A two-part recommendation that interoperability demands more investment and greater prioritisation from current military and government expenditures. Reviewing the Deloitte Center for Government Insights recommendations of September 2021 in the light of Ukraine and economic uncertainty, we find that today is the right time to increase interoperability within and across the free world. In this second part, we look at the case for investment.

The maturity of Interoperability is not matching maturing of threats.

Our strategy review found that defence departments and ministries are devising to combat today's challenges with other government agencies, nations, and commercial companies. Yet, our interoperability maturity assessments identified that most militaries organisationally struggle to enable the coordination required for today's defence challenges. They simply lack enough time, money, or people within their departments to address various challenges.

Take the U.S. Cyber Command's strategy of "defend forward" to counter grey zone cyber threats, placing U.S. military cyber experts overseas to disrupt attacks headed for the United States. This strategy demands coordination with host nations, military and security agency cyber forces and familiarity with commercial technologies [1]. More profoundly, we highlighted how coordination needs to extend into the temporal dimension rather than mere military domains and that synchronisation of response and decision-making would require significantly increased interoperability maturity [2]. The current patchwork approach to link processes and activities for interoperability adds costs, creates vulnerabilities, exposes capability gaps, and remains rigid to diverse defence challenges.

Interoperability investments now return greater value

Traditional interoperability investments faced two test criteria: increase political legitimacy as part of a larger coalition and improve operational efficiency. The costs of purchasing new common equipment, the time to develop coordinated operations, and the investment to agree shared doctrine had to be less than the value of these two criteria.

Last year, increasing NATO defence expenditure was a political choice made in the context of recovery from a global pandemic. The strategic logic existed but the value did not justify the financial investment. With a ground war in Europe, the investment in NATO is far more apparent today. However, nations seek primarily to invest in national defence industry and capabilities first and still place interoperability second.

This decision is basic economic logic, investing in industry to maintain productivity and national economies. Purchasing new weapons and vehicles and recruiting soldiers has an immediate investment benefit. Yet it does not capitalise on the benefits of interoperability that we identified last year.

Investing in the maturity of interoperability delivers economic and defence benefits.

The need to face a changing global situation with increased interoperability funding is justification alone for investing more. The broader and immediate benefits of doing so make this a compelling case to ignore.

By itself, our third interoperability rule, interoperability today is a strategic advantage, offers significant benefit for investment especially when facing increasingly complex and diverse challenges. Increased interoperability provides the ability to match and flex against threats. At a time of increased conflict and tension, we cannot wait to create a strategic advantage until the last safe moment.

With the realisation of our second rule, no nation can meet today's defence challenges alone, then interoperability investment becomes a clear priority. Investment in interoperability maturity across defence, other national security agencies, government departments, NGOs, and industry will create resilient structures and establish robust relationships to counter known threats and respond to unexpected new ones. This investment requires coordination to avoid every element developing isolated interoperability solutions. Based on our studies, that coordination is justified as each respective entity will also improve its abilities to adapt, modernise, and transform its own core functions from this investment.

Our final rule, interoperability is not new, is the platform on which any effective investment can be made. The research showed that effective interoperability required an existing organisation to focus the investment, an agreement to define its nature, and a platform to enable the investment. Where none of these criteria existed, the maturity was low, and effectiveness was limited. We could see performance improvements where one or more existed. Combining all three accelerated maturity and effectiveness significantly, especially when based on existing structures and relationships.

Interoperability is different from investment in modern technologies or dramatic digital transformation. The allure of the new too often tempts military planners, and militaries may still require these different technology or transformation investments. However, when a choice must be made to ensure the best investment decision, options that support interoperability are more likely to empower transformation than one that merely seeks to pursue new equipment. The nature of interoperability makes it an accelerator for both technology and transformation.

This is also not an argument to invest in traditional forms of interoperability to spend newly increased defence budgets. Purchasing common technologies is a useful step, but defence organisations need to mature beyond their conventional interoperability standards to include other government organisations, private industry and the various politics, policies, and economics that come with broader coordination. Today's challenges may resemble those of the past, but their character is new. Investment in interoperability maturity that enables militaries to operate outside themselves is required.

The future of warfare is today. 

Defence has spent the last 20 years responding to challenges while claiming that the current challenge is fundamentally different from any future challenge. They have been countering global terrorism, stabilising and then extracting from failed states, countering threats to the rules-based world order from resurgent peer adversaries and addressing increased grey zone & cyber threats. Each has distracted and diverted funding and prioritisation. Yet every challenge required and benefitted from interoperability investment.

Increasing interoperability investment is now critical. We can no longer delay with European conflict, increased tensions in Asia, growing diversity of cyber threats, and more demanding challenges to the rules-based international order. Interoperability improves our ability to meet these challenges and enhances our collective abilities to adapt to new threats. Our conclusion last year remains the same today: By cultivating interoperability today, defence organisations can be ready for the future, whatever it may bring.

[1] U.S. cyber strategy of persistent engagement & defend forward: implications for the alliance and intelligence collection: Intelligence and National Security: Vol 35, No 3 (tandfonline.com)

[2] The temporal dimension of defending forward | Deloitte