Jamie Bennet
Executive Mosaic sought the opinion of government and industry leaders on how the United States can stay abreast, if not ahead, of rivals such as China and Russia in terms of defense technologies and the “great power competition” in the next few years.
The exclusive interview series features Wash100 honorees John Sherman, chief information officer of the Department of Defense; Mike Madsen, former acting director of the Defense Innovation Unit; Bob Genter, president of the defense and civilian sector at Science Applications International Corp.; John Heller, CEO of Amentum; and John Heneghan, president of ECS.
Excerpts from the interviews, hosted by Executive Mosaic newsroom editor Summer Myatt, can be viewed here.
For DOD CIO John Sherman, cybersecurity, cloud computing and satellite communications are crucial to maintaining global leadership in defense and intelligence.
“Technologies that we can bring to the fight…areas like cloud computing…proliferated low-Earth orbit or pLEO satellite communications that we read about in the news a lot, bringing internet access across the globe … new types of fiber transport terrestrially to be able to get data at massive speeds around the world. And very importantly, new cybersecurity capabilities to contribute to that integrated deterrence I mentioned vis-a-vis China, Russia and others.”
Mike Madsen views the nation’s “serial entrepreneurship” as the reason for its current position at the top of the defense industry.
“We need to get back to that rich public-private partnership that really birthed the tech ecosystem generations ago…And then fully embrace a fast follower strategy…Be a fast follower with our commercial partners in those areas that they are leading, and find ways to transmit our needs to them much, much easier.”
SAIC’s Bob Genter said peer and near-peer competition have greatly influenced the government contracting industry.
“The peer/near-peer threats out there have reshaped the way that we look at our threats and where we need to make investments. The biggest issue that we face right now is around tech superiority. We need to make sure that we show that the United States is dominant in many of these areas … It gets into autonomy, next-generation weapons, and then data, which doesn’t sound like a weapon, but it is deeply embedded in how we deploy and how we manage threats in the world.”
Amentum CEO John Heller identified infrastructure security as one of the keys to getting ahead of China.
“Our energy infrastructure, the data infrastructure that we have, that we depend on everyday … We need investment. We need attention to these. We need new technologies to counter the cyber threats in these areas. Bad actors are going to continue to try to attack all of that infrastructure that we have in the U.S. and try to steal it.”
ECS President John Heneghan expressed that artificial intelligence will have the greatest impact on the country’s place in the great power competition.
“Cybersecurity aided by AI is helping us change the game in terms of protecting our nation’s most vital assets, and really staying in front of an ever-changing landscape … The advancements in application of quantum computing is another exciting area that’s really emerging. We’re just starting to investigate that, and we really believe there are going to be powerful solutions to previously unthinkable mission challenges. It will help us modernize our data and cyber challenges as well.”
