06 September 2023
Fireside Chat
Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, DOD
Investments in the Region to Detering China
-Our alliances and partnerships are stronger than there has ever been. We’ve been engaging in a number of activities to them. We’re working with allies to develop the capabilities they need. We’ve been linking relationships like never before.
-2024 will be a big year. Secretary has been very busy in the region. All of these events coming forward will have important announcements.
Relationship with PRC
-Priority and focus. NDS 22 described PRC as the top challenge and that has been reflected in our budget, posture, concepts we’re developing with allies and partners. This will continue.
-PRC is the only country with both the will and capability to refashion the international order. That was the assessment in 2022. That assessment has not changed.
-We do have a military relationship. SecDef said the US seeks open lines of communication. Unfortunately, they have not answered that call but it still remains important.
-We’ve been brutally consistent saying again and again that the US seeks open lines of communications. This is too important. We have a lot of forces in the region and so do they. We need to be able to communicate how we’re thinking through cyber, space, weapons. We’re going to keep voicing at every level in every meeting.
-Our forces are operating in close proximity to each other. PRC is engaging sometimes in unsafe operational behavior. We don’t want an accident to spiral into an unintended conflict.
Current Security Agreements
-We’re engaging in discussions with allies and partners that in part have a long trajectory on them to build but that’s not true in all instances. We’re moving out now.
-Trilateral meeting at Camp David, that foreshadowed future engagements. We’re going to have more frequent trilateral exercises.
-Australia, we’re participating in the industrial base and that brings benefits now.
-There’s a lot of support and I suspect that to endure.
PLA Report -Report will come out in the fall giving an update. As always it will be an important document. Looking at mid-October hopefully.
[End]
Fireside Chat
Jason Rathje, Director, Office of Strategic Capital, DOD
Need for OSC
-US has an incredible advantage in the competition because the US capital markets are about half the world’s private capital.
-Problem is today the markets are not as properly aligned as they should be for critical technologies. Capital markets invest in lower technical risks. Example e-commerce has way more investment than quantum. We see this disparity between where capital is investing and where we need to see increases. The Office was set up to scale this.
-We’re busy with the stand up of the Office. We’ve been building a team. Looking at leverage as a tool. There’s a really efficient way to increase investment in the technologies we don’t typically invest in.
-We don’t buy supply chain. That’s where these tools are focused. We can think differently to increase areas of investment.
-Space race, US created DARPA, NASA, Small Business Administration. They did this to enhance funds that were vital to national security.
-OSC is looking at partnerships to bring back some of these tools.
Discussions with Other Agencies & Critical Technology Areas
-Loans as a tool are new to the DOD but they aren’t new to the federal government. Loans as a tool are extremely efficient.
-We can use loans for things like renewables, chips and science, loans to get after critical tech areas.
- We’re taking critical technology areas and are looking across. AI/autonomy for example but also semiconductors. We’re also prioritizing and looking at how tools like loans are useful. In these critical technology areas we’re looking at industry, US competitiveness…
Critical Technology Areas & Markets
-When we were established there was doubt immediately.
-One of the first things the Sec asked was to build an investment strategy around the critical technology areas. We hope to have that out in the next few months. It’s very detailed in the technologies, US competitiveness, and capital availability. We’re working to create a framework that’s repeatable.
Relationship with Congress
-Office was stood up in alignment to a number of prior NDAAs. They all called on the Department to deepen investments and to look at tools.
-As we continue to work with Congress, continuing to understand authorities needed for programs, it’s been great to work with the other agencies and see how they’re working this all today.
-It’s always good to go to the OSC website and sign up for updates as things become available.
[End]
View from the Hill
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), US House of Representatives
Potential Passing of NDAA
-There’s strong bipartisan agreements on many issues however there’s the strong right wing members.
-Going forward, Senate will not agree with pretty much all of their provisions and neither will the Administration. The Speaker will have to figure out how to appease them. The Speaker is trying to appease the unappeasable. Whatever modest things we can do will not be enough to please the Freedom Caucus. How far do we go to appease those who will not vote on the bill no matter what?
Nomination Holds
-If you don’t have the staff in charge of programs those programs get difficult to run. If you’re not actually sworn in, you have less authority. I know that if you’re an Acting Chief of Staff, Acting Combatant Commander, you have less authority and less ability in your AOR.
-Tuberville and others, they believe if they don’t get what they want that they’re going to tear everything down and not let anybody go forward. Democracy can’t function that way.
-Freedom Caucus will impede the ability of Congress to do their jobs because they don’t like the travel policies.
-This is having incredibly negative impacts to DOD and their ability to function.
Special Inspector General for Ukraine
-They’re not always noncontroversial amendments. Just because something is in en bloc that doesn’t mean it’s unanimously agreed to.
-We are doing very aggressive oversight in Afghanistan. We are watching the money we’re sending to Ukraine. I don’t think we need a Special Inspector General. Gates wants to do everything he can to gut the policy.
Implications for DOD & no CR
-If we don’t pass a CR, service members literally don’t know when they’ll get paid again. No one is going to be happy with not knowing if and when they’ll get paid again.
2024 Elections & Mexico Relations
-Declaring war on Mexico is just about the most insane policy I have ever heard in my 27 years in. I cannot believe that’s in discussion. Yes I am worried about that becoming mainstream policy. That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
-Dealing with the drug cartels is one thing but to suggest military action against the country, it’s a ridiculous proposal.
[End]
Defense News Fireside Chat w/ Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense
On Innovation
-Secretary Austin and I have been focused on the urgency to innovate and over the past two and a half years we've taken a comprehensive iterative Warfighter Centric approach recognizing that we face an accumulation of challenges.
-Our ability to deliver Innovation at scale is not a pipe dream [...] it's possible because we've done it before and the secretary and I know we can do it again.
-Extending Bridges and express lanes over the so-called valley of death and of course there are many valleys of death, accelerating software acquisition and procurement of Innovative Technologies.
-The one advantage that they [the PRC] can never blunt, steal, or copy because it's embedded in our people is American Ingenuity, our ability to innovate, change the game, and in the military spheres to imagine, create, and master the Future character of warfare.
-That's the paradox of military innovation: to deliver on our no-fail mission in defending the nation, we must be willing to take risks, to try things that might not succeed as we'd hoped.
On the Role of Leadership in Driving Change
-By exerting leadership focus and attention on a singular operational Challenge and maturing Solutions because that's the plan for harder to hit and harder to beat than those of potential competitors.
-Leaders at all levels relentlessly focused on results. We have one of those moments right now, and we're going to seize it.
-That's what leadership is: it's saying 'follow me' and holding yourself accountable to get there.
On the Ethical Approach to Technology and AI
-We will do so while remaining steadfast to our responsible and ethical approach to AI and autonomous systems, where DOD has been a world leader for over a decade.
-We have an opportunity now for a game-changing shift that we have long pursued.
-Our policy for autonomy and weapon systems is clear and well established; there is always a human responsible for the use of force. Anything we do through this initiative or any other must and will adhere to that policy.
On Efficiency and Scaling
-Replicator will galvanize progress in the too slow shift of U.S military Innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many.
On Deterrence and Strategic Competitiveness
-Deterrence, including across the Taiwan Strait, is real and strong and we're doing more than ever to keep it that way.
-Our goal always is to deter because competition does not mean conflict we must ensure the PRC leadership wakes up every day considers the risk of aggression and concludes today is not the day.
-From the Pentagon to Congress to Industry and Beyond we must be bold, we must be determined and we must move with urgency and unity of purpose to ensure we can maintain the peace and have our troops Ready For Whatever May Come.
-Why the urgency? Because our main strategic competitor today, the PRC, has spent the last 20 years building a modern military carefully crafted to blunt the operational advantages we've enjoyed for decades.
On Collaboration and Joint Efforts
-Every DOD stakeholder will have a seat at the table—combatant commanders, military departments, service secretaries, and service Chiefs and OST component heads
-From the Pentagon to Congress to Industry and Beyond, we must be bold, we must be determined, and we must move with urgency and unity of purpose.
On Defense against Potential Threats
-All domain attritable autonomous systems will help overcome the PRC challenge of anti-access area denial systems.
On Diverse Applications of ADA Systems
-Imagine fleets of ground-based ada2 systems delivering novel Logistics support, scouting ahead to keep troops safe or securing DOD infrastructure.
-Our ADA too to thwart their age of course we still need the full complement of US capabilities that we've invested in to remain combat credible today and into the future.
-These aren't ships or aircraft that we will be using for the next 30 to 50 years. ADA2 systems are things we might use for three to five years before we move on to the next thing, as we must be given a dynamic, fast-moving adversary in the pace of innovation.
On Space and Technological Advancement
-We've been seeing it in space hundreds of miles above our head for a long time. You could count our space capabilities by a handful of satellites.
-More and more we're also leveraging proliferated constellations of smaller resilient lower cost satellites, some launched almost weekly with dozens of payloads deployed each time.
On Responsibility and Ethical Approach to Autonomy
-Our policy for autonomy and weapon systems is clear and well established; there is always a human responsible for the use of force. anything we do through this initiative or any other must and will adhere to that policy.
-Integrating autonomy into weapon systems is nothing new for DOD. We know how to do it responsibly... there is always a human responsible for the use of force.
On Distributed Systems & Adaptability
-Imagine distributed PODS of self-propelled 882 systems afloat powered by the Sun and other virtually limitless resources packed with sensors of plenty enough to give us new reliable sources of information in near real time.
On Proliferation and Speed in Space
-We're now approaching a future where the web of satellites we can draw upon is so great that attacking or disrupting them would be futile, a wasted effort, and a highly escalatory one at that.
The Future of Defense Technology Panel (12:15-12:45)
The provided notes discuss a variety of themes prevalent in the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), the Pentagon's role in R&D, and operational realities.
On Operational Maturity vs. Technical Maturity
-Technical maturity is a simple question of if I push the on button does it go on...but operational maturity does it solve an actual problem for me.
-Being able to test it on a confined range may not be able to tell you whether or not your autonomous system can function in 120° heat with sand and wind.
On Testing and Experimentation
-If the response of the department is then to deliver them a document, a set of standards...that's probably insufficient.
-Operational considerations are so unique right that there's no real centralized way of doing this.
-It's creating that sandbox for industry to come in at a software and algorithmic level to be able to test to ensure that their capability is meeting Department standards before we get to the operational testing component.
-Being able to test it on a confined range may not be able to tell you whether or not your autonomous system can function in 120° heat with sand and wind.
On AI Projects and Centralization
-How many AI projects is the Pentagon currently juggling? The GAO pegged it at more than 685.
-AI is going to be solved by some central body at the Pentagon or in the research community and it's going to be delivered out as a common good that is not the reality of AI.
-I don't think you would ever ask how many apps on your phone are AI apps.
-A lot of these projects come out of the R&D ecosystem and they're really small projects... however when we talk about the big programs, they see the AI components.
-We are less concerned about the number so much as we are concerned about whether AI is being delivered for the sake of AI or if AI is being actually tied to a problem that is intended to solve.
On AI Application and User Engagement
-We are less concerned about the number so much as we are concerned about whether AI is being delivered for the sake of AI or if AI is being actually tied to a problem that is intended to solve.
-As soon as the user steps away or if the model falters which inevitably it does...then suddenly the user engagement drops and the model performance drops.
On User Engagement & Model Performance:
Model performance surges if you have your closeness to a user and that user engagement increases but as soon as the user steps away or if the model falters [...] then suddenly the user engagement drops and the model performance drops
On the Expansion of Unmanned Operations
-The Navy earlier this year expanded its unmanned operations to the fourth Fleet following the success of task force 59.
-What does that growth look like? I mean I think that it ties in very well with the replicator as low cost Expendable systems.
On Standardization vs. Flexibility
-If the response of the department is then to deliver them a document, a set of Standards [...] that's probably insufficient. It's a necessary but insufficient part of the overall testing ecosystem.
On Simplifying Data Visualization
-Imagine if you were able to type in a query that said I'd like to display this data and pull these three Fields relative to these other three factors rather quickly and I don't have to talk to an engineer.
On Problem-Driven Innovation
-It's not an AI program, it's not an autonomy program, it's a program that's operationally focused on solving a problem.
Q & A
On Opportunity through Software Capabilities
-For software capabilities in particular this is a door open for us for partners because in other technical spaces and more traditional military technical spaces the United States has built out exquisite capabilities that are beyond the cost.
On the Regulatory Environment and Model Risks
-For a minute that the regulatory environment is actually going to lead to a positive result with respect to the risks associated with these models.
On Misunderstanding of AI Capabilities
-The tendency of human beings is to interact with a model of this sophistication... and not understand that it's just a probabilistic word generator.
-We're working closely with allies and partners and with our own Congress and White House.
On the Industry’s Influence and Adoption of AI
-If you talk to any technology company these generative AI tools have made their way into their coding architectures already.
On the Access to Modern Technologies
-We would love to be able to access the exquisite technologies that exist both in the department and out in the industry inside of a 12-month time frame.
These themes touch upon the complexities of integrating AI into defense, especially around regulation, partnerships, misunderstandings, and the pace at which technology and budgets evolve.
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