Key Takeaways
1. Currently, military-technical competitive advantage is driven more by software, data, and artificial intelligence and the new tactics they enable than by bent metal and physics. Software is the glue that binds our military professionals and systems together, and digital data increasingly defines the loop between development and operations.
2. The Department of Defense needs to allocate resources and manage programs in ways that recognize the central role of software—not legacy ships, aircraft, and vehicles—in controlling the speed and efficacy of modern kill chains and imposing military dilemmas.
3. Acquisition leaders can lead this change without overhauling law or regulation by building organizations and pipelines that can change code change quickly and securely, dividing complex software development efforts into manageable chunks that remain interoperable, and infusing projects with digital talent, security practices, ongoing learning and improvement, and user feedback.
A decade ago venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argued that software was eating the world. Today the US military is wrestling with that reality as defense systems, like consumer electronics, increasingly derive their capability from algorithms and digital data. But exploiting the opportunities in software-derived capabilities will require the Pentagon to move beyond its industrial model of acquisition to embrace new approaches that enable integrating development and operations through a program’s lifetime.
Please join Hudson Senior Fellows Bryan Clark and Dan Patt for a discussion on the new Hudson report Software Defines Tactics and how the Pentagon can field software-defined capabilities without waiting for acquisition reform. The panel will include former DoD Chief Software Officer Jason Weiss and former Assistant Secretary of the Navy James “Hondo” Geurts.
Join Hudson for a panel that will examine some of the tools that could help revitalize US investment in the region, including development finance, political risk insurance, and economic innovation zones.
Join Senior Fellow Matt Boyse for this discussion with Martin Vladimirov, director of the Energy and Climate Program at CSD, and Isaac Levi, Europe-Russia policy and energy analysis team lead at CREA. CSD Program Director Ruslan Stefanov will provide opening remarks.
Hudson will host an expert panel to discuss how increased technology collaboration will benefit the US and India and why these agreements could help both nations expand their partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.
Join Hudson for an expert panel on how reliable and effective patent rights are the key to the America First agenda: growing the US innovation economy, creating jobs, and responding to challenges from global competitors like China.
