Avoiding “Too Late”
With the recent devastating atrocities against civilians in Israel led by an Iran-funded Hamas, the United States is urgently reminded that we must contend with three fronts fueled by three countries: Russia, China, and Iran. General Douglas MacArthur helps us find the words for this landscape of escalating conflict, “The history of failure in war can almost always be summed up in two words: Too late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance.” The United States and its Allies are not too late, but we are also not in the position needed to effectively deter or win against our adversaries. If we act with urgency - right now - we still possess the capability to create a force so powerful it will redefine credible deterrence.
We will use the four points made in General MacArthur’s statement to contextualize where the United States is dangerously close to “too late.” Then we will provide recommendations for how to alter this trajectory.
Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy.
Our adversaries have broadcast their intent in no uncertain terms. It is time for us to take them at face value. Official Iranian military parades have long included banners with “Death to Israel,” and Iran tests its ballistics missiles against targets shaped like the Star of David. Putin has repeatedly made it clear that he is not bluffing when it comes to escalating military conflict with the West if he perceives certain lines are crossed, lines that he defines. China’s PLA recently said it will “resolutely smash any form of Taiwanese independence succession along with attempts at outside interference,” a statement perfectly consistent with Xi’s 2027 invasion of Taiwan as a readiness requirement for the PLA.
Too late in realizing the mortal danger.
Close your eyes and imagine the following. On October 10, 2027, war begins with China conducting a massive bombardment that destroys Taiwan’s Navy and Air Force in a few hours. The Chinese Navy then encircles Taiwan and begins ferrying a landing force of thousands of PLA soldiers and their equipment across the Taiwan Strait. Knowing the U.S. policy would be to respond to this aggression, the Chinese strike Japan’s military bases and U.S. surface ships. The U.S. and its allies respond by deploying sophisticated submarines and stealth bombers to get into China’s air defense zones, but the Pentagon runs out of key munitions and fuel in a matter of days and loses network connectivity because of enemy jamming. Human losses are in the tens of thousands just in the first few weeks, and with DoD having no medical readiness plan in place to handle that type of carnage, the impact to human life is catastrophic. The stalemate continues for years, devastating the world economy and weakening the U.S. ability to protect its interests abroad and at home.
While this might not seem possible, the House Select Committee on competition recently ran a series of wargames and came to the conclusion that any conflict would be a horrifically bloody one. Becca Wasser, who played the role of the Chinese leadership in the Select Committees wargame said, “The thing we see across all the wargames is that there are major losses on all sides. And the impact of that on our society is quite devastating”. The study found that the best outcome is that no one wins. Improving our odds will only occur if the United States makes needed investments today. If we do not, we will lose.
Too late in preparedness.
When WWII started, America did not have an industrial base equipped for the fight. Fortunately, we had a luxurious eighteen months to ramp production under Lend-Lease, supply the Allies, and build the arsenal of democracy while we were still at peace. The U.S. should similarly be using the Ukraine war as the canary in the coal mine to ramp production full-scale. Instead, we are immobilized. Russia is bleeding us dry of ammunition, missiles, tanks, and helicopters while Xi makes notes on the sideline. We have a window to deter through preparedness - both traditional industrial manufacturing and novel technology preparedness - but that window is shrinking.
Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance
If we are going to deter or win against our adversaries we must unite the innovation ecosystem and our allies and partners to provide the best capabilities to our warfighters. For the innovation ecosystem, this means drawing inspiration from America’s golden era of defense innovation in the 60s and 70s where the DoD not only biased towards and depended on commercial, but every major “dual use” conglomerate had a DoD business. In the current craze of VC-backed defense companies, it’s easy to forget this rich commercial heritage. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) used General Motors for machining inertial navigation systems, RCA for manufacturing navigation receivers, and TWA for operating telemetry stations. The original DARPA Assault Breaker would not have been possible without Intel chips. CORONA spy satellite cameras depended on Kodak, and the precursor to CORONA was a high altitude balloon project of which General Mills was the prime contractor! Look around at today’s most strategically important weapons and programs - they often have no such commercial dependencies, much to their detriment.
Additionally, the role of alliances as a fundamental enabler of American power will be critical in the next decade and beyond. One of the key capabilities in enabling this partnership is allowing the United States and its allies and partners to collaborate and securely share information in real-time. Mission Data Platform (MDP) allows the U.S. military and its allies and industry partners to share information (taking a data-centric approach), which is one of the key components required to enable JADC2. The preservation and collaboration with America’s alliances in Asia is essential to our ability to contain and deter China, for without them we cannot ensure that our rethinking of the U.S.–China relationship will take place on American terms.
What do we do before its too late?
Mobilize the Private Sector Now: As in 1941, full-scale mobilization of the private sector will be critical. Manufacturing of hypersonics, long range anti-ship missiles, and attritable systems a la Replicator deserve scaled, DoD investment in non-traditional manufacturing capacity. But unlike 1941, mobilization of bits will be as important as mobilization of atoms. The ability to rapidly integrate and deploy ever-evolving innovations in AI and autonomy will make or break our ability to leverage innovative hardware coming off the production line and create offset.
Competition in Production: The DoD monopsonist acquisition process leans into the most anti-competitive aspects of our society to fight the CCP. America’s greatest strength is free-market competition, but when the DoD insists on major programs having only one buyer, we lose the advantages in quality, price, and speed that come from competition. As Christian Brose writes in his recent Moneyball paper, “The goal of the PPBE system, when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara institutionalized it fully from 1961 to 1968, was not to optimize or better manage capitalism in matters of national defense. It was to transcend capitalism altogether.” It wasn’t always this way. As Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante acknowledges, the United States used to place multiple bets when developing and fielding new weapons. While LaPlante attributes our inability to place multiple bets today to budgetary constraints, history would suggest otherwise: Our superior Cold War ballistic missiles were the product of multiple concurrent development efforts that saved money by buying down risk and dynamically investing production in winners (Navy’s Polaris and Air Force’s Minuteman) versus losers (Jupiter, Thor, Atlas, Titan).
Go Scorched Earth on Budget Reform: In an increasingly divided country, the one pillar of bipartisanship we can continue to bet on is the passing of the NDAA. Unfortunately, we can also bet on late passage with a Continuing Resolution. This is the worst of both worlds. It leaves us trapped in a cycle of functional disfunction, favoring incumbents by preventing new starts and corroding the culture by setting low expectations on the rate of change. The warfighter must unfairly answer for this brokenness. Rather than join the chorus of “pass a budget on time,” we must go scorched earth and reimagine an NDAA budget process that optimally defends the nation. Bold reforms could include: Zero-based budgeting instead of auto-funding capabilities already in the production pipeline regardless of their relevance; rebasing the budget towards the Pacific theatre; making 25%+ of the budget flexible to place big bets on companies (from startups to primes) that have proven they can deliver value immediately; having “no year“ funding (no expiration date on funding) for software to allow for flexibility to meet the requirements of today that could not be dreamed of two years ago.
Run Monthly, Realistic Operational Exercises: The Ukrainians are learning and building under fire. The U.S. is not yet postured to do the same. If the U.S. found itself in a comparable fight demanding the real-time integration of novel capabilities, we would discover that many of our current organizational missions and processes would fall significantly short of the mark. The DoD is taking action to change this paradigm with GIDE (Global Information Dominance Experiments), JFN (Joint Fires Network), and Scarlet Dragon, the most promising globally integrated experiments that the DoD has adopted in recent memory to change doctrine and develop capabilities that will work in a global integrated joint all domain fight with our allies and partners. It is still not enough. The DoD needs to increase the cadence of these exercises to monthly, make them full-scale, realistic constructive virtual kills, and use actual red and blue force data from space to mud to cyber. Most importantly, the learnings from these exercises must be reflected in commercial decisions by purchasing more of the stuff that works and less of the stuff that doesn’t.
After Pearl Harbor, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto was famously said to have warned that all Japan had achieved with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was to “awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Now the giant is lying in bed with eyes wide open. It needs to get out of bed before it is too late.