Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War Hardcover – 15 Aug. 2024

This is quite an important book, but if you are going to read it, you need to read it now. Its shelf-life will be quite short although there is one point it makes that will be historically relevant for some time to come. That is, we have an entered an era in which R&D of very advanced technologies takes place now largely in the commercial (even the consumer commercial) sector rather than in the military/industrial sector. Secondly, the pace of innovation is such that technologies that are solicited and developed and deployed through the usual Pentagon procurement process are obsolete by the time they are deployed.The book is an update and a homage to the bureaucratic program initiated by Secretary Ash Carter, suddenly and sadly deceased in 2022. (Do read his Inside the Five-Sided Box in which about a dozen pages are devoted to what he was trying to achieve with Unit X.) Unit X was created by Secretary Carter to fast-track the introduction of advanced technologies into the military through a revolution in the procurement bureaucracy. Changes in the procurement bureaucracy were as important as the new sought-for technologies. The US and its allies were (and are) in danger of strategic and technological surprise and defeat.There is an update on technological innovations on the Ukrainian battlefield (probably quite out of date even as I write this), but only intimations of what the defense of Taiwan will be like although I would keep my eye on the AUKUs coalition and the activites of Anduril Industries.

The military tend to prepare to fight the last war with disappointing results in current wars.This book is a case study of how to integrate new technology into often conservative and bureaucratic organisations so they are fit for purpose. Well written and factual.

Well worth a read of how progress is suppressed within the Pentagon for a variety of reasons - probably tru of any civil service dept.

A helpful book for understanding the DIU's history and activities. Recommended read.