Squaring the Circle

Discussion on Acquisitions, Defense Industrial Base, and the Budget with Dan Grazier

For more information:

+https://www.stimson.org/2024/current-defense-plans-require-unsustainable-future-spending/

+ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/military-industrial-complex-2668809022/

+https://www.cato.org/multimedia/power-problems/pentagons-budgetary-time-bomb

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Broadcast on:: 25 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

Hello and welcome to Square In A Circle. On this episode on drawing with Dan Grager, who is a senior fellow for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, where he focuses on defense spending, military doctrine, organization, and technology. Prior to joining the Stimson Center, he served as the Senior Defense Policy Fellow of the Project in Government Oversight. He is the author of numerous reports and op-eds and his work has appeared in major publications to include Defense One, Breaking Defense, Task and Purpose, The Hill, and Responsible Statecraft. He is a veteran Marine Corps officer of a certain Iraq and Afghanistan. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this podcast are of my own and my guests. They do not reflect the views and positions of the US Government, the Department of Defense, the US Army, or any other organizations. This podcast is for education and information purposes only. All right, Dan. Hey, thanks for being on the podcast. I really appreciate your time and I'm looking forward to the discussion where we're really going to dive deep into defense industrial base. We'll talk about certain weapon acquisition programs and we'll talk about the Pentagon budget. You've been on some other podcasts before and you've published a lot of great material on these subjects. I will add those to the show notes for ease of access for my listeners. Again, I really enjoy your work and I'm happy you're on the podcast and I look forward to the discussion. Thanks again, Dan, and I'll turn it over to you for any opening comments. Well, hey, Matt, thank you very much for having me on the show. I look forward to a lively, robust discussion of what I think are some of the most important issues facing the United States. Military, the American people today. I think our work is important as a kind of a unique perspective to a lot of these ongoing discussions and I'm happy to discuss with you today. All right, so we'll kick things off with talking about the budget and so here we are about what less than 30 days, about 15 plus. By the time we get this out to getting a budget across the finish line, which most likely won't happen, probably looking at a CR, which has problems in itself. I've had a lot of guests on previously and there's a lot of commentary out there that our budget is too small that the 800, 900 billion going on close to a trillion dollars is way too small for the needs of the warfighter, the needs of Pentagon requirements. And so my question to you is, is it too small? Is it the right amount? Or is it just enough? Or what are your thoughts on the budget? Well, that's kind of a complicated question, but I think the top line is probably a little too much. So I'm going to have to disagree with, I guess, a lot of your other guests. But I say that not just because the totals are pretty staggering for most Americans, quite frankly. I think we spend too much on the military today. And because we create a lot of problems. If you look over the last 25 years, really since September 11th, and you think about all the acquisitions programs that have been started in that era, especially in the immediate post 9/11 years, when nobody in Washington really criticized how much money was being spent on the military. And if you look at the figures on a chart, you can see just how dramatically defense spending rose in the years after September 11th. Well, the problem with that was, since nobody really cared about how much was being spent, the services kind of went a little crazy with a lot of their acquisition decisions. You think about all the failed programs that we've dealt with over the last 25 years. Almost all of them were born in an era when there was not a lot of budget discipline. And so we ended up with really complicated, very expensive individual acquisition systems that all kind of added up. And it created this bow wave when you start programs like the F-35, the Zumult class destroyer, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Army's Future Combat System. All these programs kind of started at the same time. And now in 2024, the bills are really coming due for that, because the services had obligated the American people to cover all these future costs when they made those decisions 25 years ago. But now that a lot of these systems are moving into the production and operations phase, that's when it gets really expensive. But the big problem with that was that a lot of those programs were poorly conceived back in the beginning, which is stick with the F-35 as an example. The F-35 was supposed to be this jack of all trades aircraft that was supposed to be highly networked and it was going to be really easy to maintain because all the management was going to be done digitally. They just added every single possible gadget and gizmo to the F-35 that they could possibly think of. And of course, it was essentially an impossible task to integrate all those things effectively. So you have an aircraft that has 35% full mission capable rate fleet wide. It cost a fortune. The F-35s that are coming off the assembly line today have essentially zero combat capability because the processor needed to make all of these subsystems work together properly is not complete. And they're trying to write software for hardware that isn't complete. And so we just keep throwing money at this problem that will probably never be solved. But when you take that and you add it to what happened with the virtual combat ship program, the zoom bolt class, the future combat system, and any number of other systems that failed, you end up in a position where we're paying a fortune every year for the military, but we're not really getting the capabilities that were promised. Yeah, it's interesting. So on the F-35, if I have the history down right, just staying on this program, I think it launched in what 2001. And then the initial plan was for it to be full rate production in 2011. But now just recently, we just went to full rate production. There's been like a plethora of issues. And there's a commentary out there that I like, there's some folks in Congress called it paperweight. I think one acting sec def called it piece of crap. All these faults have been identified to go with it. And then it's going on $2 trillion to pay for this thing. And here we are shifting focus to the next generation of air dominance, the next fighter. So it's interesting, but it's also concerning. And so I think one of the things that Lockheed Martin did well, just thumbs up to them on this, and not necessarily in a good way, but just their political engineering, which I think is fascinating, is we're like to spread the peanut butter out across the whole country, where you have certain supplies that are coming from different areas, or certain parts are manufactured in different areas. And so that makes it too big to fail, makes it harder to kill. And so how do we get back to, I know it was a long ramp, but how do we get back to, I guess, more responsible budgeting? How do we get it back in the line prior to the GWT area of just endless amount of money being spent? Well, I think there's a couple of different ways to do it. One would just to bring back some budget discipline. I think it might seem simplistic, but if Congress appropriated less money to the services every year, and they made that clear, I think the service leaders would make better decisions. So instead of trying to build something like the F-35, which I can get into the political engineering and the consequences of that a little bit more, but with something like the F-35, there's endless ways that the design for the F-35 could have been simplified. And it would have greatly reduced the problems that the program has. And you're right, I mean, Locky Martin won the contract for the F-35 on October 26, 2001. The rubble at ground zero was still smoldering when that decision was made. And here we are nearly 23 years later, and we still don't have a working aircraft. Well, entire programs in the past have gone from sketches on a napkin to the boneyard in less time than the F-35 has been in development. And you mentioned the 4A production decision earlier this year. I mean, that was an absolute farce. I thought it was really telling that the Pentagon announced the F-35, 4A production by quietly releasing a press release on a Tuesday evening. You would think that a program, the largest acquisition program in history, you would think that when it crossed that finish line, that there would be some big ceremony, like, well, a good example, like the way the B-21 was revealed. If you remember that from like a year and a half ago, I mean, you had the Secretary of Defense, like there was lighting, there was music, there was all kinds of crazy stuff when that happened. Well, that was at the very beginning, like at the starting line for a program. You would think that there would be something even bigger than that for a program like the F-35 crossed in the finish line. Well, that just didn't happen. And if you really look at the press release, acting, testing director wrote tools statements in that press release. Those were stunning remarks because he basically said that, yeah, we learned a lot about the F-35 and now the program is going to take recommendations and fix the program. That's not what you want to hear from the testing director. You want to hear from the testing director that the program is combat effective and suitable for use in the hands of the troops. Like, that's what operational testing is for. That is not what he said and the fact that the testing report, the actual initial operational test and evaluation report for the F-35 program has been so heavily classified that no one has seen it. Like, I've talked to people all over Washington, like on Capitol Hill and all kinds of places, if they've actually read the report and no one has seen it. So there's serious problems with that. And again, going all the way back, I think it comes from a lack of budget discipline. If the service leaders knew they weren't going to have that much money moving forward and that they had to generate forces within a constrained budget environment, then they would have no choice but to design simpler systems, which would be easier to develop. They'd get into the hands of the warfighters faster. They would work better just because there's fewer things on a simplified system to break. And I think they would generate better capabilities. So it might seem simplistic, but just that one change, just a little more fiscal discipline, I think would have a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of the US military. And so having a budget, so at all costs, it's not really strategic, it's not really sustainable, just increasing the budget. And we have some in Congress who are saying that we're not spending it, spending enough. But what are the long-term consequences of that? What are the implications globally and for the US for increasing the budget? What are the problems that you see with a high budget that just keeps on rising? Oh, well, the military is experiencing them today. Earlier this week, I read there was a report released by the Government Accountability Office about maintenance issues in the Navy. There's a couple of things that go into that. One of the problems that the GAO found was there just aren't enough sailors serving aboard ships to be able to handle just the regular routine maintenance that it takes to keep these ships afloat. But they're also lacking spare parts. Sailors aren't trained up properly. Well, let's take a look at how the Navy has spent its money over the over the years. You know, the Navy spent about, I forget exactly what the figure is, I think it's about $28 billion or so building 35 lateral combat ships. Well, the Navy is like furiously retiring those things now because they just don't work. The Navy also spent $22.5 billion building the Zumalt class, the Zumalt class destroyers. And they ended up with, they expected to have 32 ships and they ended up with three. And they still don't know quite what to do with those things. And you think about how long it took to build a four class aircraft carrier and how much money was spent on that. And then you start to understand, okay, yeah, this is why the Navy is having some resourcing problems because they've, you know, they haven't made the best acquisition decisions ever. And you know, right now the Navy's scrambling to build, you know, to build a frigate, the Constellation Class Frigate, to make up for the the lost capabilities from the Lutoral Combat Ship Program. So those are the consequences. You know, we end up with, you know, with forces that don't have the equipment that they need, you know, an equipment that ends up costing more than, you know, than is expected. And we have to just have this decreased capability and capacity as a result. So, you know, we spend more and more and we end up with less and less. So I think that's the, you know, those are the major top lines like at the strategic level. At the individual level, you know, think about those, you know, the sailors that do remain on these ships. You know, they're all, they're overworked, you know, they're, you know, so they're exhausted, their morale goes down. You know, there's just like cascaded of effects on, on the individuals who end up having to, you know, to deal with the consequences of these poor like strategic acquisition decisions. Yeah, there was a guest I had on almost about a year ago, Major General retired John Ferrari. And one of his concerns was that, you know, modernization, like, got it, trying to get the latest and greatest kit, not having, you know, not having the, you know, the latest widgets, right? And trying to get rid of like the Cold War era relic type stuff. But you only have so much in the budget. And are we, are we spending too much in modernization and not enough in the operations and in the readiness? You know, the people cost money to the all volunteer force, you know, is expensive, right? It costs cost money and it's a must do pays. So you only have so much in the budget, only so much to use. And, you know, it's kind of like that downward death spiral. If I have the name of that, that theory, right? I can't remember the gentleman's name who came up with that. But you know, modernization efforts, you just keep going, keep increasing, increasing, increasing. And then you're taking money out of like operations and maintenance to, you know, pay for the modernization efforts. And so, you know, we talked about the F 35, they talked about some of the Navy, but what about the Sentinel ICBM? Because they had a Nun McCurdy breach. That's also like an acquisition, malpractice issue that's current. I was wondering if you could talk to that and, you know, what is like the Nun McCurdy breach? Sure. Yeah, the Nun McCurdy or the Sentinel program has had a major Nun McCurdy breach. I'd have to go back and really look into the matter. But I think it's one of the biggest in history, because it was like an 81% cost increase. But that is actually a really good example of what I'm talking about. Like, I understand the need to, you know, the need for modernization. But we need to modernize responsibly. You know, it's, you know, technology is important, but I don't think it's nearly as important as a lot of people in Washington in the, you know, in the decision makers, you know, think it is. You know, you need, you want weapon systems that are just good enough to perform the intended tasks. But anything beyond that, then you start, you know, creating these second and third order effects of low readiness and, and, you know, cost overruns and schedule slips and, and then just difficulty in the, in the force. And the Sentinel is a great example of that. You know, the decision was made to, you know, for complete nuclear modernization. And that included the ground based, the ground based deterrent, you know, all the, all the big missiles sitting in silos out in the, in the Northwest. And, but somebody made the decision to design a new missile that didn't fit in the existing silos. I'd love to know who that was, you know, because they fired the program manager, but I guarantee you that the program manager that was recently fired was not the one who made that decision. You know, and, and I thought it was, it was interesting when the none McCurdy breach was announced. And the Pentagon's acquisition chief came out and said that, all right, we're going to go back, we're going to take a look and we're going to find a way to simplify the program. My response, as soon as I saw that was, well, why wasn't that done originally? Like, why, why did, why was the decision made to build a missile that did not fit within the silos? Because the silos are that that's what caused the breach. It wasn't the missile itself. It was the, the cost, you know, to, to basically rebuild all the infrastructure for them. And, you know, that's, you know, that was a great decision, you know, if you're in the position of being the contractor, that, that gets to, you know, do that work. But it's not so great for all the American people who have to shoulder the, shoulder the cost of it. And even for the, you know, for the personnel in the Air Force, who now are in the position to get a couple more years out of the, out of the minute men missiles and, you know, they have to, you know, have to make the entire enterprise as it is, you know, work that much, that much longer. And out again, go back to this. If, if there are better decisions made at the beginning at the conceptual level when these acquisition programs begin so that they strip these design down to their bare essentials. So there is simple as possible and still perform the, and still fill the function or fill that capability gap that they're designed for, then I think a lot of these other problems that we're having will eventually go away. It's almost like that sunk cost fallacy where you have it. So you just keep, you know, pouring more and more money into it, thinking that it's going to, you know, revive itself. And, and how do we avoid that? Like, what, what's like the decision points or like, where should it be a program be like reevaluated for cancellation if it just goes way, way over budget? That's, that's an excellent question. And this is another, another area where some very positive change could be affected. The, the change needs to happen or like, well, kind of, kind of later in the development phase of a program. So what we need to do is we need to make sure that, that all these acquisition says, like all these acquisition systems are, are fully tested before they go into any level of widespread production. So, because if you could imagine if, you know, like right now, again, stick it with the F 35 program, just because it's the most obvious example. I mean, there are hundreds, like 600 F 35s that were built before the, the decision for, for a production was made. That's ridiculous. If, if the program had gone through initial operational tests and evaluation before that had happened, and the results weren't what we expected, which it's pretty clear that they weren't, that's the point where the program should be canceled. I mean, even better is if we had a more robust prototype, you know, prototype process, where you get two competing designs, and, you know, they're as close to production representative as possible for both the designs, then the design that performed better can be selected, and then it would require very little development work after that, and then it could go into production a lot faster. Like, that's the way we used to do things. You know, you go back, and let's take a look at some successful, and some successes with that. The lightweight fighter program that ultimately resulted in the, in the F 16, that's the way this process should be done. The, the two prototypes that were evaluated for that, there was the McDonald Douglas YF 17, and the General Dynamics YF 16, that, that went into that process. Everybody that was involved in it at the beginning thought the McDonald Douglas YF 17 prototype was going to be better, like, because it just looked better to them on paper. But when, when real combat pilots actually crawled in the cockpit of, of both of those aircraft, and put them through their paces, all the pilots came back and said, "No, it's, it's this one. It's the YF 16. That's the better, that's the better design." And that's what was selected. That, that happened in 1972, and the F 16s ended up going into production in like 1976. So it was just, you know, like less than four years, went, went by between the prototype selection and the program being fielded. Well, that didn't happen with the F 35, you know, in the case of the F 35, the prototype process for that was a joke. You know, because if you, if you look at it, I mean, well, one, if you look at the design that lost, it's pretty clear why that thing lost in the, in the first place. But the, the prototypes that were used were, were just stripped down technology demonstrators. Like all they were really looking for was to see if the aircraft could take off and land, land vertically. Like that was, that was really, you know, about the, the only, only criteria for that. I mean, that's kind of simplified, but that was generally what was, what was being looked for. And so once, once Lockheed Martin won that contract, then they actually had to start developing a functional aircraft. Well, I can, I can tell you, you can go down to the one that I've seen, you could go down to Hampton, Virginia and go to the Virginia Air and Space Museum. And up in the rafters is hanging one of the two YF 16 prototypes that was used in that process. That aircraft was a combat ready aircraft. Like when it took off for the very first time in 1972, that timeframe, when that took off at the very first time, it could have immediately flown into combat. It was a fully developed fighter plane. The, the prototypes that were used for the F 35 were not at all. And, and even today, the F 35 is very limited combat capabilities. You know, 23 years after Lockheed Martin won the, you know, won that contract. Yeah, and their operational readiness is not the greatest either. Oh, it's terrible. Terrible 30%. That's, you know, it, for your listeners, like the, the F 35 SOG is very long and complicated. But the only thing that anybody really needs to know about the F 35 program is that 23 years, you know, in the development, the fleet can only manage a 30% full mission capable rate. That's a bismal. Like that is combat ineffective. Yeah. So, talking about the Air Force, talking about the, the Navy a little bit is one of the forget to talk about another acquisition failure. If we could talk about the Army FCS kind of go back in time a little bit, like circa, you know, times of Iraq, Afghanistan, the surge time frame. If you could kind of give us your, your thoughts on, on that program and why it failed. Well, so that one kind of predates my, my defense analysis career by a couple of years, but I certainly have gone back and studied it. But it was the, it was, it was the same kind of basic mindset flaws that, that led to the, led to the future combat system problems. You know, it was this idea that, you know, in the, in the new digital age when, you know, when there was all this talk about the information superhighway and the internet and how everything was going to be networked, you know, somebody came up with the idea of, hey, how about we, you know, so we, we need to replace the tanks. We need to replace the, the infantry fighting vehicles, you know, like basically all the, all the armored vehicles and, you know, gun platforms, artillery systems and all that kind of stuff. And so somebody came up with the idea of, well, hey, how about instead of like separate programs, separate acquisition programs, why don't we just build one and we'll, we can have like a common platform that have different turrets and they're giving different capabilities, but we're going to, you know, they're all going to be highly networked together. And so it just became this, like, you know, when you just, when you add that complexity to it, all of a sudden, you know, the, the cost inevitably, you know, skyrocket and schedule starts slipping and, you know, and that by itself is a problem. But what I think one of the, one of the biggest problems that people don't really, you know, people don't really understand, and this is one of the reasons why I do harp on, on simplicity in, in weapons design so much. When you do that, these programs become vulnerable. So like, I'm, you know, I, I, the services need, they need equipment, they need weapon systems that function. And, but when, when you go really crazy on, on the design, and you get a little too cute with it, and the cost start rising and, and, and the schedule starts slipping, all of a sudden, those programs become vulnerable on Capitol Hill, because now lawmakers start getting involved and they start asking questions about, you know, about the rationale, about the need, you know, they just go frustrated, you know, talking about the same thing again and again, and they get sick of voting for more funding for programs that aren't delivering. And so that's when things start to get canceled, you know, a couple of good examples of that, right off the top of my head, the F-22 program. So the F-22 is, you know, when it works, it's a, it's a, it's a really capable fighter jet. And I, I think with, you know, with a, with a couple of changes, like, it could have been, it could have been really great. But the cost of that program just grew to, like, absurd levels. And then in 2009, Secretary Gates decided, nope, we're going to pull the plug on this and, you know, cap production at 187 aircraft, when the Air Force had originally had plans for 750 of them. And, you know, and so now the, the Air Force is, is out that, you know, is out those capabilities. You know, another Air Force example is the B2 bomber. I don't, you know, I have, I have lots of skepticism about the need for a manned bomber. But that was another one where the cost just got out of control for that program. I think the original program of record for that, it was at least 80 bombers. It might, it might be more than that. So, but I'd have to go back and, and, and look into it because that was way before my time. But they ended up with, what was it, I think 24 aircraft, you know, at the end of the day, you know, that's, that's not the way this is, you know, supposed to go, you know, the Navy's dealing with this right now. They expected 32 zoom-volt class destroyers and then up with three. You know, so it's, it's critically important that, you know, these, these programs begin in reality. And, and, you know, they, they begin with a solid concept so that, you know, down the road in a couple years, the services get what, you know, get what they actually needed because they're not getting that now, you know, we're paying a fortune. And, you know, we're ending up with, you know, just a fraction of the capabilities that were anticipated at the very beginning. And that's just not, that's just not good policy. And, and it leads to ineffectiveness. Yeah. Awesome. I appreciate that, Dan. And so I want to kind of shift a little bit and talk about like political dynamics. If you could kind of talk us through, like, what's the roles that you've, you've seen, you know, on the political and lobbying pressures, how they're playing in the acquisitions and even in the budget? Oh, yes. That's, that is a, that, it's a, it's a great challenge that we have, you know, in the think tank and advocacy space here in Washington. Because, you know, we have limited resources and limited, you know, limited people, but we're up against, you know, this huge bureaucracy and an army of lobbyists. I've seen this play out, like, in real time, like, I'll tell this story without, without revealing, you know, like who it was or anything like that. And this is when I, this is when I realized just how pervasive this is. I was on Capitol Hill early on in my, you know, in my, in my think tank career. And, and I was, what we were working on was we were trying to get a, an actual competitive fly off between the A10 and the F 35, just to make sure that the F 35 could perform close air support. And I was, I was in an office and we were, you know, talking this up. And this is an office that was, that was with us on, you know, on the close air support front. But it was, I was told in no uncertain terms that, look, we can't make this, you know, a, you know, an A10 versus the F 35, an F 35 issue, because F 35, the F 35 program is worth a thousand jobs for us. And I mean, I always, you know, I heard all the rumors, you know, I had my suspicions that there were decisions being made, you know, for, you know, political and economic reasons, rather than military effectiveness reasons. But to hear the chief of staff of a congressional or of a Hill office saying that out loud to me, was a, was a pretty jarring moment. And, but that happens, that happens a lot. And you see, you see a lot of this stuff all over the place. Like, another one that happened that I thought was, that I thought was really interesting, was I got, I attended a, a Hill event where Lockheed Martin had set up like a whole display in one of the, in one of the meeting spaces in on the house side of the, of Capitol Hill and one of the house office buildings. You know, they brought in one of their, you know, demonstrator simulators and, and that a bunch of people that could talk to staffers about how great the F 35 was. But what I found, as soon as I walked in that room, they had an information table set up right inside the room. And the first thing that they had that they were passing out, it was a, it was a, it was a printed map of the United States. And it had listed, you know, it had all the states outlined. And in each one, it said how much, how much, how many suppliers they were in each state and how many jobs were associated with all those suppliers for the F 35. So it was very clear that, you know, this is, this is really just a big lobbying effort. And it was just reminding all the staffers of the potential political consequences of any vote against the F 35. It was, you know, it was just, it was such a stunning like in your face, you know, taunting, you know, that, I mean, it was, I had the chuckle a little bit, but it was, it was really, you know, I was, I was really horrified by that, because, you know, in my mind, you know, as, as a, you know, as a former service member and, and now as the father of a service member, you know, you would hope that our political leaders, you know, wouldn't be so susceptible to, like, non military considerations when they're making very important decisions about how the military operates and functions. But they don't, there's all kinds of, all kinds of factors that have nothing to do with military effectiveness that go into these decisions. And, but those are the kind of the arguments that the, that the lobbyists make. Yeah, I think it was a couple of years ago, I saw, I saw read an article, and it had like a graphic in there, and it was talking about the F 35 and, and I laid it out there across like the, the whole country of where they get supplies and where it's, you know, manufactured and, you know, goes back to, you know, my initial point of like spreading the peanut butter across the whole country. And, you know, I just found that very fascinating, you know, if you have in multiple congressional districts, then it's kind of hard to kill it. If you got a lot of people involved. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the reason why that's the reason why that's done. And I understand, I understand that reasoning too. And that, that was a, that was a process that's kind of evolved over there, you know, in the really kind of in the post World War two years, where I guess a defense contractor figured out that, you know, they were, you know, they were building something in, in one congressional district, and that congressman was, you know, you know, fully bought into the program. Well, then somebody had the idea of, well, hey, wait a second, if we split this up, then we'll have two members of Congress that are now, like really rabid supporters for it. And so it's just evolved over the years to what we have now, where again, the F 35 is the best example of this. You know, it's built in at least 46 states and probably 350 congressional districts. It's actually really hard to kind of pin that, pin that figure down. But that's a lot of political support. Now that by itself might not be that, that bad, but the, the real problem with that, and this is something that a lot of people don't, don't fully understand, is that in order to have that many subcontracts to spread all over the country, the bolster of programs, political support, you're essentially incentivizing complexity. So, and I, you know, the F 35 again is the perfect example for that, you know, because you need, you need all those subcontracts to be spread all over the place. So that just creates, you know, creates this incentive to just start adding a whole bunch of crazy stuff, you know, to the design. And I'll give you a really good example of that. You think of the helmet, you know, the much celebrated F 35 helmet that allows the pilot to see through the skin of the aircraft. Okay, that sounds really cool. But let's just think about the problem that is trying to be solved there. You know, a fighter pilot needs to be able to have situational awareness and to be able to see, you know, like observe what's going on outside of his aircraft. Well, in, you know, in cases like the F 16, which is one of the best ones I can think of, you know, what they did was they sat the pilot up pretty high in the fuselage. They gave, you know, and they gave the pilots this really clear all around bubble canopy. So the pilot can just turn his, you know, turn his head and use the best ocular device ever devised, which is the human eyeball to see what's going on around the, around the aircraft. Well, that's, that's a very simple solution for that problem. Well, in, you know, in, in today's, you know, information age, that just won't cut it. So in the F 35, they designed this system where the pilots, it's low in the fuselage. And, you know, they put these, they embedded cameras in the skin of the aircraft that project imagery into the pilot's visor. Well, that imagery has a lag. It's not anywhere near as, as refined an image as the human eyeball can, you know, it could observe, you know, naturally. And, but even even worse than that, actually, I shouldn't say even worse than that. You know, but this is the consequence of excess complexity, that that helmet one costs like $400,000 a piece. It needs to be specially, each one needs to be specially calibrated to the individual pilot. Well, that calibration happens at a lab in Oregon, and it's a two day long process. So every pilot, every F 35 pilot has to go to Oregon, they have to have these special specialized crew, you know, fine tune the fine tune, the helmet, you know, to make sure that it works with, you know, with the pilots, you know, with pilots vision. And, you know, and then he, you know, then returns to his unit and, and, you know, flies the aircraft. Well, if that helmet gets knocked about and gets, you know, out of, out of alignment, then that whole process has to be repeated. So you just created, you know, the, like, a wholly unnecessary step. And there's a video of a pilot, you know, it's been kind of scrubbed for the internet. But don't worry, I kept a copy of it. Of an F 35 pilot talking about the helmet, and he says, yeah, you know, the, you know, the distributed aperture system, you know, with the cameras, you know, it's kind of a nice to have, but honestly, like, if I just need, if I need to see what's going on below me, I'll just roll the aircraft on its side. I'll just look down with my own eyeballs. You know, just kind of proven, you know, proven the point that that excess complexity was, you know, was unneeded. But hey, it did create a supplier in Oregon. So now, you know, you have two, two United States senators from Oregon who now have invested political interest in, in the continuation of the program and a member of Congress in that district, who's also fully invested in the program. Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, I appreciate that. That's good. That's good story. I wasn't aware of that, Dan. So, well, we got some time. Last question. I want to, I want to throw your way before I get to the fun questions, the conclusion of all the criticisms of the acquisition process. If you can make one change, you know, if I give like a magic wand, and you can make one change, what would that change be? Oh, it absolutely be the, the prototyping process. Like, I would have a much more robust prototyping process early on before the prime contractor is selected and make sure that those, the prototypes that are, that are used to demonstrate the capabilities or as close to production ready as possible so that when the, when the contracts awarded, then the program can move as rapidly as possible, you know, into production and, and into fielding. Because again, you know, are, you know, the men and women who serve in all branches of the service, you know, they need quality equipment to be able to do their jobs, and they need it at a relevant time. So, the, you know, that is the, that is the best solution I can think of that will help that process to make sure that, you know, that there's brave, valiant men and women who are serving in uniform today have what they need to accomplish their missions. All right, Dan. Hey, thanks. I really appreciate it. We'll transition to the fun questions. And these are the questions I ask every guest regardless of the topic. And so the first one I'll fire out at you is what is your all time favorite book? Oh, that's an, that's an easy one. It's, it's Robert Kormers biography of, of Colonel John Boyd. It's called Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war. If you want a good solid background in, well, pretty much everything that I've talked about today, that's the, that's the place to start. Colonel Boyd was a, he was a remarkable individual, clearly a controversial figure. But when you see what he accomplished in, you know, in his career in the Air Force and, you know, and what he did in retirement, you know, a guy with very limited resources, you know, he was just a, he was a smart guy who had a, you know, who, who devised really great things in life. And more than, I think a lot of people really appreciate. But yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a great book. I, I can't recommend that one highly enough. All right, thanks, Dan. Yeah, I need to revisit that question because every time I ask it, like my reading list just keeps growing and growing and growing, so. All right, so next question is, you know, what keeps you up at night? Like what future capability, you know, worries you the most. You know, I get the AI, get space, quantum computing, information, like what, what worries you? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm very concerned about, about nuclear war issues. You know, there's just, you know, this, this idea is kind of return to the past, you know, cold, you know, kind of cold war mentality when you have people talking about like limited nuclear war and like tactical nukes. You know, that, that scares me a great deal because we're just, because what, what's happening now, or is, is we're kind of blurring the lines between, between conventional and nuclear forces, where it's going to become increasingly difficult to, you know, for the other side to understand what's going on, you know, if you start putting nuclear missile or nuclear warheads on what looks like a conventional warhead that, or on a conventional cruise missile, then you kind of force the other side to, to guess if they detect a cruise missile coming in their direction, you know, is that a nuclear attack or is this a conventional attack? And you do that often enough, and the odds of a miscalculation or a misjudgment increased dramatically. So, so dual use issues in, in the nuclear enterprise, you know, trouble me a great deal. And that kind of links into space too, you know, because a lot of our satellites serve dual use, you know, they'll serve, you know, communications functions that are used by conventional forces, but they'll also be part of the nuclear command and control enterprise. And so, God forbid, we actually got into a conflict with a pure adversary who has, who has an anti-satellite capability, you know, imagine they start knocking some of our communication satellites down without maybe knowing that, you know, they're degrading our command and control capabilities. We might find ourselves, you know, if, if one side, you know, starts to be concerned about their ability to, to launch nuclear weapons, because the command and control capabilities are being degraded, then the chances of that side, you know, it might actually interpret that that's what that's what the other side's doing, like they're trying to, you know, to eliminate the other side's ability to launch nuclear weapons. Well, that might cause a first strike. So that, that, that line blurring with nuclear weapons and conventional weapons concerns me a great deal. And I'm also an AI concerns me too. You know, I think, you know, I, I've had conversations on Capitol Hill, and I'm going to continue having conversations about this, about the need to make sure that, you know, that AI does not touch nuclear command and control at any point, at any level, because I just think, you know, there's just no way to predict how that might go. And I think that in no way should, should artificial intelligence play any role in, in nuclear launch decisions. Oh, concur. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, last, the final question, no, you served. And, you know, I appreciate your service. And as well as to your, your, one of your young ones that that's, that's joined. Um, you know, is, and also, you know, your time here, and, you know, is a, is a think tank. If there's anything, you know, from service and being in, in a think tank, if there's any like lessons learned, anything you've identified, you know, words of wisdom, many recommendations that you wouldn't mind, you know, sharing with my peers. Sure. I would say read as much as you possibly can. Um, you know, read, read widely. I mean, you can start off with, uh, you know, like in the Marine Corps with the Commandant's reading list. I know all those services have, have kind of the same thing. You know, it's a, it's a pretty good starting point. Um, but then just, you know, read military history as much as, uh, as much as you can. And, and, you know, read about politics and, and diplomacy and just everything that you, that you can, and don't be afraid to ask questions. Um, you know, are, you know, the senior leaders in the military, you know, they're, they're, you know, accomplished individuals who have, who have a lot of experience, but they are human beings. And, you know, they, they can come up with bad plans and they can make mistakes. And, uh, you know, particularly for, you know, junior officers, it can be difficult to, you know, to, to question, uh, some of those things. And, you know, you clearly need to do it the right way. But, you know, the better armed you are, because I, I, I had these experiences myself where, you know, if I thought that, you know, some, you know, plan or, or decision was, uh, was not entirely correct. Um, you know, based on, based on my reading, there was a couple of times where I was able to say, Hey, sir, uh, you know, you do this privately, you do quietly, you definitely don't put these guys on blast in front of others. Uh, you know, but if, you know, you have a trusted leader, uh, you know, you can, you can pull aside quietly and you can explain that, you know what, sir, I don't know that that's exactly what we should be doing. And this is why. Uh, and if you can walk them through, um, and they're, and, and they're worth their stuff, then they should give you a good respectful listen. Uh, and maybe they're going to tell you no. Uh, and they probably have some reasons that you might not understand, understand why. Um, but, you know, a good leader worth his salt is going to recognize the courage that it took, the moral courage that it took, uh, you know, to step up and, and say that. And if you did your homework, they're going to respect that even more. Um, so yeah, read as much as you can and, uh, and, you know, physical courage is, uh, is, is clearly very important, but that moral courage to speak up when others might not, uh, is, uh, is just as important. Awesome. Hey, I really appreciate your time, Dan. We've covered a lot of ground. Um, I've learned a lot and, you know, I can't thank you enough for, for being on the podcast. Um, again, you've been on, uh, some other podcasts and you've had some other publications and I'll put those on the show notes for, for listeners that have ease of access. Uh, thanks again and I will, uh, give you the final comment. Well, again, Matt, I very much appreciate the invitation to, uh, to appear in your show. Uh, I always enjoy talking about these, uh, these kinds of things and hopefully we get to do it again sometime. All right. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for future episodes in the next couple of weeks. [inaudible]