OPINION — “We are long past debating whether software- and AI- (Artificial Intelligence) enabled technologies are essential to America’s ability to deter, and if necessary, defeat its adversaries. Today, we all agree that it is only through the deep integration of hardware and software that America can gain and sustain its unmatched advantage on the battlefield…AI-enabled software is helping weave together disparate data sources, sensors, platforms, and operators across all domains, giving the United States and its allies the ability to visualize the battlefield – and act on what they see – far better than ever before…To prevail in the next great war, the U.S. must have the capacity to develop, procure, field, and scale technological solutions at a pace that far exceeds its adversaries.”
That was Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., an AI leader on a global scale, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on industry views of Defense Department (DoD) procurement of technology and innovation at a field hearing held at the University of California Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus on September 16.
Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ga.) opened the hearing, saying the committee did not believe the Pentagon was doing enough and wanted to hear thoughts from technology leaders “on how we [Congress] can overcome DoD’s historic aversion to moving fast and taking on risk when it comes to innovation.”
Ranking Committee Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) was more direct. “It cannot take five to ten years to develop a [weapon] requirement that is then obsolete or irrelevant by the time it is fielded,” Smith said. “We have to empower program managers to make decisions, move quickly and also fail. Failure is learning and we can no longer be afraid of it and need to embrace our tolerance of risk. Our commercial partners know this and we can all see the results. That is why we are here today. We want to hear from some of our most innovative companies that are working with DoD and hear what we can collectively do to further attract additional companies to work with DoD.”
Learning from the battlefield
Palantir’s Sankar used his company’s Maven Smart System (MSS) as an example of the benefits of a field-to-learn approach. Since its inception in 2017, MSS has grown from an experiment with the Special Operations community and the XVIII Airborne Corps, using a prototype with a limited number of operators, into a major DoD AI program, which ingests and processes data from multiple sources, including satellite imagery and geolocation data, and uses it to detect potential targets.
This past May 29, the Pentagon announced the awarding to Palantir of a five-year, $480 million contract to expand its data analysis and decision-making tool for tens of thousands of military users at five combatant commands across the globe, as well as members of the Joint Staff.
Sankar cited a report on the MSS project that said, “Embedding engineers and developers with military operators in their everyday work and for war-gaming exercises helped to avoid misunderstandings and realize new opportunities in the development of MSS. Developers came to better understand the needs of soldiers, and soldiers came to see new opportunities to operate more efficiently.” Sankar said that bringing in other private sector software and AI companies had contributed to the development of MSS.
Swarming drones
Another witness at the committee’s California hearing was Brandon Tseng, an engineer and a former Navy Seal and Navy surface warfare officer who co-founded and is president of Shield AI, a nine-year old, multi-billion-dollar defense technology company whose mission, he said, “is to protect service members and civilians with artificially intelligent systems.”
Shield AI, Tseng said, is building self-driving autonomy technology for aircraft that “enables drones to execute a mission without GPS (Global Positioning System), communications, or remote pilots.” Tseng went on to say, “It also enables the concept of swarming,” which refers to groups of drones working together.
Tseng added, “AI pilots that enable edge autonomy are critically important because Russia, China, and Iran are jamming GPS and communication links to stop our legacy drones and weapons that rely on GPS or communications, and have proliferated surface to air missile systems to stop our manned fighter jets.”
“Soon,” Tseng continued, “a single person will be able to effectively command and maneuver thousands of drones on the battlefield. An adversary military with a budget of $25 billion that effectively employs lower-cost drones and autonomy will be able to decimate a military with an $800 billion budget without drones and autonomy.”
Tseng’s company built an AI-piloted, vertical take-off, launch and land drone, the MQ-35 V-BAT, that, he said, “accomplishes the same mission as $40 million and $100 million aircraft at a fraction of the cost.” The V-BAT is a U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and U.S. Coast Guard Program that has interdicted billions of dollars of drugs in the Caribbean. Recently, V-BAT was used by the Ukrainian military in a first of its kind deep penetration targeting mission while GPS and communications were jammed, Tseng said.
“To remain relevant and competitive,” Tseng said, “the DoD must change from a requirements-based acquisition system to a problem-based acquisition system.” He explained, “The old model is a hardware-focused competition, where the software is not selected as the best software, but often just happens to be the one subcontracted to a hardware prime. This usually delivers sub-par software. Instead, the new model competes hardware and software independently and simultaneously, allowing for a competitive process that reveals the best option for both, then integrates the hardware and software. It will deliver the best product for the warfighter, while increasing competition.”
Lessons from Ukraine
W. Mark Valentine, president of Skydio Inc., the largest manufacturer of small drones outside of China and the world leader in aerial robotics, told the House members, “This hearing takes place at a critical time in the evolution of aviation that is transforming the character of war. The last century of aviation was gas-powered and largely crewed; the next century will be electric and largely uncrewed. This paradigm shift will fundamentally change the way airpower is employed, and wars are fought.”
Valentine, a 25-year combat fighter pilot, and staff officer at Headquarters U.S. Air Force and the Joint Staff, said his company has delivered over 45,000 dual-use drones to more than 2,000 customers, including every branch of the U.S. military, and over a dozen allied and partner militaries around the world.
Valentine said, “For American audiences, the role played by small drones in Ukraine is profound and initially hard to grasp.” He described how, “on the battlefield, small, dual-use drones form the cornerstone of the kill chain, gathering real-time information critical to decision making. Almost nothing on the battlefield happens without a drone in the air. In general, soldiers only fire artillery, launch armed first-person-view drones, or maneuver with the benefit of information gathered by drones, often small, dual-use drones. Operational and tactical commanders monitor dozens – sometimes hundreds – of drone feeds, orchestrating action in real time.”
In Ukraine, he said, drones have democratized ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance], enabling everyone – including front-line soldiers – to have their own eye in the sky, without competing for scarce aerial resources controlled by higher headquarters.”
As a result, Valentine said, “Ukraine loses thousands of drones a month, with some estimates as high as 10,000.” He attributed that to Russian electronic warfare (EW) surveillance technology that can identify and target the drone operator.
“In Ukraine, the EW environment is constantly changing,” Valentine said, requiring “constant iteration and software updates. But AI is the true antidote in an EW environment. AI enables drones and autonomous systems to operate without traditional communications links to a controller or GPS.”
His company recently produced a new product with “advanced software features [that] make the system more resilient in the face of radio frequency and GPS-jamming that is a hallmark of the modern battlefield.”
Peter Ludwig, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Applied Intuition Defense, which leads in autonomous ground vehicles, told the committee, “Given the importance of software in the modern battlefield, it is critical that DoD not treat software the same as hardware. Software is never finished. It continues to live and grow as conditions rapidly change. Unlike hardware, its evolutions occur in weeks, not years, and if the software does not evolve at this speed of relevance, it becomes obsolete.”
Ludwig added, “We write the software that supports seamless updates for autonomous vehicles (AVs), similar to the way that Apple provides seamless software updates for your iPhone.”
Drones at sea
Another committee witness, Richard Jenkins, is founder and CEO of Saildrone, Inc, a world leader in providing sea-based, meteorological, oceanographic and electronic warfare solutions with autonomous uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs). These are primarily powered by wind and solar energy for propulsion and power, and range in length from 23 to 65 feet.
Jenkins explained that his USVs “are piloted and maintained by Saildrone, while the customer has direct access and secure control over the data flow from the vehicle. Maintaining the sustainment and logistics of the fleet allows us to ‘iterate while we operate’ and rapidly respond to customer feedback.”
Saildrones, he said, use AI “to deliver autonomous, real-time visual detection of targets, including those that are not otherwise transmitting their position. These images are fused with radar, automatic identification system (AIS), and acoustics to deliver a fully informed picture of the surrounding maritime domain and enable targeting for other lethal assets. This results in a persistent, rapidly scalable, low-cost solution to augment traditional manned maritime fleets.”
Jenkins said, “Since 2021, Saildrones have detected and classified many thousands of surface vessels in key areas of interest, allowing the Navy to greatly enhance its common operating picture while keeping sailors out of harm’s way.”
Rep. Smith asked what needed to be done to change the current requirements-based major weapons procurement system to a system that “produces the number of drones we really need.” Tseng responded that DoD’s acquisition money, which now is allocated and budgeted under a requirements-based approach, should be changed. Instead, he suggested that “25 percent of [DoD] acquisition dollars in the next three years be spent on a problem-based acquisition system,” arguing that while this would be difficult, it would “shift the money over time.”
As a test for what costly weapons system DoD might stop purchasing, Tseng said, “If the countermeasure for a weapon is very cheap, the example being if a $1 million-dollar missile can blow up a $400-million-dollar ship, or if a $1 million-dollar surface AA (anti-aircraft) can take down a $100 million-dollar fighter jet, then we probably ought to be buying less of those.”
Change is difficult, but that single House Armed Services hearing clearly reinforced a fundamental view; that change is certainly needed in the DoD weapon acquisition system.
The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to [email protected] for publication consideration.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief