Third US defence department official resigns, warning US risks losing tech edge amid Pentagon’s eroding commercial base
- Preston Dunlap said the Pentagon should behave more like SpaceX and that the consolidation of the defence-industrial base is bad for competition
- The former chief architect officer said the US should be braver about undertaking tests that might fail in tech such as hypersonics to artificial intelligence
“We’re falling behind the commercial base in key areas, so we’ve got to catch up,” Preston Dunlap, the first person in the US Department of defence to fulfil the role of chief architect officer, told Bloomberg News in an interview. As a result the US risked losing its technological edge against potential adversaries, he said.
Dunlap, who handed in his resignation on Monday after three years in the post at the US Space Force and US Air Force, was responsible for pushing more technology into a US$70 billion budget for research, development and acquisition. He plans to start a space software company focused on the nexus with satellites, data and artificial intelligence. The Pentagon was behind the domestic commercial sector in data, distributed computer processing, software, AI and cybersecurity, he said.
“By the time the Government manages to produce something, it’s too often obsolete,” he said in a nine-page resignation statement he billed as a “playbook” to help guide the Pentagon, which he later made public on LinkedIn. “Much more must be done if DoD is going to regrow its thinning technological edge.”
Dunlap said the Pentagon, which he dubbed “the world’s largest bureaucracy,” needed to stop focusing on internal turf wars and reinventing the wheel and instead work together to tap the private sector, defend the country and compete with China.
“Ironically as I’m writing this, I received notification that the phone lines are down at the Pentagon IT help desk. Phone lines are down? It’s 2022, folks,” he wrote.
In a statement, an Air Force spokesperson confirmed Dunlap’s resignation, and said the military was grateful for his public service. Dunlap had “worked tirelessly” for three years, said Ann Stefanek, chief of media operations at the Department of the Air Force.
Dunlap’s comments come after two other senior tech officials in the US Department of defence resigned, calling on the Pentagon to modernise its approach to technology on the way out the door.