What are the prerequisites to defense budget reform?
Here’s a snippet from Christopher O’Donnell, acting ASD(Acquisition) at the 2021 GMU/DAU conference: What the MTA has shown is that the JCIDS process and the […]
China
There are 50 single-points of failure in the microchip supply chain — Challenges of industrial policy
I am a fan of the way interdependency makes war between great powers illogical — because the supply chain for microchips are many, many countries […]
We’re never going to beat China with that kind of oversight!
Here is a Air Force head of contracting authority Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt discussing an interesting new proposal: [Line of Effort] 3 is called “owning […]
Special economic zones and PPBE reform for the Department of Defense
It is one of history’s great ironies that a major factor in defeating Soviet communism was one of the largest centrally planned economies in the […]
Podcast: China’s military, EVE online, and the future of combat with Thomas Shugart
Thomas Shugart joined Jordan Schneider and I on another cross-over episode of the China Talk and Acquisition Talk podcasts. Thomas spent 25 years in the […]
Podcast: PPBE Reform Panel 1 — Key Recommendations
For the first time in more than 50 years, a serious discussion is emerging on the foundations of defense budgeting and oversight. The “valley of […]
Human-machine teaming and the future of Great Power Competition
I believe the department of defense made the conclusion back in 2014 or 2015 that AI-enabled autonomy was the key to future warfighting and it […]
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 […]
General Hinote: We ought to reimagine budgeting and oversight
That sector is going so fast that I don’t know what the specific solution set might look like in 2027 when we’re going to be […]
China iterates twice as fast through military development and fielding cycles
In 2018, Mike Griffin, the first Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, disclosed an innovation time comparison that it takes the US on average sixteen […]
To compete with China, DoD requires a new paradigm for budgeting
The U.S. military’s lack of adaptability also puts DoD at a disadvantage against its primary competitor, China’s People’s Liberation Army. Unlike the Pentagon’s attempt to […]
Some insight into the Chinese defense industry
China’s defense industry itself has also undergone extraordinary changes since the mid-1990s. Originally established as industrial ministries in 1950, over the course of four decades […]
Great Power Competition with Richard Danzig
Richard Danzig joined me on a joint episode of the Acquisition Talk and China Talk podcasts to discuss US-China relations and military innovation. Richard is […]
The national security implications of crypto, and a strategy to counter China
The US has this really amazing strategic asset in the US dollar. If you look at borrowing and lending in the world, how trade is […]
Senator Sullivan: DoD acquisition is one of our “biggest vulnerabilities… It’s hurting us”
Senator Tim Kaine. It might be productive for the committee to have hits and failures of recent acquisition programs and get the DOD to tell […]