America’s defenses will not be able to keep up with its peer adversaries if the Pentagon continues to take years to innovate its weapons systems, experts agreed at a security summit last week.
The Pentagon’s modernization was given a “D” by the National Security Innovation Base Summit this week, a near-failing letter grade that national security leaders in Congress agreed was a fair assessment.
“Progress lives in the private sector, and we’re not seeing enough progress in the public sector,” said Govini CEO Tara Dougherty. “The department needs a massive kick in the pants in this area, and should be held accountable for catching up in progress to match what is happening among the investor community and among the technology sector.”
“I think the score is a deserved score, unfortunately,” House Armed Services Committee Vice Chair Rob Wittman said.
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The Navy currently has 295 deployable ships, though its shipbuilding plan calls for that number to be increased to 390 by 2054. (REUTERS/Stelios Misinas)
“The Pentagon is the Ford Motor Company of the 1950s. I mean, they the way they operate, slow, stoic,” Wittman explained. “‘Let’s spend years to write a requirement, then let’s spend years to go to a program or record, let’s spend years to acquire.’ By the time we acquire something, guess what? The threat’s way ahead of us.”
“We want them to reflect the Apple 2025 model.”
Nowhere is this clearer to defense leaders than in the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities. The Navy currently has 295 deployable ships, though its shipbuilding plan calls for that number to be increased to 390 by 2054. The Maritime Security Program, which maintains privately owned, military-useful ships to deploy in wartime, is down to 60 in its fleet.
“It’s precipitously low. We could not get to where we need to be in the Pacific right now if we needed to,” Wittman told Fox News…
