Category: Thoughts

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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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Shortly after midnight Moscow time on the 27th of September 1983, Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved the world. This incident, unknown outside of the Soviet air defense forces until 1998, is a highly relevant case study as we accelerate the pace of automation and artificial intelligence in complex military systems. Cold War backdrop Cold War tensions between the US/NATO and USSR/Warsaw Pact were higher than they’d been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides had intermediate-range nuclear missiles on alert, treaty negotiations were breaking down, and NATO was preparing to deploy upgraded Pershing II and additional Ground Launched Cruise Missile systems …

Artificial Intelligence and Human Judgement: A Cold War Cautionary Tale 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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One of my favorite items in my small model collection is a 1:34 scale Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) with sliding side doors, a roll-up rear hatch, and pull-back propulsion. The iconic vehicle has been plying our city streets for nearly 40 years, reliably delivering critical communiques, bills, checks, advertisements, Dear John letters, junk mail, magazines, catalogs, post cards from afar, chain letters, and Amazon packages.

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The phrase “military-industrial complex” was coined by President Eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation in 1961. The United States has the most powerful military in the world, a fact that is extremely valuable to our nation and allies. Yet the influence of the military-industrial complex on our nation’s priorities and policymaking cannot be ignored.

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I recently offered a mock interview to a high school student to help them practice and I realized I had a lot of advice to help students with the process. I searched online to see what advice was already out there and was pretty disappointed, so I decided to compile my own list.

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A common misconception is that Agile development processes are faster. I’ve heard this from leaders as a justification for adopting Agile processes and read it in proposals as a supposed differentiator. It’s not true. Nothing about Agile magically enable teams to architect, engineer, design, test, or validate any faster.

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