Defense Tech and Acquisition News
Shaping Modern Warfare and Manufacturing for the Digital Age.
Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition news. What excites/worries us this week…
Software-defined manufacturing is the only way that we catch up to China
Boeing troubles continue…and not just for the poor astronauts stuck in space.
The Government has an implementation problem…it is the bureaucracy and its compliance regime that prevents progress and puts us behind our competitors.
Batteries may be the overlooked military gamechanger tech for the future fight.
Replicator 2.0 decisions on the docket for the summer - the focus is near-term!
Digital engineering might be our solution to acquisition reform - or will it?
Enjoy!
Top Stories
Rebooting the American Industrial Base: Software and the Future of Manufacturing
America won the Second World War with mass production, logistics, and technology while the much-vaunted German Army ran on horses and hay.
Two of the three major Axis powers never built an aircraft carrier. The U.S. Navy built 151 and had enough left over for a fleet of refrigerated ice cream barges.
The idea of America as the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II—innovative, productive, and hard-working—is now firmly a story we tell about ourselves.
But that was then, and this is now.
Today, Americans face the reality that we can’t make things in quantities to keep us safe, while our principal adversary is flooding the world with its manufactures.
China today has a nearly one-third share of global manufacturing output.
China has nearly half of global shipbuilding capacity (232x the U.S.).
Two Chinese companies make virtually all of the world’s commercial drones.
China surpassed the U.S. in share of global semiconductor production.
China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of gas/electric automobiles.
America’s crisis of production is ultimately a crisis of productivity. Total factor productivity has stagnated during the past 50 years.
Investors have focused on capital-light businesses that promised easier returns on their money - talent followed and we’ve seen the best minds of our generation sucked into a SaaS hole of darkness, designing targeted ads for banal products.
Thankfully, industrial decline is a solvable problem—and a choice. We can make better choices, create better incentives, and use our strengths to our advantage.
What if companies could create a superstructure of software over the entire, fragmented production process, just like Palantir did for the government?
This software would absorb and analyze data from company’s countless suppliers, components, machines, and workers to create a complete model of the production process.
It would control physical machines, like industrial robots and machine tools, allowing refinements to the production process on the fly.
This is the promise of software-defined production.
It allows managers to regain control of sprawling bureaucracies.
It helps workers understand how to act amid complexity.
It connects strategy with operations.
It acts as a digital aid to human agency, allowing them to execute and win.
Palantir’s Foundry platform helped Airbus understand and reengineer its production process. It fused data on schedules, shifts, parts, deliveries, defects, and much more into a single platform.
Insights from this system helped Airbus reduce defects, prevent accidents, and respond flexibly to supplier delays.
Technology is no longer the province of West Coast coders and cyberspace fantasies. It is fundamental to “blue-collar” work, learning by doing, and a mass manufacturing revival.
American technology is already the backbone of some of the world’s most impressive industrial giants. If we’re going to revitalize the Arsenal of Democracy, we need to unleash the technology at our fingertips.
Our Take: Leveraging our collective software expertise to reboot our lagging manufacturing sector is the most logical win-win scenario imaginable.
Today's Battlefield Presents Urgency for Innovation
Heidi Shyu and Dr. William LaPlante
“To shore up the foundations for integrated deterrence and campaigning, we will act urgently to build enduring advantages across the defense ecosystem — the DoD, the defense industrial base and the array of private sector and academic enterprises that create and sharpen the Joint Force’s technological edge.” National Defense Strategy
Over the past few years, the need for DoD to quickly field critical technologies at scale has come into even greater focus, with two years of war in Europe as Ukraine resists a prolonged Russian invasion, ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas and increasingly threatening behavior from China and Iran.
Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, these threats are characterized by growing and sophisticated use of advanced, emerging technologies, including unmanned and autonomous systems in Ukraine, China testing hypersonics at an accelerated pace and AI-enabled technology being used in the Middle East, just to name a few.
Each of these conflicts underscores the need for a strong U.S. national defense enabled by a robust, resilient and innovative defense industrial base capable of generating the world’s most advanced weapons systems and having the capacity to produce at speed and scale.
However, recent years have shown that the Defense Department is often challenged to quickly field emerging and critical technologies.
That’s why our offices have been working closely with the military services, defense and commercial industry and academia to step up to these challenges and deliver new capabilities to our warfighters and allies.
We have invested in new research and production activities like the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program, and new mechanisms for partnerships through our Manufacturing Innovation Institutes.
We have made use of programs like Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment, Manufacturing Technology and Defense Production Act Title III to shore up the defense industrial base so it can deliver needed systems.
We have also strengthened our engagements with the commercial sector through the work of the DARPA and DIU, in addition to initiatives like OSC and our network of APEX accelerators.
There has never been a better time to find entry to and do business with the department.
The U.S., however, must not pursue innovation alone. Our allies and partners are an enduring force multiplier that our adversaries do not share.
The U.S. should look for opportunities to nearshore or friendshore certain critical components and reduce reliance on the PRC.
While all the DoD’s 14 identified critical technology areas are vital to national defense, the Joint Warfighting Concept focuses in on a few key capabilities where the department is looking hard at industry for help: contested logistics, CJADC2, and counter-UAS, just to name a few.
If the DoD is to succeed in delivering innovation to the warfighter at speed and scale, it will only be because we continually commit ourselves to the task.
It’s Time to Bring the Pentagon Budget Into the 21st Century
As the world crisis grows, with America involved in wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East and possibly facing a major conflict over Taiwan, calls for increasing our defense spending have reached a crescendo. The new NDAA from Congress increases the Pentagon budget to $880B—an all-time high in terms of dollars spent. A prominent senator has even urged raising that amount annually to 5% of GDP—which is still barely half of the percentage spent during the Cold War.
However, just as important—or even more important—than what the Pentagon spends, is how it spends it.
A Congressionally appointed blue ribbon commission has set on the policy table a list of recommended reforms to bring the Pentagon’s budget system into the 21st century.
The battle now begins to implement those changes, changes that could not only mean using defense dollars more wisely and effectively; they could make the difference between victory or defeat in any future war.
The PPBE process, created in the 1960s, is no longer up to the challenge of meeting today’s rapid technological changes, or the complex challenges posed by China’s and Russia’s militaries, from drones and hypersonics to naval forces and space.
Among the commission’s 28 detailed recommendations, four stand out.
Replacing the existing PPBE Process with a new Defense Resourcing System (DRS), consisting of the four discreet stages of the old system with three interlocking stages.
Finding ways to strengthen the Pentagon’s analytic processes and measurement metrics, for a more accurate system of adjusting resource allocation, i.e., how much money is needed as well as how it’s spent, to fit with overall strategy.
Transforming the budget’s overall structure, by creating a seamless top-down flow from Service/Component and Major Capability Activity Area, e.g., UAV’s or submarines or Space Systems, to individual systems and programs throughout their life cycle.
Consolidating the different RDT&E budget activities.
Anyone who knows Washington knows great reforms don’t sell themselves. An implementation plan is needed.
At a time when China can obtain new weapons systems five to six times faster than the Pentagon; and complete the development to fielding cycle 2.5 times faster; getting a PPBE system that can keep up with technological as well as strategic changes, isn’t just a good idea. It’s imperative.
Our Take: Fully agree with Dr. Herman’s piece and the DIRE NEED for Congress and DoD to act upon the PPBE Reform Commission’s recommendations. We also recommend reading Herman’s iconic book.
Astronauts Stranded in Space Due to Issues with Boeing's Starliner
NASA and Boeing engineers are troubleshooting faults in the Starliner spacecraft but with only 45 days of docking time available, the window for return is closing.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled to return to Earth on June 13 after a week on the ISS, but their stay has been extended for a third time due to the ongoing issues.
The astronauts will now return home no sooner than June 26th.
After years of delays, Boeing's Starliner successfully blasted off on its inaugural crewed flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5.
During the 25-hour flight, engineers discovered five separate helium leaks to the spacecraft's thruster system.
The Harmony module's limited fuel means Starliner can only stay docked for 45 days, so the window for a safe return flight is narrowing.
Our Take: It is stories like this, along with the many other issues that the company is facing that makes us worry about its continued involvement in the defense space. Sadly, the issues that seem apparent in its commercial business are replicated on the defense side with major delays or issues on the T-7, F-15EX, MQ-25, Sentinel, KC-46 and Presidential Aircraft programs. We hope that Boeing under new leadership can find its way back to excellence.
What Money Can’t Buy
By now we’re all too familiar with stories of government overpromising and underdelivering. The promises get bill signings, ribbon cuttings, and ceremonial ground breakings. The failures get GAO reports and dunks on X.
In 2021, Congress spent $7.5B for a half-million electric-vehicle charging stations. Three years later, only eight had been built.
Congress spent $50B to jumpstart semiconductor manufacturing. Now marquee projects like TSMC’s in Arizona are delayed by years to 2027 - 2028.
Congress spent $42.5B to bring high-speed internet to rural America. Three years later, not a single home has been connected.
The failures we see in the U.S. are not primarily failures of vision. We are afflicted instead with the pathologies of a rich country (complacency and self-satisfaction),
The killer instinct and grind-it-out mentality that created the good times go away.
People start to fetishize money as the solution to problems in itself, while ignoring the hard work that money is meant to support and reward.
Politicians act like their commitment to solving a problem scales in tandem with the funding they can throw at that problem.
In a properly designed incentive structure, money is an enabler on the front end and a reward for completion on the back end.
Leadership, organization, and accountability are far more important than money in driving outcomes.
Bureaucracy is the enemy of accountability. Too many agencies seem structured precisely to insulate key decision-makers from accountability for delivering results. Their sheer size and complexity bewilder leaders, tricking them into thinking the bureaucracy runs on auto-pilot.
Effective action requires small teams with complete authority and intense devotion to wrangling the beast of bureaucracy.
Kelly Johnson of Skunk Works fame had 14 rules of management.
These rules create a bias for action, and leave no doubt where the buck stops if the train goes off the tracks.
Operation Warp Speed was the perfect storm of urgency, leadership, and technology.
Breaking out of our national malaise will require a concerted effort to clear away the bureaucracy standing in the way of progress—starting now, before the moment of crisis.
If our goal is to build, then non-essential obstacles to building need to go.
Our Take: This sounds all too familiar to us since the defense acquisition system is rife with bureaucratic layers of low-value oversight that impede rather than promote progress. PMs bear the weight of multi-billion dollar programs on their back but have little true control given the overbearing compliance systems in-place that only serve to say no but have no equity or accountability in the outcomes. While there are pockets of greatness throughout DoD acquisition, in general it is where creativity and innovation still go to die.
Defense Tech
Is Defense Technology in a Bubble?
An openly competitive geopolitical environment necessitates a strong Defense Tech sector defined by the ability of a country to create new technologies and rapidly put them in the hands of a warfighter.
Leveraging all elements of the civilian population/commercial sector to ensure military superiority has been a reality since post-World War II.
Our caution is rooted in the realities of public company valuations and precedent transactions regarding hardware technologies.
Defense Tech valuation headwinds include customer concentration (only selling to the DoD), long sales cycles, contracting mechanisms that limit upside, low margins of hardware companies, high CapEx to get to commercialization, and regulatory restrictions that potentially limit sales to foreign entities.
We believe that a balanced approach to Defense Tech investing is imperative.
The ability to fight, win, and deter future conflicts means that the formation of an investment bubble in the sector has much greater negative implications than recent technology bubbles (see VR headsets, crypto, micro-mobility, etc.).
This leads one to ask the question: Are entry valuations of Defense Tech companies justified based on exit possibilities, or in other words, is Defense Tech currently in a bubble?
An examination of precedent transactions in the defense technology sector reveals relatively high EV/Rev multiples compared to comparable companies.
It also shows that private equity plays a key role in defense tech acquisition, with approximately half of our precedent transactions sample involving private equity which has implications for the exit potential of defense tech companies.
VC activity in the defense sector will eventually decline without VC-like returns; however, the public markets do not seem to reward defense and defense-associated companies on the same level as other traditional markets.
The VC community seems to have a great deal of enthusiasm to tackle Defense Tech challenges, the majority of which are hardware in nature.
Based on current public company comparables and precedent transactions, current entry valuations are questionable at best and are simply too high at worst.
The earliest-stage investors (pre-seed and seed) can deliver venture-like returns, but later-stage investor returns are doubtful based on comps and precedents.
What is incontrovertible is that the security of the U.S. cannot afford a deep trough of disillusionment that exists in most hype cycles and the lag time/fall off in investment activity that typically comes with it.
A balanced Defense Tech investment sector is a national security issue.
SandboxAQ Launches Nav System to Counter GPS Spoofing, Jamming
AQNav uses AI algorithms, quantum sensors and the Earth’s crustal magnetic field to provide real-time navigation in situations where GPS signals are down or deterred.
The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have underlined the growing threat of GPS disruption and its implications on the future of warfare.
The Air Force awarded SandboxAQ a contract to use geomagnetic navigation in January 2023 and by May of 2023, AQNav had completed its first flight tests.
Quantum sensors are highly sensitive and AI algorithms are employed to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio, which eliminates mechanical, electrical or other interferences that could affect the ability to accurately determine its location.
The new system relies on sensitive quantum magnetometers that gather data from the Earth’s crustal magnetic field, which has geographically unique patterns.
The system then uses AI algorithms to compare patterns from the Earth’s crust to known magnetic maps which lets AQNav find its position accurately and quickly.
AQNav works in any weather condition and can be used across air, land and sea.
AQNav has operated on over four different aircraft types, completing over 40 deployments and logging over 200 flight-hours, including flight tests by the Air Force, Boeing and Acubed by Airbus.
Our Take: Given the challenges already known about GPS and the seeming inability to launch the needed constellation of GPS III satellites and field the upgraded User Equipment needed to enable it - it is heartening to know that other solutions like the Resilient EGI program and AQNav can provide our warfighters with the navigation insights they need in combat.
Scale’s Alex Wang on the US-China AI Race
From ChinaTalk Blog
When the progression of AI innovation is zoomed out, the trendlines are basically three steady exponential curves all stacked on top of one another.
First is the compute curve, both with Moore's law as well as just the ability to scale such that we can use way more compute than we have in the past.
The second is the data curve. Starting in the early 2010s with the original use of deep learning and neural networks, the amount of data that is used for these algorithms has grown pretty smoothly in an exponential curve. The current models are very data-hungry.
The third is the algorithm curve, which is the progress of innovation.
The current large language models are trained in two phases – pre-training and post-training.
The pre-training phase has tens or hundreds of thousands of GPUs, comprises the entire internet and trains a huge neural network or a huge transformer model on that data. This gives you a model that is super smart, but not useful.
The second phase is post-training, where you actually get the model to be optimized for useful functions. This post-training phase depends a lot on expert data, or what we call frontier data.
This is where you commonly apply techniques like RLHF (Reinforcement learning from human feedback), and SFT (supervised fine-tuning) leveraging exquisite, high-quality data.
This is where a lot of the safety controls come into place. The second phase of post-training is where most of the progress has come over the past two years.
If we can post-train GPT-4 to solve graduate-level math problems, then it probably has a lot of the intrinsic capability and intelligence to be able to do almost anything that a human can do.
CDAO’s Tradewinds Announces New Strategic Focus Areas
Their new announcement identifies strategic focus areas to provide next generation capabilities that increase the effectiveness of U.S. forces and support Department-wide reform efforts by addressing critical operational and business challenges.
Improving situational awareness and decision-making.
Increasing safety of operating equipment.
Implementing predictive maintenance and supply.
Streamlining business processes.
Assuring cybersecurity.
Developing a digital-age workforce.
Increasing autonomy and mobility of DoD systems.
Application of AI/ML Scaffolding and AI Assurance.
Assuring Reliable Data Sources.
Augmenting Responsible AI Capabilities and Processes.
Supporting Responsible AI Practices.
Assessment and Compliance Solutions.
Discovering blue sky/other technology applications.
How the Military is Preparing For AI at the Edge
DoD has long used AI to detect objects in battlespaces, but the capability has been mainly limited to identification. New advancements in AI and data analysis can offer leaders new levels of mission awareness with insights into intent, path predictions, abnormalities, and other revealing characterizations.
The DoD has an extensive wealth of data. In today’s sensor-filled theaters, commanders can access text, images, video, radio signals, and sensor data from all sorts of assets.
However, each data type is often analyzed separately, leaving human analysts to draw — and potentially miss — connections.
Using AI frameworks for multimodal data analysis allows different data streams to be analyzed together, offering decision-makers a comprehensive view of an event.
For example, Navy systems can identify a ship nearby, but generative AI could zero in on the country of origin, ship class, and whether the system has encountered that specific vessel before.
With an object of interest identified, data fusion techniques and machine learning algorithms could review all the data available for other complementary information.
This enhanced situational awareness is only possible if real-time analysis happens at the edge instead of sending data to a central location for processing.
Keeping AI local is critical for battlefield awareness, cybersecurity, and healthcare monitoring applications requiring timely responses.
To prepare, DoD must adopt solutions with significant computing power at the edge, find ways to reduce the size of their AI/ML models and mitigate new security threats.
Processing at the edge saves time and avoids significant costs by allowing devices to upload analysis results to the cloud instead of vast amounts of raw data.
However, AI at the edge requires equipment with sufficient computing power for today and tomorrow’s algorithms. Devices and sensors must be able to operate in a standalone manner to perform computing, analysis, learning, training, and inference in the field, wherever that may be.
Another consideration is orchestration: Any resilient system should include dynamic role assignments. For example, if multiple drones are flying and the leader gets taken out, another system component needs to assume that role.
AI at the edge presents new digital and physical security challenges.
Still, having AI capabilities at the tactical edge can provide a critical advantage during evolving combat scenarios. By enabling advanced analytics at the edge, data can be quickly transformed into actionable intelligence, augmenting human decision-making with real-time information and providing a strategic advantage over adversaries.
Our Take: This piece offers a good discussion on AI on the edge, as readers of this Substack are familiar with, but it was light on the HOW. As one of us lives in data center alley, where 70% of the world’s internet traffic flows through, new data centers continue to emerge on a regular basis. We know the Army is constantly focused on lightening soldier’s packs which can include over 25 pounds in batteries. Will we see more palleted data centers or shipping container sized data centers for tactical operations? In reading this piece, I imagined this:
Batteries as a Military Enabler
Batteries, often overlooked, could quietly tilt the balance of military power.
Batteries are likely to prove highly significant for the maritime domain, which will be a critical feature in any confrontation over Taiwan.
Batteries are employed in unmanned underwater vessels, unmanned surface vessels and, non-nuclear-powered submarines.
With existing lead-acid batteries, diesel-electric subs must frequently rise near the surface to intake air, or snorkel, which allows them to clear diesel exhaust and recharge batteries for operation but raises the risk of detection.
Lithium-ion battery–powered submarines offer performance improvements over existing lead-acid batteries including lower risk of detection (due to less need for snorkeling, as well as quieter operations), longer underwater endurance, and higher speeds for sprinting and cruising.
Synergies between China’s aerial drone-making capabilities, shipbuilding prowess, and its battery complex should be a focus of coalition military planners.
Recommendations
The U.S. and its allies should continue to phase in tariffs on Chinese exports of lithium-ion batteries for grid storage and electric vehicles.
Washington and Brussels should collectively de-risk supply chains, especially in upstream mining and refining for raw materials like graphite, nickel, and lithium.
The U.S. and its allies should ensure that any battery technology transfers do not aid the Chinese defense industrial base
The U.S. must expand its own battery capacity and capabilities by making new investments, reforming onerous permitting requirements, adopting new policy mechanisms, and incentivizing research and development.
U.S. policymakers should reach a bipartisan agreement that streamlines reviews for all energy projects.
Our Take: Electric-powered platforms have inherent limitations in range and payload but advances in battery technology that gives an edge against adversary forces could make an enormous difference. The ability to transport cargo, employ sensors or deliver kinetic payloads at 700 versus 500 miles could be game changing in the theater of operations.
DoD Successfully Deploys Commercial AI Solutions To Improve Computing Power
DoD currently relies on a variety of on-premise computers to run compute-intensive workloads, such as deep neural networks, physics models, and engineering simulations. Although this approach has been effective so far, reliance on physical computers demands substantial investment in sourcing, purchasing, installing, and maintaining new hardware.
In early 2022, DIU partnered with the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), which manages DoD’s supercomputing assets, to both proactively identify potential commercial solutions to scale resources as demand changes and provide access to the latest computing advances.
Using DIU’s CSO process, the team identified vendors that could link the HPCMP’s on-premise computers with cloud-based HPC resources to both serve as surge capacity and to provide access to cutting-edge resources for specialized workloads.
DIU awarded two prototype agreements to Rescale and Parallel Works under HPCMP.
Both vendors have been successful putting supercomputing in the cloud and aim to expand the scale and range of HPC resources available within the DoD by integrating cloud-based HPC assets into the HPCMP’s existing Supercomputing Resource Centers.
After an 18-month prototyping period, both Rescale and Parallel Works demonstrated that their solutions successfully increase the computing power of the HPCMP’s Supercomputing Resource Centers without significantly increasing hardware costs or requirements.
The US is Losing the Race for Better Munitions. Here’s How to Help.
As the global strategic environment worsens, the race to innovate in the domain of energetic materials —crucial components of modern weaponry — is only going to become more intense.
Militaries in advanced countries struggle to keep pace with a transition from legacy explosives like HMX and RDX to next-generation capabilities.
In recent decades, the U.S. has pursued a conservative approach, focusing on incremental improvements to tried-and-true materials.
However, our strategic competitors, notably China, have underwritten far-reaching, fundamental research in advanced energetic materials that could one day redefine the parameters of firepower and munition effectiveness.
Beginning with the release of the National Energetics Plan mandated by the 2020 NDAA, the Energetics Technology Center (ETC) has been closely tracking global research and development of high-performance energetic materials.
There is evidence that China has invested heavily for more than a decade to produce CL-20 at industrial scale, presumably to realize significant advantages in the performance of its weapons systems and solid rocket boosters.
Even more concerning, U.S. adversaries are laying the groundwork to surpass the performance of CL-20, with the clear intent of enhancing munitions efficacy and dramatically altering the strategic landscape.
Higher velocities often mean more powerful explosions, which are critical for applications requiring maximum impact from minimal material.
Rockets can achieve higher speeds, carry more payload, or travel longer distances with the same amount of propellant.
The 2024 NDAA saw the creation of a Joint Transition Office for Energetic Materials (JETO) to streamline the development and integration of advanced materials like CL-20 into US weapons systems.
The JETO presents the best chance for the U.S to match China’s pace and build a robust pipeline for the development of new energetic materials and ensure that new, more powerful capabilities based on them find their way to the warfighter.
Accelerating acquisition processes, enhancing collaboration between researchers and end-users, and fostering a culture that prioritizes faster innovation will help.
Our Take: We know there are industry partners out there who have been working this problem. They just need the head-nod and some resourcing from DoD to advance our current materials into the next generation. We have high hopes for the JETO.
Fulcrum: DOD IT Advancement Strategy
DEPSECDEF (for DoD CIO) signed out a new strategy for DoD IT. Fulcrum provides a roadmap for better aligning IT usage to advance DoD priorities.
Strategic Objectives
Deliver solutions that are innovative, feature-rich, and aligned with user needs.
Prioritize user experience (UX) by ensuring that functionality is intuitive, performant, resilient, and contributes to overall mission success.
Invest in IT infrastructure that is agile and scalable, capable of adapting to ever changing business requirements and mission demands.
Implement measures to maintain optimal performance, even during periods of increased workloads or business expansion.
Consider long-term interoperability and sustainability of IT solutions during design and development aiming for solutions that stand the test of time.
Implement secure by design principles paired with a robust cybersecurity management framework that addresses the entire IT landscape, from network infrastructure to applications and data.
Level of Efforts
Provide Joint Warfighting IT capabilities to expand strategic dominance of U.S. Forces and mission partners.
Modernize information networks and compute to rapidly meet mission and business needs.
Optimize IT governance to gain efficiencies in capability delivery and enable cost savings.
Cultivate a premier digital workforce ready to deploy emerging technology to the warfighter.
Our Take: This is the latest IT/Software/Cyber strategy from the department. It blends a strategy and implementation plan, outlining 60 measures across the four LOEs, yet little depth within each element. For example, “4.3.1. Increase job satisfaction across the digital workforce. To attract, recruit, and retain a digital workforce in today’s competitive environment, the Department must offer competitive compensation, work-life balance, job stability, functional work location, innovative environment, and flexibility in when and where people work.” This is a laudable effort, yet light on actionable details.
Related Articles: What DOD’s new Fulcrum IT strategy means for warfighters and Defense Department launches Fulcrum Strategy to transform cyber and IT capabilities
DISA Says IT Problem Statements Will Help Industry Speed Innovation
To help buy the right tech from IT companies, DISA will publish a list of problem statements this fall alongside its annual tech priorities watchlist.
Steve Wallace, DISA CTO said this is a way of getting at a common problem in the DoD: a focus on emerging technology without a clear understanding of the problem its intended to solve.
It’s not just an attempt to speed up the acquisitions process as the Pentagon is in a race for digital dominance against China and other nation-state hackers.
Much of the conversation around cybersecurity in national defense is around pacing, but with industry constantly coming to market with new tools, there’s a need by government to be a wary purchaser.
These problem statements are a potential way for the Defense Department to buy a broader range of tools, not just the shiniest ones.
The government often tries to emulate industry. But startups in Silicon Valley aren’t tied to a congressional budget cycle. And they have the room, and often the in-house expertise, to fail fast and pivot often.
“It is our ability to interface with industry and then understanding where to apply some tactical patience as industry develops tech and then we insert ourselves. That’s much different than us writing an initial capabilities document and saying, I need you to build this cool tool.” Maj David Courter, within DISA J-5.
Attacks Against Defense Industrial Base Increasing, NSA Chief Warns
China, Russia, and others are taking aim more frequently at companies that serve the U.S. military.
The defense industrial base—the companies that produce goods and services and conduct research for the DoD—includes more than 160,000 domestic and foreign companies that employ 9% of the U.S. workforce is being actively targeted by our adversaries and competitors, particularly the PRC.
Government officials have been issuing increasingly dire warnings about China’s rising risk tolerance for cyber operations, as evinced by the Volt Typhoon campaign, which targeted key elements of U.S. infrastructure.
The NSA and CYBERCOM are devoting more time and energy to threats posed by AI-enabled cyber attacks, as well as working on how to employ AI for cyber security within the DoD and the industrial base.
75% of cybersecurity actions could be automated for far faster and better defense—particularly against attacks that adversaries have also scaled up through AI.
By the end of 2025, Zero-Trust Network Access should be implemented across DoD sites. That will put the Pentagon in a much better position to begin to better implement new, cutting-edge AI tools for defense across the entire DOD.
Related story: China Actively Working to Disrupt U.S. Defense Industry
Advancing National Defense: Lessons from the DoD’s Cyber Strategy
The prominence of cybersecurity and cyber defense as paramount elements of national security took a significant step forward, as demonstrated through the 2023 Cyber Strategy of the DoD. It provides a forward-looking outline of the DoD’s priorities in the cyber domain only; it does not establish policy for what the DoD calls the information environment.
While the document reveals some modified imperatives, the DoD’s new strategy draws on lessons learned from years of conducting cyber operations and our close observation of how cyber has been used in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The DoD cites four areas where it plans to focus its efforts: Defend the nation, prepare to fight and win the nation’s wars, protect the cyber domain with allies and partners, and build enduring advantages in cyberspace.
Let’s delve a bit deeper into what this means for our nation moving forward.
There are no key performance indicators, no indication where the new strategy starts or when it ends and nothing that necessarily describes what “success” looks like. And that’s understandable, as this is not the classified version with detailed milestones and tactics.
What the report does say, however, is that there is a new battlefield, and the military unveiled its general plan to establish dominance here as well.
A new code of conduct is required for proactive defenses — simply responding to incoming cyberattacks will not be enough. This is a sea change in that it says we will explore all aspects of the web to see what’s going on, gather threat intelligence and then determine a preemptive course of action.
What this document lays out are the ground rules for a national, public effort to defend ourselves, our allies and our partners. We will be defending forward.
New rules of engagement will be defined for this unregulated space, and layers upon layers of cybersecurity and network defenses will protect the nation’s IT systems and major commands just as the other services protect their domains.
The Joint Staff Wants Its Own Chief Data and AI Office
Joint Staff is considering an internal office dedicated to helping the organization leverage emerging AI capabilities.
Joint Staff stood up an AI task force in February repurposing existing staff.
It completed a 90-day sprint to examine use cases for AI applications and long-term organizational structures needed within the Joint Staff for sustaining AI-enabled capabilities.
LTG Todd Isaacson, J6 now wants his own in-house CDAO office.
Joint Staff has a Chief Data Officer and LTG Isaacson serves as CIO but wants to reorganize to evolve based on promising outcomes.
The DoD is exploring AI/ML applications including day-to-day administration tasks, data management assistance, and operations.
J6 established a digital modernization campaign plan focused on:
Developing, maintaining, and attracting a digitally enabled workforce
Improving the Pentagon’s networking infrastructure
Acquiring advanced tools and capabilities
Rapid adoption of new technologies
J6 is taking insights from CDAO’s Global Info Dominance Experiments (GIDE)
Our Take: Joint Staff does not have the responsibility for developing technology and should work more collaboratively (not their strong suit) with CDAO to meet their AI needs. Tradewinds likely has a number of vendors that can help support their needs without standing up a whole new shop. We do recommend J6 apply AI/ML capabilities to modernizing the defense requirements system to be better postured for the digital age.
Related Story: J-6 to potentially add CDAO to implement digital modernization campaign
Pentagon to Identify Next Replicator Capability Set This Summer
DoD will decide later this summer what capabilities to focus on in the next round of Replicator to quickly field high-need technology at scale.
Replicator’s first phase, championed by DEPSECDEF Kathleen Hicks, focused on attritable drones and other uncrewed systems. The goal is to deliver thousands by summer of 2025 and has already selected and started fielding them.
The Defense Innovation Working Group (DIWG) (led by DIU) is having active conversations about Replicator 2.0 and beginning discussions at the Hicks level.
The attributes for Replicator 2.0 include systems that meet a near-term operational need and should be a capability that would benefit from a senior leader backing.
Hicks focused on having senior level enterprise attention synchronized across multiple areas that affect capability delivery. They would propose funding these capabilities in the FY26 budget.
See also our premier post: Replicator in Action for all the details and strategies.
DARPA Announces a New Flying-Wing Reconnaissance X-Plane: XRQ-73
DARPA assigned the designation XRQ-73 to its newest “X-plane,” an autonomous flying wing reconnaissance aircraft prototype with extra-quiet propulsion that is expected to fly this year.
The new aircraft also goes by Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiR Demonstration (SHEPARD) and is being developed by Northrop Grumman and its Scaled Composites subsidiary. It is powered by a hybrid electric system which converts fuel to electric power and is part of DARPA’s X-prime program.
Office of Naval Research and AFRL are also partners on SHEPARD.
Other involved companies include Cornerstone Research Group; Brayton Energy; PC Krause and Associates, and EaglePicher Technologies.
DARPA revealed that the XRQ-73 is described as a Group 3 UAS, coming in at 1,250 pounds, just under the high end of that category’s weight range, between 55 and 1,320 pounds. Group 3 UAS also fly below 18,000 feet, and between 100 and 250 knots airspeed.
The then-unnamed aircraft was expected to fly in 2023.
DARPA said the XRQ-73 could be “rapidly fieldable.” The SHEPARD effort has been underway for about four years.
“The idea behind DARPA’s X-prime program is to take emerging technologies and burn down system-level integration risks to quickly mature a new missionized long endurance aircraft design that can be fielded quickly. The XQR-73 program is maturing a specific propulsion architecture and power class as an exemplar of potential benefits for the DoD.” Steve Komadina, SHEPARD program manager
Expose More Bright Young Officers to the Valley of Death
The SECDEF’s Executive Fellows program enables 18 talented mid-grade officers to “to fully immerse themselves in industry, broadening their understanding of mission-critical challenges, cultivating relationships outside of government, exposing them to private sector approaches and lessons learned and equipping them to drive change in the department.”
Some companies utilize their fellows as special assistants to the highest-level corporate officers, giving them the broadest exposure to a firm’s planning, management and operations. Others employ the fellows in more specialized roles.
The program also enables them to participate in congressional visits and think-tank engagements and complete executive-level business coursework through UVA’s Darden School of Business.
Having both worked with and lectured to members of the program, I can confirm that the department is not exaggerating its importance.
But it is precisely because the program is so valuable for exposing officers to defense industry, financial and technology firms that it is far too small given the challenges that the department faces, especially in its efforts to incorporate cutting-edge technologies into its acquisition system.
Given the size and scope of the Pentagon’s business-related activities, the program should provide for an annual class that is at two to three times the current number of fellows.
The acquisition system is still hobbled by bureaucratic inertia.
An expanded SECDEF Executive Fellows Program should have a specialized track aimed solely at grooming talented officers for leadership of the acquisition corps.
There should be an equivalent program for top civilians who serve, or will serve, as acquisition leaders.
Both sets of what might be termed “SecDef Acquisition Fellows” should attend a semester’s worth of courses in schools such as MIT, RPI, CalTech and Georgia Tech to be exposed to the latest cutting-edge technologies that have the potential to enhance the military’s battlefield capabilities.
Congress should require that no acquisition manager can attain general or flag officer rank (or SES civilians) unless that person has spent at least six months working in industry and two semesters at a top technology institute.
Moreover, fitness reports for managers should include an evaluation of their willingness to take risks, a trait that is sorely lacking in today’s acquisition community.
Successive Pentagon leaders have certainly attempted to revitalize the acquisition system, but it is still deeply troubled. Its success critically depends on the capability of its workforce.
The time has therefore come for Congress to legislate a new “Goldwater-Nichols” Act specifically dedicated to ensuring that the acquisition community is led by those who have the most current background and the willingness to take the necessary risks to ensure that the American military maintains its technological dominance for years to come.
Our Take: We fully agree with expanding opportunities for acquisition professionals to gain experience with industry across a variety of programs as well as advanced education at premier universities. Sadly, the DoD did not continue to fund the Defense Ventures Fellowship Program which had to close in March. Those who are selected for and complete these fellowship programs would definitely be the most competitive for general officer or SES ranks. We would hold off on new Congressional mandates to dictate DoD personnel management. While there are many risk averse members of the acquisition workforce, we grow tired of this criticism and look to address the root cause of the bureaucratic environment that drives that behavior.
Army
Army to Buy More Than 1,000 Switchblade Drones Through Replicator
The Army will field more than 1,000 Switchblade 600 drones over the next year as part of Replicator — the Pentagon’s push to field thousands of uncrewed systems.
Built by AeroVironment, the Switchblade 600 loitering munition is one of a handful of systems the DoD plans to buy in the first tranche of the Replicator program and is the only one officials have identified by name.
Others include an unspecified fleet of maritime drones procured through a DIU solicitation, a batch of USVs and a set of counter-drone systems.
The Pentagon plans to spend a total of $1B on the effort in FY24 and 25 with funds drawn from various sources including prior year appropriations, a reprogramming request, a national security supplemental approved in August and the department’s yet-to-be approved FY25 budget proposal.
Hicks announced last month that the department started fielding Replicator systems to INDOPACOM in early May. The Pentagon declined to say what systems had been fielded nor would it disclose quantities.
Army to Seek Industry Help on AI
The Army plans to ask contractors for help integrating industry-generated AI algorithms into its operations, part of the service's 100-day push to lay the groundwork for sweeping adoption of AI.
As one of the largest consumers of AI and algorithm technologies, the Army is anxious to generate partnerships with industry and incorporate newer proprietary technology.
There will be a series of RFIs to industry in the coming months focused on AI capabilities, security, and testing. The RFI about cultivating Army partnerships with industry will debut next month.
The Army wants industry to propose processes and tools that can help the Army. The intent is to automate all this so they can go faster, work with industry and adopt our third-party-generated algorithms.
Bang’s comments follow his office’s March announcement of a 100-day plan to survey the Army’s technological landscape and prepare it for widespread AI acquisition and adoption.
The initial 100-day plan to set conditions for the Army’s AI acquisition goals will be formally operationalized over the next 500 days.
“One of the things that we want to do is we want to adopt third-party-generated algorithms as fast as y'all are building. We realized, while we had tons of data…we're not gonna develop our algorithms better than y’all.” Young Bang, Army Acquisition Deputy
Extended Range Version of Army Guided Rocket Enters Production
The Army has given the greenlight to Lockheed Martin to produce an extended-range version of its Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System.
Lockheed was awarded a $200M FY24 contract modification in May to build as many as 240 extended range GMLRS. The funding includes production, tooling and depot spares.
The Army made the decision to cut GMLRS ER into Lockheed’s production line in Camden, AR.
GMLRS ER has had multiple successful flight tests leading up to the production decision.
GMLRS ER can reach 150-plus kms compared to the 70-km range of GMLRS.
The company won a $4.8B deal for GMLRS in 2023 as the U.S. adjusted its production numbers to replenish rockets sent to Ukraine.
The service plans to ramp up GMLRS production from 6,000 rockets a year to 14,000 and expects to sign a multiyear deal for them in FY24, thanks to a new congressional authority. Multiyear contracts, usually reserved for expensive and large programs, provide longer-term certainty that can lower the cost.
Army’s New Precision Missile Hit Moving Target in Pacific Exercise
The Army said it fired its newly fielded Precision Strike Missile from the Pacific island of Palau and engaged a moving target at sea, marking the first time the weapon has been used outside of American-based testing sites.
The first set of Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), were delivered to the Army in December 2023 to begin replacing the legacy Army Tactical Missile System.
Soldiers from the 3rd Multidomain Task Force and the 1-181 Artillery Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard participating in Valiant Shield – a major U.S. Pacific Command exercise – launched two PrSMs from the Army’s Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (AML) and “was able to engage a moving maritime target in conjunction with other joint assets.
The missile — which can launch from both the M142 HIMARS and the M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System — will be critical to the service as it seeks a deep-strike capability that can counter Russian and Chinese technologies.
Both EUCOM and INDOPACOM commanders have been eager to receive the capability that can hit targets at standoff locations greater than 400 kilometers.
Lockheed Martin and RTX originally competed with Lockheed advancing to the EMD phase and awarded another $158M contract for early operational PrSMs.
Lockheed will compete against an RTX/Northrop Grumman team for the subsequent phase of the program.
Navy
Why Didn't the Navy Build 'Medium' Aircraft Carriers?
During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy proposed the CVV medium-sized conventionally powered aircraft carriers as a cheaper alternative to Nimitz-class ships.
Supported by Presidents Ford and Carter, these carriers aimed to replace the Midway-class. However, the program was eventually shelved in favor of continuing Nimitz-class construction due to their cost-effectiveness and greater capabilities.
Despite initial support, the Reagan administration’s increased naval budget led to the reintroduction of the fourth Nimitz-class carrier, ending the CVV plan.
Large aircraft carriers like the Nimitz-class ships were simply believed to be more cost-effective.
One hull with a 6,000-man crew was cheaper to operate than two hulls that required a total of 9,000 men—but collectively had just as many planes.
A single carrier also required only one set of cruisers, destroyers and frigates as escorts. Finally, larger carriers could also generate more air sorties than a smaller carrier, and could operate more and larger aircraft.
Despite these price differentials, smaller carriers deployed around the world today have capabilities comparable to those of the Navy’s 11 supercarriers.
Drone Crew Conducts First all-Marine SATCOM Launch, Recovery
A Hawaii-based aviation unit recently conducted the first all-Marine satellite communications launch and recovery as the force aims to grow its drone force and capabilities for future operations.
The Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU) 3 Phantoms, hit the operational milestone June 20 out of Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, HI.
The event is significant because typically when units do launch and recovery missions, they must run C2 through line-of-sight communications, which severely restricts distances and requires specialized aviators and large transport aircraft.
By using the satellite infrastructure, units can streamline and lengthen operational reach for drones and other assets.
As the Corps pushes to operate more distributed and in smaller teams, especially across the vast Pacific region, it has also sought to expand its drone fleet, drone operator force and the capabilities of those drones.
In 2022, the Marines requested $63M for rapid prototyping and $20M was tied to developing payloads for its newly acquired MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet.
As of December 2023, the Corps had 100 MQ-9A drone pilots.
Air Force
Digital Engineering Key to Speeding Up Air Force Acquisition
Speeding up the acquisition, development and fielding of cutting-edge Air Force technologies is a key goal of service leaders.
Experts believe digital engineering has the potential to accelerate fielding new systems without the need for further acquisition reform.
Air Force accelerators such as the Rapid Capabilities Offices have limited impact because they only address a portion of the service’s acquisition programs, and other contracting offices often cannot replicate the speed of their processes.
Digital engineering has the potential to resolve these issues by improving requirements analysis and trade-off studies, reducing engineering rework, enhancing production quality and sustainment and modernization efforts.
Digital engineering leverages high-speed, high-bandwidth secure networking, big data processing and cloud computing and storage to create a digital library of models, data and documentation.
This allows engineers, developers, program managers and stakeholders to access and share information in real time about any and all aspects of any program, operating from a single, centralized, authoritative and synchronized database.
Though the government and industry have been using digital engineering models for decades, the technology is now enabling the ability to link designs across the product lifecycle and establish a digital thread.
“You can have the acquisition and integration conversations going on at the same time that the technology is being designed and developed, and I don’t have to wait for the test start. That breakdown of those traditional sequential processes, which can take 15 to 20 years, suddenly converges that down into more of that 5 to 10-year timeframe.” Dave Tremper, DASD for Acquisition Integration and Interoperability.
Our Take: The Mitchell Institute’s paper is very well done and provides an excellent vision for what digital engineering in its fully implemented form can look like. It is worth a read. We fully agree with the migration to digital acquisition processes. When properly employed, it can be a game-changer. However, it is also a paradigm shift and there is a lot more training / education needed for the acquisition workforce to use it effectively. It is also not a panacea. Just as Kelly Johnson ran the Skunk Works that rapidly produced the F-117, U-2 and SR-71 without digital modeling, program offices can produce a million models and still screw up the program. Acquisition is a complex sport and digital engineering is a powerful tool, but it still requires humans who can articulate and mitigate the myriad risks that will arise.
Watchdog: Air Force Plan to Divest Old F-22s Has Too Many Holes
A GAO report questions the Air Force’s proposal to divest 32 of its oldest F-22 fighter with too many questions unanswered for Congress to make a well-informed decision.
GAO believes the Air Force needs to provide better information about what toll the divestments would take on the F-22 program’s ability to train pilots, test new capabilities, and meet mission requirements.
GAO believes more analysis is needed on the costs of maintaining the current fleet and of possibly upgrading the 32 jets in question.
The Air Force currently has 185 F-22s.
150 in the Block 30/35 configuration which includes upgraded radar, weapons, and communication, enhanced GPS, and improved cockpit and HUDs.
33 in the Block 20 configuration with limited Air-to-Ground capability.
New F-22 pilots spend 90 percent of their initial flight training on Block 20s.
The Air Force thinks it would instead save about $1.8 billion for programs like NGAD between fiscal years 2024 and 2028 by divesting the Block 20 F-22s.
The Air Force argues that the Block 20s are too outdated to fight a war against China, but GAO noted that the service did not adequately explore the idea of upgrading the jets to the Block 30/35 configuration.
Lockheed Martin estimated it would cost at least $3.3 billion and at least 15 years, largely due to the time and cost of restarting parts production lines.
The price tag would work out to at least $100 million per tail, more than the cost of a brand-new F-35.
Our Take: The F-22 is primarily an Air Superiority fighter designed for the dogfighting age against the Soviets. While air superiority is still a critical mission, it can be accomplished without the use of vectored thrust. The F-35 (and CCAs) can service the AS mission. Now the F-22 does have its advantages in range (+500 miles over the F-35) and internal payload (8 vs 4 air to air missiles) but that’s mostly where it ends. The F-35 has more advanced radar and EOTS - and has much more advanced data processing and mission planning capabilities. We think the Air Force is right to forgo these upgrades. There are too many priorities to invest the kind of money that is needed but like every divestment, this one will surely drag out longer than it should to its eventually logical conclusion.
Air Force Ousts Head of Its Troubled $131 Billion ICBM Program
The US Air Force has removed the manager of its troubled program to build its next intercontinental ballistic missile, citing a “loss of confidence” in management of the project with a price tag that has soared at least 37% to an estimated $131 billion.
The Air Force said the ouster “is not directly related” to an ongoing congressionally mandated review of the ICBM program’s fast-rising cost.
He was removed “because he did not follow organizational procedures.”
Our Take: While the removal of the Colonel in charge may be warranted, it should be noted that he took the reins of the program in late 2022 two years into development and after many decisions had already been made and contracts solidified. This feels like a covering move to draw attention away from the many other DoD and Air Force officials who likely played a part in this outcome. This is not true accountability because he likely had limited ability to make major changes even if he had wanted.
B-52s With New Rolls Royce Engines Won’t Fly Operational Missions Until 2033
The Air Force has seen major delays with its planned upgrades to its B-52 fleet.
Will not reach initial operational capability (IOC) for re-engining until FY33, some three years later than originally planned, amid delays and cost growth.
In 2021, the Air Force announced that it had decided to replace the eight existing and out-of-production Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines on each of its B-52Hs on a one-for-one basis with new Rolls-Royce F130s.
The F130s offer improved fuel economy and lower maintenance requirements, which are expected to translate to cost savings on sustainment and operational benefits, including extended range.
One reason for the delay was an increase in procurement cost as new Boeing estimates added at least $1 billion to the program.
Other costs include additional hardware and labor for three integration labs, installation of test equipment, an additional year of contractor support and deficiency correction of display and sensor processor units.
The critical radar upgrade program has also seen its price tag grow and is experiencing schedule slips of its own.
The Air Force is replacing the mechanically-scanned AN/APQ-166 radars in each of its 76 B-52Hs with new active electronically-scanned array (AESA) types derived from the AN/APG-79.
The new radar promises greater range and fidelity, as well as improved general situational awareness and resistance to countermeasures.
It could bring additional capabilities, including electronic warfare and communications support, and help with target acquisition and identification.
New estimates saw an increase of $240M in development costs and $130M in procurement. The Air Force is running the numbers again and that increase is likely to rise.
it’s a bit shocking to comprehend given that the original version of the bomber went from first flight to operational service in just around three years.
Our Take: Given the reengining program was one off the first major MTA efforts, we are disappointed that it is not fielding much faster. Given it was also lauded as a digital engineering exemplar that is still experiencing many of the challenges you’d expect from an analog one of this complexity is also disheartening. Given Boeing is managing this at a time of crisis for the company makes us worry that this will be the last delay or cost increase. The B-52 is an important capability and we need it ready for the potential fight ahead.
C-17 Can Now Launch Hypersonic Missiles with Boeing’s New REVOLVER System
Boeing has unveiled the innovative REVOLVER launcher system which could transform the C-17 Globemaster III into a formidable hypersonic missile carrier.
This advanced launcher features two sequentially installed drums and an electromagnetic catapult mechanism, allowing the rapid launch of up to 12 Boeing X-51A Waverider hypersonic cruise missiles.
The system is not yet integrated and its unclear if the Air Force will request it be integrated.
Our Take: We love the capability but there are political issues with arming cargo planes given they are often treated differently by countries around the world than combat aircraft. Arming them could change that calculus so this will require deeper consideration if its the right move.
What’s the Spending Plan for Sixth-Gen Fighters Around the World?
While the Air Force’s NGAD is somewhat in question, enthusiasm continues in Europe and Asia for a competing pair of sixth-gen developments, notably the French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System and the British-Japanese-Italian Global Combat Air Programme.
Taken together, these three major developments — coupled with the collaborative combat aircraft intended to accompany them — are expected to drive $70 billion in military spending for sixth-gen fighters between 2024 and 2030.
Any production deliveries during that period are very slim so the majority is to support R&D efforts.
Production deliveries for these programs remain beyond the 2030 horizon, but early prototypes are expected within the medium-term research and development plan.
Our Take: We are still skeptics of the value proposition for fielding increasingly sophisticated fighter jets that will be produced in relatively low quantities and absorb a significant portion of future defense budgets. We would much rather see a focus on mass that can be fielded in much earlier timeframes using more simpler (commercial components) and more modular air assets. We see many of these programs resulting in tears down the road just as we’re experiencing with F-35 now.
Air Force Confirms Its F-35As Were Mission Capable About Half the Time in 2023
The F-35A mission capable rate for fiscal 2023 was 51.9%, with the Air Force blaming spare parts availability for the decline from the previous year’s figure of 56%.
Mission capable rates measure the percentage of time an aircraft is able to perform at least one of its core missions.
The Air Force’s “minimum performance target” MC rate for the F-35A at 80%, and its “objective performance target” as 90%.
In 2020, it was 71.4%
In 2021, it was 68.8%
In 2022, it was 56%
None of the variants of the aircraft (i.e., the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C) are meeting availability goals.
The GAO report states the Air Force now expects to pay $6.6 million annually per tail to operate and sustain the F-35A, a roughly 34% increase over the figure it cited in June 2023 of $4.1 million per airplane.
The service expects to fly each F-35A about 187 hours per year, versus the original plan of 230 hours per year.
Our Take: This appears to be somewhat of a perfect storm. Hundreds of aircraft will not receive the critical upgrades (TR-3 and Block 4) in a timely manner but the costs for operating the jets are increasing rapidly, the availability rate is going down and the ability to fly them drops by 19%. This situation improving itself in the near-term sadly has low probability odds despite the best efforts of the good people at the Joint Program Office.
Air Force Releases First Video of XQ-67 Drone, a CCA Prototype, in Flight
The Air Force Research Laboratory published a 90-second clip of General Atomics XQ-67A’s inaugural flight, which occurred in February in Palmdale, Calif.
The XQ-67A is part of AFRL’s Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing (LCAAPS) program to test a so-called Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS), which is exploring data-sharing technologies hosted on an autonomous drone.
The aircraft is piloted remotely but capable of autonomous flight.
The Air Force Chief of Staff said it was thinking through how it might use and perhaps discard particular CCA technologies in as little as a decade rather than follow a traditional model where aircraft may span 30 years or more.
“As we’re looking at leaning into human-machine teaming and developing these collaborative combat aircraft, we’re trying to do three things in parallel, which sometimes we had done serially. We developed a platform … and then afterwards, we’ll figure out how we’re going to do the rest of DOTMLPF [doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities] spectrum, and how we’re going to actually employ it and how we’re going to base it, etcetera. We’re doing those all at once now.” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in May.
Penny Wise and Pound Foolish with American Airpower
Tanner Tharp
In modern warfare, airpower serves as a critical component of power projection, which is why maintaining air superiority has become one of the most critical issues that military planners grapple with today.
A recent report from the Five Eyes – an intelligence alliance comprising of the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. – has put the issue into sharp contrast by specifically highlighting how the PRC is using private companies to recruit current and former Western military personnel, and former fighter pilots in particular, to train PLA Air Force and Navy aviators.
The PLA wants the skills and expertise of these individuals to make its own military air operations more capable while gaining insight into Western air tactics, techniques, and procedures.
The insights the PLA gains from Western military talent threatens the safety of the targeted recruits, their fellow service members, and U.S. and allied security.
Such damning evidence shows how it is hard to overstate the risks that China poses to the U.S. and its closest allies.
Yet some are pushing to sharply limit investments in defense systems such as the NGAD program and development of a sixth-generation fighter plane – purportedly to help combat the higher deficits the country faces.
This approach is penny wise and pound foolish and would dramatically increase national security risks without providing any meaningful budgetary benefits.
History teaches us that a nation must employ a series of tools and tactics to counter military threats and ensure victory.
Upgrading the F-35 alone could cost $20B, negating much in the way of savings, and could take more than a decade to implement at a moment when time is of the essence.
The fact remains that both systems will be needed, especially as conflict in the Pacific looms.
With a sixth-generation fighter, America will get next generation range, payload, survivability, and upgradeability that it doesn’t presently have.
The CCA, meanwhile, is seen as a cost-effective and pragmatic solution to maintain a formidable airpower capacity in response to proliferating hostile stealth fighters.
Fielded together, they would provide an absolute advantage to the U.S. and its partners in the region.
If the Pentagon delays production until a new platform is desperately needed, it will already be too late.
Space Force
The Space Force No Longer Has the Luxury of Time. It Needs Industry Help to Stay Ahead
The Space Force was founded under the rapid acceleration of adversary activity in the space domain, including the new threats of cyber and directed energy attacks.
Outpacing the threat requires agility and adaptability — the timeline from concept to operational capability must be condensed.
The government must find ways to quickly frame new requirements, accelerate new technologies and understand the best solutions available from the commercial industry.
Making use of innovation from industry doesn’t just mean finding best-in-class data capabilities in Silicon Valley or hardening commercial technology for space.
It also means adopting a new mindset for traditional space contractors. Cooperation from current primes will be critical in ensuring that new solutions can be fielded as agency and Space Force requirements rapidly evolve.
We must also find new pathways to ensure that capabilities are fielded — in some cases, with more creative contracting methods than a program-of-record ecosystem has historically allowed.
This includes managed-services models like the Army’s recent SaaMS pilot, which enables the customer to rapidly redeploy terminals and offers the flexibility to quickly respond to different types of missions and operations around the globe.
Our Take: We could not agree more here. The Space Force needs to leverage the commercial sector more and they need to think through more creative business models for acquiring those services.
SPACECOM Prepping Data Fusion Pilot to Create COP
As part of its overarching effort to improve command and control capabilities, US Space Command is putting together a pilot project aimed at showing how data can be fused to create a common “picture” for operators.
The exact mission area for the pilot has not been announced.
SPACECOM’s mission areas include: space domain awareness; space E; missile warning; command and control; cyber operations; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; position, navigation and timing; and orbital warfare.
New software is needed so SPACECOM can begin using AI/ML tools to sort through the growing tsunami of incoming sensor data.
SPACECOM is increasingly interested in what it calls “dynamic space operations” to outrun and/or chase down adversary systems — even including maneuvering across orbital planes, maneuvers that currently are simply too costly due to the large amounts of fuel needed.
“We need improved command and control capabilities to fuse all this data, be able to display it to us. Now, can we operate without having that single, common operational picture, absolutely, but we want to do better. I’m not quite ready to announce all the details, but me and my J6 have just decided in the last month or so that we’re going to pick up a test case in one of our mission areas, where we feel like there’s a lot of data and … we’re going to be able to fuse all the data we have and put it on a single pane of glass.” Gen. Stephen Whiting
Our Take: This vision is worthwhile since leaders need better insights into the space domain but the goal of a “single pane of glass” has become an exhausting leadership objective over the years in terms of condensing down all information into bite-sized chunks. Hopefully this pilot will be scaled appropriately and help inform what information actually needs to be fused to make actionable decisions.
Calvelli Details Plans to Better Integrate Unified Data Library into Space Force Ops
The Space Force is “transitioning” its repository for commercial and allied space monitoring data, the Unified Data Library (UDL), from a prototype to a program of record — with plans to ensure its contents can be more easily integrated with operational systems such as satellite command and control networks.
UDL currently counts among its users 150 academic, 1,700 commercial, 125 allied, and 2,000+ gov accounts across 25 countries. It supports 12 programs, and up to 70 applications are pulling in over 200 million records from the UDL daily.
The UDL is “the foundational data layer” for the Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) cell, previously known as the US Space Command Joint Task Force-Space Defense Commercial Operations Cell, that provides “commercially augmented capability” to military space surveillance and operations support.
A key shortfall has been that the library does not directly interface with those operational computer systems used to gather space monitoring data from US military sensors and predict the likelihood of on-orbit crashes.
Future Space Force C2 architectures will integrate with the UDL, enabling other USSF program offices, USSF operational users, and SPACECOM organizations to clearly see UDL’s role and ensure any necessary integration is accomplished.
This is especially important for operational C2 programs, such as the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS), which will use a service known as Warp Core to pull in data from the UDL.
Our Take: UDL is a critically important initiative that the Space Force has to get right to advance its operations into the increasingly dynamic space domain. It was an effort ahead of the curve in DoD and they need to get the interfaces sorted ASAP.
Lockheed Martin Secures $978M Contract Extension for Missile-Warning Satellites
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $977.5M contract extension for the continued development, testing, and on-orbit support of two GEO missile-warning satellites for the $8.2B Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) program.
The Next-Gen OPIR satellites are designed to detect and track ballistic missile launches, providing early warning of potential attacks.
These spacecraft use infrared sensors to identify the heat signatures of incoming missiles and securely transmit this critical information to ground stations.
The Next-Gen OPIR program was originally planned as a five-satellite constellation — three in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) and two in highly elliptical polar orbits (HEO).
The Space Force has since decided to reduce the number of GEO satellites to two aligning with a broader strategy to disaggregate missile warning capabilities by diversifying satellite orbits (see Space Development Agency efforts).
The program has faced some challenges, with payload delays potentially pushing back the launch of the first OPIR GEO satellite from 2025 to 2026.
International
China's Quest to Replace Foreign Tech
Nearly a decade ago, China set the goal of becoming a “manufacturing superpower” by 2025, and an “innovation superpower” by 2050.
Though China already dominates strategically important industries, Beijing sees plenty of work ahead for cementing and extending that lead.
Consider the “manufacturing superpower development index,” a useful indicator of how China views its manufacturing prowess relative to other leading countries.
One of the most important factors is basic industries’ value added as a share of the global total.
That reflects the Chinese government’s enduring prioritization of industrial foundations, and its recognition that even the most cutting-edge technology is often dependent on basic upstream inputs.
Innovation can be trickier to quantify. While no single indicator is perfect, one measure is China’s imports and exports of high-tech products.
Until 2002, China spent more on high-tech imports than it made on high-tech exports.
That changed in 2003 — when it executed “a dramatic return to ‘techno-industrial policy’” involving direct state interventions in specific industries.
This was also the time that Beijing began promoting “indigenous innovation” as central to a 15-year S&T plan it launched in 2006.
For much of the next two decades, high-tech imports and exports mostly grew in tandem. Then came a sharp drop in high-tech imports in 2022, aligning with Beijing’s intensified push to replace foreign tech with domestic alternatives.
That ratio saw significant declines through the early 2000s, then stayed remarkably stable throughout the aughts and 2010s — perhaps reflecting the long lead time for investments in basic R&D to manifest as applications outside the lab.
The Missing Piece in China’s Innovation Power
Earlier this week, China’s President Xi Jinping gave a keynote address at a high-level science and technology conference where he gave a nod to how innovation power plays in geopolitics: “When science and technology flourish, the nation flourishes; when science and technology are strong, the nation is strong.”
Innovation power is a nation’s ability to adapt, adopt, and invent new and emerging technologies.
China’s core competencies in manufacturing have enabled it to adapt to shifting supply chains, and lead globally in adopting, scaling, and deploying technologies.
Thanks in part to China’s significant investment into its manufacturing industrial base, it has also become a global leader in iterative development or “process innovation.”
The missing piece in Beijing’s innovation power is invention, or the ability to develop breakthrough discoveries and field generation-setting, first-of-a-kind platforms.
While China’s achievements to date are notable milestones of a scientific superpower-in-the-making, they still fall short of the S&T prowess long-held by the United States and other leading innovation nations.
According to Xi himself, although China’s scientific and technological undertakings have made significant progress, its original innovation capabilities are still relatively weak, with some key core technologies being controlled by others, and there being a shortage of top scientific talent.
U.S. leadership in fundamental R&D and scientific breakthroughs however is not to be taken for granted – Beijing is mobilizing all of its national resources for tech supremacy.
Beijing signaled its intention to raise national R&D spending by about 10 percent, continuing a trend since 2018, where Beijing has injected over $13 billion USD into R&D. China's investment in R&D has grown more rapidly than its gross domestic product (GDP).
Last March, the Ministry of Science and Technology Deputy Secretary-General He Defang co-authored a detailed essay outlining his thinking about building China’s new “national innovation system (国家创新体系).”
He described a systematic re-factoring of China’s innovation engine, one in which barriers to innovation and fundamental research are lowered at each layer of the chain, the siloes separating government, industry, and academia are removed; and each link in the chain is empowered to play its role.
How Ukraine Can Defeat Russian Glide Bombs
In recent months, Russia has terrorized Ukraine’s front-line troops and nearby cities with glide bombs - these large, free-fall bombs with pop-out wings and satellite navigation, which operate similarly to our Joint Direct Attack Munitions.
Glide bombs are cheap. Russia is firing hundreds a week at Ukrainian targets at and behind the front lines.
These bombs are small and difficult to spot on radar. They do not use propulsion or emit a detectable heat signature. Russian aircraft launch glide bombs dozens of miles behind the front lines, in relative sanctuary.
Currently, Ukraine has few counters to glide bomb strikes.
The U.S. is sending more Patriots, but interceptors are expensive. The cost-exchange ratio is unfavorable.
The most practical counter to glide bombs is to destroy the launching aircraft — on the ground or in the air. This can be done by employing a mix of tactical missiles, air-to-air capabilities and electronic warfare.
Incoming Western equipment could offer a second way to neutralize glide bombs. Ukraine may soon acquire European F-16 fighters and two Swedish airborne early warning and control, or AEW&C, aircraft.
Pairing them would create a new capability, especially if the U.S. provided long-range (or 20-plus-mile) Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
Electronic warfare offers a third way to defeat glide bombs, by confusing their GLONASS or GPS satellite navigation systems.
To protect critical infrastructure, Ukraine would need powerful jammers to block satellite signals over a wide expanse.
Fighting often requires multiple capabilities and innovative or flexible use. More of both will be needed to enable Ukraine to defeat the glide bomb threat.
Long-range tactical missiles, F-16s and AEW&C aircraft, plus advanced electronic warfare tools — and more flexible U.S. policies for their use — could give Ukraine a potent force.
Shipping Container Launcher Packing 126 Kamikaze Drones Hits the Market
German defense contractor Rheinmetall is pitching a containerized launcher concept for Hero family loitering munitions, also known as other kamikaze drones, from Israeli firm UVision.
The modified shipping container with 126 launch cells opens up a host of operational possibilities on land and at sea.
The value of notional capabilities exactly like this are substantial, including in the maritime domain.
The Hero-120 has a maximum range of between around 25 and 37 miles (40 and 60 kilometers), and it can stay aloft for up to 60 minutes.
The baseline version has a high-explosive warhead weighing around 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms).
Warheads better optimized for use against armored vehicles, as well as dual-purpose ones that combine anti-personnel and anti-armor effects, are also available.
A single container with 126 launch cells, and potentially even more depending on the system’s scalability, would allow a relatively small force to flood a significantly sized area with loitering munitions.
Our Take: These lower cost, high mass solutions are what the U.S. needs to focus on more…hopefully Replicator 2.0 will pursue something similar to what is being proposed here.
Armed with Quantum Sensors, France Eyes Leaps in Electronic Warfare
The French Navy took delivery of its first serial-produced, quantum-technology sensor this year, a quantum gravimeter used for mapping the seabed.
Future uses could be for navigation or detecting enemy submarines.
Quantum gravimeters measure falling, laser-cooled atoms to detect tiny variations in gravitational pull, which could be used to detect the mass of an adversary submarine.
There are no methods for submarines to shield themselves from such sensors.
The agency is also working on quantum sensors for electronic warfare that will allow monitoring of a broad swath of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Quantum-based electronic warfare sensors can use laser-cooled quantum bits that interact with any incoming electromagnetic waves, measuring tiny changes in a qubit’s quantum state. Today’s analysis relies on rotating through different bands to monitor the entire spectrum.
The French officials acknowledge that the EW sensors and quantum computers are still years away but in the 5-yar window.
Boeing’s Aircraft Woes Drive Drone Focus at Leonardo Facility
Leonardo had told unions in Rome that the plant at Grottaglie would need to shut down for four months to deal with a decrease in the usual amount of work performed for the 787 Dreamliner passenger.
To fill the gap, Leonardo has started work at the facility on the wing of the new Eurodrone UAV and on the fuselage of the prototype of Leonardo’s remotely piloted Proteus helicopter.
Leonardo is also working on the fuselage of the VX4 electric aircraft at Grottaglie on behalf of the British firm Vertical Aerospace.
Grottaglie is to host the production of Leonardo’s AW609 tiltrotor, which the firm expects will be certified next year.
Leonardo has said delays at Boeing may cost it $54 million this year even with these other projects.
This Genius Vampire Drone is Designed to Fly Forever
Engineers from the University of Southern Denmark have developed an ingenious technology that enables a drone to fly practically forever, without ever having to return to the ground.
The drones feed on electricity from power lines to ensure they can keep flying.
The final design challenge was how to use the power line’s electricity to charge the drone without frying it into a fiery ball of metal and plastic.
The drones couldn’t simply saddle up to a power line and steal its electricity. Typical power transmission lines carry anywhere form 1,000 volts to 800,000 volts.
The team decided to use inductive coupling. All high-voltage power lines leak energy in the form of a magnetic field around the cable. The charging is done inductively and thus only relies on the current, not the voltage, of the power line,
Congress
House passed the FY25 Defense Appropriations Act on Jun 28 by a vote of 217-198.
There are 94 days until the beginning of FY25. Come on Congress, we know you can do it! Pass these two bills.
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New Techno-industrial Pax Americana feat. Aaron Slodov, Arsenal of Democracy
Meet our new host Ryan Connell, Defense Mavericks
From Battlefield to Biometric Breakthroughs w/Patrick Clancey, All Quiet on the Second Front
Gen Stephen Whiting, SPACOM/CC, Aerospace Nation
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