Aug 30 2023

China’s most important asset in a potential war with the United States is mass. More ships. More missiles. More people. To counter that advantage, the DOD will launch an initiative called Replicator to create cheap drones across the air, sea, and land in the “multiple thousands” within the next two years. Read more

At the command level, the goal of Large Scale Exercise 2023 is meant to pressurize the Navy and Marine Corps’ leaders with what one admiral called “objective tension,” the innate dilemmas that are created for every Navy commodore and Marine Corps commanding officer when they have to accept that the fight happening elsewhere is going to impact the fight in front of them. Read more

A new announcement is coming on the future of the trilateral security pact known as AUKUS sometime later this year. While Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, did not give details about what the announcement would be, her role in the discussions and her technology portfolio means it likely has to do with the so-called Pillar 2 AUKUS track. Read more

The intel landscape worldwide has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. The proliferation of sensors, the race for technological superiority, and the rising influence of social media are all responsible for lasting effects that are now rippling across the IC and changing the nature of intelligence tradecraft. Read more

A top priority of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research is to transform their digital enterprise. The underlying initiatives are what you’d expect, like using DevSecOps for software development or creating a technology governance board. Jimmy Hall Jr., the State INR Bureau’s CIO and director of the Technology and Innovation Office, said the initiative to move its top secret network to the cloud will fuel the other eight to have a larger impact on the agency’s employees around the world. Read more

We're talking about AI and workforce evolution, which the Federal government needs to get in front of fast to set a course for harnessing their power and improving service delivery and customer experiences. Read on for a Q&A with GSA CIO David Shine on embracing AI and evolving the government's tech workforce to meet the demands of the next evolution in tech thinking and practices. Read more

The DOE announced a funding opportunity of up to $300 million in grants for states, tribes, and local governments to accelerate and strengthen electric transmission siting and permitting processes. The Transmission Siting and Economic Development (TSED) grant program is a new initiative designed to overcome state and local challenges to expanding transmission capacity while also supporting communities along major new and upgraded lines. Read more

HUD is one of something like 30 agencies that have a hand in disaster recovery. In trying to avoid duplicating benefits to disaster victims, in 2017 HUD started work on a data portal. A place where grantees would load information on benefits they had already received, so HUD could see it. HUD’s OIG has found the data portal is only partially completed. The OIG also questioned whether the portal is a high enough priority for HUD’s technology staff. Read more

On Aug. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an inspirational speech in Kyiv’s St. Sophia Square to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day. His message was familiar to anyone who has heard or read a Zelenskyy speech since he became a wartime president. In the meantime, POTUS issued his own statement that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” Is it a lofty aspiration? Read more

When I was in government many years ago, I frequently dealt with people who wanted to use – the unpleasant word would be “abuse” — the procurement system to advance agendas that had nothing to do with procurement’s purpose to serve agency missions and taxpayers by providing good stuff at good prices. Such statements would always begin, “We should use the enormous buying power of the federal government to..." — followed by a fill in the blank with the person or organization’s favorite cause. Read more

Not only people need to stay cool, especially in a summer of record-breaking heat waves. Many machines, including cellphones, data centers, cars and airplanes, become less efficient and degrade more quickly in extreme heat. Machines generate their own heat, too, which can make hot temperatures around them even hotter. Read more

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