To best China, Pentagon must shed "the same old mindsets"
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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks delivers a speech Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: Colin Demarest/Axios
Pentagon officials say the U.S. stands at the precipice of a new golden age of defense innovation driven by upstart contractors, advances in technology and a world brimming with threats.
Why it matters: The Defense Department's inability to make unorthodox bets, feed a vibrant industrial base and embrace readily available technologies has rendered it under-supplied, the target of dual-use evangelists and vulnerable to more nimble adversaries.
Driving the news: Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a speech last week the department "cannot tolerate the same old mindsets" as it butts heads with Russia and China, while also invoking America's mass production overhaul during World War II.
- Heidi Shyu, the Pentagon's chief tech officer, separately called the clip of "nontraditional, venture-backed companies" entering the defense industry "unprecedented," adding: "They're nipping at the heels, I tell you. I have traditional defense contractors say, 'Hey, this isn't fair.'"
- Defense Innovation Unit director Doug Beck said the department is at a "positive tipping point."
- "We've been given the tools, and now it's about execution and delivery," Beck said. "I think we're well on our way out of the dark age."
Catch up quick: Hicks' declaration comes one year after she stuck her neck out for Replicator, meant to arm troops with thousands of drones and prove the Pentagon can be agile.
- That $1 billion gambit is on track, with more than 1,000 AeroVironment-made Switchblade 600 drones already in the pipeline, according to officials.
- Meanwhile, the DIU has been praised for its ability to break the Pentagon's addiction to the bespoke and funnel Silicon Valley-style equipment into the hands of troops.
Our thought bubble: As I've written before, a group of novel defense contractors, fueled by software and outside expertise, is breaking onto the scene, hungry for big-money contracts.
Yes, but: Progress is easily undone — especially by a new administration, its spending plans and a lumbering bureaucracy happy to revert to tradition.
- "Efforts like [Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve] and Replicator absolutely have been successful, but they aren't instantiated in the Pentagon's way of doing business," Govini chief executive Tara Murphy Dougherty told Axios.
The bottom line: "The system itself has to change" for recent wins to stick, Dougherty said. Otherwise, "American mediocrity" is on the menu.
