Category Archives: defense policy

Part of the Problem

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The Department of Defense, first under the Biden administration, but continuing under the Trump administration, is having far too much trouble deploying “AI weapons,” even figuring out how to use those it has deployed. An illustration of this is this:

The Pentagon has also struggled to find software that can successfully control large numbers of drones, made by different companies, working in coordination to find and potentially strike a target—a key to making the Replicator vision work.

This isn’t so much a software commonality or interoperability problem as it is a problem with bureaucrats giving too much weight to the desires of contractors and their lobbyists, each of whom insist on their own proprietary software. What’s needed here isn’t more money (although sometimes that helps), it’s an operational officer, one fresh in from a combatant command that’s facing current conflicts, being put in charge of AI development and programs. This officer, independent of the lobbyists, needs to write a better requirements document, one that specifies the standards of commonality (not merely interoperability—this is software, not hardware) that each contractor and contractor wannabe must meet in order for their AI package to be considered.

Beyond that, this AI OIC must open his Requests for Proposals far beyond the major contractors and take in RFPs from small businesses and startups—that’s where the ideas and agility exist—then push the development and acquisition pace, eliminating the layers of bureaucrats’ reviews.

Finally, this AI OIC must be willing to spend money on mistakes and dead ends rather than demanding (near) perfection at one stage before moving on to the next.

That’s just the development side. The AI OIC also must have four or five teams of operational officers—again, fresh in from combatant commands—working on tactics and strategies that make use of the four or five leading AI weapons candidates to investigate best uses for integrating these weapons into a combatant command unit’s (at all levels) existing suite of weapons. That tactics and strategies development effort should also lead to adjustments in those units’ existing tactics and those commands’ existing strategies, even their existing suites of weapons.

There’re just too much bureaucracy and too little operational consideration in the currently extant DoD. SecDef is making progress on the bureaucracy qua bureaucracy, but he’s got a long way to go. It’s time for him to zero in on lethality.

A Mistake

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DHS, according to Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, is looking at so-called “ICE tracking apps,” which allow users to share locations of immigration enforcement activity in real time. Of course they should be looking at these.

However.

According to McLaughlin, while such apps might currently be legal, they are “being used by gangs, suspected terrorists, and others to evade law enforcement and even target officers.”
She said the Department of Justice might consider whether the apps and other tracking tools amount to obstruction of justice.

That’s looking at the wrong end of the apps. It’s certainly true that, as McLaughlin also says, there has been a 1,000% increase in assaults against ICE officers.

But the way to deal with that is not to go after the apps as obstructions of justice. The proper way to deal with that is to treat the use of the apps in particular ways as obstructions of justice, backtrack those uses to their users, and then to go after the users who actually obstruct justice or who interfere with law enforcement officers in the course of their actions.

The apps themselves are merely tools. They’re agnostic in themselves; it’s the users who are…not agnostic.

Moreover, targeting the apps over their misuse also would fuel the Left’s war on our 2nd Amendment, making it easier to target our weapons over their misuse.

US Naval Academy Midshipman Honor Concept and Mikie Shirrell

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New Jersey’s Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Governor, it turns out, was barred from walking with her Naval Academy class during its graduation ceremony, although she was allowed to graduate and be commissioned into our Navy. Her explanation for this is this:

I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk….

What she didn’t turn some of her classmates in over was a cheating scandal that impacted 130 midshipmen in her class.

And she’s proud of that refusal.

This is the Naval Academy’s Honor Concept [boldface in the original, italic emphasis added]:

Midshipmen are persons of integrity: They stand for that which is right.
They tell the truth and ensure that the truth is known.
They do not lie.

They embrace fairness in all actions. They ensure that work submitted as their own is their own, and that assistance received from any source is authorized and properly documented.
They do not cheat.

They respect the property of others and ensure that others are able to benefit from the use of their own property.
They do not steal.

By refusing to turn in those classmates about whom she knew, by refusing to testify over the course of the cheating investigation, Sherrill openly lied by omission. She further lied by tacitly obstructing that investigation. She affirmatively prevented the truth from being known.

This is the concept of honor and integrity that Mikie Sherrill is putting on offer for the good citizens of New Jersey. It seems a poor fit for any Governor’s office.

The Press in the Pentagon

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SecDef Pete Hegseth is severely restricting the press’ access in the Pentagon and what the press can print about the doings in the Pentagon.

The policy would require credentialed reporters to sign a pledge agreeing not to publish information unless it has been cleared for release. That would include materials that have already been unclassified. Journalists who refuse could lose their access.

After all,

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth defended the change and said it was designed to curb leaks and protect information at the Pentagon.
“Time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad,” said Hegseth at a news conference in June.

He’s right about that, and it’s too bad the press has become addicted to leaks, especially given that the leakers are themselves intrinsically dishonest, instead of being willing to do the hard work of original investigative reporting.

The uproar over the restrictions is, though, justified, in one respect. The prevention of leaks getting published at the expense of national security could be more efficiently achieved in a different way.

That way would have the SecDef expand the various Pentagon Public Affairs Offices, with the Public Affairs Officer in the SecDef office controlling the PAOs below. This expansion and hierarchical nature of the PAO structure would be necessary due to the following. Restrict all journalists from all of the Pentagon—no wondering the halls, no ducking into unlocked offices, and so on—other than the PAO offices and any gatherings and meetings to which the press or specific journalists are explicitly invited.

Any DoD person, civilian or military and of any rank, a journalist encounters during duty hours and who is asked a question by the journalist, must be required to answer the question by directing the journalist to the nearest Public Affairs Office while saying nothing else in response to the question. The flip side of this is that the journalist must get responses from the PAOs within an hour of asking his questions, whether those responses are answers or decisions not to answer.

If the person is not on Pentagon grounds and is off-duty, he must make clear to the journalist that he is not speaking for DoD; he is solely expressing his personal opinion. Journalists who do not make note of that early in their publications should lose their Pentagon access.

Similar rules should be applied to all US military installations around the nation and the world as well as to all civilian facilities that are operating under DoD contract.

Insufficient

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A deal for TikTok is in the offing, but it’s wholly insufficient in my not very humble opinion. The deal breaker for me:

Under the agreement, a new entity would be created to run TikTok in the US. A consortium of new investors including private-equity firm Silver Lake and Oracle would own roughly half. Existing investors such as trading firm Susquehanna International would hold about 30%. TikTok parent ByteDance‘s stake would dip below 20% to comply with a 2024 law requiring the company to do a deal or stop operating in the US.

ByteDance is domiciled in the People’s Republic of China, and so it is subject to the PRC’s national intelligence laws. One of those laws requires PRC companies to answer intelligence community requests for information about its doings in other nations and about the doings of enterprises and individuals in those other nations that do business with ByteDance and those associated with it, and to go get that information—commit espionage—if it doesn’t have it already.

ByteDance‘s under 20% participation in the new TikTok entity might coincide with the American law, but it still leaves the PRC company, and so the PRC government, with too broad a window into American private affairs. Any window, of any size, is too much.