Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the introduction:
Christopher Kirchhoff is an emerging technology expert who founded the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley office. He has led teams for President Obama, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CEO of Google. He has worked in remote countries on weapons development and humanitarian aid. His pioneering efforts to connect Silicon Valley technology and startups in Washington led him to be responsible for $70 billion in technology purchases by the Department of Defense. He has written many landmark reports, and is the author of them Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Changing the Future of War.
Tyler and Christopher cover the rise of the drone war and how it will affect tactics both on and off the battlefield, the incredible prospect of hypersonic weapons and how they will change the balance of power, EMP attacks, AI as the new arms race (and who’s winning), the technology ecosystem completely different iPhone vs. F-35, why we shouldn’t privatize AI labs, the security clearance problem, why major defense contractors are losing their power, how to overcome the “Valley of Death” in defense procurement, lack of authority in government, whether the -How Unit X started, the most effective form of government commission, what to study next, and more.
Quote:
COWEN: Now, I don’t understand what I read about hypersonic missiles. I see in the media, “China launched the world’s first nuclear-powered hypersonic, and it travels at 10x the speed of sound.” And people are worried. If the guaranteed destruction is already there, what exactly is the concern? Do we just not have enough time to respond?
KIRCHHOFF: A lot of things, and when you put them together, they are really scary. Hypersonic weapons, because of the way they travel, do not have to follow a ballistic trajectory. We have very sophisticated space-based systems that can detect the launch of a missile, especially a nuclear missile, but at the same time you quickly calculate where it will go based on its ballistic trajectory. Well, a hypersonic weapon can steer. It can turn left, turn right, dive up, dive down.
COWEN: But that’s different from hypersonic, right?
KIRCHHOFF: Well, ICBMs don’t have the same functionality. That is another feature that makes hypersonic weapons unique. The second is just speed. For an ICBM launch, you have 20 to 25 minutes or so. That’s why the president’s decision conference rule says, you have to be able to get the president online and his national security advisers, I think, for five or seven minutes. Every system has time to overcome enemy threats. The whole government’s progress plan is suggested by the timeline of hypersonic weapons.
Well, there is no way to defend against them, so forget the fact that they have nuclear power – if you want to take out an aircraft carrier or a fighter, or kill a world leader, a hypersonic weapon is a great way to do it. Watch them carefully because more than anything else, they will change the balance of military power in the next five years.
COWEN: Do you think they are transferring power to China in particular, or to the big countries, or countries that are willing to take big chances? On a conceptual level, what is the nature of the shift, above and beyond anyone else’s?
KIRCHHOFF: Well, right now, they are incredibly difficult to produce. Currently, they are in the research and development phase. It’s the first nation to figure out how to make titanium resist heat, make guidance systems a little better, and do high-volume production — not just the five or seven weapons that are tested every year, either. 25 or 50 or 75 or 100 – that can change the balance of power in a surprising number of war situations.
COWEN: How many does China have now? Are you comfortable dealing with that? Do they have one or two things that aren’t really useful, or are they close to 300?
KIRCHHOFF: What is in the media and has been discussed publicly is that China has successful R&D tests of hypersonic weapons. Hypersonic weapons a lot it is difficult to fly for a long time. They tend to injure themselves at some point during the flight. China has shown off a very full flight cycle of what appears to be a nearly operational weapon.
COWEN: Where is Russia in this space?
KIRCHHOFF: Russia is also trying. Russia is developing a panoply of Dr. The latest to emerge from the public eye is the idea of putting a nuclear weapon on a satellite that would effectively end modern life as we know it by eliminating GPS and satellite communications. That’s a real person sitting in Dr.’s place. Evil, stroking his cat, coming up with ideas for change. They have also come up with a number of other impressive weapons – supercavitating torpedoes that can take out an entire fleet of aircraft carriers. Developed regions are now coming too in a wonderful way powerful weapons.
It’s clever and interesting all around. Also, I am pleased to recommend Christopher’s recent book Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, co-authored with Raj M. Shah.
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