And i ended up writing a column about it. It began a conversation with chris that was part of his effort to develop this book and the arguments in it. Want to ask chris to take us all on a journey he has been on. He has shared some with me over the years. The book starts with a really chilling account of what would happen in the first hours and days of a war with china. Maybe that is a good place to people whyaining to we have a problem when it comes to technology. Chris thank you, david. I appreciate your friendship and guidance throughout this whole process. It has been invaluable. With the timens is spent on the Senate Armed Services committee, the better part of a decade supporting the committee and senator mccain, looking closely at the u. S. Military, how we were investing money and werent investing money and ultimately, how we match up against emerging great power competitors, first and foremost china. The reason i wrote the book was a concern i had then add have now that we are losing our military technological advantage , that as a result of that, our ability to it or conventional conflict is eroding. And that is putting us into a dangerous position. I tried to make this visceral to people, spelling out what it might look like if the United States military had fight china. There are a lot of reasons why that might happen. It is not a war the United States is looking for, but for many reasons we could find ourselves in that situation. The problem that we have is that for 30 years, our adversaries have going to school on how the United States builds and operates our military. In china in particular has not sought to play the same game that we have played. They have recognized the u. S. Military is built around very small numbers of very large, expensive, heavilymanned military systems, vehicles, ships, aircraft, platforms, and they have made a conscious, urgent effort to build up military capabilities to call into question how the u. S. Military operates and what it operates with. Concernpell out is a that if we ended up in this conflict, our Forward Operating guam, land bases in asia, japan, would come under immediate attack from precise and large quantities of positionguided weapons, missiles, Hypersonic Weapons of different ranges and types. Our navy forces and see bases, aircraft carriers, would face a similar onslaught of large quantities of lowcost, very precise weapons, antiship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, carrier killer, ballistic missiles. Our air power would struggle to get close and struggle to be relevant, because of the dense, integrated air Defense Systems the chinese have built, all of this with an idea of pushing the u. S. Military farther away, making it harder for us to operate and ultimately engaging in what the Chinese Military refers to as systems destruction warfare, which is the feeling of capabilities to rip apart the critical enabling technologies and technologies the u. S. Relies on to operate income that up combat the u. S. Relies on to operate in combat. The Chinese Military feeling very advanced technologies from effect, cyber electronic warfare, to go after the ways the u. S. Military operates. They have made a lot more progress than most americans realize. Is situation for the u. S. More dire than most americans realize. Chillingsense a ourunt of a war in which carriers are having to move east , away from china, should escape attack. Our beautiful, f35 exquisite fighters cant get to their targets to refuel because the refueling plane will get shot down. Just a series of really dreadful prospects. He said at one point the talking for senator mccain about this i can onlyago, imagine the conversation and what the choice would be, between surrender and lose or fight and lose. , how did we get into this terrible vision of vulnerability, the kind of scenario you just described were the chinese have a Weapons Systems dock for an Weapons Systems doctrine that will render our beautiful weapons i dont know useless, but much less powerful. Chris i am not trying to suggest china is 10 feet taller the u. S. Is no effective means of responding. We do. The overarching story is a pretty bad one and it is heading in a worse direction. How did we get here . There is a handful of things. One obvious reason is that for the past two decades, we have been focused on events that followed 9 11, wars were fighting, global counterterrorism, and that shouldnt be minimized. At that was in a normas strain on the u. S. Military an enormous strain on the u. S. Military. But over the last 25 years, the lions share of our defense budget, upwards of three quarters of a trillion dollars at this point, has been going toward military systems and modernization efforts that didnt have anything to do with the wars that we were fighting. That is where a lot of the failure resides. It is an intellectual failure, that we misconceived the nature of military power, what we are building a military to do, what we refer to in the defense world as a platform centric view of the world. We have optimized our entire defense enterprise to produce military things, vehicles, ships, aircraft, tools of military power that can be relied upon for many decades. And we have sought to make them incrementally better. We have optimized our Industrial Base to produce this result those results. And that is not what ultimately wins wars, tours conflicts or keeps the peace. The outcomes we are trying to achieve our better decisionmaking achieve are better decisionmaking, better understanding of the world, and the ability to do that faster than our competitors, regardless of the tools we use. So part of the problem exists in how we conceive of military power and the fact we build grams and budgets and an Industrial Base and special interest support complex, all focused on producing more incrementally better versions of the old things we have relied upon for a very long time. At the same time, we have failed to recognize how far emerging technologies have advanced, particularly in the commercial world over the past 15 years. Theay of an example, parking lot outside the Office Building where i am now has commercial tesla vehicles that computer processors and processing units that are hundreds of times more capable and powerful than the supercomputer that is on the f35 joint strike fighter, referred to as the flying supercomputer. The defense world has fallen significantly behind the commercial world and a lot of respects respect to Artificial Intelligence, emerging technologies like that, and the underlying reason if i could point to one is hubris. We came out of the cold war so far ahead of the next competitor and enjoyed that literary dominance for so long that we begin to believe that the ways we have always operated militarily, the things we have relied upon to deliver our dominance, would forever be the things that would achieve that level of military primacy for us. And we failed to recognize that in that time, we have been disrupted by competitors and disrupted by the nature and evolution of advanced technology. And if that mindset doesnt change, if we dont realize we have to get out of the way we have conceived of military power and operations for 30 years, we are not were to be able to address this problem effectively. On the question of how did this happen to us, i am going to ask you to talk about something on which you have a a unique advantage, what senator mccain liked to call the militaryindustrial congressional complex, that Iron Triangle that keeps our existing ancurement systems, evergreater refinement of procurement systems, keeps that whole thing rolling forward. Maybe you could talk about that obstacle to buying what we need, from the perspective you have from being staff director on the committee, the things you saw happen despite efforts by u. N. Senator mccain to turn the course. It didnt happen year after year. Why is that . Chris it is a great question. You are right to hit upon the ecosystem. His is an it definitely involves the congress, the department of defense, the military, special Interest Groups outside certainly the Industrial Base, but also the Many Organizations involved in National Defense. Not the nature of the system. The nature of the system is not going to change. Eight is going to be what it is it is going to be what it is. We could wish that it was going to be otherwise, but i dont think it is realistic to hold out hope that defense reform has to be predicated upon a fundamental transformation of our political system. You areity is, and what pointing to, that too often, incentives that govern that system are out of whack and they generate the same outcomes which as we have been talking about is building more and more, incrementally better versions of old things, at great cost, great levels of technological sophistication, but they are not necessarily things we need to prevail in the strategic competition we are now involved in. The reason is that this is a defense establishment that is inherently conservative. And there are good reasons. Bureaucracy exists to slow the pace of change. Costsisruptive change peoples lives and creates calamity. The problem is that the system has become so optimized to producing the same types of things, demanding the same types of things, building the same types of things, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to change the incentives that govern that system. And to do that, you have to affect it at all levels. It is not enough to make change at the congressional level in the absence of leadership at the department, or different types of defunct different types of responses from the defense industry. These are things that i think are possible to change. In my time in the senate, i saw efforts where the congress was involved in the right ways toward making hard choices, divestments of old systems, increasing investment in new technologies the department is perhaps not fully aware of, and this has happened before. The predator aircraft, unmanned aviation as we think about it today, largely again through congressional earmarks. The incentives can be changed, but too often what we have is a system where the pace of change is incredibly slow, there are very few incentives for people in all the different branches of government and parts of the ecosystem to make disruptive change in fundamentally shift the way we do things. And it revolves around the systemic failure to truly understand and measure and seek , different ways of achieving military outcomes we seek, rather than producing better versions of tools we have relied upon. Ourd i want to remind audience members that you can join this conversation in a committed. If you have a question for participantsyour thaad on the screen and hit the participants tab on your screen, hit the raise hand button, and that will facilitate our conversation. Beliefyou have a strong in the need to modernize our defenses. You have actually tried to do it yourself in your own career. I thought it might be interesting for our viewers to hear from you about what you are new weapons and systems you are trying to build, and what you hear about in the technology world. About what will talk it is difficult for Companies Like yours to get in the door. Amn and are all androl is a startup that is three years old. We try to provide advanced Technological Capabilities to the defense enterprise. The department of defense, other National Security agencies, u. S. Allies and ardors overseas, and our focus is very much that. Emergenting technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and building capabilities that address that the u. S. Military and National Security professionals have. Not to meet requirements laid out 10 years ago, but to solve problems in new and different ways. A broader statement about the nature of these technologies. It goes back to what we talked about earlier that what we are trying to do when we field literary capabilities or bring new technologies to the fore, is to fundamentally enhance human decisionmaking and understanding of the nature of actions humans can take, and making it a humancentric process. Confusion lot of around what these technologies can and cannot do. There is misunderstanding and concern about building skynet for the terminator. Many people in the Defense Technology world look at it as, there are good things that these technologies are doing now and there things they are not good at end they shouldnt be put in position now. At the most basic level, the department of defense is awash in data like the rest of the world, collecting vast amounts of information. The tragedy is that all too often, we are not taking advantage of all the information that we have. We make it the job of tens of thousands of people to sift through this information and generate insights to bear our military for the dangerous jobs they are going to perform. Slow,o often, it is manual, brittle, not very dynamic, and that increases risks to our men and women in uniform and professionals who do defense work. It wastes their time and where these technologies can shine today is around making better use of the information that we insights thatng are going to protect our force, humansnocent lives, put in the position of making faster decisions about issues of warring peace war and peace and life and death, and ultimately ensure whatever actions are taken emanate from human agency and always have human accountability, so you can trace that action back to someone accountable for initiating it. That is the crux of the issue. As long as we ensure that process is taking place, these technologies are to rapidly develop and add value, but it has to occur in that operational, strategic and ethical framework. David if you read chriss book, you will see a detailed discussion of all the different unmanned systems, air, sea, land, that for relatively little money can be brought to bear. Roc striking details on systems that we could have. Assuming there are Great Companies out there that have got great ideas and know how they could be helping our way,se in a costeffective they can fund they confront a pentagon procurement process that is intimidating and overwhelming, and a lot of Companies Just give up. Talk about that problem, that people with good ideas dont have the ability to do the paperwork to get into this procurement loop. Chris National Defense is not a free market. Ands significantly defined controlled by the government but still governed by consensus. Focusing on when we unpack this question of how a new entrant can do Better Business with the department of defense. Saw in my time in the senate with senator mccain to reform the acquisition process, and in my life after government, is that timelines are way too long for Small Companies. For larger companies, they can ride out the multiyour process from rating requirements to acquisition programs, selecting a vendor, going through competition, getting money appropriated. Years, oftentimes a 6, 7 in the case of larger systems, it is over 10 years long. The problem is that for Small Companies and startups, they need to return investment quickly. They need to be able to show that they are generating wind, getting traction for the work they are doing. All too often, the problem in the defense world is that when we start a new program and have a lot of new prototypes or science projects or smallscale efforts that get going, and it has never been easier right now is a lot of as a result of reforms in recent years, the Defense Innovation unit and other innovationfocused organizations seeking to bring these companies in, the problem historically is that none of it scales. So hundreds of Companies May come in and have the opportunity to get a very small contract and build a small prototype. But there is not a mechanism that takes the best performers across what is known as the valley of death, from a smallscale prototype to a largescale military program. What the defense established needs to focus on, the next administration whichever stripe, processes to identify who the true performers are among all those new entrants that are doing small amounts of work for the department of defense, and identifying the next spacex, the next star company capable of fielding critical National Security and offensive technologies at scale. That is how you then begin to change the defense Industrial Base. As Small Companies become larger, as they hire more people, and looks like a viable Business Models for engineers and investors,s a place where engineers want to work and investors want to invest. The problem we have had for 30 years is that, as start ups every other sector of our economy from financial others, there have only been two examples of that in the defense world in 30 years. It is a very small group of companies that have been able to cross that threshold. And all too often it is because ory have had the prowess resources behind them to play out incredibly long timelines. That has got to change to level the playing field, reduce barriers to entry so more of these companies and innovators can not just do work and go nowhere, but do work and scale it to build more Successful Companies and products and help the u. S. Military regain its competitive advantage. Viewers ifnvite our you would like to ask a question of chris, go to the participant tab at the bottom of your screen, hit the raise hand button, your hand will be raised and we can call on you for a question. Chris, i want to veer away from your book for