“We’re still looking for the ability to translate and transition those innovation priorities into capabilities, into programs of record, into budget priorities,” said Rachel Hoff, Reagan Institute’s policy director and one of the authors of a new scorecard evaluating progress in defense innovation.
By Valerie InsinnaThe Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption acknowledged in a new report that there were “broader, strategic matters” that “will take time to reach full implementation.”
By Jaspreet Gill“You can have a terrific piece of gear, but if it’s very difficult to train, it’s just not going to be as effective or if it’s too expensive to train on, it’s not going to be as affordable for the Army to do at scale and everything the Army does is at vast scale,” Doug Bush said.
By Jaspreet Gill“So we think we can actually help make it easier for you to be able to get after the key programs that the warfighter needs,” Adm. John Acquilino said.
By Jaspreet GillA ponderous budget process, overspending on old tech, and chronically late appropriations hamstring the Pentagon’s ability to tap into private-sector innovation, according to the foundation’s new scorecard.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The “American spirit of adaptability that has played such a central role in our past success is even more necessary today if we are to remain a globally competitive country and economy,” writes former House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry.
By Mac Thornberry“If we are to meet the innovation goals of the NDS, we must incentivize the primes to move beyond the short-term partnership model and encourage them to form more holistic relationships with promising early-stage companies, including investment into operating businesses,” writes Chip Walter.
By Chip WalterOn the 50th anniversary of the F-15 Eagle’s first flight and its groundbreaking APG-63 radar that helped the fighter revolutionize tactical combat, here’s a look at the state of radars and mission systems today.
By Breaking Defense“Ideas are out there,” Col. Joe Buccino said, referring to the 2 million-plus people who serve in the military. “It’s just a matter of finding them.”
By Andrew Eversden“Each of the services is clearly working on their own services capability gap so there’s a missing piece in terms of when we fight in a conflict,” Shyu said. “We don’t fight within a single service, we fight jointly.”
By Andrew EversdenOPINION: When Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed the Department’s strategy for Joint All-Domain Command and Control, it officially kicked off a push towards open architectures, information sharing, and connected systems across the battlespace. But the capabilities to execute these concepts are often commercial, software-heavy, and do not fall neatly into existing budgeting processes. That…
By Jerry McGinnThe current approach “is more akin to innovation tourism—with the DoD sampling the local fare of the United States’ various tech hubs—than a bona fide strategy for bringing emerging technologies into the department,” the report notes.
By Brad D. WilliamsA new Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) will help fund the services’ experiments, as long as they work together on joint concepts.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Michèle A. Flournoy and Wendy R. Anderson lay out their vision for how the Pentagon can speed software acquisition in this new op-ed.
By Wendy R. Anderson and Michele A. Flournoy