'[General John Hyten] goes on to highlight how the Minuteman I ICBM program met or exceeded all its expectations and objectives, delivering 800 three stage solid fuel rocket ICBMs, silos to put them in, and a very elaborate command and control architecture in just five years at a cost of $17B in today's dollars—and none of it had been done before. Now, even with all we have learned over more than half a century, it takes 12 to 17 years and $84B to build half the missiles, refurbish the existing silos they will sit in, not build new ones, and the command and control architecture is a separate budget altogether.' (
Source, September 22, 2017)
- Context:
(Transmedium vehicles) - 'The gross inaction and the stigma surrounding unexplained aerial phenomena..''..the Department of Defense is still unbelievably bureaucratic and slow..'Hyten said his successor will need to focus on 'speed'Hyten is set to retire next month and, in what will likely be some of his last public remarks as Vice Chairman, he encouraged his as-yet-unnamed successor "in everything that he touches to focus on speed and re-inserting speed back in the process of the Pentagon." Hyten previously served as commander of US Strategic Command, where he was in charge of the nation's nuclear stockpile and monitored strategic threats to the United States.
"Although we're making marginal progress, the Department of Defense is still unbelievably bureaucratic and slow," Hyten said. "We can go fast if we want to but the bureaucracy we put in place is just brutal."
..
Hyten also criticized the American attitude toward failure, arguing that it has curtailed development.
"We've decided that failure is bad," Hyten said. "Nope, failure is part of the learning process. And if you want to get back to speed, you better figure out how to put speed back into [sic] and that means taking risk and that means learning from failures and that means failing fast and moving fast."
A failed test of a hypersonic glide vehicle last week underscored Hyten's point. A rocket booster, used to accelerate a glide vehicle to hypersonic speeds, failed, the Pentagon said, and the rest of the test could not proceed. Officials have started a review of the test to find out why the rocket booster failed, and there is not currently a scheduled date for another test.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, meanwhile, has learned the lesson of failed tests to speed up development, Hyten argued.
Unlike Kim Jong Un's father, Hyten said, "He decided not to kill scientists and engineers when they failed, he decided to encourage it and let them learn by failing. And they did. So the 118th biggest economy in the world -- the 118th -- has built an ICBM nuclear capability because they test and fail and understand risk."
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Senior US general warns China's military progress is 'stunning' as US is hampered by 'brutal' bureaucracy, October 28, 2021
Context '..bureaucracy - '..our organizations are .. hostages to an ideology that is, in a real sense, inhuman.''..You really have to be able to think about the post-bureaucratic world..'(Peace) '..weapons development .. a peaceful or nonweapons application..''..a more interesting, human way of transforming yourself. It's about how you treat your employees.''Most organizations are still feudal at their core..' - Gary Hamel'..have organizations that are more and more adaptable and far more humane..'(Management innovation) - The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy(Management innovation) - '..organizational model that was designed to serve the interests of ancient military commanders..'(MIX) - Can you lead without authority? - '..the need to “lead without authority.” ' - Rethinking the Work of Leadership'I think we need an ideological revolution.. - Hamel(To learn to train for peace - Train for Peace) - '..the United States has no compelling military need to keep a permanent troop presence in the Middle East.'