A senior Pentagon official has resigned, delivering a warning about the ongoing technology competition between the United States and its opponents.
After more than three years as the Space Force’s inaugural chief architect officer, Preston Dunlap looks to have stepped down this week.
He released a lengthy message on LinkedIn, outlining the matters he feels his former colleagues should prioritize going forward.
His Warnings and Advice
Shocking the establishment, flipping the purchase script, ‘Just Deliver Already,’ and slaying the valley of death and scale are among the four stages outlined in Dunlap’s eight-page letter to combat the beast of bureaucracy.
“A huge organization is subjected to an enormous number of factors, including friction, grit in the gears, the locked middle, bureaucracy, culture, tradition, stovepipes, analytical paralysis, risk aversion, planning, and budgeting, among other things.
“It is well understood the system is set up to bring everyone and every concept down to the status quo,” he stated. “Defying gravity is required while driving change.”
The shift to its own Space Force BMT comes as the service continues to grow its small force. Pentagon officials have insisted the new military service will remain small well into the future. https://t.co/JhWxdl5ms6
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) April 20, 2022
Other than that, he told them not to “sleep on it” when they should be “firing on all cylinders.”
He also advised them not to “distract themselves with the procedure when they should be focused on getting things done.”
“Competition with each other when we should be competing with China is not good.”
According to Dunlap, in a subsequent interview with Fox News, “These are available to anyone with money, education, and talents.”
“Our rivals or prospective adversaries can get access to that technology, not just inside their own countries, but also as a result of the advantages of our free and open society, which is a wonderful thing.”
A top Pentagon tech boss is leaving, saying the U.S. needs to accelerate AI plans to keep pace with China https://t.co/jVn021nSol
— Bloomberg (@business) April 18, 2022
Similar Remarks and Warnings
Nicolas Chaillan, a 37-year-old former chief software officer at the Pentagon, made similar comments.
He worked for three years on a Ministry of Defense-wide project to improve cybersecurity before becoming the first chief engineer officer of the Air Force. He said the United States already lost the technology war with China.
According to experts, in 15 to 20 years, we will have no competitive fighting chance against China.
He told the Financial Times in a story published on Sunday, “right now, it’s already done; it’s already over in my perspective” and there is “strong cause to be outraged.”
According to Chaillan, the developing technical breakthroughs are a far more vital part of defense than conventional military gear, such as fighter planes, which is typically considered.
The warnings are clear! We should be focusing more on software development and security, rather than “large” and “loud” weapons.
The war against China is shaping to be reminiscent of the Cold War era. We cannot afford to be caught on the back foot. Our global position is at stake. The world is watching, and we need to rise to the challenge.
