Congress, Department of Defense
Over the years, the Pentagon has made many overt efforts to support Silicon Valley, with which it has had direct ties going back decades. (U.S. Air Force photo by Lt. Scarlett Trujillo)
WASHINGTON — A new report released today gives the United States a “D” rating for defense modernization. This is a result of the Department of Defense showing little improvement in the transition of innovative equipment from emerging defense technology companies to mass-produced equipment that can be used on the battlefield.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute today released the second annual National Security Innovation Platform Report Card. The report card assigns grades to key indicators related to the Department of Defense's ability to leverage the efforts of defense companies, startups, and research institutions on which the Department relies to make strides. – Cutting edge technology.
Defense Department acquisition executives have ramped up engagement with Silicon Valley in recent years and championed investments in small defense startups, as the department seeks to bring the speed and innovation seen in Big Tech to the defense industry. It is said that
However, six of the 10 areas measured in the Reagan Scorecard showed no decline in progress or performance compared to last year. That's a sign that the “green shoots” of positive activity have not yet necessarily translated into forward momentum, said Rachel Hoff, director of policy at the Reagan Institute. Director and one of the authors of the report.
“We still want the ability to translate and transition innovation priorities into capabilities, performance programs and budget priorities,” Hof told reporters at a briefing ahead of the scorecard's release.
Most visibly, the grade for defense modernization fell from C to D, with the report calling the Pentagon “failed to act on innovation priorities and advance technology at scale. '', saying it puts the Department of Defense at risk of falling behind its industry peers, including: China.
The U.S. government also received a D rating for Customer Clarity, which measures how well the government communicates its funding priorities and plans to the private sector. This score remained unchanged from 2023, but one of the key metrics assessing the U.S. government's ability to provide predictable funding dropped from an F to an F-minus. This is the lowest grade in the report and reflects the budget chaos caused by Congress. Six months into the fiscal year, the country still hasn't passed a budget for 2024.
“The goal of this grade is that Congress is moving in the wrong direction, especially when it comes to providing stable and on-time spending,” Hof said.
The Talent Base grade fell from D+ to D, reflecting the continued difficulties the defense sector faces in recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce. The report found that approximately 31% of the defense engineering and manufacturing workforce is in or nearing retirement eligibility (compared to 24% overall), and that approximately 31% of the defense engineering and manufacturing workforce is nearing a retirement bubble, as well as those in major defense jobs. (The talent pool in the states they serve is shrinking.)
In dozens of interviews with the report's authors, Dale Swartz found that startups and non-traditional defense companies lack access to sensitive spaces and testing resources such as wind tunnels, lack of access to testing resources such as said it highlighted non-financial bottlenecks, such as the long time it takes to obtain security clearances. He was a partner at McKinsey & Company and worked with President Reagan on the report.
Another problem, he said, is that “there's a lot of capital flowing through the system, but it's not necessarily being deployed at the right life stages of companies.”
Meanwhile, more established, non-traditional defense companies that are now poised to ramp up technology production include managing employee retention and supply chain challenges for materials such as energy engineering and microelectronics. , he said, has found itself facing the same problems that plague traditional defense companies. .
Regan's report recommended several measures aimed at better entrenching defense innovation, including fully funding the Pentagon's Replicator drone development initiative and reforming software intellectual property policies. did.
But Roger Zakheim, director of the Reagan Institute in Washington, said it remains unclear whether the Pentagon's fiscal year 2025 budget request released last week will move the ball forward.
“The administration has offered a maximum of roughly $850 billion,” he said in an interview with Breaking Defense. “But what they're doing internally is not a foregone conclusion. So, below the top line, how are they allocating and distributing it to different priorities?” Is not it?”
