Another Pentagon Official Exits, Saying US Is at Risk of Losing Tech Edge (bloomberg.com) 46
A senior official responsible for driving technological innovation at the U.S. Department of Defense has resigned, saying the Pentagon needs "structural change" and should behave more like SpaceX, Elon Musk's satellite company that has shaken up rocket launches. From a report: "We're falling behind the commercial base in key areas, so we've got to catch up," Preston Dunlap, the first person in the U.S. Department of Defense to fulfill the role of chief architect officer, told Bloomberg News in an interview. As a result the U.S. risked losing its technological edge against potential adversaries, he said.
Dunlap, who handed in his resignation on Monday after three years in the post at the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Air Force, was responsible for pushing more technology into a $70 billion budget for research, development and acquisition. He plans to start a space software company focused on the nexus with satellites, data and artificial intelligence. The Pentagon was behind the domestic commercial sector in data, distributed computer processing, software, AI and cybersecurity, he said. "By the time the Government manages to produce something, it's too often obsolete," he said in a nine-page resignation statement he billed as a "playbook" to help guide the Pentagon, which he later made public on LinkedIn. "Much more must be done if DoD is going to regrow its thinning technological edge. Ironically as I'm writing this, I received notification that the phone lines are down at the Pentagon IT help desk. Phone lines are down? It's 2022, folks," he wrote.
Dunlap, who handed in his resignation on Monday after three years in the post at the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Air Force, was responsible for pushing more technology into a $70 billion budget for research, development and acquisition. He plans to start a space software company focused on the nexus with satellites, data and artificial intelligence. The Pentagon was behind the domestic commercial sector in data, distributed computer processing, software, AI and cybersecurity, he said. "By the time the Government manages to produce something, it's too often obsolete," he said in a nine-page resignation statement he billed as a "playbook" to help guide the Pentagon, which he later made public on LinkedIn. "Much more must be done if DoD is going to regrow its thinning technological edge. Ironically as I'm writing this, I received notification that the phone lines are down at the Pentagon IT help desk. Phone lines are down? It's 2022, folks," he wrote.
"SpaceX, Elon Musk's satellite company" (Score:2)
Never mind the missions delivering humans to the ISS. They're technically all just satellites.
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bloated sacks of protoplasm.
This guy (Score:1)
sounds like an insufferable douchenozzle.
Made-up name? (Score:2)
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He got it off of a tire.
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Let me know when you find a name that's not made up.
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Irony (Score:3)
Ironically as I'm writing this, I received notification that the phone lines are down at the Pentagon IT help desk
I think the word he’s looking for is coincidentally.
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No he has it right. You're just reading the Oxford English dictionary while he is reading the Natalie Imbruglia Compendium of How to Speak English All Goodlike.
Don't let the doorknob hit ya on the way out! (Score:3)
get rid of up or out or have an non manager track (Score:4, Insightful)
get rid of up or out or have an non manager track for tech rolls both enlisted and officer.
and have warrant officers come back to the air force
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That Slashdot post is an example of what C++ programmers call "The most vexing parse."
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A retired military friend said that nobody knew what a warrant officer did, but they knew that if you pissed one off he could hurt you bad.
Good excuse to get more funding. (Score:2)
China is stealing our tech, but it's not the same. And 90% of the stuff out of china, even the knock offs have no support. Yeah you can get chips from china that are cheaper, but the parts are untested and undocumented and if they break, your loss. Yeah, china is catching up in tech, but they aren't innovating and they don't have awesome companies.
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Yeah, this is true for all the stuff they make for cheap export. Why worry about quality control when most people are more interested in cheap $25 soldering irons or $30 quadcopters from Bang good and AliExpress. If the world wants cheap knock-offs, China is mo
Yes the Pentagon must change! (Score:3)
Yes, we do need more drive and entrepreneurial spirit in weapons systems design and acquisition. That's a fair comment, I'm not so sure the guy making though isn't a wanker.
Name one weapons system or program authorized by Congress that came in on budget or on time in the past 40 years?
Here's a few notables that you can't use: F35 [time.com] ... I'll wait ...
F22 [latimes.com] which is now being retired not even 10 years into service.
Gerald Ford aircraft carrier [dailypress.com] years behind schedule and over budget as well.
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I wasn't talking about the 33 airframes that aren't combat ready, that's a cost-saving measure to save $1.8B for the necessary combat upgrades. The new talk is the Air Force will start retiring the F22s starting in 2030 [nationalinterest.org]
The emerging 30-year force design, according to the Air Force Magazine report, calls for the F-22 to begin to sunset as early as 2030, a massive strategic shift from the status quo.
We spend billions building weapons systems only to have them become obsolete a few years into service while buying more F15s, the EX. [defensenews.com] and now they're looking at an F16 replacement. [popularmechanics.com] Originally the F35 along with the F22 were supposedly replacing the F16 and F15s. I guess because of delays get
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Let's compare that to your original statement:
See the problem?
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When you're retiring 18% of the available flying aircraft out of service and then reducing the lifespan of a program that cost $64.5B. After 10 years they don't want them and are going after new designs because the $1.7T F35 isn't living up to expectations and still haven't finished deploying yet.
The F16s and F15s have had service lives up to 30 years and 35 years for C/D models respectively and are still in service. The F22 was supposed to last 40 years, not 25, so billions were wasted on a fighter we didn
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I have been complaining about an AFRL video as fraud. However, I was told authoritatively that it was not fraud. After thinking about it, the only reasonable conclusion is that the AF is about to make planes, all of them, obsolete. That is along with tanks, and every other kind of military hardware, not to mention solders.
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Has any other country or any private business done better?
It might just be the case that building really cutting edge weapons is hard and expensive.
The only examples I can think of are hypersonic missiles. Russia and India developed them relatively cheaply, although it's not known if they work very well. China has some decent looking aircraft, but again we don't really know if they are actually any good or what they cost to develop.
Ya Think? (Score:3, Interesting)
The 1993 book "The Pentagon Wars" is the history of those reformers and whistleblowers who challenged the Pentagon culture that blew up the time, cost, and weight of every new development. They were the ones that sent the "$400 Hammer" and "$600 toilet seat" to Congress.
What Andrew Cockburn, in his new book, "The Spoils of War", emphasizes, is that those were just examples of *everything* in the system. The $45 fuel valve is $5000. The $3 peanut light on the console is $150. A $250M jet is really only $25M worth of functionality.
"Tech" is not measured with one dimension. If you can't make it affordably, you can't make it. Except in a situation where a populace is frightened and shamelessly lied to, so they'll subsidize comically overpriced and underperforming products.
The F-35 "Lightning II" is not allowed within 25 miles of actual thunderstorms; static in the fuel tanks might blow them up. They have hopes of a fix for that in a year or so.
Keeping in mind that the alleged reason for needing ever-more-expensive, ever-heavier warplanes is to counter the Russian air force; who appear to be pretty stonkered by what Ukraine has available. (NB: Cockburn also stressed that the most-corrupt bureaucracy in Russia - think about that for a second - is THEIR military procurement...)
Re: Ya Think? (Score:2)
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>One of the biggest problems is that GS pay scale is sh!t
GS payscale is shit because of locality pay, but anything 11 on up within a high paying locality is decent. You're trading pay for job security. After several decades of working in the private sector and getting fired for thing as mundane as looking the CEO in the eye every morning to say, "Good Morning Gabe" when everyone else is supposed to look at their toes, I'm happy to be here.
> a revolving door with incompetent govies
Here is the catch 22
In other news, water wet (Score:1)
Politicians are always obsessed with lowering or raising taxes, but never on spending them more efficiently. That's because everyone knows a government body is always inefficient and wasteful. Unless the President wants to micro-manage the budget and kick ass personally, there is no accountability for poor efficiency in the government. It's because the government is largely a hierarchical organization, and in those organizations, efficiency only comes until the person at the top gets angry and forces everyo
Still not getting it ... (Score:1)
I don't think it's possible for "entrepreneurs" to gain any meaningful understanding from 10,000 feet. Any idiot can tell you that the turf wars are not only counterproductive, but destructive. To get a handle on the deeper problems, managers would have to study the nature of their organization. In other words - since we're talking about R&D - start by reading "The Idea Factory".
Some DoD managers are actively pushing highly qualified, motivated technical staff to leave or retire. While many contract
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But who cares, the higher ups in our military are worried about WHITE RAGE/SUPREMACY... Because that's totally a thing now.... Spoiler, it's not.
So, tell me again who was it that tried to overthrow our government on 1/6/21? Yeah, that's right - white ragers. The biggest threat to our country is our own countrymen; the useful idiots that think they're "patriots."
Behave more like SpaceX? (Score:2)
So, build your company on government subsidies and set-aside contracts?
The government isn't the same as a contractor; it has a different role, and if you don't realize that you end up with the kind of *siloviki* that run Russia's defense enterprises.
What we *should* do is prevent defense contractor corporate consolidation; maybe break apart a few, to make sure the private sector part of the defense procurement system has real competition.
I think winning may be the problem. (Score:2)
Isn't this how "SkyNet" is spelled? (Score:2)
"He plans to start a space software company focused on the nexus with satellites, data and artificial intelligence."
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No, it is him showing he's good at playing buzzword bingo. He's a natural for a CEO of a tech company on his way to a golden retirement leaving the company a smoking ruin.
An interesting little tidbit... (Score:1)
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A widely travelled professor once told me a story about how he was invited to speak at a NATO conference. If he agreed to the conference terms and conditions, he wouldn't be allowed to travel to certain countries, including some of his favorites. So he asked what would happen if he didn't agree. He was told he could come and deliver his paper. He would be escorted in before his paper, and escorted out afterwards.
He did exactly that.
It is necessary to decide if you want to be in the security bubble or
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The Pentagon already was like SpaceX (Score:2)
The Commander in Chief of the armed forces exhibited verbal diarrhea and temper tantrums over Twitter in ways that made even Elon Musk say "daaaymn, that some quality shitposting right there".
No really (Score:2)
The US has been losing its tech edge since foreign nationals had an edge in access and financing in American universities and outsourcing was subsidized.
already lost (Score:2)
US tech edge is already lost. US no longer has the know-how to manufacture most electronic products. The Biden solution is to force greater diversity and create more jobs installing solar panels from China.
Incompetent generals are no longer fired.