Methodology for Assessing the Military Benefits of Science and Technology Investments

摘要

This paper originated with the concerns of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology (DASA(R&T)), whose duty is to assess the Army's science and technology (S&T) program. The Deputy Assistant Secretary has aggressively sought innovative ideas for measuring the impact of the Army's S&T on the future fighting force. Recently, the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) conducted a full review of the past contributions of Army laboratories to today s military capabilities. Aware of that review, the Deputy Assistant Secretary asked CTNSP to develop approaches for measuring the benefits of today s S&T investments on the future military. Management of the S&T process to obtain the best bang for the buck has changed considerably through the years. As documented by Miller and Morse,3 the research and development (R&D) process as we know it can be traced back to Thomas Edison s establishment of a research laboratory in New Jersey during the late 1800s. Other laboratories soon followed, so that by the early 1900s corporations such as General Electric, Eastman Kodak, Bell Telephone, and Dupont all had active R&D facilities. These efforts were highly successful, providing innovations that led to many useful and profitable products. The importance of research to a corporation s future success is also highlighted by Buderi in his examination of the role of corporate research in some of the world s top information technology companies. He concludes that corporate research is more connected today to its original purpose of advancing company goals than at any time in the past half century. In these early R&D laboratories, management was provided by scientists who selected and conducted the research. Innovations from the R&D in these laboratories played significant roles in the outcomes of both World War I and World War II.