Is the US already losing to China on innovation, logistics and rapid resupply?

It has been said that "An Army Marches on its Stomach." True enough. But even the task of quickly and properly feeding hundreds of thousands of military personnel to keep them battle ready, comes down to some form of logistics, innovation and speed.

The recent "controversy" involving USS Abraham Lincoln during its 250-plus day deployment serves as a timely example of that truth. To be sure, many of the accusations made regarding the lack of food and low morale among the sailors were exaggerated by some commentators who harbor a strong dislike of President Donald Trump and were seeking to use the long deployment as a way to embarrass the president and his administration.

That acknowledged, there also is an element of "Your side, my side and the truth somewhere in the middle" associated with the resupply and morale issue connected with USS Abraham Lincoln.

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Logistics, innovation and rapid resupply do matter. Be it food, basic staples, weapons systems, or medical supplies. All politics aside, at the very least, the resupply issue surrounding USS Abraham Lincoln — no matter the actual severity — can serve as a very valuable lesson going forward.

"Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves," — a phrase often attributed to Benjamin Franklin — most especially proves true with our military. If the logistics chain breaks or dramatically slows down at the bottom, the warfighting — and winning — capability at the top will suffer… or fail.

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What constitutes a "penny" for our military? Meaning, what is something which may seem so insignificant and tiny that it never enters the mind of the civilian population — or worse, our "decision makers" — but could prove a game changer for the military if either exponentially innovated and put into action, or because it aged out, failed or was made irrelevant by the technology implemented by our adversaries?

A recent conversation with a general opened my eyes to just one such "penny" that is off virtually everyone's radar screen. That being a rivet. The simple rivet. Ironically, about the same size as the penny we need to "watch" if we hope to grow our wealth.

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More specifically, the general outlined the constant and increasing need to replace old rivets in military (and commercial) aircraft. To be honest, rivets, and more specifically, their replacement on aircraft never entered my mind in all my years until the general informed me not only how vital it was to the maintenance of our fleet and military readiness, while also stating they had fortunately identified a state-of-the-art technology which can do it 15 times faster and more efficiently via robotics.

"What’s the big deal," some might understandably ask until one stops to realize that there are collectively hundreds of millions of rivets on military and commercial aircraft which either age out or crack. Faster, cheaper, better and safer is a real advantage. A technology the general informed me, the People’s Republic of China is already employing with its exponentially advancing AI and Robotics platforms.

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Aside from their innovation in rivet replacement, a recent peek into just one of China’s robotic advancements was referenced on this site under the headline: "Chinese humanoid robot breaks Usain Bolt's 100m dash record at 9.39 seconds." Li Yanfeng, an education worker and a Beijing resident who witnessed the record-breaking robotic feat said in part: "At first, I wasn’t very accepting of artificial intelligence. I was even a bit resistant to it, because of the possibility that it might replace or displace humans. But now that I see this development is unstoppable, I decided to come and take a look."

The Chinese educator spoke the one word which should strike fear into the hearts of all those in charge of safeguarding our national and economic security: "Unstoppable." That one word should — and must — force our decision makers to ask the most critical question of all regarding this topic: "Is the United States losing the innovation, logistics and rapid resupply war to China in our military and commercial sectors?"

Fortunately, it appears that question is being asked across the U.S. national and economic security spectrum. As mentioned in the piece, "The U.S. has stepped up scrutiny of robots from China, which makes the majority of the world's humanoid robots."

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To this point, President Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stressed in part: "I welcome these Executive Branch national security determinations, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign-produced advanced robotics and power inverters to the FCC’s Covered List. Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will continue to do our part to secure America’s critical supply chains and, with today’s action, the FCC is acting in lock step with our national security agencies to do just that."

"Critical supply chains." Be it the replacement of rivets; prompt resupply of food or logistical materials; or actual robots performing any task faster, cheaper and more efficiently than U.S. citizens, our nation can’t afford to fall behind China when it comes to the innovation which drives these endeavors.

To that end, we had better watch the innovation "pennies" so our national and economic security "dollars" can protect us all.