The Kill Chain is a great wake up call to anyone not deeply familiar with the military-idustrial-congressional complex. Brose's recommendations on deterrence not platforms is great, and all the examples of recent failures (F-35 is the poster child) he reviews completes this argument.
However, I felt like Brose didn't go far deep enough into the organizational structure and processes of the DoD that are the more root problems that have lead to things like the former first Chief Software Officer of the AIr Force effectively stating we are on a path to not being able to compete with China in a few decades time. Not getting into the guts of the root ugly problems shouldn't be completely surprising though, as he is Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril - arguably the hottest, most impressive defense tech company in America, where he wants the DoD to buy his stuff, so better not to upset anyone too much... Not taking away from the book, it's still great, but I felt it stopped short on the recommendations.
The harder questions that I think need debate as it relates to military-idustrial-congressional complex:
* Is the acquisition system (even on its best days) fundamentally capable of maintaining military superiority over China? How much power/freedom are we willing to give DoD to maintain military superiority? (E.g. authority to buy and deploy something without the need for fair process as it is defined today) Are "fair" acquisition processes and military superiority even compatible in the age of software and AI and China's military rise?
* If the DoD budget was made from scratch, what would it look like? Let's assume for example the F-35 doesn't make the cut, what happens to all of those jobs? If we had to fundamentally rethink organizational structures and budgets, are we even capable of it?
We have really smart people working on the inside of DoD, but the inertia of an organization built for a different type of age is at odds with how fast technology is moving and how fast an authoritarian competitor can move.
The Kill Chain is a great wake up call to anyone not deeply familiar with the military-idustrial-congressional complex. Brose's recommendations on deterrence not platforms is great, and all the examples of recent failures (F-35 is the poster child) he reviews completes this argument.
However, I felt like Brose didn't go far deep enough into the organizational structure and processes of the DoD that are the more root problems that have lead to things like the former first Chief Software Officer of the AIr Force effectively stating we are on a path to not being able to compete with China in a few decades time. Not getting into the guts of the root ugly problems shouldn't be completely surprising though, as he is Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril - arguably the hottest, most impressive defense tech company in America, where he wants the DoD to buy his stuff, so better not to upset anyone too much... Not taking away from the book, it's still great, but I felt it stopped short on the recommendations.
The harder questions that I think need debate as it relates to military-idustrial-congressional complex:
* Is the acquisition system (even on its best days) fundamentally capable of maintaining military superiority over China? How much power/freedom are we willing to give DoD to maintain military superiority? (E.g. authority to buy and deploy something without the need for fair process as it is defined today) Are "fair" acquisition processes and military superiority even compatible in the age of software and AI and China's military rise?
* If the DoD budget was made from scratch, what would it look like? Let's assume for example the F-35 doesn't make the cut, what happens to all of those jobs? If we had to fundamentally rethink organizational structures and budgets, are we even capable of it?
We have really smart people working on the inside of DoD, but the inertia of an organization built for a different type of age is at odds with how fast technology is moving and how fast an authoritarian competitor can move.