President Donald Trump’s six latest nominees to lead the Pentagon provide some hope for those who have long been frustrated with the Defense Department’s roadblocks to procuring innovative technologies. From the Boeing executive who spent time on the company’s successful commercial side who’s been picked for Deputy Defense Secretary, to the House Armed Services aide who crafted the […]
AFA HQ: William Roper, the man who’s helping shape that future at the well-named Strategic Capabilities Office, told a packed room here that “stealth won’t last forever;” that adapting to the new version of war he’s helping the country ready for “is going to be harder for the Air Force than the other services;” that […]
WASHINGTON: Can the Pentagon afford its Third Offset Strategy? From anti-ship missiles to artificial intelligence, the military is experimenting with a host of high-tech systems to counter increasingly sophisticated Russian and Chinese forces. That effort is essential, said the Defense Department’s procurement chief, but there’s one problem: If we want to go beyond experiments and […]
UPDATED with William Roper comments WASHINGTON: The Army’s long-range artillery rocket, ATACMS, will get upgraded to strike moving targets on land and at sea, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced today. After at least two years of pressure from Congress and vague promises from Pentagon leaders, and for the first time since the Coastal Artillery Corps was […]
DARPA HQ, ARLINGTON, Va.: Reporters must stop asking Will Roper about the Arsenal Plane, because he hasn’t picked which aircraft will be rebuilt as a high-tech truck for long-range missiles and other weapons. Speculation has centered on the Air Force B-52, but the Strategic Capabilities Office director made clear that choice is, well, up in the […]
William Roper is “buying time” for the rest of the Pentagon, he told us in a rare interview. His Strategic Capabilities Office finds near-term but game-changing upgrades for existing weapons systems, preserving American advantage over rapidly advancing adversaries while DARPA and Defense Department labs develop a new generation of breakthroughs. Yesterday, we wrote about Roper’s […]
WASHINGTON: William Roper’s Strategic Capabilities Office is exploring some of the most innovative concepts in the US military. Imagine a militarized version of Pokémon Go, helping Army soldiers locate real-life threats instead of cartoon monsters. Imagine robot brains in a box — an “autonomy kit” — that Navy sailors can install on a patrol boat […]
WASHINGTON: Trust your robots. Trust your tech industry. Trust your troops. Let go of traditional mechanisms of control — be it a human pilot in the cockpit or a formal requirements document for a program — that increasingly serve to slow you down. That was the message between the lines when Defense Secretary Ashton Carter […]
As Defense Secretary Ashton Carter toured naval sites in New England this week, one aide was almost always standing at his side: William Roper, head of the quietly important Strategic Capabilities Office. On the flight home to Andrews Air Force Base, the often press-shy secretary surprised reporters — and, it seems, his staff — with an impromptu […]
CAPITOL HILL: The secretive Strategic Capabilities Office is designed to jumpstart high-tech weapons projects. But today the SCO’s own director warned the Senate against placing too much trust in technology. In wartime, under assault from a savvy enemy, systems start breaking down, William Roper said, and the winner will be the side whose human beings adapt best […]
WASHINGTON: The senior leadership of the US military knows that genetically modified humans — stronger, faster, or better at altitude — and intelligent machines that could kill without remorse and with enormous efficiency, are two of the thorniest policy nettles they must grasp. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work firmly grasped that nettle today, saying the United […]
UDATED: Adds Air Force React AFA WINTER: Sen. John McCain pledged to stop the Long Range Strike Bomber program in its tracks today unless the Pentagon uses a different type of contract. My colleagues at Defense News quoted McCain this way: “My biggest concern is the cost-plus provision in the contract. I will not stand […]
ARLINGTON: New threats from Russia and China mean the Army must take on new missions — but it’s got almost no new money so the Army is looking at ways to modify existing systems to do some radically new things. So imagine howitzers firing precision-guided cannon shells to shoot cruise missiles out of the sky or to sink […]
UPDATED: Adds DepSecDef Explanation For Additional LCS PENTAGON: “We don’t have enough money to do everything we want to do,” Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work told me in an exclusive 85-minute interview in his E-Ring Pentagon office. “So what we’re doing this year, Sydney, is we are trying to prepare as many demonstrations on advanced […]
WASHINGTON: Arsenal plane. It’s a great name, no? And the Hyper Velocity Projectile. Whoa. Fast flying swarming micro drones. Neat! There’s much more being developed, but it’s classified. Where is all this coming from? The Strategic Capabilities Office, or SCO for short. Defense Secretary Ash Carter talked up the new office in his 2017 budget preview speech […]