“Does that mean you can’t talk to us? No,” Assistant Secretary Bruce Jette said. “What it means is, if you have secret sauce, reserve the secret sauce, make sure we understand what you want to talk about. Only when we get down to contract discussions should you bring out the secret sauce.”

The CH-53 landed in complete dark 10 miles from the target, a terrorist stronghold somewhere in the Middle East. The back ramp was down in two minutes: 15 U.S special forces commandos with their gear and accessories for the planned operation headed out on their way to the target. An hour and 20 minutes later the commandos could see the enemy sentries through their night vision systems. They hadn’t done double time to the target. They crossed the 10 miles from the landing site riding on new, unique vehicles.

“I’ve never seen a Congress more on our side than it is today,” Griffin said. “In every meeting on the Hill, I am asked, ‘what relief do you need? What legal remedies do you require? What can we do to help you move faster?’ So if you are bound by legal impediments…I need bring those forward, because I am perfectly willing to go to Congress.”

WASHINGTON: During the Cold War, the American military boasted enormous advantages in financing over the Soviet Union and smaller militaries, so it could make enormous and often enormously risky investments and take 15 to 20 years to see the results. It often worked, but it was slow, and the world just isn’t that way anymore.… Keep reading →

Bill Greenwalt is sort of the Pied Piper of military acquisition policy. Where he leads, others often follow. After he wrote a series of op-eds for Breaking Defense recommending major changes to the Pentagon’s acquisition system, Sen. John McCain lured Bill back to his old job at the Senate Armed Services Committee. Greenwalt rewrote the laws, shaking up Defense Department acquisition. Bill is back, pointing to new acquisition problems, this latest one with his former employer — the Government Accountability Office. It’s a doozy, as you’ll see.

Despite its ethical objections to helping the Pentagon, Google indirectly and inadvertently assists the Chinese military, which has tentacles into the tech giant’s ventures in China, former deputy secretary of defense Robert Work said.

“I just had a general who came to my office,” said Chris Lynch, head of DoD’s internal hoodie-wearing geek squad, the Defense Digital Service. “The problem was the entire mission was being run out of Excel.”

WASHINGTON: China is besting the United States in key military technologies like hypersonic missiles and electronic warfare, Gen. Paul Selva, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. We can still catch up, he predicted. What about Artificial Intelligence? That’s too close to call, said former deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, so we’d better get a move on. Both men… Keep reading →

As the Pentagon and the defense industry rush to keep up with the shift to great power competition and the fight for tech workers rushing for Silicon Valley, the idea of technology incubators is catching fire.

It’s important to explore a wide range of options and not lock down requirements too early, Lt. Gen. Walsh said. (By contrast, FCS set precise objectives and only then looked to see if they were possible). “We’re trying to solve the problem of what is reconnaissance (and) counter-reconnaissance in the future,” he said, not simply replace an old vehicle with a new one.