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I am a political economist studying innovation, industry, and international security. Since September 2001, I have been advising industries and ministries on their issues of strategy, planning, and policy. My work aims to inform investors, industrialists, technologists, and policy-makers on how to effect, economically, a secure future.

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28 September 2023

Military-Industrial Mismatch: Battlefield and Business Learning Rates

My long research note of 25 August, “On Learning Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War,” analyzed the debate on how much seems to have changed of late about the character of warfare. For the military, at least two things differ: drones and data. I now extend that analysis to industry, where the issue includes customary rates of development and production. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Yaroslav Trofimov brings two quotes from top military management that encapsulate the dichotomous learning problem:

Nothing stands firm. War is the time when technology develops. Every operation is different, and if you repeat it the same way, it would make no sense because the enemy already has an antidote.

— Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, commander of the Ukrainian Navy

We have a lot of lessons to learn. One is that quantity is a quality of its own. You need numbers, you need force numbers. In the West we have reduced our military, we have reduced our stocks. But quantity matters, mass matters.

— Major General Christian Freuding, the head of Ukraine operations at the German Ministry of Defense

In short, we will need new stuff, constantly, and a lot of it. So how well is this present lesson being learned? My three-page research note offers ideas: Download Military-Industial Mismatch Battlefield and Business Learning 20230928.

Posted at 11:00 |

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Accolades

  • Read only the first few pages. The clarity and eloquence of them is highly unusual. Extremely un-boring. Everything that one does not need to know seems to have been removed before publication.
    — Attorney, politician, academic, and strategist
  • I'm continually amazed and impressed with what appears to me to be some magical ability you have to synthesize a tremendous sweep of ideas and sources and to cogently streamline into a tight and, most importantly, readable essay.
    — Test engineer, Naval Air Systems Command
  • One of the most insightful analysts on issues of defense economics...
    — Senior defense industry equities analyst
  • I need a Jim.
    — DC think tank director
  • Simply outstanding.
    — Deputy Under Secretary at the Pentagon, on recent analyses of future force structure requirements
  • You and Aboulafia are the only two publicly-quoted defense consultants worth paying attention to.
    — Public policy advocate
  • You’re one of the few guys who brings me real numbers. Most people just try to blow smoke...
    — President of a major military trucks and armored vehicles manufacturer
  • You are an impressive madman whom I am glad to know.
    — Vice President and M&A practice leader with an aerospace & defense consultancy
  • One of the best strategic moves we could have made, short of starting another war.
    — General Manager, leading weapons manufacturer, regarding recommendations for using the lessons of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq to plan the future of the company’s product lines
  • Exactly what we needed.
    — CEO of a defense buy-out firm, on market insights and financial projections regarding an acquisition target
  • Your ability to infer from open sources is wonderful.
    — Vice President for Corporate Strategy, leading armored vehicles manufacturer, on recent studies of fatality patterns in military vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq
  • We should have done [this] a year ago, but I could never find someone like you with the right perspective.
    — Vice President for Business Development at a fast-growing manufacturing firm, on recommendations for managing the company’s problematic alliance with a Fortune 500 defense contractor

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