Cohen: No Easy Answers in Making Fundamental Change

Sea Power, Feb 2004 by Keeter, Hunter C

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.