Category: Defense Industry

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For decades, military acquisition has been optimized for control and compliance. It has not been optimized for speed, iteration, or user choice. The forthcoming Army UAS Marketplace represents a structural shift in the way systems are acquired. It will introduce sustained competition among vendors and empower Soldiers to choose the best products for their missions. I predict it will serve as a model for other organizations, enabling them to field better products and to iterate them faster. Army Best Drone Warfighter Competition Last week, the Army Aviation Association of America hosted the inaugural Army Best Drone Warfighter Competition at the …

The Army is about to upend military acquisition Read more »

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⚠️ Contains spoilers, if you’re the type of person who cares. ⚠️ Netflix’s thriller A House of Dynamite raises important, modern-day questions about our nation’s nuclear deterrence strategy and missile defense capabilities, but it ultimately fell flat for me. With an all-star cast and the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, it’s still worth a watch for a realistic fictionalized glimpse into the workings of our nation’s ICBM response. Just don’t expect deep insights. The Cold War never truly ended Wikipedia will tell you that the Cold War ended in 1991 as the US-Soviet Union relationship improved, new treaties on …

“A House of Dynamite” Movie Review Read more »

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I am a fan of solving problems with market-inspired solutions; markets efficiently allocate resources and drive innovation through decentralized decision-making. Earlier this year, I wrote about how modular, open systems architectures (MOSAs) could enable a competitive solution marketplace, allowing warfighters to pick the best solution for their mission and generating competition among solution providers. Less than two months later, we learned that Ukraine is actually doing it. Soldiers in drone units earn points based on confirmed kills, which they can exchange for new gear in the Brave1 Market. The scheme benefits the war effort by bypassing bureaucratic acquisition processes and …

Gamified warfare: Ukraine’s arms marketplace experiment Read more »