RT-‘Speed Matters’ – CNO Calls for Accelerated R&D, Acquisition Processes
Release Date: 8/5/2004 5:07:00 PM
By Chief Journalist Walter T. Ham IV, Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Vern Clark challenged Navy and defense industry leaders to help speed up the acquisition process and get new technology to the fleet and to the fight faster, during his Aug. 5 address to the Naval Industry Research and Development Partnership Conference.
“What I’ve come to believe is that speed will be more important in the battlespace in the future than it ever has been in the past,” the CNO said. “When we think about future warfare, we must think, first and formost, about speed. I also think that we’ve got to talk about speed in the marketplace.”
“If you can’t get to the fight fast, you’re not going to be relevant,” he said. “Speed of response? Yes. Speed of decision? To be sure.”
Clark said the Navy’s Sea Power 21 vision has matured since he outlined it at the same conference two years ago, but he added “there are always those who would like to see the ideas mature faster, and I’m among them.”
Sea Power 21 is not an end state, the CNO noted, but a framework to create a post-Industrial Age Navy capable of delivering the right capabilities to the right place at the right time in response to Information Age threats.
“Sea Power 21 laid out an ideal, and the global war on terrorism, I believe, has identified the requirement,” the CNO said.
To get these Sea Power 21 capabilities to the fleet more quickly, Clark said the Navy and its industrial partners need to capture innovations in science and technology, and move them into research and development more quickly. He called the Silver Fox Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Littoral Combat Ship victories in the speed of acquisition.
With the nation at war, the stakes couldn’t be higher as the Navy combats terrorism around the globe, he concluded.
“We’re in a fight for our lives, and we’re going to be in this for a long time,” he said. “I’m absolutely convinced that 30 years from now, we’re going to look back on this period, and we’re going to call this one of the most important times in our history.”
“I believe that our challenge is clear. We face a determined enemy," Clark said. "But you know, they were surprised that they got a hold of a determined enemy. We’re not only resilient, we’re determined – and this is a fight that we’re not going to lose.” |
