Interview

Cohen: No Easy Answers in Making Fundamental Change

Rear Adm. Jay M. Cohen, chief of naval research, commanding the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is responsible for funding the science and technology (S&T) projects of the Navy and Marine Corps. In 1946, Congress, realizing the value of science and technology, established by law the ONR, headed by the chief of naval research. The ONR is an administrative office that provides funding to research institutions in the Navy Department as well as in academia to support S&T projects. These S&T projects produce the technologies that maintain naval forces’ fighting edge. Cohen has an annual budget of about $2 billion, and he told Sea Power his investment decisions are informed by real-world requirements. Not a scientist himself, Cohen is an engineer and manager with experience in nuclear propulsion and surface warfare. He has served aboard USS Diodon; USS Nathanael Greene; USS Nathan Hale; as executive officer aboard USS George Washington Carver; as commanding officer of USS Hyman G. Rickover; and as commanding officer of USS L.Y. Spear. Cohen is a 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, earning a joint Ocean Engineering degree and Master of Science in Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture from MIT. Cohen has held staff positions at the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, as senior member of the nuclear propulsion examining board; and on the staff of the director of naval intelligence at the Pentagon. He was appointed chief of naval research in May 2000. Cohen spoke recently with Sea Power Associate Editor Hunter C. Keeter.

What is the ONR’s basic mission?

Cohen: The strength of the ONR is [to invest in] discovery and invention, the basic research. We invest about $400 million per year in basic research — focused projects on key areas like command, control communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); underwater weaponry; underwater acoustics; naval architecture; and expeditionary warfare. These things are absolutely critical to the naval battlespace, [and] if we don’t invest in them no one else will. … The S&T experience base of the Navy Research Laboratory and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, [under the vice chief of naval research, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser] and of the academic institutions with which we work, helps to push the limits of technological capability for today’s sailors and Marines.

What is the ONR’s strategy for investing in basic research?

Cohen: The discoveries that occur today we are making under a strategy of “planting a thousand flowers.” We don’t know exactly where projects will go, but for a thousand flowers planted, the rule of thumb is you’ll get 100 projects, three prototypes, and one profit-maker. That is true for General Electric and it is true for the Navy.

What are some historical examples of products naval S&T investment has furnished?

Cohen: The Congress founded the Navy Research Laboratory in 1923 on the recommendation of Thomas A. Edison — who had looked at the devastation of World War I and the role that technology had played in that conflict, whether it was at sea, or on land, or in the air. Edison realized that the next war would be even more technology-enabled and that it was incumbent upon the United States to have a great laboratory that would develop and prototype military capability. During World War II, the Naval Research Laboratory helped to develop radar and sonar technologies, as well as devices such as the Norden Bomb Sight.

How have naval S&T products enhanced the capabilities of the Navy and the Marine Corps today?

Cohen: In the 1970s, a researcher proposed an effort to measure time more accurately … by a couple of orders of magnitude. At the time, the Navy was skeptical about investing in measuring time; after all, the Navy has been the timekeeper of the nation with the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Well, when you can measure time more accurately, you know position more accurately. That is the basis for precision navigation. The debate went on for weeks, and the Navy anguished over whether it should make the investment. Well, from having made the decision to invest, today we enjoy the Global Positioning System (GPS). Think about how that one idea has changed warfare. Think about the other uses of that technology, war-winning capability for the military and enhancements for commercial navigation. Think about the difference in capability from the 1970s, when the idea was first proposed, to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

How does the ONR decide when to invest in a project, and when an idea is not going to become the next GPS?

Cohen: This is an enormous challenge. The question we ask is, “When do you end a research program that may not be showing the benefits or the fruit that you think it should?” One of the things that we have developed in the ONR is [an office called] the “Swampworks.” The Swampworks is a small group in which is invested about 1 percent of our budget. I have directed this group to invest in high-risk, high-gain game-changing initiatives that any rational program manager would not propose. I anticipate and I desire that these programs have a 90 percent failure rate. That is what I want. I want one in 10 of these projects to be successful; but that one in 10 should represent a fundamental change in warfare, as we know it.

What are some examples of the Swampworks projects?

Cohen: Unclassified examples include efforts to actively cancel the noise [that] tactical jet aircraft engines make; [also,] an order of magnitude improvement in naval heavyweight torpedo performance in the littorals at half the weapon size; [and] a 360-degree, computer-aided camera for use on top of a submarine periscope or on land as an area surveillance and defense device.

Has the Swampworks office met your expectations?

Cohen: I will tell you that my disappointment to date, in myself, is that, of the dozen or so projects that we have done in the last three years, very few have failed. That tells me that … things that we thought were insolvable, things that seemed to be a bridge too far, we just hadn’t tried the innovative solutions for. So we need to continually raise the bar to get even greater game-changers. We in naval research and S&T get paid to take risk. … You don’t get breakthroughs if you aren’t willing to take risks.

Naval S&T projects are building capabilities against what key threats?

Cohen: We have already seen some harbingers of the threats we face in the form of chemical, biological, and radiological warfare and the enormous psychological effect these types of attack would have. Also, we have seen the potential for information warfare; today the world economy is driven in large measure by Internet commerce and the security issues associated with that. I think in those two areas — chemical, biological, and radiological warfare; and information warfare — the advantage goes to the smarter, and more dedicated, and more diligent person or company, or country. This is tough business: it is about measures and countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures. I don’t think that competition will stop anytime soon.

What are some of the capabilities naval forces already possess that S&T investment could maintain and improve?

Cohen: Advantages that U.S. forces enjoy today — and that we ought to maintain — include our C4ISR capabilities. These need to be persistent and they need to be pervasive to enhance U.S. forces’ situational awareness. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, in about the second week of the conflict, [broadcast journalist] Tim Russert described the differences in situational awareness between our troops and the Iraqi forces. The way he described it was that our soldiers and Marines were driving down the streets of Baghdad in their M1A1 tanks with video displays showing an enemy position two blocks down and around to the left, and the soldiers and Marines were prepared to engage the enemy. The enemy, on the other hand, his situational awareness was hiding around the corner of the building with his ear to the ground listening for the rumble of the tanks’ treads. Now that is asymmetric advantage.

How does the ONR address the near-term needs of naval forces?

Cohen: The ONR deals with three navies. We deal first with today’s Navy and Marine Corps team. Within the purview of our S&T projects, ONR can broker requirements amongst the Navy Research Laboratory, the systems commands’ warfare centers, and the universities we deal with, to get capabilities prototyped for the fleet to use. For example, one sailor on an aircraft carrier told us he absolutely hated degreasing the flight deck. … He is from Boston and, watching the Bruins play ice hockey, he noted that between periods they have a Zamboni machine that goes out and resurfaces the ice. So he asked why the Navy did not have a “degreasing Zamboni” for an aircraft carrier’s flight deck. The ONR put that idea out for bid and now there is a degreasing Zamboni in the fleet.

Are there limits to the support you can provide to the fleet today?

Cohen: The ONR can resource just one of those degreasing Zambonis. That is within the scope of S&T and that is a near-term capability demonstration. There are 11 other carriers and 12 large-deck amphibious assault ships out there in the fleet. I can bring things to a naval prototypical stage. I can demonstrate the efficacy of the S&T idea. But then it is up to the requirements and resource people in the Pentagon, in the Navy, on the staff and in the systems commands, to resource those ideas and get products delivered to the fleet.

How does the ONR support the second of the three navies you mentioned?

Cohen: Over the next six years, more advanced capabilities [for the Navy of the near-future] are being developed under the Navy’s future naval capabilities plan. The naval research establishment works with those in charge of requirements, with the fleet, and with the systems commands. … When we have a technology transition agreement, to bring the ideas out of the S&T process and into the acquisition program — funded with research and development money — I then will invest in the project with S&T funds along with the resource sponsor’s investment of research and development money. We are in our third year of execution of this cooperation. This is working in steady state. We think we will be transitioning into the acquisition program between 50 and 60 S&T projects every year.

What are some examples of the future naval capabilities?

Cohen: The ONR provided a new medical technology called Quick Clot to Sixth Fleet before Operation Iraqi Freedom. Quick Clot is used to treat severe, often life-threatening, hemorrhaging, the No. 1 cause of battlefield mortality. … There were at least 10 cases where Quick Clot was life-saving when all other procedures and technologies had been applied and had failed. Another new technology used during Operation Iraqi Freedom is the Imagery Processing and Exploitation System. This system is an image analysis tool that improves a force’s ability to attack time-sensitive targets. Also, the ONR helped provide advanced, autonomous undersea vehicles (AUV) for use in mine-hunting missions in the Persian Gulf. Naval Special Clearance Team 1 and Navy Special Warfare SEAL Team 2 used AUVs during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

What is ONR doing to support the Navy of the next generation?

Cohen: Referring to the third of the three navies I mentioned, I like the term “innovative naval prototypes.” These are capabilities like free-electron lasers; electromagnetic rail guns; hypersonic time-critical missiles that can be launched from submarines, surface ships, or carried under aircraft wings; these are things like the joint unmanned combat air system. We might not yet have transition partnerships with the resource sponsors at the Pentagon and in the systems commands to bring such capabilities into the fleet in the near term, but these capabilities promise to fundamentally change how we prepare for and fight wars, not unlike the way in which the development of GPS has done. Ideas like the electromagnetic rail gun, for example, can be used on ships or ashore to revolutionize artillery and naval gunfire support capabilities. But these types of projects require an annual investment of about $15 million to $30 million each, over six to eight years, to develop them to a prototype stage.