“We're still looking for the ability to translate and transition those innovation priorities into capabilities, into programs of record, into budget priorities,” said Rachel Hoff, Reagan Institute’s policy director and one of the authors of a new scorecard evaluating progress in defense innovation.
The Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption acknowledged in a new report that there were “broader, strategic matters” that “will take time to reach full implementation.”
“You can have a terrific piece of gear, but if it’s very difficult to train, it’s just not going to be as effective or if it’s too expensive to train on, it’s not going to be as affordable for the Army to do at scale and everything the Army does is at vast scale,” Doug Bush said.
"So we think we can actually help make it easier for you to be able to get after the key programs that the warfighter needs," Adm. John Acquilino said.
Michèle A. Flournoy and Wendy R. Anderson lay out their vision for how the Pentagon can speed software acquisition in this new op-ed.
A ponderous budget process, overspending on old tech, and chronically late appropriations hamstring the Pentagon’s ability to tap into private-sector innovation, according to the foundation’s new scorecard.
The "American spirit of adaptability that has played such a central role in our past success is even more necessary today if we are to remain a globally competitive country and economy," writes former House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry.
"If we are to meet the innovation goals of the NDS, we must incentivize the primes to move beyond the short-term partnership model and encourage them to form more holistic relationships with promising early-stage companies, including investment into operating businesses," writes Chip Walter.
QUANTICO: A hovercraft that shoots salvoes of rockets. A speedboat that turns into a submarine. A mobile 3D printing factory. A big wooden box with wings (yes, really). And, of course, more drones than you can shake a stick at (because they swarm). These are just a few of the roughly 100 technologies the Marine […]
SAN DIEGO: Trump’s promised defense budget boost probably won’t materialize, the former Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today, so we can’t afford to grow a larger military. Instead of more ships and troops, retired Adm. James Winnefeld said in a rare public appearance, the military should prioritize investment in new ideas. His own service, […]
CAPITOL HILL: Can Congress finally break the logjam of the Budget Control Act and increase spending on defense? Yes we can, said the cautiously optimistic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Why are the chances any better this year than for all the failures since 2011? Because, Rep. Mac Thornberry told reporters this morning, […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGsdaqpq-5w Robot boats are getting smarter fast. Two years ago, on the James River, the Office of Naval Research dropped jaws with a “swarm” of 13 unmanned craft that could detect threats and react to them without human intervention. This fall, on the Chesapeake Bay, ONR tested ro-boats with dramatically upgraded software. The Navy called […]
WASHINGTON: What’s the most important initiative in the Obama Pentagon that the Trump team should pick up and run with? It’s innovation, outgoing Army Secretary Eric Fanning said last night: “Some of the most important work we’ve done in the last eight years is trying to set up places in our procurement system where we […]
One of the oddest military drones aborning reinvents a stillborn technology from 1951. That’s because the unmanned aircraft revolution is resurrecting configurations that were tried more than a half century ago but proved impractical with a human pilot inside. The case in point: Northrop Grumman’s new Tern, a drone designed to do everything armed MQ-1 Predators […]
UPDATED: Adds Comment By Head of Professional Services Council, David Berteau WASHINGTON: The post of undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, currently held by the estimable Frank Kendall, will be no more come 2018. A Senate staff member confirms that the post will continue through 2017, according to language in the 2017 National […]