In the waning days of the Biden Administration, it seems like everyone is talking about defense innovation. On Monday, the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) released the results of two studies on the US defense industry at its winter board meeting—“Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation” and “A Pathway to Scaling Unmanned Weapons Systems”—and it looks like Anduril might be right.
Hiding behind these very mundane titles is a scary truth: the DoD is still not able to rapidly and effectively field emerging technologies or scale the production of unmanned systems. Industry is innovating, but the Pentagon is unable to keep up. It can’t even communicate what it needs.
“Without aggressive action, our warfighters are on track to risk defeat on the battlefield,” DIB Designated Federal Officer Marina Theodotou told Tectonic via email.
Sherpa time: The DIB called for a near-total overhaul of the Pentagon’s approach to scaling non-traditional tech and fielding unmanned systems. Its recommendations include:
- Expand the DIU into a cross-service “sherpa office” that can support non-traditional defense companies as they scale.
- Cut down contracting processes and eliminate audits for sub-$2M fixed-price contracts.
- Get unmanned systems into the hands of warfighters early on.
- Increase flexible funding mechanisms for non-traditional defense companies.
But will any of this happen? Theodotou highlighted that the board’s recs have had a 40%+ adoption rate over the last two-and-a-half years.
“These two latest studies lay out more than 20 practical and actionable recommendations for consideration by the incoming administration,” she said. The ball is in Trump’s court now.