To keep up with China, Pentagon must cut red tape and embrace latest technology, top US official says
- Beijing has recognised importance of producing ‘more of the high-technology goods they want in their own economy’, says Defence Innovation Unit chief Michael Brown
- US Defence Department practices have changed little since the 1960s and its adoption of cutting-edge ideas often lag private sector by years, he adds
The US Defence Department is lumbering along with practices often little changed since the 1960s and needs to introduce much more cutting-edge, off-the-shelf commercial technology to keep up with the growing threat from China, said a top US defence official Wednesday.
Defence Department ideas, technology and speed of adoption are often years behind the US private sector, even as China’s military-civilian fusion strategy allows it to obtain and absorb commercial advances far more quickly, said Michael Brown, head of the Defence Innovation Unit [DIU] set up in 2015 to introduce more commercial technology into the Pentagon.
“China’s national strategy is to displace the US as a technology superpower. They’ve recognised the importance of producing more of the high-technology goods they want in their own economy,” said Brown, formerly the chief executive of Symantec, a cybersecurity firm. “We built a two-lane road there when you need to be a superhighway.”
To address some of the yawning gaps between US military and commercial technology to better counter Beijing, DIU is working on several projects aimed at placing more Silicon Valley innovation into soldier’s hands. Often at least as difficult as identifying and developing promising commercial technologies is convincing the slow-moving defence establishment to adopt them in a timely manner.