THEN & NOW
1960 - 2020
Te hard part of predicting the future is understanding what to pay attention to in the past.
QUIZ SHOW W
As the new decade begins, we look back at predictions about what Army acquisition would look like in 2020.
e as a species are uniquely able to collabo- rate, communicate and dream the future that we want to make. But, as the saying goes, the future looks a lot like the past.
Army AL&T has been publishing since 1960, which gives us a substantial archive to browse. We did so with an eye toward creating a quiz to start the new decade (even if you’re of the opinion that the new decade doesn’t begin until 2021). As a species, we seem to be more hopeful about the long term than the short. Tings looked more hopeful for 2020 in 2000 and earlier. We now have multidomain warfare, but AirLand Battle was multidomain (and a more descriptive name). Te saying goes that every good idea needs to be reinvented.
Remember Joint Vision 2020 and the Global Information Grid? Remember the Objective Force? How about Future Combat Systems and Brigade Combat Team Moderniza- tion? Tey’re all in the past, and yet, who would argue that multidomain warfare isn’t network-centric warfare?
In predicting the future, our predecessors in Army acquisi- tion were as spectacularly right as they were wrong. What’s
most evident in looking back at the last 50 to 60 years of Army AL&T is how the same issues and themes arise again and again. Cost overruns. Te need to modernize. Te need to professionalize and continue to profession- alize the acquisition workforce. Te quest for new and innovative technologies. Te need somehow not to treat the Soldier as a “Christmas tree,” as then-Col. Bruce D. Jette and Bill Brower wrote in the magazine in 1998. Te desire to somehow institutionalize innovation. Te thirst for more and more energy. Te tension between technology development and program management. Te sense that we are in danger of falling behind our rivals and losing our technological edge. Te need for reform. And, of course, crippling bureaucracy.
All of the answers to the quiz are based on content from Army AL&T and its predecessor publications, Army Research and Development, Army RD&A Bulletin and Army RD&A (the name changed each time the name of the office for the Army acquisition executive changed).
One of our witty acquisition colleagues here at the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center dubbed 2020 “the year of hindsight.” And so, a brief quiz on Army acquisition history.
https://asc.ar my.mil
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