OM DENNE EPISODE
On September 30, Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo titled Project Agincourt: Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command, a plan for a new four-star command built around autonomous warfare. It would be the first functional combatant command stood up from scratch since SOCOM and TRANSCOM in 1987.Maggie and David bring on Bill Greenwalt of the American Enterprise Institute, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy and a longtime Senate Armed Services Committee staffer, for an emergency breakdown.What is a combatant command in the first place? Why is building a new one so rare? And does this turn into a real speed play for autonomy, or just another layer of bureaucracy? Greenwalt's test is simple: are builders working side by side with operators, or three chains removed through the primes and integrators?Plus: what founders should be watching, from DIU's role as the commercial on-ramp to the elevation of Owen West at the unmanned systems DRPM.
As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.
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