While lawmakers worry over lack of oversight, MITRE's Pete Modilgiani tells Breaking Defense, "The Middle Tier of Acquisition pathway is one of DoD’s most valuable tools to rapidly deliver capabilities . to deter China’s threat."
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�