There’s a lot of discussion nowadays about government efficiency and moving beyond the establishment for managing government’s core functions like defense. It’s a good thing that private sector innovators are emerging to help develop solutions on government efficiency, but when it comes to national security, DoD cannot fully outsource the job and give away control to entities not fully accountable to the American People. There ought to be a responsible level of due diligence.
There are three aspects to this challenge. The first is data - there needs to be ground rules in terms of how decisions are to be made with the use and oversight of defense-related data. This must be a nonpartisan discussion. Second is cybersecurity – if one platform has a full monopoly of data, that would be a cybersecurity risk – we’ve never seen such an arrangement before in history. An example of this is cloud computing. A centralized cloud can be more easily secured, but once it is breached, everything is at risk. Lastly, is commercial contracting – the best companies have said they need to do more commercial contracts, but if that is to take place, there is a need to design those contracts appropriately.
The United States faces significant challenges in maintaining its technological and military superiority over China and Russia while also increasing the adoption of the next generation of weapons in a fiscally responsible manner that doesn’t break the bank.
In the next decade, harnessing the power of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, directed energy, and robotics will be some of our greatest technological challenges. Right now, the Pentagon is not at all prepared to fight the next war with existing defense acquisition and budgetary processes are insufficient for buying the technology necessary to win.
Outdated processes and rigid bureaucratic barriers cripples DoD’s ability to rapidly leverage these technological innovations. Pete Hegseth, the new Secretary of Defense addressed this in a memo to his leadership team earlier in March saying “[s]oftware is at the core of every weapon and supporting system we field to remain the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. While commercial industry has rapidly adjusted to a software defined product reality, DoD has struggled to reframe our acquisition process from a hardware centric to a software-centric approach.” Hegseth wrote. “When it comes to software acquisition, we are overdue in pivoting to a performance-based outcome and, as such, it is the Warfighter who pays the price.”
This is music to the ears of companies such as Palantir, the innovative Denver-based company that builds and deploys software platforms for the defense and intelligence community. The Palantir software has been used by most of the military services. The software has successfully helped Army to reduce threats to IEDs, they helped hunt Osama bin Laden and they often track down terrorists using just a 32-inch computer screen.
However, in articulating Palantir’s ambitions, Alexander Karp, the company’s CEO said on a recent earnings call: “we’re going to take the whole market.” This is a laudable goal for a private sector entity, but is it wise from a national security standpoint?
Recently Palantir and Anduril announced a new consortium aimed to compete and dominate the “whole market” on Artificial Intelligence. Allowing any company (regardless of their capabilities) to control this new market comes with potential challenges. This is where the government needs to tread carefully, so they don’t repeat past mistakes.
The Department of Defense is hoping to implement a plan to expedite software acquisitions in thirty days and as a part of that plan Defense officials will address these issues. The plan requires careful examination by those committed to safeguarding government data and fostering a competitive marketplace, innovative environment for government contractors, especially within national security.
It’s crucial to approach licensing agreements with new technologies cautiously, as it is dicey to have a single player monopolizing the market and potentially controlling sensitive information that shouldn’t be stored on private servers.
Many indicators are leaning towards a significant reform initiative, any such effort must focus on strengthening the defense and tech industrial base in general, not any lone group of actors.
America wants and badly needs the best platforms we can find. These presently exist in the private sector, but the decision makers must act with intentionality. Data must be protected, creating too tempting a lucrative target (one solution for all) is asking for trouble, and America must get the biggest bang for the buck, so the contracts must be crafted to keep control in the hands of DoD, not the vendors, no matter how good they are.
I wholeheartedly agree with the drive to break the “Business as Usual” paradigm. Let’s innovate, but do not lose sight of being operationally efficient, defensively prudent, and fiscally responsible.
Steve Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a long time contributor to the Daily Signal and other Heritage Foundation publications.