentagon’s recent embrace of artificial intelligence is just the latest chapter in a long-running trend that is concentrating military power in algorithms and code rather than human hands.
Pentagon officials insist that life-and-death decisions will never be turned over to machines, but the reality is that if adversaries like China follow the same course, at some point the only alternative to automating warfare may be to accept defeat.
Here are five reasons why software increasingly dominates the thinking of military visionaries, sometimes to the exclusion of traditional industrial (and human) processes.
Software enhances the performance of hardware. The electronic content of warfighting systems has been growing for generations, and with the advent of the digital revolution, that content increasingly includes high-power computers that run applications software for onboard systems.
The result has been huge gains in functionality. Don’t take my word for it, just compare the performance of your current iPhone with the cellphone you used ten years ago. The incredible versatility concentrated in this compact device is largely enabled by software, and supported by a network that is itself software-driven.
A similar dynamic applies to military technology. The 75 improvements that will be integrated in the next round of F-35 fighter upgrades will depend on agile software running on more powerful computers. The same is true of ongoing upgrades to the Aegis combat system on destroyers—without the underlying software, they would be literally impossible.
Software takes less time to develop. Today’s military software can contain millions of lines of code, but it is easier to develop and field than hardware. It typically consists of modular building blocks constructed according to open architecture principles, and much of the code is itself generated using software. In other words, the generation of software is automated in a way that construction of fighters or warships cannot be.
A senior shipbuilding executive involved in the construction of warships once remarked to me that the state of play in his yards reflected decisions made by Congress seven years earlier. That tells you something about how long it takes to build complex military hardware. The Air Force’s F-35 became operational 15 years after the contract was awarded.
Software generally is developed and fielded according to more compressed timelines. In fact, all the steps from design to development to testing to installation can be accomplished in a fraction of the time required for new hardware. So, the acquisition system naturally defaults to software as the preferred way of upgrading capabilities.
Software is less expensive to implement. Developing and producing new military hardware involves big investments in capital equipment and the creation of articulated supply chains. A skilled workforce must be trained to integrate components unique to a particular program.
Such challenges are not unheard of in generating software, but they usually require far less financial resources to overcome. One reason is that coding of software often is fungible across diverse applications and industries—hence AvWeek’s notion that Amazon skills might be useful in advancing military capabilities. The Pentagon’s search for commercial technologies relevant to warfighting is grounded largely in leveraging private-sector software skills for new uses.
Software can take the place of costly personnel. Replacing humans with software may raise ethical concerns for the warfighting profession, but it potentially has big budgetary benefits. Retired Major General Arnold Punaro, a legendary Washington insider, figures that the fully loaded cost of a single soldier in the All-Volunteer Force is $400,000 annually. Even at that steep price, the services are having trouble attracting new recruits.
Many military jobs can be performed more cost-effectively by using software in imaginative ways. That is particularly true with the advent of artificial intelligence programs using deep-learning processes. With the federal government spending a trillion dollars more than it takes in each year, the fiscal appeal of substituting software for people will become increasingly attractive—and not just in the military.
Software lowers barriers to entry. Policymakers frequently complain that high barriers to entry in the defense industry limit options for introducing new products and processes. Greater reliance on software potentially ameliorates this problem, because there are hundreds of successful commercial software firms that can apply their skills to military tasks. Even when they perform as subcontractors to traditional primes, such firms can stimulate the adoption of new ideas.
The above five considerations barely scratch the surface of reasons why software is eclipsing hardware in military technology plans. As Grahan Warwick points out in the August 11 podcast, even when the subject is hardware, the underlying processes (like prototyping) are increasingly software-driven. The digital revolution is transforming the technological landscape, and agile software has become the coin of the realm.
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