14 février 2024 | International, Terrestre
Marines test robotic mule that could carry weapons, sensors
The program seeks to take the load off of dismounted troops.
11 février 2021 | International, C4ISR
By: Nate Ashton
Defense priorities are shifting toward emerging technologies at an unprecedented pace, but still not fast enough to keep America ahead of potential adversaries. We need to hit the accelerator by drastically increasing the tech savviness of defense leaders.
The defense establishment is better at this than it used to be. We've seen a rapid expansion of new authorities and programs to drive tech innovation since Pentagon leaders started talking about the “third offset” in 2014. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act continues that trend, establishing a national cyber director position, elevating the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, and calling for open-systems architecture and API usage in some key programs. But we will not keep our current military superiority through these kinds of incremental changes alone.
We need a radical shift in how the Department of Defense does business.
Any organizational transformation starts with the right leadership. This is doubly true in government, where the bureaucracy is built to maintain the status quo and avoid risk to guarantee continuity of operations and effective stewardship of taxpayer dollars. But understanding where risk and opportunity lies — in areas from cybersecurity to agile procurement — is now much more important than knowing how to manage a major, multibillion-dollar weapons system procurement.
The Biden administration and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should start by filling key acquisitions and management roles with leaders who have experience in the tech or venture sector, or have a record of disruptive innovation within the DoD itself. These people must bring both an understanding of the current tech landscape and a willingness to back the innovators under them. Without a clear, top-down mandate to disrupt the status quo, nothing will change.
The new administration should also make it a priority to heed the advice of defense and technology advisory boards. Oftentimes leaders who have spent their careers in tech, venture, and private research and development may be unsuited for full-time government positions, yet bring invaluable perspective and expertise. The Biden administration should continue and accelerate the work already being done to implement the Defense Innovation Board's recommendations for training and software acquisition and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission's recommendations for security.
More than identifying useful, new technologies, defense leaders must transform culture and skills at all levels of the DoD to operationalize tech innovation. The hardest part of driving change in a big organization is not recognizing the end goal nor setting policies to get there, but rather operationalizing it at all levels across the millions of active-duty, civilian and contractor personnel doing the day-to-day work. This will take massive investments in training the existing workforce, strengthening the pathways between defense and the national tech and venture ecosystems, and changing processes to enable and incentivize new ways of doing business.
The DoD needs to make aggressive investments in the near term. In the near term, defense leaders should:
The future of defense innovation is bright, and the community of passionate leaders inside and outside of the government working to move things forward is incredibly inspiring. I'm hopeful the Biden administration and new Congress will see 2021 as the year to make ambitious investments for the future.
 
					14 février 2024 | International, Terrestre
The program seeks to take the load off of dismounted troops.
 
					28 mai 2024 | International, C4ISR
The ISO 42001 compliance checklist helps to lay the foundation for what your organization should expect when working towards certification.
 
					23 avril 2024 | International, Terrestre