Abstract
This paper explores the interactions between future defence requirements in a period of strategic uncertainty, the development of exquisite, technology-rich capabilities emerging from the private sector, and the potential changing face of government defence acquisition. It starts from the premise that the UK government’s practices in relation to defence and security procurement, sometimes taking years in managerial assessments, are unwieldy and unfit for rapid technology insertion and the demands of the modern epoch. This inhibits, specifically, the ability of innovative design and emerging technologies to be deployed on the front line, potentially eroding UK defence capabilities. The manner in which this systemic, governmental inhibition is being challenged by niche companies in the private sector is explored by way of a review of the development of Subsea Craft Ltd, a small, UK business in its infancy. Taking an ethnographic approach, the work blends practices of horizon scanning, defence innovation and the commercialisation of ideas into the possibility of deployable defence capabilities.
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