Palmer Luckey on rapidly fielding counter-UAS
Here’s a very interesting story from Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril, at the 2021 Reagan National Defense Forum. There was an event where we were […]
ABMS
Podcast: Affecting the strategic calculus with Michele Flournoy
Michele Flournoy joined Jordan Schneider and I on a crossover episode of the China Talk and Acquisition Talk podcasts. She is a former Undersecretary of […]
Futurist and traditionalist views of national security
… the leaders and thinkers of this futurist camp have built a consensus that victory in great-power competition, especially between China and the United States, […]
Congressional view of oversight and transparency needs an overhaul
I think this provides some color as to why the Air Force’s top priority programs are being cut by congressional appropriators from $302 to $158 […]
Podcast: Digital acquisition with Bryon Kroger and Matt Nelson
Bryon Kroger and Matt Nelson joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to talk about digital transformation in the Department of Defense. They are the […]
The Air Force ‘Internet of Things’ program gets reorganized
According to a memo sent from Roper to the Air Force’s acquisition workforce Tuesday, the chief architect will remain responsible for codifying ABMS [Advanced Battle […]
The role of blockchain in military cybersecurity
On a great new podcast, Commercial Innovation for Defense, Mark Goode asks blockchain entrepreneur Michael Lewellen about the military’s work on bringing together a common […]
How the SDA’s space architecture comes together
In order to do missile tracking for the next generation missile threats — hypersonic glide vehicles, hypersonic cruise missiles — we need to do two […]
Air Force top priorities reflect a move away from stovepiped weapons
Back in June 2020, Air Force chief Charles Brown said his top priority was Joint All-Domain Command and Control. In November, Brown updated that slightly. […]
Are Appropriators blocking defense transformation?
I recommend reading a nice Breaking Defense article, Senate Appropriators Cut R&D To Buy More Weapons. The SAC-D recommended that the Air Force and Navy […]
How to hack the DoD innovation system — probably not serious
In a recent post, I argued that DoD programs require long-term predictions about costs and requirements that get locked in as a “baseline.” But once […]
Policy is not made once and for all; it is made and re-made endlessly
Policy is not made once and for all; it is made and re-made endlessly. Policy-making is a process of successive approximation to some desired objectives […]
Notes from Will Roper’s talk to students: Tons of great insights!
Here are some notes of mine from watching Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper’s talk given to Steve Blank, Joe Felter, and Raj Shah’s class […]
Can the military’s operating system for war succeed at scale?
Anduril is best known for supplying surveillance towers and software used to watch over the US-Mexico border and some US bases. Now, it is retooling the software […]
Important decisions are not made the way economic textbooks teach us
Here’s a nice exchange between Agnes Callard and Russ Roberts on EconTalk. Remember — the defense resource allocation process, the PPBE, was explicitly created on […]