It’s a fascinating document. Anduril, an up and coming emerging tech firm in the defense sector, has published a “mission document” entitled “Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy.” The essay is a detailed takedown of military mega-firms like Lockheed Martin, suggesting that their useful days are over and that they need to be replaced by emerging tech firms like Anduril that (it asserts) are more nimble, more cost effective, and more skilled in developing advanced software and other foundational elements of the weapons of the future.
Before reviewing its manifesto on the future of weapons procurement, it is useful to know how Anduril fits into the current military-industrial landscape. Anduril is an up and coming military tech firm founded by 32-year old tech savant Palmer Luckey, who made his fortune by creating the Oculus virtual reality headset before moving into the world of weapons development. Anduril makes everything from small drones to sentry towers used to police the U.S.-Mexico border systems to enable pilotless vehicles. Anduril is also heavily involved in the AUKUS submarine deal, a massive initiative built around the U.S./UK/Australia partnership to provide Australia with next generation attack submarines. Among other things, Anduril will be supplying Australia with its Ghost Shark unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) as part of the deal.
Palmer Luckey is a highly vocal proponent of reduced government regulation and a more hawkish foreign policy, as well as a staunch supporter of President-elect Trump. As I have noted elsewhere, his exaggerated views of what technology can accomplish coupled with a simplistic “us versus them” view of the world are a dangerous combination, especially coming from someone who is actively seeking to shape the future of U.S. foreign and military policies.
The opening section of the document puts Anduril’s view of the old guard in a nutshell:
“Only superior military technology can credibly deter war. Since World War II, America and its allies lead in military technology has been the pivotal factor in preventing World War III. Today, that technological lead is in jeopardy. The incumbent defense companies are unable to build the technology we need to reaffirm our technological lead. We need a new breed of defense companies to reboot the arsenal of democracy. [emphasis added].
In support of that sweeping statement, Anduril notes that “[d]espite spending more money than ever on defense our military technology stays the same. There is more AI in a Tesla than in any U.S. military vehicle; [and] better computer vision in your Snapchat app than in any system the Department of Defense owns.” The document implies that buying next generation technology might even lead to lower Pentagon budgets, although it makes no definitive promises that such savings will actually occur.
The document ends with a series of proposals to change how the Pentagon develops technology and buys finished weapons systems, making the system simpler and more friendly to the way tech companies do business. There are no doubt excess regulations in the current Pentagon process that serve no useful purpose, but there are also essential items that should be sustained or improved. In other words, while some regulations should be eliminated, others should be strengthened.
One key reform would involve giving Pentagon contracting officers adequate information on the historical costs of key components to head off price gouging of the kind that has led the department to pay markups as high as 3,800 per cent. And a 2023 investigation by CBS 60 Minutes found that the Pentagon was routinely being overcharged by 40 to 50 percent for basic items. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mike Braun (R-IN), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA) and Chris Deluzio (D-PA) have crafted a bill called the “Stop Price Gouging the Military Act” that would, among other things, require contractors to provide accurate historical pricing data on items they are selling to the Pentagon so that government contracting officers aren’t flying blind in negotiations over the cost of items being purchased.
Another key oversight mechanism that must be preserved is the Pentagon’s independent testing office, which provides regular assessments of the state of major weapons programs. Arms industry lobbyists have periodically tried to reduce the power of the office or make it harder for the public to access its findings. As new technologies are integrated into the military, a truly independent testing office will be more important than ever, to avoid wasting billions on a new generation of alleged “miracle weapons” that may or may not work as advertised.
A key question is whether the early influence of emerging military tech proponents like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Stephen Feinberg (nominee for the number two spot at the Pentagon), all of whom have profited from the development of pilotless systems and weapons that incorporate AI, will actually change the way the Pentagon spends its money. The vast bulk of Pentagon spending on weapons research, development and production goes to the Big Five – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon (now RTX), Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. These five companies alone receive over $100 billion per year in Pentagon contracts to build virtually every major weapons system utilized by the U.S. military: combat aircraft; tanks and armored personnel carriers; nuclear armed aircraft, missiles and submarines; bombs and missiles; missile defense systems; and combat ships. The only major exceptions to the rule are HII (formerly known as Huntington Ingalls), which builds aircraft carriers and attack submarines) and BAE, which builds artillery systems.
But even as the Big Five haul in a huge portion of Pentagon weapons spending, tech firms are starting to rack up some big contracts. Microsoft recently won a contract with the Army worth up to $22 billion over ten years for the Integrated Visual Augmentation System – high tech goggles that would allow soldiers to see farther than they could with the naked eye. The firm also won a quarter share of the Pentagon’s $9 billion cloud computing contract. Palantir has a $619 million contract to supply AI to the Army. And a recent Washington Post profile described Elon Musk’s Space-X as “one of the most important defense contractors in the world” based on future military applications of its space technology. But there will be serious challenges involved in adopting next generation technologies. Back in 2022, the Pentagon’s Inspector General warned that buying Microsoft’s high tech goggles could end up “wasting billions” absent adequate research to see if soldiers will be comfortable using them. It’s unclear whether this problem was fully addressed before giving Microsoft its multi-billion dollar contract to supply the goggles.
Will the Pentagon cut back spending on these legacy systems to invest more in emerging tech? Elon Musk, co-chair of President-elect Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), raised eyebrows among weapons makers when he went on X to slam Lockheed Martin’s F-35 – the company’s most lucrative program – as unnecessary and dangerous: “manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones . . . will only get pilots killed.’
But eliminating the F-35, or even reducing how many the Pentagon buys, will run up against a strong pro-F-35 contingent in Congress, built around members who have pieces of the plane built in their state or district.
And the latest indication that the tech sector intends to give the Big Five a run for their money is the news that Anduril, Palantir, Space-X, Open AI, and a number of other firms are forming a consortium in which they will bid as a team on certain Pentagon contracts.
The alternative to a Silicon Valley versus Big Five budget battle would be for the Pentagon to provide ample funding to both groups. But that would mean substantially increasing a Pentagon budget that is already soaring towards $1 trillion per year.
In the midst of this potential financial brawl between the two wings of the military-industrial base is the question of what technologies are most likely to make us safe in the decades to come, and, even more importantly, what strategy they should be deployed under. The “cover-the-globe,” interventionist strategy that has prevailed during this century has failed in its objectives to promote stability, even as it has cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives among combatants and civilians impacted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A change of course is desperately needed. In deciding on the right strategy, Congress and the public need to take the claims of both wings of the arms industry – the Big Five and the techno-optimists of Silicon Valley – with a grain of salt.
This post was originally published on here
