Intervenção civil e a inovação na U.s. Navy: a atuação do Congresso dos Estados Unidos da América no Programa UCLASS

Abstract

.In 2010, the U.S. Navy began efforts to develop the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS), a program that had the potential to change the way aircraft carriers were employed. According to the requirements established in 2011, that initiative was expected to result in a stealthy Remotely Piloted Aircraft, which could be used from those ships and was capable of carrying out Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions and precision attacks in contested environments. However, those requirements were changed in 2012 in favor of a platform dedicated to ISR missions around U.S. carriers, that could perform counterterrorism tasks in permissive environments and that had affordable costs, with the latter aspect becoming a Key Performance Parameter. That military organization defended the aforementioned changes, arguing that they were necessary for the program to be affordable in budget terms. However, the U.S. Congress pressed that Service in favor of resuming the original requirements, but civil interference was not enough to guarantee innovation. As of 2016, UCLASS gave way to the Carrier Based Aerial Refueling System (CBARS), an RPA dedicated to refueling manned fighter aircraft in flight, with limited ISR capacity. The case started a debate about the resistance with which the Armed Forces deal with potentially disruptive innovations. The present dissertation uses process tracing and case study methods, as well as the theoretical contributions of Stephen P. Rosen and Terry C. Pierce, to investigate the reason why the referred Legislative action failed. It was noted that low military support and resistance to disruptive innovation within the U.S. Navy, as well as the lack of support from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, limited the chances of a successful Congress' interference