From the Crows' Nest

David Deptula [00:00:02]:
Every conflict is different and what applies in the context of Ukraine, Russia, in terms of small quadcopters with lethal devices having an impact on that war may not have much utility at all when you're talking about trying to deter China from a cross straits invasion of Taiwan separated by 100 miles of water. Each environment is the conflict is going to occur on is going to be determined by the situation at hand.

Ken Miller [00:00:50]:
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest. I'm your host, Ken Miller from the Association of Old Crows. It's great to be back with you. Very excited about this episode. Today we are going to talk about winning the next war and really looking at the challenging global security environment. And I am very pleased to have with me in the studio today retired U.S. Air Force General David Deptula. He is the Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Ken Miller [00:01:16]:
He is also arguably the foremost expert on military aerospace issues. General Deptula, thank you for joining me here on From the Crows' Nest. It's great to have you on the show.

David Deptula [00:01:26]:
Thanks Ken. It's great to be here with you and the From the Crows' Nest audience, so really appreciate the opportunity and look forward to our discussion.

Ken Miller [00:01:36]:
So a lot of our listeners probably know who you are, have heard of the Mitchell Institute. Of course, whenever Mitchell Institute comes out with a new report, we're, we're going to release it. You know, we're going to help send it out. But just for those who might not know who you are, could you share a little bit about your role with, with the Mitchell Institute and some of the studies that you have authored recently that are going to obviously inform our discussion here today?

David Deptula [00:01:57]:
Well, Ken, thanks for the opportunity. The Mitchell Institute is really the nation's only think tank that is solely focused on exploiting the virtues of air and space power. And so what our mission at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies is, is threefold. It's to educate, it's to influence, and it's to inspire. So with respect to education, we educate the policymakers, leaders and the public on the virtues and value of air and space power. And then we work hard to influence the national resource debate to ensure that the Air Force and the Space force receive the funding and attention that they need to maintain our nation's security. And then the final piece is really to cultivate air and space minded leadership across the policy community for the purpose of developing thinkers who actually understand these domains and how they underpin modern deterrence and defense. I could go on for quite a while, but that's kind of it.

David Deptula [00:03:04]:
In a, in a Nutshell, we do a variety of studies, full up 40 to 50 to 60 pages that are posted on our website that run the gamut From Air Force 4 structure challenges to how do we improve readiness issues to space based issues which are growing in importance. You know, the reports that we put out really clarify for the American public and some of the security decision makers just what they ought to be focusing on and expanding their horizons. A matter of fact, we're doing a paper rollout tomorrow that I'd encourage everyone to, to zoom in on and take a look at. All these papers as well as our publications, op EDS and articles can be found on our website, which is at www.mitchellaerospacepower.org. it's a long name, but all one word. Mitchellaerospacepower dot org so thanks for the opportunity to provide that little pitch up front.

Ken Miller [00:04:15]:
I appreciate it. And you know, like, like I said, a lot of your recent reports that you put out as well as some articles, you know, really are going to inform our discussion today. As, as I read them, I became clear that, you know, I wanted to have you on the show because we're recording this on November 5th. Current this Week I'm, I'm on Capitol Hill. We're talking a lot with members of Congress and staff on really the challenging global security environment, the, the instability that we find out there, what, what we need to do to ensure that the US has the military advantage in, across all domains. And of course being the aoc, we talk a lot about this from an MSO perspective and how we need to collaborate better with the other functional command capabilities, cyber strategic command and then you have the geographic command. So how do we collaborate and address the disaggregation of MSO across the services as we're trying to address capability, capacity, readiness and so forth. So there's no other person I'd rather have on the show to discuss all this.

Ken Miller [00:05:25]:
And so I want to kind of basically to get started off and obviously when we look at the world there's so much to cover. We're not going to get to everything. But I want to talk a little bit just to start with looking at some of the current challenges around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, War, a little bit about Indo, Paycom and Middle east and so forth. Because a lot of these conflicts we want to look at lessons learned, but we also have to recognize that they're all interconnected. And so whenever we're dealing with how do we address these challenges in one area we have to have an eye to another area. So to get started with the Russia Ukraine war, we've talked a lot on this show about how it's really changing how we think about the spectrum, how we think about the capabilities that we can deploy in a very chaotic environment. Chaotic spectrum, environment. What are you seeing in terms of technology trends and how is the US addressing some of these technology challenges in terms of how it affects force structure and the capabilities that we, that we take to the field?

David Deptula [00:06:33]:
Well, it's a good question. It's one that we could spend the entire hour or more talking about. You know, as you allude, the war in Ukraine has become a grinding test of endurance, technology and strategy. And what began as Russia's desired rapid assault has turned into a protracted conflict of attrition with Ukraine demonstrating some remarkable resilience. Now the, the issue that you raise is one that folks need to be careful of in terms of extracting lessons because every conflict is different. So and by the way, the opponents in conflicts are different. So to take what Ukraine and Russia are doing and saying, well, that's the way it's going to be in the next conflict involving the United States is not necessarily a logical conclusion. We're talking about very, very different capabilities, training and systems that Ukraine has from Russia.

David Deptula [00:07:48]:
I mean, there's obviously been a lot of attention on the use of drones and oh my gosh, you know, people are saying, well, drones, this is the way warfare is going to end up in the future. Well, wait a second, let's take a look at that in the context of the situation that Ukrainians found themselves in with the Russians. And part of the issue here is also the definition of just what drones are. I would tell you that we have to be very careful because the term has become so ubiquitous. It applies to, you know, micro devices that can fly around in a room that you can barely see, all the way up to 80, 90,000 pound vehicles that are traditionally associated with extracting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. And you know, what people are calling drones that are being used for long range attack are really nothing more than cruise missiles. And so there are a lot of different aspects that have to be viewed here and folks need to kind of take a step back and look at what's happening. I think that the application of quadcopters with hand grenades have become really important in terms of being replacement for what Ukraine has found lacking in terms of nominal supply of things like conventional artillery.

David Deptula [00:09:19]:
So they've come up with a substitute and it's a lot cheaper. You put a explosive device on a quadcopter, and provide that to infantry, which is sort of a leap in capability. And what you're really talking about is providing each infantry person with their own precision guided munition, which is really significant when you think about the effect that they can have on traditional infantry and armor operations. And that's somewhere that has really demonstrated an impact. You can't move as a, as a human being in a closed fight anymore without being observed and targeted. And that has fundamentally affected traditional concepts of ground warfare. But people then exploit this and say, well, you know, this is having an impact on the air domain. Well, not so much when you think about that.

David Deptula [00:10:21]:
It's having an impact on traditional infantry and armor operations. And all you have to do is take a look at the fact that Ukraine stopped using its M1A1S tanks that were provided by the United States because they're not survivable anymore.

Ken Miller [00:10:36]:
That's really interesting about the lesson learned. How, how much of it, in your opinion, kind of goes back to, you know, if you follow the organizing constructs that really have guided military defense investment over the decades, every season or so to speak, there's a shift in how we are planning for the next fight. There was the asymmetric warfare, global war on terror. There's war on two fronts simultaneously. Different, different A2D, two things of that nature. How much of that is, you know, from the lessons learned, what we can gain from those lessons, as well as even that process of figuring out what we need to learn. How much of that is a product of historically having an advantage where we have time to address the changing global security environment versus today where it's a lot more chaotic, more peer competitors, a little bit, you know, more unstable. I don't think you can have a clear notion that the next war is going to be one particular type of fight, similar to the way that we used to organize under the Cold War and so forth.

Ken Miller [00:11:42]:
Is there a change in terms of our advantage around the world in global power that's affecting what we can glean from some of these conflicts?

David Deptula [00:11:51]:
It's a complex question. What has driven you, Ukraine into some of the solutions that they have adopted which has given them an advantage? Remember, Ukraine, Russia fight is really analogous to a David versus Goliath situation where Russia is Goliath and, and Ukraine's David, and they've had to come up with alternatives for, you know, what I talked about, absence in terms of numbers of traditional weapons, as well as making up for, for a relative deficiency in manpower relative to Russia and the way they've made up for that is by deploying a lot of these small precision guided munitions as well as capitalizing on long range strike. Now they don't have the traditional advantages in the context of air and space power that the United States has. So they've come up with some of these alternatives like building lots and lots of cruise missiles that they're now using to penetrate at depth. So they're relying on traditional strategic means of affecting an adversary like Russia by going to critical nodes inside Russia. But they're doing it by building their own alternatives because they don't have access to the systems that the United States have because for policy reasons and now this gets into into strategy. But the prior administration and this one too has not provided Ukraine the means to strike deep. Now back to your question.

David Deptula [00:13:30]:
Every conflict is different and what applies in the context of Ukraine, Russia, in terms of small quadcopters with lethal devices having an impact on that war may not have much utility at all. When you're talking about trying to deter China from across straits invasion of Taiwan separated by 100 miles of water. Each environment is the conflict is going to occur on is going to be determined by the situation at hand. They had a lot of people talking about drones, drones, drones and drones where if you just looked at the Israeli conflict with Iran, yeah, there were some drones involved. But the real key facet that allowed Israel to dominate the Iranians was the stealth, precision and information capabilities provided by the F35. So look, we've got to adapt to the situation at hand and provide the kinds of capabilities that are necessary to achieve the particular objectives required in a particular conflict. So I know that's kind of a generic answer and you mentioned early on lessons learned, it's really lessons adapted to a particular conflict situation that's going to be important. And what really gets to the heart of the issue is how rapidly can friends and adversaries adapt to accommodate the needs that provide them an advantage in a particular environment.

Ken Miller [00:15:16]:
Do you think that there's more urgency as well as I guess you say stress on military planners with the notion that, you know, Russia, Ukraine, regardless of how that sorts itself out in the coming months, years, whatever, Middle east into pacom, a lot of these conflicts as well as some that haven't started but are percolating and we was talking earlier today about, you know, South America and some of those potential zones of conflict is is there more stress on military planners to understand that like you mentioned, there are certain things that are changing in the fight over in Ukraine and there's certain capabilities, policy decisions over there that apply over there, but they don't apply to indopacom. However, all these scenarios could be going on at the same time, which means the US has to be prepared to be everywhere and fight in those different environments at the same time. Does that make it more difficult to figure out, here's the type of force that we need to have that is adaptable for all environments across all domains, or is they're a piece to the strategy development that puts us on a good path to be able to accomplish that?

David Deptula [00:16:29]:
Kid, it's a great point, and it gets to the heart of just what our national defense strategy ought to be. And the fact of the matter is that we have atrophied in terms of military capability since the end of the Gulf War. I can speak very specifically to the United States Air Force and the fact that today we're the oldest, the smallest, and the least ready we've ever been in our entire history. And that needs to. People need to let that sink in for a minute because we're also faced with a set of threats that are the greatest that we've ever faced in our nation's history. I just made the comment we're the oldest, smallest, least ready Air Force. At the same time, the People's Republic of China's Air Force is the newest, the largest, and the most ready they've ever been in their history. Which takes us to the essence of your comment.

David Deptula [00:17:26]:
We're not only faced by challenges in China, but Europe is faced by Russia's aggression. It is a key, critical US national security interest to make sure that Russia is deterred from continuing its aggression beyond Ukraine. And part of that is to assure that we support Ukraine and assist them in winning against Russia. You know, Russia is not a frenemy. Russia is an enemy along with China, along with Iran, along with North Korea. So back to the essence of your question. The United States military needs to be able to be prepared to engage in and win contingency situations in multiple locations simultaneously. Unfortunately, over the last several decades, the US Military has atrophied to the point where we're going to have some big challenges in being able to do that.

David Deptula [00:18:32]:
Again, my expertise is air and space power. You know what the age of the youngest B52 is?

Ken Miller [00:18:40]:
It's got to be 60 years old, 63.

David Deptula [00:18:45]:
That's the youngest B52 that we're flying. People go, oh, what does that matter? Well, because the B52 is. The preponderance makes up the preponderance of not just the US but the free world's bomber force. The United States is the only free world nation that. That has bombers. Now, are they relevant today? Well, you bet. In a Pacific theater, which has 16 time zones, the quickest way to achieve a decisive effect is by going 600 miles an hour or more. That's air power versus going 20 knots or less, which is sea power, which people tend to think about.

David Deptula [00:19:25]:
Well, the Pacific is a. Is a naval theater. No, it's an air theater. The Ocean might cover 70% of the Earth's surface, but Air and Space covers 100%. If you want to do something quick, you do it by getting there through air and space power. So the fact of the matter is we need all the services, but we need to pay strong attention to and recover the state of the air force and stop its decline in terms of size and capability because it's fundamental to the success of joint force operations. It's not just because we need a strong air force. It's because we need the elements and the capabilities that they provide to allow our joint force to succeed.

Ken Miller [00:20:08]:
A couple weeks ago, I think, or last week, you had a good article in Forbes talking a little bit about defense innovation, that kind of blending of legacy and new systems and new entrants into the market. And I want to talk about that in a minute, but before we get to that, because again, all these topics we could turn into individual episodes that take an hour. But I think I can apply this question to each zone. It might be easier. Each conflict area or contingency. What is one thing that we've done right as a country and one thing that we need to do better at when it pertains to how we engage in these contingency operations.

David Deptula [00:20:47]:
Well, in terms of what we've done right is we have built a spectrum of systems that have capitalized on advanced technologies that give the United States a capability advantage relative to any potential adversary that's out there. And we saw that manifest itself in the application of F35 stealth and situational awareness, which allowed the Israelis to achieve air superiority over Iran in a matter of hours. And I think that surprised a lot of people. But it's indicative of the technological advantage and why capitalizing on that advantage is so important. What we've done wrong is we have not kept up with the capacity needs of our nation to deter adversaries that are growing around the world. And that's why I emphasize that, you know, while technology is great, you can only have so many systems in one place at one time. And so, you know, numbers have a quality all of their own. And so there are my two answers in a abbreviated manner to your question.

David Deptula [00:22:07]:
Technology capitalizing in terms of military systems, and that applies in all the domains of aerospace, sea and land. But in terms of what we've not done so well is that's keep up with the capacity requirements because the last 30 years have has lured us into a sense of capacity and capability that, hey, we can handle any fight. And guess what? That's not the case.

Ken Miller [00:22:37]:
And with the capacity I mentioned at the top of the show, I've been on the Hill this week and of course everybody is talking about the, the current shutdown when this airs. Hopefully we will have had a deal in place and the government will be open by the time this airs next week. But today it's November 5th, so the government's still shut down. That's a constant message point in that we do have capacity issues we need to address in military funding. And when you I would say the way that Congress has conducted its spending responsibilities puts a great strain on our ability to plan to fund the programs we need. And particularly in an MSO world because we're so disaggregated when there's an omnibus or there's a, you know, some sort of blanket extension of funding, that money quickly gets siphoned off because there's just not enough going into the defense that to to build that the force that we need that sometimes some of the niche capabilities like mso, they get sacrificed a bit and we have to get back to regular budgeting. So how from a what are some of the steps that we can do? Just generally speaking, whether it's in the Pentagon or in Congress or anywhere, what are some things we can do to address the capacity issue today in terms of going down that path?

David Deptula [00:23:51]:
You know, what are the things we can do? Again, speaking from the Department of the Air Force perspective, there is no more doing more with less. There are no more efficiencies that can be squeezed out of the system that's already been squeezed out of the system. If you want an air and space force that can meet the demands of the nation's security strategy, you need to regrow first. You need to stop the decline in the size of the Air Force. I mean, that's a big elephant in the room. How small you want to go. When are we going to stop the decline? We have less than half the number of forces today that we had in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War. Are the threats facing the United States greater or less today than they were in 1991? We had this belief with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the decline that peace was going to break out.

David Deptula [00:24:46]:
And that's not what we're seeing happen today. Meanwhile, the force structure has still been on a decline. We had this diversion over the last 20 years to. To get involved with trying to defeat counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which arguably really sucked a lot of resources out of US Defense, which led to the situation that the Air Force finds itself in today. The oldest, the smallest, and the least ready. So in order to correct these things, first, awareness needs to be raised. And that's why you keep on hearing the Mitchell Institute talk about these issues. And the way to solve that is you got to increase the resources that you provide to our military.

David Deptula [00:25:35]:
Now, here's the deal. I get it. Everyone out there has a different perspective on guns versus butter, all right? But the fact of the matter is, you can't argue with the preamble of the Constitution, although I know there are some people that will. But you know what it states is that, look, we form a government. The reason we have a government is to, quote, provide for the common defense, comma, promote the general welfare. Unfortunately, the way the Congress has been spending, because of the makeup of Congress and because people get elected by what they bring home to their districts, there's more focus on the domestic support piece than there is to the fundamental need to defend our nation. And until folks realize that, that we are at, as a percentage of GDP spending the last we've ever spent on our security requirements, we're going to end up with a situation I'm afraid is only going to be realized when we lose the next major regional conflict. And then people are going to wonder, well, how did this happen? What happened? Because you didn't provide the necessary resources to secure our nation.

David Deptula [00:26:53]:
And I know that's pretty dramatic, but, you know, I've gotten to the point where I think that is realistic. And if we continue to deal with this. And by the way, adding to this challenge is, you know, we now have a $38 trillion budget deficit. You could eliminate the entire Department of Defense, and it wouldn't put a dent in the $38 trillion debt.

Ken Miller [00:27:21]:
Yeah.

David Deptula [00:27:21]:
So fundamentally, we as a nation need to deal with what is an entitlements problem. Unfortunately, because of the nature of our political system, no one's going to say anything about it until the day before the whole system collapses. And then it's going to be too late.

Ken Miller [00:27:43]:
One of the things we talked about this week was this notion that given where we're at in terms of technology and how wars are fought and won today, particularly looking at it from a spectrum problem, whether or not you're in theater as a war fighter conducting an operation or you're a civilian back here at home, in many ways you're just as close to the front lines here at home as a war fighter in the sense of what the, the reach that our adversaries can have on us. And so I agree because I think the notion that somehow we can bifurcate or divide the make a difference between funding defense and funding domestic, the next war is going to be, have domestic consequences for far beyond. I think what we've experienced in the past with, with conflicts and so that, that general welfare is, cannot be delinked from national security and a common defense. And so, so let me shift gears a little bit on, on kind of still addressing this, you know, from an MSO perspective. I'd like to get your thoughts on this. One of the things we, I want to, you mentioned that we can't really find new ways to do more with less. And we've got to move beyond that. What can we do in terms of collaboration across the domains you mentioned, you're, you're obviously expert.

Ken Miller [00:29:08]:
Well, you're, you're expert in a lot of many aspects of war fighting. But you mentioned, you know, the war, the air superiority, air domain. We have the geographic combatant commands, we have the functional combatant commands, we have the services. We have various war fighting domains. Airland, sea, space, cyber. I'm speaking from an EMSO hat. How can we as an EMSO community, but generally speaking in defense work across these functional areas, these geographic commands better so that we can bring a, a fresh capability and a fresh look to the fight that maybe we wouldn't have otherwise because of traditional stove pipes.

David Deptula [00:29:46]:
Yeah, well, it's again, it's a great question and what you're really getting to is the essence of jointness integration in this particular area, the role of MSO jointness. Too many people have the wrong understanding and I would suggest you that our war colleges have not done a very good job recently in actually educating up and coming officers about what joyous really is join us is using the right force at the right place at the right time. It's not using every force, every place, all the time. It's not little league rules. And to have jointness requires the separateness of the services that we have. And so that's why I believe we need to have the strongest Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, space Force in the world. Because the beauty of this whole joint notion of operations is that a joint task force commander, when faced with a particular set of conflict situation, can then select the right elements from each of the service components or functional components to meet the needs of that particular situation. This particularly applies with respect to electromagnetic spectrum operations, because those operations are key in bridging the gap between aerospace and cyber to create a seamless operational picture and to have seamless operational effects.

David Deptula [00:31:26]:
Because if we do a good job of integrating MSO with all the other domains, that then gives us the ability to control the battle space in ways that our adversaries simply can't match. And we're good at this because unlike countries like China, who have had little to no experience in actual conflict in accomplish these kinds of integration tasks, we've had a lot of experience in that regard. That doesn't mean that we can't do better. But you need an integrative function, which is what our combatant commands provide to be able to match these capabilities in a very, very effective way. But now getting back to. And this gets complicated, but you know, the combatant commands are the ones who employ forces. The services are the ones that organize, train and equip those forces. And I think that gets to the basis of your question.

David Deptula [00:32:28]:
How do we do a better job in terms of doing that? And that requires integration across the services to assure that each is developing capabilities to meet the needs of their particular domains. But at the same time, without excessive redundancy between the services, that falls to the leadership inside the Department of Defense to make sure that that excess overlap does not occur. And I think the Department needs to do a much better job than it has recently. Because look, I'm pragmatic. We're not going to get a giant plus up of money to solve the Department of Defense's resource challenges. So what that means is the Department of Defense has to do a much better job in allocating resources than it already has across the services to optimize capability. And that's going to mean some hard choices, which means that fundamentally we're going to have to do. I mean, if the Department of Defense Department of War leadership is serious about squeezing the most out of the resources that it has, is we're going to have to come up with a serious rules and missions review to take a look at.

David Deptula [00:33:46]:
How do we look at cross service lines to provide capabilities that will strengthen the entire joint force, not Just individual service components. And a key place where this has a role is in taking a look at MSO operations.

Ken Miller [00:34:02]:
You mentioned earlier the defense industrial base and obviously the key to a healthy military capability capacity is a healthy industrial base, especially here in the US and also what we can provide to our allies and partners around the world. There are a lot of trends out there. We mentioned some and, and you know, there's a lot of emphasis these days like oh, we have to invest more in drones, so we have to have this new tech. There's cognitive systems, AI driven systems, unmanned systems. There's also next generation platforms, but there's also legacy platforms. You mentioned the B52 in the 63rd year. I want to talk a little bit about the industrial based challenges and how we both increase or strengthen innovation entrance into the market. But also understand that you still need that, that legacy market, that legacy or industry to, to address some of the challenges of existing systems and platforms that are out there that we're still going to be flying for another 10 to 15 years maybe.

Ken Miller [00:35:06]:
How do we balance that from an industrial based perspective to ensure that we can continue to innovate, but innovate in a way that addresses our, the force that we have and have, will have for the next 10 to 15 years?

David Deptula [00:35:21]:
Yeah, well, like you insinuate there, Ken, it is a balance between established industry, the large primes. Not that they can't innovate on their own, but they traditionally their method of producing a profit is by capitalizing on the systems that they've already produced. There's a balance between that approach and smaller companies that tend to be able to flex and adapt very, very rapidly in different ways than we've had in the past. The challenge is the capacity one. So when you talk about industrial base and you look at examples like what happened During World War II, we had time to go from producing 10 aircraft a year, up to 50,000 aircraft per year. We don't have that capacity anymore today. It just simply does not exist. Not for large scale systems.

David Deptula [00:36:22]:
But if you do look at the model that we've seen Ukraine adopt because they're faced with an existential threat that does a lot to, to motivate people to come up with alternatives. They're now building over 4 million drones a year. Now that doesn't mean that, you know, well, why don't we build $4 million? Because, because if you do and you put them in a warehouse, they're not going to be worth a damn when you need to pull them out of the warehouse to Engage. You know, the lesson there is really one of adaptability and flexibility in terms of being able to respond to a need that allows one to secure an alternative that they might not be able to get otherwise. It's that kind of agility that we need to be able to adapt to. But at the same time, remember I mentioned earlier the advanced technology piece, you know, that doesn't fall out of a tree, that takes years of development and understanding and history and proven concepts to build upon. So it's a balance of both innovation and established capability. What we are really kind of hurting on, and this is a path that the Department of Defense elected to take along with the national security leadership over the last 20 years.

David Deptula [00:37:51]:
And that was to get smaller. Remember, we used to have on the order of 50 large defense contractors that we necked down to not more than five or six. And that was done with intent because we were searching for a peace dividend. We didn't think that we were going to have a set of adversaries that we're facing today. So it takes time to rebuild that capacity. And quite frankly, I don't think we'll ever get back to the numbers or the capacity to build the kinds of numbers of systems that we were able to build in a short period of time that occurred during World War II. So what that means is you need to invest in capability and capacity during peacetime because you're not going to have time during wartime to catch up.

Ken Miller [00:38:40]:
So what is something that DoD can do? And this might take a Congressional involvement too, but one of the most challenging parts of my job over the years has always trying to figure out how the flow of money through the Pentagon. It's really hard when you're trying to look at where the funding is going, where the programs are, the milestones. Obviously, if there's no validated requirement, you can't get the money against it. But once you do get the money, you have to, you have to develop the technology, you have to test it, you have to field it. It all comes from different parts at different times. What is something that DoD can do, or maybe a better way of saying, what are certain indicators that you're looking for to let us know that we're on the right path to be able to build the capacity we need with the industrial base that we have?

David Deptula [00:39:25]:
Well, first, Congress can pass budgets on time. Let's jump to the macro level here. There has to be a fundamental realization that operating a Congress with over 200 year old processes needs to change. Okay, Annual budgeting, which you know, we've only passed four budgets on time in the last 50 years. That is atrocious. And fundamentally, it's not what DoD does. DoD responds to the demands of the Congress. Congress needs to be reformed, period.

David Deptula [00:39:56]:
Dot. Second. And look, you asked the question, so I'm going to give you some straightforward answers. Second, we need to adopt term limits because until term limits are adopted, Congresspeople and Senators are only going to vote in what allows them to get reelected. They're not going to necessarily vote in what's in the best interest of the nation's security. Perhaps with term limits in their second term, they might make decisions in what's in the best interest of the nation's security. That's pretty blunt, but I dare say anyone who has been around the defense community in the last 40 years would tell you that that's the reality. So those are not satisfactory answers, but they're truthful answers.

David Deptula [00:40:43]:
And until we get Congress shaped up and allows the Department of Defense to do things like multi year procurement. Congress doesn't like multi year procurement. Why? Because they view that as losing control. If they have annual control, then they have control. But that doesn't say much or do much for our nation's industrial base or security. Back to the industrial base piece. What is going to motivate companies to go out and take risk to invest on their own and their own money in systems that advance technologies if the Department of Defense is not going to buy the systems? So, you know, it boils down to resources. Is the Congress willing to apply the resources that the nation needs to maintain its security? And right now the answer is no, they're not.

David Deptula [00:41:33]:
And that needs to change.

Ken Miller [00:41:36]:
Congress needs to understand that. Yeah, like you said, especially from the industrial based perspective, the investment that companies do into the next technology that they want to, you know, advance, they need that long term certainty that at least there's a business case that for that investment to pay off down the road. They still have not done a long term CR for this year. They're already talking about next year. We're probably also not going to have a budget because it'll be an election year. So that doesn't send a good signal to our defense base industrial base that hey, it's a safe environment to invest money in because the payoff is going to be at least somewhat reliable.

David Deptula [00:42:17]:
Look at the commercial space. Who wants to invest in defense, particularly with the small margins that are involved relative to the commercial space, the amount of rules and regulations that have to be followed. Now, to their credit, let me offer up. And I think the Secretary of War Defense is going to come out the day after tomorrow with some new postulated revisions to the way the Department of Defense, Department of War does acquisition. And at least the preliminary draft indicates that part of their approach is to get rid of much of the, of the bureaucratic demands that slow down the acquisition of systems. And you know, that's a, that's a great step forward if in fact that's what they're going to do on the part of the Department of Defense. But none of that makes any difference if Congress doesn't provide the resources that are necessary to, to build the systems that are necessary in a dependable fashion where, as you mentioned, industry recognizes that. Yeah.

David Deptula [00:43:32]:
Okay, we're going to go in this direction and money's going to be spent and it's worth taking a risk to invest in these systems.

Ken Miller [00:43:40]:
Well, General Deptola, I want to respect your time. I really greatly appreciate you taking time out to join me. We only scratched the surface of all the topics, so hopefully at some point I can have you back on and have Mitchell Institute represents on the show again because I think that the, the, the expertise from which you, you speak and write and the content you create is, is phenomenal and worth a read for all of our listeners. So thank you so much for taking time to join me here on, on from the Crow's Nest. And again, if any of our listeners want to tap, to connect to you, tap into the resources that Mitchell Institute has, it's, I'll let you do the website because I probably get it wrong. So. But thank you for joining me.

David Deptula [00:44:17]:
No, it's mitchellaerospacepower.org, but you can also just Google Mitchell Institute and we'll pop up. Thanks very much, Ken. I appreciate the opportunity and all the best to you and your audience.

Ken Miller [00:44:29]:
Thank you very much. And that will conclude this episode of From the Crows' Nest. I want to thank my guest, retired Air Force General David Deptula, for joining me here on the show. As always, please take a moment to review, share and subscribe to the subscribe this podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners. So please take a moment and let us know how we're doing. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.