Former Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: “The Colossus Is Awake”

[00:00:00] Good morning everyone and welcome to the At the Waters Edge Podcast where we look for insights beyond the headlines and take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 30th of July, 2026. Let's get started. Now with the ongoing conflict with Iran, the massive innovations we've seen with drone warfare going on in Ukraine, there's a whole bunch of people trying to figure out what the hell does the future of warfare actually look like? And what does America need to be doing to get ready for it? Well, to help us unpack that today, we've had an amazing guest on, Admiral Christopher Grady.

[00:00:30] Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That's right, the number two guy in the US military. He recently wrote an article on the future of warfare, there'll be a link to it in the show notes below, where he lays out the four key areas that he thinks are going to shape the future of modern warfare. Very excited to have this conversation. If you've enjoyed this content series, please be sure to like, subscribe, share an episode with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people. With that, let's get to Admiral Christopher Grady.

[00:00:58] Well, good morning and welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. It's great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Now, you wrote a really interesting article for the Ben's Lens Substack, The Future of War, and laying out four changes affecting the future of warfare for America that we need to address.

[00:01:19] And I was surprised to see it was written by a Navy guy because it was one of the nerdiest things I had seen written in a while by a flag officer. I assumed Air Force, and then I saw Admiral. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Hey, I'm a war college grad. Come on. We do that too. Rarely, but we do it. Yes. But could you introduce yourself in your own background and your own words to the audience? Yeah, sure. And again, Scott, thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure to be on and to be with your audience.

[00:01:48] Yeah. So 42 years in the Navy, the last four were as the vice chairman, you know, member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, number two guy in the military, all of that. Before that, command of three ships, a destroyer squadron, a strike group and two fleets. My career was largely, if you had to sum it up, at sea or D.C., so a lot of time in D.C. to include graduate school, Georgetown, after undergraduate here in Notre Dame,

[00:02:18] the time at the White House, on the Navy staff, on the Joint Staffs. So it was a good ride. And, you know, the last four years, fully jointed as the vice chairman was really interesting because, you know, the vice chairman lives in four worlds. You know, the first is policy. You're a member of the deputies committee. You go over to the White House quite regularly. And I got the honor of being able to do that for two different administrations, both the Biden and Trump administrations.

[00:02:46] Then you jump over into requirements. So the vice chairman is, you know, confirmed to run the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, the JROC now, the JRO. And we could talk about that evolution if you wish. And then from there, you go down to the budgeting process where you sit at the table with the deputy secretary of war and you build the budget. You're the co-chair of the deputies management action group, the DMAG, where all of that comes together.

[00:03:13] And then finally jump over to one final world that you live in, and that's acquisition. And so you sit on the defense acquisition board where all the big programs come through. Now, hopefully it's when they're moving well through their milestones. Sometimes it's not when you wrestle with Nunn McCurdy and the rest. But unique, I think, amongst the top four in the building and as a member of the Joint Chiefs, you know, you sit in those four worlds.

[00:03:38] I mean, the deputy secretary of war, I can think probably number of times that Secretary Hicks and Secretary Feinberg went to the White House, probably five times because that gets down to undersecretary of defense for policy, but I have to do it. The chairman doesn't do JROC. I do. So it's a unique position to be in. And I was a bit of an outsider brought in because that was my first job in the building as a flag officer.

[00:04:07] So I was brought in from the fleet and the field. All the rest of the time had been, you know, in the fleet. And so I think I brought a kind of unique perspective to it and got to work with just the best staff in the world on the Joint Staff to do all that. So there you go. Yeah. So it was really interesting to hear about this when we first talked because never really considered the division of labor among the different chiefs of staff for the different services. It sounds like as the vice chairman, you're like the number one sausage maker and bean counter for the department.

[00:04:36] Yeah, there's a lot of that. And of course, you know, you're supporting the chairman. So, like I said, you go to the White House as a member of the deputies committee. But when he couldn't go to the principals committee, you would do that. And so but of course, the vice chairman has his own agenda, too. I work for chairman who allowed me to move out on things that were really important to me that I felt were really important to the to the joint force. So I'll give you a couple of examples.

[00:05:03] I became increasingly focused on things that were foundational, things that don't get, you know, it's not as sexy as a as as a, you know, the next six generation aircraft or something like that. Things like modeling and simulation, things like testing apparatus and infrastructure, things like the defense industrial base, things like GPS, you know, and what we need to do to get that's in that article where we need to go.

[00:05:32] So, you know, you have a good platform to move after those things that you think are really important. And then I tried to do that. Yeah. And then you also got to spend some time as the acting chairman. How does the world look differently between those two seats? Once you get that phone call, like, yep, you're in this you're wearing this hat now, which happens all the time in the military. How does that view of the world change overnight? At the Water's Edge is supported by Grayzone Advisory.

[00:06:00] Quick note for the small business owners out there. Tariffs, trade policy shifts, an overseas supplier that suddenly can't ship and goes dark on you. That's not background noise anymore. It's the top threat business owners have identified nationally in 2026. Grayzone Advisory was founded to help small and medium sized businesses see that risk before it hits the bottom line. Head to grayzoneadvisory.com to grab your free geopolitical risk checklist. Five questions to know your exposure. That's grayzoneadvisory.com.

[00:06:30] Yeah, well, I think, again, because of the relationship I had with the chairman that I worked with, I felt very comfortable being able to step into that position just because of the division of labor. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. In fact, I told my team, you know, the very small, lean vice squad that supported my role, that, look, we don't have 24 hours to get ready for something if we get asked to step in. We've got 24 minutes. And so they were an essay generating machine in that regard.

[00:07:00] They had to be prepared to – they had to help me be prepared to step in at a moment's notice. And so I felt pretty comfortable stepping in. Good relationships with the Secretary of War at that point. Good relationships with everybody over at the White House, on the Hill and the rest. And, of course, with the service chiefs. Now, I did have some priorities in executing that role for that three or four months that I was doing it.

[00:07:27] And I think the one that's probably most important was the institution of the chairmanship. It was really, really important to me to maintain the legitimacy and the credibility of the chairmanship and that independent, strong voice that provides best military advice, such that when Dan Kane – I knew it was going to be Dan – such that when Dan Kane came in, it was a warm seat, ready to go.

[00:07:51] And the relationships and trust that are required between the third deck and the chairman were well-established. And the staff and I worked really, really hard to do that. The other two were keep the trains running. The war didn't stop. The world didn't stop. It kept spinning. So we had to keep executing. And the final one was to take care of General Brown and help him move on and give him all the honors that he deserved.

[00:08:20] The secretary was all about it. And we did that. And I feel good about that just because he was a great officer and friend. Yeah. And then obviously that transition period played out very much in the public eye at the highest levels of the military. But that same scenario plays out at a smaller scale throughout the joint force on a regular basis. Even if you're a young lieutenant and the XO in your company stepped on his crank in some way and now he's out of the company. And, hey, guess what? You're the brand new XO before the next guy comes in or you're the staff officer for three months.

[00:08:50] What advice would you give a young officer or mid-level NCO that finds themselves throwing on a brand new hat overnight in a transition period where they need to get spun up to speed on a job, hold things together for a short amount of time, and then successfully pass it off to somebody else? Yeah. So I'm going to answer that in two ways. First, if you're a leader and we know that these things can happen, then you must train your bench.

[00:09:21] Right? So any organization, every leader in that organization has to train their bench. They have to assume, look, if you want to go, if you get sick or you need to go to training or you want to take leave or whatever it is, your number two better be able to step in. Right? And in fact, I would, the more senior I got, the more I judged the leaders that supported me, that worked for me on their B code, on their number two.

[00:09:46] So if, Scott, if you came to me and said, you said, hey, I'm going to take leave in this time or I want to go take this course or I need to get this training. And I said, hey, is Jane going to be, you know, Jane, your number two, is she going to be there? And you said, yeah. I said, okay, I'm good with that. If I said, is it only Joe that's left? Then we might have a problem. So that's kind of principle number one. Train your bench.

[00:10:11] I think that's a number one key principle of leadership that we all have to have. Now, if you are that person that steps in, now that's not the time to be thinking two levels up. So I think for the entire time, wherever you are, at what level of organization, and you must always think two levels up. And so I think if you have this discipline of mind, of habit, of thinking two levels up. And what does that mean?

[00:10:39] That means, oh, look, if you're on a ship, say, when you used a young officer example, and you're a division officer on a ship, and you know that your department head is going to go in and talk to the captain, then you should go to your department head and say, here's a couple things you can tell the captain to help me do my job and to help you do your job. Always thinking two levels up. Right.

[00:11:03] And I think if you do that, you start to have an understanding of what the command requires and what's required of you, what's required of the person above you, how you can help support them. And then you kind of buy steak and skin in the game. So it starts then with a habit of and a discipline to always think two levels up. I think the second thing is to take a deep breath, right?

[00:11:27] Okay, now let's think this through and rally the staff around you because there will be lots of angst and concern in any organization where that's going to happen. It happens naturally in a change of command, as you will know. But when it's precipitous in the scenario that you're describing, that angst and uncertainty permeates the command even, I think, even more perniciously if you let it.

[00:11:52] So rally the staff around you and take some moments to think, okay, what will our strategy be in this transitional period? Right. And so the three priorities that I came up with were built with the staff around me on what was the right thing to do for the nation and it devolved down to those three things. And I did that with the staff. It wasn't just Chris Grady thinking of those things.

[00:12:19] It was bringing the director of the joint staff and the J-code directors in and the SEAC into the room and say, okay, what do we need to do on behalf of the joint force of the nation to make this right, to have that warm seat? And those were the three things that we came up with. So don't do it alone. And then I guess, as I mentioned, recognize that there will be this churn of this anxiety and be empathetic to that and communicate, communicate, communicate.

[00:12:49] You can't over-communicate. We do these leadership surveys every year, right? And there are the DIOMI surveys and things that we do to assess command climate. They're all super useful. There are two truisms that will come out no matter what you try to do as a leader. One is the IT systems don't work.

[00:13:17] And two, you don't communicate enough, boss. And then, you know, so you can never over-communicate. Yeah, we have the exact same problems in the Army. Or at least we did back in the day. I'm sure they've all been sorted out. Oh, yeah. It's universal. It's universal. Same thing with corporate America. Actually, I think this is just the nature of large organizations more than it is a military-centric thing. Yeah, I think particularly when you get beyond what's the kind of the magic kind of grad school number.

[00:13:42] You get beyond about 100 people where you can touch base with – you touch noses with everybody on a routine basis. That starts to happen. Good leaders recognize that and I think try to put in place mechanisms to overcome a very natural dynamic of scale. Yeah, I read a really interesting article once. It was from an anthropologist talking about how the modern Western military is built off, you know, different familiar structures that could be sustained at different levels.

[00:14:10] Like a 40-man platoon has a certain dynamic. A 120-man company has a certain dynamic. A 700-person battalion has a certain dynamic. And then after that, it's lost in the ether of the organization and leadership has to change drastically to be effective. Yeah, I think you're right. And so I think the key as you scale up – and I think it's the same in a corporation too – the key is how do you get your finger on the pulse of what is happening, right? And, you know, there's no right or wrong answer.

[00:14:38] A way that I like to do as my staffs got bigger to include on the joint staff was rather than the briefs coming to me, I would go down to them into their spaces. And so I found that that was very, very useful. You know, you can – just by walking in and meeting all the folks as you come in, it's just an opportunity to see folks and get a feel for the vibe. It's on more comfortable ground.

[00:15:06] And so the environment is more comfortable for those that are briefing you. You know, it's scary to go into the vice chairman's office, you know, if I let it that way and be that way, especially since I had all this Notre Dame stuff in there. And if you were from Michigan, it was like, you know, your brief sucks already. So, you know, there was that. But that's a way, right? Go to them. And that gives you a chance to get out and about and see folks and put folks at ease and kind of get a sense for the vibe. A tool. It worked for me. Yeah.

[00:15:33] I went to Penn State, so I have a problem with both Michigan and Notre Dame, but that's a whole separate podcast. Not Ohio State? No, not Ohio. Penn State. Penn State. The good one. The good school and the big day. No, no, but you don't have a problem with Ohio State. Oh, I mean, is there anything there to have a problem with? I mean, it's Ohio. Yeah. Over to you, my friend. That's good. All right. People in the comments, let me have it. Okay. Okay. So let's get to the article that you wrote because it was really interesting. You laid out four different changes that we need to address moving forward.

[00:16:00] We have the displacement of platform-centric thinking with system-on-system competition, the emergence of a treadable mass, which is, I think, the first time I've seen that term used this way, as a decisive operational variable. The electromagnetic spectrum is now contested, and an advanced industrial base as a renewed determinant of strategic outcomes, which I think we're seeing a wonderful slash terrible case study of that play out right now in the Straits of Rameuse. But let's start with the first thing you talked about.

[00:16:28] What is this change you need to make from platform-centric thinking to systems-centered thinking? What is that? Yeah. Yeah. So I think for a long time, we spent a lot of time thinking about what's the next thing we're going to buy, and then how then do you employ that thing? And I would summarize, particularly on the employment side,

[00:16:57] I would summarize that as a kind of steel-on-steel thinking, right? We buy this ship to fight that ship. We buy this airplane to fight that airplane, this tank to fight that tank. And I think that has lots of limitations. I think increasingly what we need to recognize, it's that individual piece of steel fits within a larger system. We used to call it a kill chain. I call it a kill web now.

[00:17:24] And we need to think about how to fight within the system that is wrapped up into that kill web. It's all about the architecture and the connectivity of those things. And certainly, our adversaries are doing that. Look, they've been studying our transition to precision-guided munitions and battlefield awareness since Desert Storm,

[00:17:48] or since the early 90s, and have built a system-on-system strike targeting complex to defeat that. And we need to be thinking that way as well. Now, the example that I used in the papers is a very Navy one, but people will talk about the survivability of an aircraft carrier in the weapon engagement zone that is in the Western Pacific. And I find that not a compelling argument.

[00:18:14] Sure, there's vulnerabilities there, but if you're just talking about the carrier defending itself, that's one thing. But there's a huge system that the carrier plugs into. There's a huge architecture, a huge kill web that it plugs into that allows it to do its job, to fight within the joint force, to see, to blind, to see and to blind the enemy, that allows it to pulse at its time and tempo.

[00:18:40] So it's folly, I think, to talk about the carrier as a piece of steel and that it's vulnerable, and therefore perhaps we should move away from it, when we should be talking about the entire system within which it operates, that entire kill web, that architecture and everything that ties that architecture together. The enemy is doing that. We need to do that. I would tell you, too, that if you think about defense acquisition and the warfighter acquisition system that we're seeing play out now,

[00:19:04] the idea of portfolios as opposed to stovepipes within portfolios, that's systems thinking, even from an acquisition perspective. So, you know, a portfolio could be anti-surface warfare or something. And in it, there's a whole bunch of things that come together and the ability to move money across those at will, you know, given that the appropriators will allow us to do it. That's systems thinking.

[00:19:33] Where do I need the money at the right time to make the system work? And so we need to then move away from that platform-centric thinking to systems-level thinking. It's steel, this is the system. And I'm a firm believer in that. So when you're describing that, how much of that is, it seems like there's two ways to look at that. One is a general approach to problem solving, which DOD needs to adopt.

[00:19:58] You talked about the acquisitions professionals there and trying to get people to buy the right stuff at the right time. And the DOD is a painful process we can get into. But the other part of it is the actual system that ties weapon systems together, different shooters, different sensors. I know the Army has for years said, you know, next-gen command and control is our number one priority. And they have still yet to field an operational system that fills the need for a, well, a system of systems that can tie different shooters and sensors together.

[00:20:27] You mentioned the Gulf War. The big innovation there was Blue Force Tracker. We still haven't really updated anything since then. BFT is still like the number one connectivity layer that we use in the fight on the Joint Force side. So what is keeping us after, what was that? That was in 1991. So it's 37 years. What's blocking us from adopting a better system? Yeah.

[00:20:54] Well, I actually think that there is some momentum here that we can talk about. But I think we've established that the imperative is there. So when I think about Project Convergence for the Army or Project Overmatch for the Navy, this is the kind of thinking that we're getting after. And you mentioned, you hit on it, right? Everything's a shooter. Everything's a sensor.

[00:21:19] And systems that can rapidly switch to the right sensor and then agilely provide the right weapon at the right time. That's what it's going to take in a hypersonic world. Well, I think early on, the technology wasn't there. So that took us a while to get through the technology piece.

[00:21:42] But then, you know, I think we had an entire generation of program managers who thought vertically instead of and in a kill web process and instead of in a kill chain process.

[00:21:56] So if you couple the technology that comes with things like Project Convergence and Project Overmatch and then you put that with a different way of thinking about going after the system that we need to buy, I think you might start getting where we need to get.

[00:22:15] But you have to be able to do that in a world of attreadable mass for sure, because if you're going to have, you know, let's use the word swarms as an example, uncrewed systems throughout the battle space, you're going to have to be able to tie all that together. And so we certainly have to get there. So it's both a technology and a mindset and a different way of thinking. And I would say on that different way of thinking, this is a real strength of what we're seeing in the Pentagon right now, this think and operate differently. I think Secretary Feinberg has really brought that to the fore.

[00:22:45] I'm pretty proud of the service chiefs as an example, you know, in their approach to this transition to from kind of linear platform thinking to systems thinking to kill web systems. And now we just got to get it down through the middle air. And I feel comfortable that we're we're pressing pretty hard on that. Cool. So what is attributable mass and how is that now an operational variable?

[00:23:10] Is this a new concept or is this an old concept that's now newly emergent? I think it's a new concept in that, you know, we can and what it really gets to in the bottom line is the cost exchange ratio.

[00:23:32] Right. So if you think about a two billion, a two million dollar missile taking down a thirty thousand dollar drone, that's a very bad exchange ratio. And if you're an asymmetric power, you're not going to take us on conventionally. You're going to look for opera. You're going to look for opportunities to do it in a different way. And we may see that being played out by the Ukrainians against the Russians and certainly what we're seeing in in this Strait of Hormuz.

[00:24:01] And so a attributable mass then says that if we can get the cost curve way down and then flood the battle space with less exquisite and we'll just say it this way, cheap things that you can afford to lose, whether it's ISR, sensing, communication, lethality, weapons delivery and flood that battle space and lose some.

[00:24:26] But, you know, you can print and build many of them at speed and at scale and get them to the warfighter faster. I think that's a decisive operational variable. Now, some in the army may say drones are not replacing artillery. I think the Ukrainians might say differently. And so maybe that is still to be determined, but I think we're kind of going in that direction.

[00:24:49] And, you know, in the Pacific, you might say from a Navy example, yeah, I need some of those Virginia-class submarines, no doubt about it. But if you could also give me a thousand uncrewed surface and undersea systems that if I lose 200 of them, I don't really care because you're going to build those another 500 really fast and cheaply and keep putting them in the battle space. That's a that's really, really important.

[00:25:16] And in the Western Pacific, that's really important because what we want to do is flood that battle space and not mass steel, but mass effects from various angles. And so if you have shooters and sensors that are cheap, cheaper and attritable, but everywhere, the enemy has to the enemy has to honor that. And that really changes their their decision calculus. So that's where we need to go. Now, I'm going to tell you this. It's not one or the other. Right.

[00:25:44] So I reject anybody who says only attritable or only exquisite. You must have both. And so I think it's the nation that can bring it's always about combinations. Right. The Blitzkrieg was a combination of the of the tank, the the airplane and the and the radio. The nation that can bring these things together in complementary ways is that is that is the nation that that can win. And so I think that's where that's that's where we need to go.

[00:26:13] I'm particularly excited about things like collaborative combat aircraft. But that kind of you've got the mothership, if you will. But then you've got 100 of other platforms that are out there supporting it that are uncrewed, perhaps in a tritable. It's similar to it. It's similar to what we see in Ukraine. And where I think we need to go. And that is you have a soldier and a and a and an uncrewed system. Right. And largely first person viewer. Powerful.

[00:26:43] But what we need is one soldier and 30. Drones or one soldier and 100 drones. So the key there is how do we tie them all together in an EMS environment that's going to be highly contested? And then how do we do it in ways that cognitively our soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardian can manage all of that? How does that work?

[00:27:06] And now we start to bring things like A.I., A.I. at the edge together with with the to help that soldier cognitively manage not just one through his first person viewer goggles, but, you know, with his iPad and he's and he's he's managing 30. How do we do that? And I think that's going to be key. Yeah. And that ties directly in the next part you wrote about. You know, if you have all these shooters and sensors out there, they need to be able to communicate.

[00:27:32] Basic commodity there is electromagnetic spectrum signals need to fly somewhere. How do we start to manage electromagnetic spectrum as a warfighting domain? How do we even approach that? Yeah. Well, first of all, it's a foreign concept for folks. Yeah. And, you know, it's just like everything. It shouldn't be. But it is. And so we, you know, back to old school thinking. We build our plan or con op or a battle plan. And then we sprinkle on some. OK, now let's think about the electromagnetic spectrum.

[00:28:02] We do that with information ops, too. We can't do that anymore. Here's our plan. And now we sprinkle some stuff on the top. And so for young leaders, then the key is let's build that in from the bound up, from the from the from the from the bottom up. Build that plan with that with that built in. If you think about the electromagnetic spectrum. Let's go back to the beginning. Was it shucks five years now? Go back to the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

[00:28:28] You know, there's been a transition in the technology that's been put into the field there, which is super fascinating to watch. But if we just focus on the uncrewed systems. So we work our way through. Now, all of a sudden, the ubiquity of uncrewed systems, which side can use them better than the other? Each side adapts. And so jamming and using electromagnetic spectrum to contest the use of these uncrewed systems becomes a thing.

[00:28:56] And so now what do we see? They're tethered up. Right. They're back on fiber. And I'm pretty sure few of us would have predicted that, you know, at the outset of the war that that that's that that's where we are. So then now there's limits to that. And and so we want to get beyond the tether to be able to fight in an electromagnetic contested environment. And I think GPS is a really good example.

[00:29:26] I'm just here to tell you that we just have to keep working on that. I am not comfortable with where the department is there. I'm not saying anything new that anybody who I left in the building back in November doesn't know what the Chris Grady is. The vice chairman has been screaming about. We have got to get to this. But I'm super pleased to hear over the last couple of months people saying, look, our drive is to get to a joint force that doesn't use GPS or isn't completely relying on it.

[00:29:52] And so our systems are all going to have to be able to do that and have to be able to do it in various environments. And so the Russians do it a certain way with with lots of distributed jammers throughout the battle space. The Chinese do it with big, huge, super powerful jammers. So all of that has we have to be able to do it in all sorts of different environments. And in the end, I think the answer is going to be back to the kill web. Right.

[00:30:15] So your system, whether it's a weapon that's flying or it's a sensor on crewed or not, is working on GPS. GPS goes away. It has to be able to immediately switch over to a different source. Right. And and and so what are how do we build that? Do we have the architecture that allows you to pick the best source so that you can get to the target or continue to persist in that in that environment? That's what we have to work on. That drives you to start thinking about, OK, send.

[00:30:44] How do you do that at the edge where the form factor is really small? So things like swap C are really are going to be really important. And our advantages and things like microelectronics have to continue because you want to make that smaller. And be able to put it in smaller form factors and put it into the space. So that kind of ties the electromagnetic spectrum with smaller attributable systems. And we're going to have to be able we're going to have to be able to do both.

[00:31:09] I would also say, too, that, you know, if we want AI at the edge to enable that warfighter at the edge, we're going to have to get this form factor and swap C problem solved as well. It's going to be absolutely, absolutely critical. Good news is we have a huge lead in microelectronics and we ought to keep pushing some some effort and thinking and money and engineers into that space. Yeah. And that brings us to the fourth theme in your article, the defense industrial base as a tool of deterrence.

[00:31:39] But I'm thinking about the defense industrial base right now and how it relates to the first three things. You know, if we need a system that can connect all these shooters and sensors, we have a defense industrial base that's been dominated by five large contractors. Now we've got Andrill and Palantir, so it's five plus two. And anytime small outside companies try to get in with innovative solutions, they run into proprietary network solutions that the large defense contractors sell to the government exclusively.

[00:32:07] And the government procurement folks have been hollering and screaming about how we need open application program interfaces and open architectures and standardized designs so that small companies can develop innovative solutions that can be rapidly integrated into that system. They've been doing that for years. And having walked a lot of conference floors and talked to a lot of folks at those companies, it doesn't seem like there's any meaningful process being made there at the speed at which the warfighter requires. So what is it about our defense industrial base?

[00:32:37] Is it the companies? I mean, they have a profit incentive. Is it the procurement process? What is it about the most innovative country in the world, America, being so slow at delivering innovative solutions to the warfighter? Yeah. Well, I think you've touched on a couple of the key factors there. Let's just talk a little bit about the primes and the new, right?

[00:33:04] And boy, is that a defining characteristic of the defense industrial base now. Now, we need to look at that optimistically because it is an infusion of really innovative ideas and unbelievable engineering. And what it does is what it does reflect a little bit is the inversion. And this is in the paper, too, but it's an inversion of the R&D environment.

[00:33:29] And so when I first came in, the federal government was the was the predominant infusion of R&D capital. And now that's on the on the commercial side. And so a little bit of this is, hey, we've got really good ideas out here and we have the R&D dollars. And so now you're seeing companies like Andrill and Palantir come along with these great solutions. Now, back to the system within which all of that works.

[00:33:56] There is still an opacity between the department and the commercial sector. There's a there's this wall there. Right. And I think both sides within this ecosystem need to work really, really hard. The department. Has to have a better understanding of what's happening in the R&D space and has to go to has to go to industry and say, here's my problem set.

[00:34:23] Can you help me? What do you have that can help solve that? Meanwhile, industry doesn't know what our problems are. They know what are you trying to solve? And they're they're working hard to come up with what they think is the right answer. And so we have to break through that opacity between seeing each other. And so to me, the central tenet of that is to get away from sequential thinking, which is here's a requirement. Then we design to it.

[00:34:53] Then we build it. Then we test it. And meanwhile, they have the designer doing all of this. And then when we test is the first time we give it to the operator. We need to go from that slow sequential process to a process that's in parallel as early as possible. Right. So requirements generation or problem solve or key operational problem being solved. Let's come together earlier between the department and the services and industry as early as possible.

[00:35:21] And oh, by the way, when we're doing that, bring the engineer with the warfighter and the tester early. I mean, the idea of build something, then test it, then bring it back and build some more. Boy, that's just slow. Right. It should be build and test as you're going along so that you can go faster. Now, our system is is is sequential and we have to get to parallel and we have to enable. And so I'll just look at the department in the in the you know, in the eyes and say the department at the leadership level.

[00:35:50] I think it recognizes that. But we train our we train our acquisition professionals down in Bell for a different way. I mean, they they and so I don't fault them because they're they're getting through the course, if you will. And we teach them your program must survive. And so it's risk averse as opposed to taking risk. It's 100 percent solutions as opposed to 80 percent is good enough.

[00:36:14] Now, you know, the 100 percent is it's if you know, it's hard to we have to build this trust then to get to that. And, you know, we have to bring along Congress as well as bill payers who are looking out for the taxpayer dollar. But, you know, if we're going to get to 80 percent, that means 20 percent failure and want to do that early. But people are going to ask hard questions about failure. That's taxpayer dollar down the drain. How did you let that happen? And so we're going to have to work our way.

[00:36:44] We're going to have to work our way through that. The other thing is going back to the primes and the and the new. I think the enlightened primes. And those that are going to get graded under the warfighter acquisition system that the department has rolled out, whether it's in the various executive orders or even in some of the NDAA. I think the enlightened primes recognize that they need to be this.

[00:37:13] They need to work with and complement the new and say, look, let me be your scaling agent. Right. As opposed to, you know, you go do your thing. I'm going to do mine. Right. And we need to be looking for that. And because it's never just going to be the primes or the new that we're going to need the big steel, the heavy metal. We're also going to need the new software stuff now.

[00:37:39] Now, and so it's kind of it has to be a hybrid, has to be a combination of both. And so what we need to look for are the enlightened primes that are trying to work with as opposed to shut out to shut out the new. Both sides are open to criticism. Right. And so the department can look at the primes and go, you're too slow. You know, you're too expensive. But they also and I know Secretary Feinberg does this. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he looks at the new and go, can you scale? Is it beyond the piece of paper that you walked in on?

[00:38:09] Can you actually do that? So there's, you know, healthy skepticism and criticism on both sides, which means to me then that everybody needs to work together. Right. If we're going to if we're going to if we're going to get there faster. And what are what are those characteristics, I think, that we need to be looking for? And I think you mentioned a couple. I'll give you a little bit of my list. I think open systems architecture. You mentioned that.

[00:38:37] I mean, software defined opens. Don't give me a system that's not that right. Modularity, I think, is going to be really, really important going forward. Standardization is going to be really important. So the ability to rapidly transition a base platform into a different mission set by, you know, a standardized socket that you can plug in something new.

[00:39:06] So modularity and open systems architecture, things that build on human machine teaming. We're going to be absolutely critical. And here's the one that I'm increasingly focused on. Right. And that is designed to design to build, designed to manufacture. Right.

[00:39:27] So I in a perfect world, everything that we design, we know that we can build at speed and scale with robotics. Right. And so the design philosophy should be, can we build it at scale and fast on numerous robotic systems? I don't think we necessarily do that now. A lot of it is bespoke, which is expensive and slow and hard.

[00:39:54] And so I want robotic systems within the defense industrial base. That robot can build five different things. And then the department can come in and go, I want 12 hours of your day building this thing, which I've designed to be built on any various number of machines. So designed to build at scale to me will be really, really important. And so we need to teach our engineers and designers to do that and do that in concert with the industrial base.

[00:40:24] Maybe that starts with commercial first solutions, but we need to transition to a design to build, design to manufacture mindset. Now, one thing you talked about, too, was, you know, the defense industrial base isn't just how we get weapons. It itself is becoming a tool of deterrence and great power competition. When other great powers, you know, China, Russia, perhaps Iran's going to be on that list soon, regionally at least, start looking at our defense industrial base.

[00:40:52] What is it that they are seeing that could encourage them to pick a fight with us? And how are they assessing our weaknesses? Yeah. Well, you know, if you go back in history, I think the Japanese misunderstood what became the arsenal of democracy. And so the question is, why did that happen? And so I haven't done the homework on that, but to me, it would be fascinating.

[00:41:18] But what I think they see is a just-in-time system, right, as opposed to a just-in-case system. And they know because it's just-in-time. Now, why did we go to just-in-time? I mean, you know, we went into the unipolar moment. It was just us. Peace had broken out all over. End of history and all of that. And so we had the Last Supper.

[00:41:43] As you know, that was the contraction of the defense industrial base, which was happening at that time. And it was a conscious decision. So you had the contraction of the industrial base. Add to that the complexity of what we built. I mean, at our height in World War II, we were pumping out a Liberty ship one every three or four days. Now, you're not going to do that with a Virginia-class submarine. It's just too complex. Not going to do it with the DDG or anything like that.

[00:42:11] So contraction, complexity, and then this transition to just-in-time. It made sense in that time. It saved a lot of money. It was the operating environment we were in now. But it was a peacetime mindset. And we're not there now because we know the Russians and the Chinese are both at wartime footing. And so we need a just-in-case mindset.

[00:42:32] And I think adversaries might look at that and go, yeah, that arsenal of democracy that they hang their hat on, maybe they're not there at this point. And so I think overarching, that's what we need to get to. What does it take? Is it a warm production line? Is it a stockpile? It's big stockpiles. It's probably a combination of both.

[00:42:57] And as long as they think that, then I don't think the defense industrial base adds to their calculus of today is not the day. It does. It feeds the idea that we can go and they cannot sustain a response or come back.

[00:43:14] So the department and the administration have, for the first time, I think in a long while, have for the first time decided that, hey, we need to get after this. We need to go from just-in-time to just-in-case. As an example, focusing more than I've seen in a long time on mobilization.

[00:43:36] What does that mean to mobilize industry, the economy, and the rest to get to a wartime footing? And so as long as they see that we can't scale and surge quickly, then the credibility of the defense industrial base as a deterrent is lacking. So the good news is there's momentum there. And we've talked about some of the things that we need to do, like going all in on advanced manufacturing and robotics as an example.

[00:44:06] This design to build understanding that we need to build not 10,000 drones a year, but what are the Ukrainians building? Five trying to drive to six million a year. How do we do that? They do it by everybody's garages doing it. Right? So how do we do that at scale? Now, they also recognize that we have a market economy, and it's not vertically integrated from one leader straight on down.

[00:44:34] And so they think they have an advantage of that. But we do have some big advantages, and you mentioned them. The best workforce in the world, the most creative innovators in the world, lots of capital and a system that encourages it. Lots of capital, which I find really cool now, is if you look at all that capital out there and you couple that with the administration and people like Secretary Feinberg who says, these are patriots.

[00:45:02] You can be a patriot and do the right thing for the nation and make some money at the same time. That's awesome. And we need to tap into that going forward. So we have some great strengths. We just need to have the political will to kind of drive to thinking that can we make the defense industrial base that credible deterrent that says, look, I can start this thing, but they'll finish it because they'll crush me like they did in World War II. That's where we got to get. Yeah. So is that, I mean, there's so many different ways to pull that apart.

[00:45:31] And the example I always point to somewhat cynically, but accurately is that, you know, we gave Ukraine a whole bunch of 155 millimeter artillery shells. We still haven't refilled that stockpile. Say nothing of Tomahawk missiles, that interceptors, all the stuff they were doing with Iran. And when I look at the 155 case, I was like, is that a matter of we need to build another factory? Is that a matter of there's not enough capital chasing that market? Do we not have the workforce?

[00:45:58] And how is it that after years and years and years, and we're currently in a fight with Iran now, no one's thought it was important enough to spend political capital on that? Because it seems like to get after this, the government would have to have some sort of coherent industrial policy that they would have to push through Congress and allocate funds to. And that would be a tremendous political lift. And it's very encouraging to hear that folks in the department are taking it seriously.

[00:46:25] But this is such a larger problem than just what the Department of Defense or Department of War, whatever you want to call it these days, can get after. So I guess what's the next step? What would an adversary have to see America do to step back and go, OK, they're turning this around? What would we have to signal publicly? So let's use the 155 as an example. You're right. Right. It's a really, really good example.

[00:46:52] Look how long it's taken us to go from 8000 to 16000 to 50000, you know, a month. And that was, in some respects, the fact that the factory capacity was just not there. Right. I went down with Secretary Hicks to it was a different weapon system, but we went down and we were walking around the factory floor. This was early. I was an anti-tank weapon. And when, you know, that was the thing. Right. It was 155.

[00:47:20] And that was anti-tank, you know, F-16s now on cruise systems. But and we were walking around the production floor and I'm talking to the to the operators down there. And I said, what have you done to maximize the space? And they showed me that every square inch had been redesigned to make more. And I said, oh, so kind of max capacity is what you're telling me. He said, yeah. And I said, OK, so how do we get beyond this? He goes, I need to build a new factory.

[00:47:50] Right. And and so that's a that's a structural challenge that we have. And so then to that company, if they don't have the contract, then, you know, how do they go to their shareholders and say, I got to invest to build this? So it's the contract and the demand signal. So if I'm an adversary and I see demand signals that are backed up with contracts and money, then I should recognize that the industry is going to work to fill that.

[00:48:18] And that should have that should lead to lead to lead to great concern. I would think workforce is a huge problem. We just don't have enough artisans to do all this. That's why you see when you watch your Penn State football game, you see, hey, come build American submarines. You've seen those ads. I mean, they roll across the top because we just don't have enough young men and women who want to come into the shipbuilding trade. So workforce is a problem.

[00:48:47] So one five five is another example, too, of of supply chains. Right. And the single point failures within our supply chains and whether it's, you know, what you need for the casing or or in more exquisite systems. Do you have what you need to make that magnet to make those magnets to make things work? The rare earth challenge.

[00:49:12] So there's supply chain issues that that have to be solved, too. So I think then it starts with a strong demand signal that has money behind it, then then translates into contracts that then translates into what I know is entirely possible, given the great strength of our industry. It starts with, you know, industry working to working to to to fill that. So and is that going to happen overnight? Right. No.

[00:49:42] Now, there's also been a mindset to and we're seeing it with the Air Force's fam, you know, family of modular missiles. Cheaper might be cheaper and maybe not as great. But but still super effective. Right.

[00:50:06] And, you know, the announcements over the last couple of weeks on the family of systems that the Air Force is moving out on is an example, then, of thinking and operating differently. And then I guess the last one would be the zeitgeist in the building now is a little bit more hands into the into the defense industrial base, whether it's the scorecards.

[00:50:31] They're going to look at CapEx, stock buybacks, executive executive compensation, whether it's the hey, look, it's not it's not cost schedule performance. It's schedule performance costs now. And we're going to hold you accountable on that. That's very, very significant. And so I'm looking forward to the first real scorecard that comes out because that would tell me it's real.

[00:51:00] The last thing I would say, and that comes back to money. If the warfighter acquisition is going to work, there are it's it's a three legged stool. Right. And so one stool on the leg is that is the department, is the administration. They have to want to do it. And I think I think we can see that there is, you know, particularly Secretary Hegseth and especially Secretary Feinberg driving this charge to think and operate differently. That's one.

[00:51:29] I think we see it in the authorizers. It's in the NDAA, which is new. Right. A lot of these things are in the NDAA, which, you know, that's law. And we haven't seen that before. The third leg, though, are the checkbook holders. And that's the appropriators.

[00:51:47] Right. And so if we're going to get multi years, if we're going to get portfolio authorities to move money within portfolios, then we need to see the appropriators come through and buy into that. Now, of course, they're watching out for your taxpayer dollar. Right. And there's a trust deficit there between the department and the appropriators. And so they put the brakes on and they say, you've got to prove it. And so I think that's done again looking at the department.

[00:52:15] We have to do a really good job proving that we deserve that trust to do multi years and have those flexibilities that we want. And then maybe we'll see the appropriators come in. So if I'm a if I'm an adversary and I know the administration wants it, it's in the NDAA. And now the money is flowing, then, hey, the Colossus is awake. Nice. Now, I know we're getting close to time, but before we go, you know, where is the especially based on everything we're seeing with war Iran?

[00:52:43] You know, what's the area where you think we're making the most progress and revitalizing our defense industrial base? And what's the spot where you think that we're not paying enough attention? Is it not necessarily tied to Iran, but just not necessarily just in the background of we're all looking at conflicts around the world. You can take it wherever you want.

[00:53:01] Yeah. Well, I do think there's a there's a great awakening on the hybrid structure, the complementary structure of exquisite and in robotic and autonomous systems. And I think that that that has that has great promise. So that that whole philosophy then is going to drive a lot of how we respond to the to the to the to the changing character of war.

[00:53:29] And it will drive this platform centricity to to to to to system centricity. And I'm pretty confident that we can get there. The question is, can we can we get there? Can we get there fast enough? Because what we want is we want maximum optionality. We want all of our systems to be able to do multiple things. Now, we're still going to need we're still going to need some exquisite. I mean, we're going to need to be 21. We're just going to have to have that. I'm a firm believer in sixth gen.

[00:53:58] We're going to have to have that. We're going to need Virginia class submarines and we're going to need that. But the mindset that says we're going to need to do that plus have all the other. Here's an example.

[00:54:06] Right. So if this is my my guided missile destroyer and it's steaming around and steaming around outside the first island chain and it has attached to it back to that kill web eight or nine uncrewed surface vessels that are nothing but that are nothing but vertical launch weapons. The enemy is going to have to and have to have to accommodate that and have to honor that. And so that's a way.

[00:54:36] So this idea of distribution and distributed lethality is going to is going to be really important. And I think that I'm pretty. So from a mindset perspective and a con op and way we fight good. The next thing is then can we build on the warfighter acquisition system momentum that we have now? Can we see things like the appropriators come in? Will we see the scorecards come in?

[00:55:00] Will we see the tenants of the warfighter acquisition system applied to what we build in the future? Yes. Yes. But then when we see it applied to those systems that we already have, the legacy systems, that'll be a real tell that we are all in. So we have to see that. The thing that keeps should keep us up at night is the manpower question. Right. Will we have enough to build this industrial base that I'm describing?

[00:55:26] Enough of the artisans that are doing this sometimes hard and dirty work, but that is increasingly skilled. And, you know, when I think about putting together a submarine, a submarine is in some respects a series of cylinders that are brought together. And then we weld those cylinders together.

[00:55:52] A robot still can't do that really, really well, not to the surety that we need such that those welds will hold a crush depth. And so we have a bunch of guys that are taught and trained and have been doing for many, many years a particular kind of called a 5XX weld. And it goes around the outside of this. Those guys are all about 55. They all make $350,000 a year. And there's only about 50 of them.

[00:56:21] And, you know, where is the next generation of folks that are going to come and want to do that work? And so I worry about the manpower thing. So there's some good news there. I think we finally woken up to, hey, look, it's college or nothing, you know, and that's kind of where it was. And now there's a recognition that, sure, we still need that. But if you're really good with your hands and you want to go out and build stuff for the nation, then we need you too.

[00:56:50] And that ties into a great strength of this country, which is our community colleges. And nobody has that. And so as that pendulum finds its right place for how do you use the talents of every young person in this country, some are going to go be engineers and some are going to be that $350,000 5XX welder. In the middle, there might be the guys and gals who are really good at robotics, right? We've got to get those people.

[00:57:16] And, yeah, we need people in finance too, but we need people to go build stuff. And we need to encourage them to go build stuff. And we need to reward them for doing it. I worry about that. And so I'm hopeful that, you know, we can incentivize and build that cadre out. We're going to have to have it. Yeah, and I've got two young kids at home, and I worry about what sort of world they're going to grow up in.

[00:57:43] And if they had to ask me right now if they're getting out of high school, what they should go do with their lives, it's just as a parent, it would be difficult for me to come up with a solid answer that I feel confident in with the way the world is at the moment. But both as a parent and as someone who wants the best foundation from a security standpoint, I hope we hit that balance that you're talking about. Yeah, I mean, as a dad of young kids, it's, you know, it's when you think about raising your kids, I have grandchildren now, and I'll certainly have that discussion with my grandsons and granddaughters.

[00:58:12] Maybe it's both. I mean, you want to be good with your hands, but you also have to understand the thinking and the rationale and the engineering behind it, right? I would suspect that the best plumber is probably one who understands all the hydrodynamics and everything that goes with it, right? So maybe there's a middle there.

[00:58:34] But I think the bigger thing is, hey, look, college isn't for me, but building stuff is, and I can raise my family doing that and be very proud of it. And my parents and everybody else will be just as proud of me. I'm sure you would be of your kids if they said, look, I'm going to go be the best damn electrician I can be. Oh, absolutely. I'm going to go build submarines. Yeah. Well, this is a fun trend in business schools. I just finished my MBA at Emory. Great program.

[00:59:04] Yeah. But there are more people in my class who graduated who are looking at how do I buy HVAC companies in my area than how do I go work for a big four consulting firm? Because there's more money in owning blue-collar businesses and being in those trades than there is in finance, consulting, and these other traditional MBA fields right now. So business schools themselves are recognizing this shifting. Oh, that's right. Now, I tend to be a little – I tend to be optimistic about the impact of AI.

[00:59:32] And we've been through these revolutions before, as an example. And so we'll find the right level. But there are just some things that are immune to any of that. And you mentioned that, you know, HVAC or – you know, when we move around, as you recall, when you moved around and when you were in uniform, right? Yep. You know, the first thing we think about is where's the right school, you know, for the kids, right? And what can I afford?

[00:59:58] And – but how important were things like, okay, is there a car mechanic here that I can trust? You know, I mean – If I'm on TDY for two months and there's a plumbing issue, can my wife call somebody? That's right. Like, that actually made – I made career decisions on what assignments I wanted based on the post that they were at solely because of quality of life for the family. That's right. That was a deciding factor with choosing future career paths. That's right.

[01:00:24] And it goes back to trust in those artisans and those tradesmen. Now, my wife's pretty good at fixing a lot of this stuff. But, you know, there's going to be things that she can't do that, you know, that we're going to have to answer our spouses, right? So – but, yeah, we have to find the right balance there. I kind of feel like the trend is in the right direction on that, but we have to keep it going. Well, fingers crossed we get there before the next catastrophe strikes. But really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today.

[01:00:52] Love the article and the conversation. There will be a link for everyone listening in the show notes to the Ben's Lens sub stack and this article directly. Is there anything else I should have asked you that I failed to while we were talking together today? No, I think we touched on everything. I just want to thank you for what you're doing at the Water's Edge here. I think it's really important to have this dialogue.

[01:01:19] And to your audience, you know, if you have thoughts on this, you know, what do you do with those thoughts, right? One thing would be go to your congressman, talk to them, right? Or if you want to help with the artisan tradesman problem, go to your local government and say, we need more of this. Where's the apprentice school? You know, as an example. I guess the last thing would be – and we danced around it a little bit. But – and I say it in the article.

[01:01:47] In the end, all of these things that we talk about are just hunks of metal and wire. And none of it matters unless you animate it with the best soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine, guardians, coast guardsmen that the world has ever seen. And so there are just some immutable truths. The character of war will change, but the nature of war will not. And in the end, it comes down to those kids in the foxhole or on the bridge or in the cockpit.

[01:02:17] And we need to do everything we can to give them the best that they have to go fight and win. That's credibility and deterrence in its own right. And that's why this dialogue is so important. Well said. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks, Scott.