Defense Disrupted

Patrick Cronin , Asia-Pacific Security Chair and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, tells Ian Kalin that industrial endurance is deterrence and the US is falling short. The US commissioned 24 Essex-class carriers in the last 15 months of WWII. Today, it can't produce cheap expendable drones at the scale needed to deter, let alone fight. Patrick then pulls apart what's actually happenin...

Every war the U.S. has fought since Korea, no American servicemember has had to wonder if they were being watched from space. Dean Cheng, one of fewer than two dozen analysts outside the U.S. government who reads Chinese primary sources on the PLA space program, tells Ian that era ends in any conflict with China. In some areas, his read is that China may already be ahead. He lays out why the struc...

When retired Lieutenant General Tony Hale, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) of the United States Army, took over as the Army's G-2, the intelligence community's flagship system was sitting in a box in the corner of TOCs because it took eight or nine hours to set up. His 45-day assessment across all three components, active, Guard, and Reserve, told him exactly how far of...

Keith C. Phillips , Major General (ret.), makes a sharp distinction: existential threat, not necessity, is what actually drives defense innovation. He uses Ukraine to prove it: Cold-War-era STEM depth, civil society capital, and 155mm expenditure rates not seen since World War II created conditions where speed wasn't a choice. He applies the same precision to the U.S. intel ecosystem; two cust...

Every defense leader knows the feeling: the capability exists, the need is real, and the system won't move. Marina Nitze spent years inside the federal government — first as one of the original Presidential Innovation Fellows, then as Crisis Engineer & Partner at Layer Aleph — learning why that happens and, more importantly, how to break through it. Her new book, Crisis Engineering , out A...

Ed Barker , Brigadier General (ret.), spent 34 years inside the Army acquisition system, including special operations units where mission failure wasn't an option and "no" was the beginning of the conversation, not the end. That environment forced him to know the rulebook well enough to seek waivers and reclamas through proper channels, and it shaped a career-long instinct for pushin...

Nick Sinai , Managing Director at Insight Partners , spent nearly 6 years inside the Obama administration, helping stand up the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, and keeping notes on why high-profile tech talent from major firms kept failing to change government from the inside. His core observation from that period is that people consistently treated things as fixed constraints that were n...

Court Vanzant , Chief Growth Officer at TurbineOne , offers a veteran entrepreneur framework that rejects the comfort trap: get a formal education to build hard skills, then deliberately seek discomfort as the growth indicator. His metric for knowing you're in the right space is sustained imposter syndrome: if you feel comfortable and competent, you've stopped learning.  For hardware start...

Edge-deployed defense systems operate under different constraints than cloud infrastructure. Daniel Hebb , Engineering Manager at TurbineOne breaks down why you can't spin up additional compute instances: the entire optimization problem shifts from cost-per-transaction to maximum capability within fixed hardware limits. Daniel also touches on a critical gap in MOSA implementation where systems...

SOCOM's acquisition speed advantage isn't about special authorities — they follow identical DOW policies as every one else. The difference is structural proximity and leadership empowerment. Brandi Evans , Director of SOCOM Enterprise at TurbineOne , also operates under a simple principle: there's nothing a PM can decide that can't be fixed within 48 hours. This calculated risk framework, paired w...

It might be surprising, but The International Spy Museum is an important diplomatic tool, functioning as neutral ground where foreign intelligence officers from allied nations can bring their families to understand work they cannot discuss openly. Executive Director Chris Costa ’s observation that U.S. intelligence culture prioritizes public transparency far more than Five Eyes partners traces dir...

Former White House Official Trevor Hough ’s career framework of accepting opportunities aligned with critical national security priorities rather than institutional advancement metrics paid off. Now, he has invaluable insights to share, including why large defense contractors excel at exquisite hardware like bombers and missiles but struggle with software requiring rapid iteration and flat organiz...

When RADM Terry Kraft , USN (ret.), flew his first combat mission during Desert Storm, 20 years of Cold War training doctrine changed in a single night of anti-aircraft fire so dense "you could walk on it." His experience commanding the USS Ronald Reagan 's maiden deployment and flying 40 combat missions gives insights into leadership adaptation under extreme pressure and the evolution of naval wa...

Ret. Vice Admiral Bob Sharp 's journey from Desert Storm to NGA Director showcases how foundational experiences can shape decades of strategic thinking. His framework for intelligence-operations integration, where intelligence without operations is just trivia, and operations without intelligence is dangerous, emerged from witnessing combat operations during the Gulf War.   Bob also shares his lea...

Responsible AI requires understanding capabilities and limitations the same way officers learn that Aegis radar struggles on cloudy days. This mindset shift could change how the military adopts AI systems across operational environments.   Emelia Probasco , Senior Fellow at CSET , discusses how Project Maven succeeded by finding "trilingual leaders" who understood operations, technology, and contr...

Ret. Lt. Gen. Bob Ashley 's career spans the complete transformation of military intelligence, from alcohol pens and map boards in 1987 to tactical Internet access at the squad level today. He witnessed and shaped how intelligence operations evolved across six combat tours and two decades of conflict.    His insights highlight critical vulnerabilities in our communications-dependent approach to wa...

Mike Minihan , General, USAF (ret.) breaks down the "permissive environment trap" plaguing current military thinking. While recent operations in Iran, Ukraine, and Israel demonstrate exceptional execution, he tells Ian they mask fatal capability gaps that will emerge in Pacific conflicts where forces face contestation in all domains. Mobility aircraft currently have less connectivity than consumer...

Heather Ichord , CEO & Founder of Mile37 Tech, LLC , argues that successful defense technology goes far beyond building better hardware — it requires understanding exactly how tactical units will employ these systems, including training pipelines, maintenance requirements, and sustainment logistics in environments where contractors can't provide on-site support. Her framework for evaluating de...

Defense acquisition feels broken, because it's working exactly as designed — to prevent political embarrassment rather than enable mission success. Dr. Alexis Lasselle Ross , President of Apex Defense Strategies , spent 25 years navigating this system and breaks down the fundamental business dynamics that control America's defense spending, from congressional quasi-entitlements that build on thems...

Lieutenant General (ret.) Mike Dana believes the biggest impediment to defense innovation isn't technology limitations but institutional processes that prioritize compliance over speed. Mike advocates for acquisition restructuring to match the pace of modern threats where visibility equals vulnerability.   Dana's approach combines operational urgency with practical relationship building. His Pacif...

Combat operations in the Red Sea since October 2023 have provided the U.S. Navy with invaluable real-world data on modern naval warfare, validating decades of systems development while exposing critical capability gaps that demand immediate attention. Rear Admiral (ret.) Fred Pyle , who concluded his 40-year naval career as Director of Surface Warfare managing $30 billion in annual capabilities, o...

The assumption that America maintains decisive military superiority might be more dangerous than the threats we're actually facing. Daniel "D-Day" Simpson , Major General USAF (ret), brings decades of intelligence and operational experience to challenge conventional wisdom about peer competition, artificial intelligence, and the pace of defense innovation.   D-Day's career trajectory provides uniq...

Two veteran intelligence officers with distinct naval and marine backgrounds reflect on how military intelligence operations have evolved from exclusive government programs to information-saturated environments where technology frequently fails to deliver. In this candid conversation on Defense Disrupted, Ed Padinske , Retired Navy Captain, who served as senior intelligence officer for Navy specia...

From the frontlines to AI deployment at the tactical edge, Chané Jackson , Former Chief Data Scientist for U.S. Special Operations Command brings 20+ years of military experience to our inaugural episode of Defense Disrupted.  Chané shares how machine learning and AI are transforming battlefield operations while discussing the challenges of implementing these technologies in disconnected environme...