force exploration hub
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FUTURES | DISCOVERY | JOINT CONCEPTS | EXPERIMENTATION
SHAPING THE FUTURE FORCEFORCE EXPLORATION HUB
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By 2050, Asia’s financial sector is likely to be four times the size of the West’s.1 What will a decline in Western soft power and competitive advantage mean for the future force?
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The future starts with people and their ideas Ideas about how a change might be made, a problem solved, or a situation improved. Ideas that respond to a future environment of accelerated change, increasing uncertainty, and unprecedented development of disruptive technologies. Ideas that provide insights about the range of potential futures.
For the Australian Defence Force, our awareness and responsiveness to changing trends and conditions is key to generating and maintaining advantage. We need to design a future force that is capable of excelling in a range of environments.
Defence requires an innovative approach that encompasses expertise from the Services and Groups to anticipate the future, develop new concepts and improve capabilities.
Force Exploration brings these efforts together into a Force Exploration Hub to gain maximum impact from a coordinated and prioritised work program that makes the best use of Defence resources.
Our focus is on describing a range of potential futures and the spectrum of conflict scenarios to identify the military implications and opportunities for advantage.
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By 2030, the Asia-Pacific region is likely to consume more than half of the world’s food production.2 What could threats to food security mean for the future force?
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Shaping the future forceThe Force Exploration Hub provides the catalyst for engaging with a broad range of ideas from industry, government and research institutions to shape the future force. By exploring a time horizon of ten years and more, the Force Exploration Hub identifies issues and potential treatments that can be developed by Defence.
Within the Force Exploration Hub, we work closely with Defence Science and Technology Group as well as the
services and groups to generate, develop and test ideas. This work informs future Defence capability investment while building a unique and useful body of knowledge to support force structure plans and strategic assessments.
By going beyond gap analysis to provide a rigorous, evidence-based consideration of the future needs of Defence, Force Exploration shapes the overarching capability direction of the future force.
Force Exploration engages across Defence, governments, industry and research institutions to develop ideas, joint concepts and evidence to equip the future force to effectively confront a
future operating environment of accelerated change and uncertainty.
OUR MISSION IS TO:
Generate and sustain military
advantage
Understand the future operating
environment
Provide a concept-driven pathway to compelling
future force options
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Sharing insights and ideasDefence’s ability to explore and test ideas for a future force is strengthened through partnership and collaboration. Engagement with a diverse range of thinkers enhances the insights developed from our experience. As we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it also helps us to identify new areas of expertise needed for the uniquely Australian way in which the future force will achieve operational success.
Force Exploration’s thinking about the future is structured by domains and themes. Our thinking in these areas has benefited enormously from contributions from a wide range of individuals and organisations. We are committed to expanding this network and want to hear from people interested in contributing ideas and insights about the range of potential futures.
Health ServicesThe shape of medicine is rapidly changing as new market entrants reimagine healthcare service delivery and emerging technologies such as robotic surgery, personalised medicine, artificial intelligence, and wearables evolve.4
What does the future of medicine mean in the military context? How will this shape the delivery of integrated health services to support the future force? Could the use of remote robotic surgery provide greater capability to on field facilities? Could it reduce the need to deploy reserve medical personnel into the conflict zone? Could these services be containerised to provide more rapid support and assistance? Could this approach be used as part of Australia’s contribution to humanitarian operations, enhancing the impact of support provided? What other opportunities do these changes present?
By 2040, individuals are less likely to define themselves by their nationality.3 What could the changing nature of identity mean for the future force?
ManufacturingThe ongoing development of 3D printing or additive manufacturing provide glimpses of potential futures where development and production times as well as the cost of manufacturing complex components are significantly reduced. Currently around 70% of world trade involves global value chains where raw materials, parts, components and services cross borders multiple times before reaching consumers.5 Additive manufacturing could transform the value chain through manufacturing in smaller production centres that are located closer to both the designer and consumer.
What could this mean for transformation and innovation within industries including the aerospace and defence sectors? Will it increase the opportunities for smaller niche innovators to enter these markets? How will the use of this technology be controlled to prevent illegal weapons being produced? What about the impacts on the people and economies of countries involved in assembly-line, low-skill manufacturing?
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Adva
nced
Sen
sors
, H
yper
soni
cs &
Dire
cted
En
ergy
Cap
abilit
ies
Technology
People and
Culture
Geo
polit
ical
Tr
ends
Economics and
Governance
State andSovereignty
Climate and
Resources
Cybe
r
Trus
ted A
uton
omou
s
Syste
ms
Quantu
m Tech
nolog
ies
Multi-disc
iplinary
Material Sciences
Medical
Countermeasures
Enhanced
Human Performance
Space Capabilities
Integrated Intelligence,Surveillance &Reconnaissance
Conflict ResolutionStrategies
Military Operations
Other Than War
Conflict & War
Energy and
Natural Resources
Coercive Statecra
ftNon-State Actors
International Order
Economics
Natural Disasters
Climate Change
Globalisation
InformationEnvironment
Identity
Migration
Urbanisation
Population
Reg
iona
lism
Stat
e Co
llaps
e
Maj
or P
ower
Inte
rest
sSouth
Pac
ificSouth
East A
siaInternational Military Law FORCE
EXPLORATION DOMAINS
AND THEMES
RegionA number of Australia’s neighbours will experience massive population growth that will also significantly lower the median age. By 2040, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands will experience population increases of more than 54% each while for Timor Leste, the increase will be more than 66%. The average age in these countries will be 27, 26 and 21 respectively.6
These populations will also become more highly urbanised, adding to the challenge of ensuring access to adequate housing and employment opportunities.
What does this growing urbanised youth population mean for existing social and cultural arrangements? Could rapid growth of slums foster rivalries, criminality or extreme beliefs? Will it exacerbate existing animosities or change the nature of conflict and violence in the region? What adjustments may need to be made to Australia’s strategic position in the region?
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Together by 2030, China and India are likely to produce more than 60% of the world’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates while Australia’s contribution is set to decline.7 What will this mean for the professional military education of the future force?
Thinking about the futureThe future will be shaped by the complex intersection of divergent trends with choices made and decisions taken by individuals, groups, organisations, and states.
To navigate the uncertainty, Force Exploration uses the four futures framework developed for the Australian Defence Force’s Future Operating Environment: 2035. While technology and other developments will have significant impact, the distribution of power and the level of cooperation are major transformative forces as well as significant sources of risk.
Four different future scenarios are shaped by these variables:
Power: Who has enough power to act strategically? This ranges from centralised power (where states hold the most power) through to diffused power (where state power is eroded and the power of other individuals, organisations or groups increases).
Cooperation: How do the relevant entities interact within the international order? This ranges from full and open cooperation through to intense and sustained competition.
Developed in collaboration with a range of defence and national security stakeholders, Defence’s four futures framework has been designed to support Australia’s interests.
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• States are the most influential international actors in the global order.
• Almost all states use multilateral institutions to address global challenges, define legal frameworks and settle disputes.
• Good global governance is a characteristic of this world.
• Major powers are the main international actors who form blocs with other states based on geography or shared interests.
• While states within a bloc cooperate under the leadership of the major power, the blocs compete for power and influence.
• Power is shared between a variety of state and non-state entities.
• Corporations and megacity leaders are the main non-state entities, but all entities cooperate to address global challenges and provide effective governance.
• States, corporations, megacities and other non-state entities (including organised criminal and dissident groups) compete for power.
• Cooperation is rare and only sought when there is a benefit to further an entity’s interests.
Multilateral Multipolar
Networked Fragmented
Multilateral
Networked
Multipolar
Fragmented
COOP
ERAT
ION COM
PETITION
DIFFUSED POWER
CENTRALISED POWER
The four futures framework provides a means to test alternatives and develop deeper, more nuanced visions of the future. In reality, the future is unlikely to be one or another but rather a blend of features.
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How we workThrough the Force Exploration Hub, Force Exploration Branch and Defence Science and Technology form a core to bring together key themes and activities across Defence, government, industry and research institutions.
Force Exploration Hub unites activities across Defence and other organisations in four key areas – Futures, Discovery, Joint Concepts, and Experimentation. Analysts in each area engage with a wider range of experts and activities to support the ongoing function of force exploration.
FuturesExplore possible futures and identify the challenges that the future force will face.
• Explore possible futures through insights developed with stakeholders
• Identify and develop an understanding of the broad range of challenges that the future force will face
• Highlight potential opportunities, trends, and technologies that can be seized for decisive strategic advantage
• Inform strategic policy and long-term intelligence work on key issues.
DiscoveryTriage the challenges, coordinate engagement and synthesise the ideas to hypothesise future force needs.
• Review policy, intelligence and technology assessments
• Forge links with university networks, existing partnerships, think tanks, industry, research institutions and other organisations
• Inform the future work programs of the Next Generation Technologies Fund and other research priorities
• Synthesise ideas and form hypotheses to develop joint concepts.
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Joint Concepts Describe potential models of joint force capability to fight and win in the future operating environment.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to answer the operational dilemmas posed by the future operating environment
• Test alternative theoretical models of capability and measure their effectiveness
• Identify the uniquely Australian way in which the force achieves operational success and how the force will create advantage
• Identify an operational approach aligned with strategic guidance
• Shape the Australian Defence Force’s warfighting culture and drive the intellectual edge of professional military education.
ExperimentationTest and develop joint concepts to provide compelling evidence to inform decision makers.
• Test and develop joint concepts
• Provide a practical evidence-based pathway for force options and capability development
• Provide compelling evidence to inform the design of a future force that will fight and win
• Increase the definition and development of the Integrated Investment Plan over the ten to twenty year outlook.
By 2050, virtually everyone on the planet will have access to the internet , mobile devices and potentially unlimited information.8 How will greater levels of digital connection impact on people as well as future force operations?
1 Ministry of Defence (2018), Global Strategic Trends.
2 Ministry of Defence (2018), Global Strategic Trends.
3 Australian Defence Force (2015), Future Operating Environment 2035.
4 Economist Intelligence Unit (2018), The Future of Healthcare: Preventative, Personalised and Precise, Better Life Breakthroughs.
WHAT IS BEING CREATED
The Force Exploration Hub is creating:
• Concept-driven models to achieve operational success
• New design ideas for the joint force that are compelling, tested, and ready for further development
• Evidence required to contest or reinforce investment decisions that define the overall capability direction of the future force.
WHAT WE ARE DELIVERING
The Force Exploration Hub delivers:
• Focused relevant future products that inform further idea and concept work, experimentation and future scenarios, policy and intelligence activites, and capability development
• Research and development of innovative ideas that have been gathered from a diverse range of organisations and thinkers
• Joint concepts for the future force that are able to be expanded, explored and tested.
CONNECT WITH US
Connect with us if you are interested in contributing ideas and insights.
Email: [email protected]
5 Economist Intelligence Unit (2018), Adding It Up: The Economic Impact of Additive Manufacturing, 2nd Munich Technology Conference.
6 Australian Defence Force (2015), Future Operating Environment 2035.
7 OECD (2015), How is the global talent pool changing? Education Indicators in Focus.
8 Ministry of Defence (2018), Global Strategic Trends.
NOTES