Stealth fighter pilots equipped with precision missiles, bomber crews relying on advanced sensors to elude enemy air defenses, and cargo plane personnel operating in hostile airspace to deliver supplies and ammo will all be asked to contribute to future weapons development. 

The initiative is called WarTech, an Air Force Research Laboratory program designed to integrate warfighters with technologists, innovators, and weapons developers to optimize platform development. 

“WarTech is a partnership with our number one customer which is the warfighter. It allows us to roll up our sleeves to tackle their operational challenges, things that they can't do today. And then to work together on ideas and solutions, and then curating down to those ones that are most within our grasp,”  Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, Commanding General, Air Force Research Laboratory, told The National Interest in an interview. 

The idea is to bridge any potential divides between innovators developing new technology and warfighters who know what tools work best in actual combat environments. When these two perspectives are aligned, modernization is well positioned for success. The advent of new technology will drive a need for new tactics and maneuver formations, however, warfighters are perhaps best positioned to explain what gaps need to be filled and what particular combat needs or challenges can be addressed through innovation.

“When we're looking at the globalization of technology and the advanced development that's occurring all around the world, we want to make sure that we have an agile process that enables us to look at these challenges, bring them into the house and evaluate them,” Pringle said.

Pringle stressed that there is another critical element to the process: innovators and warfighters need acquisition professionals to fast-track ideas, testing, and prototypes to become fully operational systems able to support warfighters.

“It's important that as part of this WarTech process that we bring in the acquisition community so that we are thinking about the fielding, and the sustainment and the longer term implications regarding how to get this singular one-of-a-kind solution, and then field it at scale. Although Wartech only has warfighters and technologists in the title, it's a trifecta of warfighters, technologists, and acquirers,” Pringle explained.

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

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