BALTIMORE, Md. — In case you missed it, General John Teichert, candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland recently discussed promising language in the 2024 House authorization and appropriations bills that would put a renewed focus on innovation in the military amid a rise in threats to our national security in a new opinion published in Real Clear Defense.
As Teichert has reiterated time and again on the campaign trail, under the Biden administration, the threats to our national security have increased due to weak leadership. In his editorial, the retired general notes that if passed, this new development will allow for us to innovate new technologies that will allow us to match the speed at which these threats are developing.
“Urgency and operational relevance are the cornerstones of this new requirement, with statements boldly encouraging a willingness to accept calculated risk to enable operationally relevant speed. The language clearly states that ‘the metric for success is speed to fielding affordable, operationally relevant capability.’ Furthermore, those involved in this strategy ‘must be focused on rapidly fielding solutions at scale to operationally relevant problems.’”
However, Teichert also notes that we must also create these new programs at a speed which replaces the current failing strategy in a timely manner.
“Importantly, we must recognize that the prevailing strategy is already failing. We acutely need ‘a new acquisition culture’ and must disrupt ‘a broken, slow acquisition system.; We already shoulder the burden of ‘growing and innate tactical and logistical risks’ and are weighed down by substantial industrial base risks stemming from ‘a lack of capacity and diversity.’ As a result, we need a new prevailing strategy and not a small hedge strategy making up one tenth of one percent of the president’s budget request.”
Ultimately, Teichert concludes that our military and government must think outside the box to find ways to engage our economies and American ingenuity to find solutions to quickly address the threats that we face at home and abroad.
General John Teichert’s full opinion can be found here at Real Clear Defense.