To Best China, Pentagon Must Shed 'the Same Old Mindsets' (axios.com) 38
An anonymous reader shares a report: 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. 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.
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." 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.
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." 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.
Re:Well let's give them some more blank checks (Score:5, Insightful)
To stay a step ahead of the enemy, you do have to gamble with new tech, which often does result in fraud, bugs, and other mayhem. One hopes the hits outright the duds.
To hedge, both types of weapons should probably be produced: road-tested designs, and semi-experimental. The problem with the F35 is that there was no backup plan when it proved a boondoggle, so we are stuck with a boondoggle, trying to tweak it into normalcy.
F35 had several cutting edge ideas, but also was a plan to have a single platform for all the branches of the military to "save costs" (choke). One-size-fits-all proved daunting.
Correction (Score:1)
Correction: "One hopes the hits outweigh the duds."
Deeper mindset issue to correct is irony (Score:2)
As I wrote about in 2010: https://pdfernhout.net/recogni... [pdfernhout.net]
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such power
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The problem with the F35 is that there was no backup plan when it proved a boondoggle
The lack of a backup plan was intentional.
a single platform for all the branches of the military to "save costs" (choke).
The biggest compromises were made for the Marines, who wanted VTOL.
VTOL is a "nice to have" feature but was never mission-critical in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's very unlikely to be important in a conflict with Russia or China.
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Seems the Brits like VTOL. Maybe split the costs of a new plane with them.
The cost of the F-35 was split internationally (Score:2)
The F-35 was called the "Joint Strike Fighter" because it was at least nominally a joint effort between a large number of countries. The UK was a major contributor.
So confrontation sparks innovation. (Score:2)
Hicks is probably right (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA mentions Hicks is a fan of drone warfare. If that's what we're really talking about I think she's spot on, especially after seeing some of the video coming out of Ukraine.
The next major war is going to be fought with swarms of thousands of drones, mostly flown by AI, overwhelming traditional armored forces with sheer numbers. Warfighters will be miles away from the explosions. This is going to be a revolution just as big as the introduction of air power a century ago. Imagine one of those drone light shows except each drone is stealthy, and armed with a few kilos of C4. And each drone should cost $1,000, not a million.
I have no doubt there will still be a place for big iron but we're seeing the beginning of the end.
Re:Hicks is probably right (Score:5, Insightful)
1998 (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITIC... [cnn.com]
The above article is around the same time the US started shifting our best technology to China. Silicon Valley had already created the most polluted superfund sites in the nation, and towards the end of the 80's a lot of our assembly, PCB and chip fab started being migrated over there. By 98 we were selling them our satellite launching secrets.
The best way to stay ahead of them is to stop giving them a jump start.
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The best way to stay ahead of them is to stop giving them a jump start.
Also to stop giving them all our consumer money.
Re:1998 (Score:5, Insightful)
So one day I was in Walmart in Oakland CA. My dad has an old beater sailboat in the area, and I was there getting some food/snacks/drinks. I'm walking by the TV section and this old black lady is arguing with the salesguy.
"I want a TV made in the US"
"Maam, they don't exist anymore"
I started thinking back to my own childhood in the 80s, seeing the Zenith and RCA sets out on the curb, and going into the 90's getting replaced by Sony, Sharp, JVC. Eventually we gave all our LCD tech to China, and they started getting so good at making cheap LCD's, they got cheaper than CRT's. By the time HD CRT's became a thing, it was moot. Chinese LCD TV's took over.
Now I collect, recap, and upgrade CRT's for fun. I guess it just strikes a certain nostalgia for me, but the point I'm winding into with this is Japan went so far in on CRT's by the time LCD's got better, it was too late. They didn't have the manufacturing capability to keep up. Japan, and to a bigger extent the Orion CRT company is gone. That technology is gone. Even if someone finds parts of it, there's nobody that would remember how to build them from scratch, just gone.
That's the real danger of all this letting China do it for us. We will forget how to do it ourselves.
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You're equating not having factories with not having old technology. We spend 15 years teaching a child to deal with the world, and besides doing a bad job of it (IE. sex education, critical thinking, propaganda and politicking, even essay writing), it is barely time to teach current technology. (Everything containing a DSP IC means a 'do everything' circuit that is difficult to explain.) We don't have time to teach them cursive writing, they have to learn data abstraction and 'coding'. Learning to plan
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Maybe it was a bad analogy, but the point I was trying to get to is still solid. We've lost a lot of manufacturing capabilities over the course of my lifetime. Not everybody can learn data abstraction. We need jobs for people who's best effort in life is doing the same repetitive task on an assembly line for 8 hours a day. Without those factories, those people are unable to support themselves, and it goes into a doom loop where we end up with Stockton, or Modesto.
met the new corporate defense welfare (Score:1)
Neutralize China with this One Neat Trick! (Score:1, Interesting)
Hype it up with ‘they’re an independent country; they can do what they want’.
For good measure, instill hate toward China with constant negative press.
Once China takes aggressive action, the world will turn against them. Just like they turned against Russia. Some people will point to this very comment saying ‘see the US caused
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I was in the Philippines last month. There is a lot of talk about war there, and there are daily confrontations with Chinese ships around the reefs in the SCS.
America has convinced the Philippines to be more confrontational with China and promised to back them up.
But what will really happen if the confrontations turn hot and the ships switch from water hoses to machine guns? Is America really willing to go to war over some partially submerged rocks with nuclear-armed China? I don't think so.
A more prudent p
Re: Neutralize China with this One Neat Trick! (Score:3)
America is committed to keeping ibternational waters navigatable. so regardless of what level of friendship there may or may not be between the US and your country, there is a real strategic policy at play that the US is likely to maintain. Bad news is that is if there is a shooting war, you are going to be in the middle of it.
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China wants the entire S. China Sea. What about that do you not understand? They aren't going to be satisfied with "neutral wildlife preserve". And even if they signed on the dotted line, they'd have their fishing boats fish it dry, and then after the scam is up, they'll simply declare the agreement (they won't sign a treaty) null and void.
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Is America really willing to go to war over some partially submerged rocks with nuclear-armed China? I don't think so.
Is China really willing to go to war over some partially submerged rocks with nuclear-armed (and every other kind of arms ever invented) America? I don't think so.
America is happy to supply and support allies in war. It is cheap testing for our gear, and allows us to keep fresh supplies of munitions for our soldiers.
In the case of the Philippines, we will give them weapons and ships to defend themselves with. If it gets to actual shooting, we will park our ships in the middle of the dispute and dare you
Re: Neutralize China with this One Neat Trick! (Score:2)
This is the entire reason China is interested in enforcing its claims in the SCS.
It all comes down to denying the USA the ability to put a choke hold on the shipping through there, which they would do in order to try to keep China down.
It's all about the USA's aggression. It's always about the USA's aggression.
Re: Neutralize China with this One Neat Trick! (Score:2)
Er, where have you been hiding?
This is what the USA has been doing for the past decade or so.
China has been relatively peaceful, holding onto a ceasefire in its civil war (between the PRC and the ROC) aka "status quo". The USA has been rocking the boat by encouraging moves towards independence of ROC on Taiwan. The PRC responds predictably and it says it would.
Re: Neutralize China with this One Neat Trick! (Score:2)
China could probably short circuit this action by unifying China peacefully with an agreement between the PRC and ROC, to keep China whole under a largely neutral umbrella, leaving both the PRC and ROC largely independent of each other. Of course, there would have to be some security agreements, like ROC keeping military forces that consider PRC an enemy off the island. That, after all, is a primary concern with Taiwan being independent.
This has been called "The Chinese Commonwealth" and is the suggestion o
Alternative (Score:1)
Learn to accept a multipower world instead of the post ww2 mindset
Re: Alternative (Score:2)
That would be nice, but when has the USA ever done that? When has the USA even hinted at anything like that?
The USA can not stomach any world where it isn't #1. That's the end of the story. It'll stomp on any country that threatens that position, as it has done previously. China is big enough to stomp back again, so I'd guess we're all doomed.
In the Trenches (Score:2)
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Bureaucracies proliferate in peacetime. Budgets are cut, and people spend millions chasing down waste that amounts to thousands of dollars.
In wartime, the opposite happens. Budgets suddenly get upgraded, and controls get loosened. Fraud becomes a thing, but moonshots that never would have gotten funded get their day in the sun.
My working theory is that in peacetime, bureucracies exist to maintain themselves and allow people to get to retirement without getting fired. Thus, there's a bias towards always
The Pentagon Wars (Score:2)
We are only moving closer and closer to a worse kind of military industrial complex than the one we have. Instead of incompetent management and top-level brass shifting requirements to create massive cost overruns. We will have private contractors soaking the government for grants. Building equipment that is not safe for service members, and a circle of liability that leads nowhere. It is high tech culture of move fast and break things. With it comes the baggage of zero responsibility and massive plays to r
Time to fire the decision makers, right? (Score:2)
There is a reason the same things keep happening as have before... Either you change the situation, or you get the same results. And I doubt 1 person making better decisions is going to magically change anything.
How does innovation happen? What kinds of people spark it? What do they need to test their ideas?
Will following orders well create something new? Can you always force innovation by spending more money? How about by mandating it be done? [no]
I think they're being infected by the 'always grow' i
To compare the approaches, look to space (Score:4, Insightful)
Until the new generation of civilian space tech out of Silicon Valley, space programs were run the Pentagon way: plan, plan, plan, implement and fail, finding the plans to have been superseded by reality. Grind through several years of post-mortem analysis, and then repeat the whole cycle, hopefully before your best engineers retire. To keep aerospace companies in the game, you have to subsidize them with cost-plus contracting. That's how Starliner/SLS/Artemis arrived in its present state.
Today the Silicon Valley bros have entered space their way, lapping the old paradigm over and over again - and gaining a much higher level of reliability and man-rating safety as they go. Now imagine if we could do the same for Pentagon programs.
Same old mindsets (Score:2)
The US has been experimenting with autonomous technology for 30 years. Total information awareness, (look-down surveillance) has also been a pet project of the US military for decades. The US DoD has also experimented with drugs to make their soldiers 'better', mostly at non-stop murder. Slashdot posts regularly remind us, that a lot of US research is paid by civilian/military departments of the government.
"... the same old mindsets" ...
Bureaucracy assumes the new problems will be a repeat of the old problems. With technology and pol
Like a thousand!!! (Score:2)
The range and speed of these drones are ok I suppose.
But let's play with a better idea. A recycled Styrofoam fuselage and wings with carbon fiber pipe reinforcement. 3d printed arms and encoder wheels for servos mounted on toy motors (electric toothbrush motors work too). A high power electric motor made from Iron magnets and iron apertures. Batteries, from recycles EV batteries. Electronics, that's going