Today’s battles happen at the pace of software. The Pentagon needs to hit the accelerator
Experts tell lawmakers where the bottlenecks are.
LAUREN C. WILLIAMS | MARCH 13, 2024
CYBER CONGRESS DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
The right software can dictate a battle’s outcome, and the Pentagon’s not changing fast enough to keep up, a panel of experts told lawmakers Wednesday.
“Can commanders access data to control highly distributed forces? Can we invent new ways of fighting that put the [People’s Republic of China] on the backfoot and dissuade aggression? These are the issues that the Department of Defense must tackle if it wants to compete. And now every one of these issues now depends on software,” Daniel Patt, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, IT, and Innovation on Wednesday. “Even changing a military unit's tactics now depends on a software update, not just a whiteboard planning session. And we need look no further than the battlefields of Ukraine to find evidence that units which are able to change their software more quickly see better outcomes.”
One of the culprits is the Pentagon’s authority-to-operate, or ATO, process, which is used to make sure software is safe before it’s used, Patt said.
https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2024/03/todays-battles-happen-pace-software-pentagon-needs-hit-accelerator/394925/
