The US, once the world s undisputed military superpower, has been struggling for years to efficiently update its arsenal and field new technology in cutting-edge areas such as hypersonics and artificial intelligence, at a time when some senior officials warn that China could be within five years of surpassing the US military. Experts point to myriad problems with the US system, including a slow, calcified budgeting process, unwieldy congressional requirements and the Pentagon s inability to effectively piggyback on private-sector advances in digital know-how. It s like the Pentagon is finding itself staring in the rearview mirror in the face of oncoming traffic, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defence analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
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By
Bill Greenwalt on March 09, 2021 at 8:00 AM
If the new DOD task force on China is serious about looking at the state of our technology competition, it needs to understand that the balance of technological power has shifted – and it has primarily been a self-inflicted wound. The best ideas no longer arise in a US defense industry encumbered by 60 years of Stalinist-style central planning and security controls, but from commercial sources that once were primarily in the U.S. and are now globalized.
Bill Greenwalt
What is most important is that, in these
private industries, time-based innovation, experimentation, and operational prototyping are the coin of the realm. For better or worse, the way the U.S. military innovated in the 1950s, before well-intended “reforms” stifled creativity and risk-taking, is now the dominant model for commercial innovators worldwide, including in adversary nations. To make matters worse, the current U.S. defense innovation model�
“DIU is punching above its weight and having an impact beyond its size,” acquisition guru Bill Greenwalt says. “Still, that will not be enough…. Unless the rest of the Department and Congress learns these lessons, we will continue to fall behind China.”
By
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on March 04, 2021 at 3:18 PM
Pentagon’s dated budget process too slow to beat China, new report says February 25 Military personnel stand in formation next to a portrait of China s President Xi Jinping (back) outside the Forbidden City in Beijing on October 22, 2020, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Chinas entry into the 1950-53 Korean War. (Photo by NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP) WASHINGTON ― A new report argues for a sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon’s 60-year-old defense budgeting and appropriations process, so it can match the fast-moving commercial sector and outpace China’s technological development.
The paper, set for release Thursday, argues that numerous acquisition policy reforms over the years have failed to get the best results because the Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution, or PPBE, process has eluded change. The authors, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Bill Greenwalt and the Hudson Institute’s Dan Patt, recommend the U.S. consider more agile de