Pete Hegseth Takes On the Military-Industrial Complex. (Guess Who's Likely to Win?)

"A battle is brewing between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and big contractors in the military-industrial complex over how the nation buys weapons systems. Some of Hegseth's notions, which have been circulating in reform circles for a decade, are laudable. But his style of running the Pentagon-including the way he's put forth his new policy-gravely dims his chances for success."

"His policy-laid out in a six-page memo, which he presented to top corporate executives at a meeting on Friday-is meant to cut through the sclerotic bureaucracies, in the Pentagon and at defense contractors, which have slowed the development of weapons programs, boosted their cost, and neglected the needs of the servicemen and -women who would actually use the weapons in training and combat."

"Many of Hegseth's ideas stem from the Defense Innovation Unit, a small branch of the Defense Department created in 2015 by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter, a Harvard-educated physicist and historian who foresaw back in 2000 that commercial industries would soon overtake defense labs at innovation and that, in order to preserve America's technological edge over adversaries, the Pentagon would have to form new relationships with the private sector."

A battle is brewing between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and major defense contractors over how the nation purchases weapons systems. Hegseth released a six-page memo presented to top corporate executives that aims to cut through sclerotic Pentagon and contractor bureaucracies blamed for slow development, rising costs, and neglect of the servicemen and -women who must use the weapons in training and combat. Many of Hegseth's ideas derive from the Defense Innovation Unit, created in 2015 by Ash Carter to forge new relationships with private-sector technology firms as commercial industries outpaced defense labs in innovation. Whether the policy can create the structures and incentives to overcome entrenched bureaucratic and corporate interests is uncertain, and Hegseth's combative style further dims prospects for implementation.

Read at Slate Magazine