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NDIA’s IPW Division is excited to announce that Robert "Bob" Scher, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities, and member of the recent Strategic Posture Commission, has confirmed his role as a Keynote speaker for the 2024 Integrated Precision Warfare Review (IPWR) this May. Hon Scher was central to the development of the SPC report, which was authored at the direction of Congress and is intended to reflect a non-partisan, clear-eyed view on the strategic situation the US is facing. It noted that we will soon face “two nuclear peers” and that the risk of conflict with them is “increasing.” The SPC called it an “existential challenge for which the US is ill-prepared” and called for “urgent” action. Most notably, they came to unanimous, non-partisan consensus on 131 “findings” and 81 “recommendations” to address this challenge, spanning a broad range of national security topics, including nuclear strategy, our strategic posture, the nuclear enterprise/infrastructure, non-nuclear capabilities, allies and partners, and risk reduction. Join us at 2024 IPWR for a chance to engage in dialogue with Hon Scher on this critical topic that impacts the entirety of the Defense Industry. Follow this link for registration to our Secret//NOFORN event: https://lnkd.in/eKhm_s-E

Ground segment infrastructure is just as HARD as the Space segment. It's complex, it takes time, it takes money, yet this lesson keeps getting ignored. Hopefully, the Space Development Agency won't make the same mistake as the United States Air Force. Stephen Losey: "The U.S. Air Force “underestimated” the complexity of building a sprawling network of launch centers and other ground infrastructure for its next nuclear missile [...] which include building new launch control centers across the Plains region, refurbishing existing silos for the new missiles and replacing about 7,500 miles of copper cable connecting the facilities with modern fiber optics. [...] The Pentagon originally expected to spend $77.7 billion on Sentinel, but the program is now likely to cost about $160 billion if it stays on its current course." Miratlas optimises the cost and complexity of the ground segment to support direct to Earth Lasercom. Measure it twice, cut once, stay on schedule and within budget.

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"Edited by James Graham Wilson, the volume provides a wealth of information, much of it new, on a range of national security topics that absorbed the Carter administration from day one, including efforts to make nuclear targeting more flexible, continuity of government concerns (and related command and control issues), MX missile basing, military budgets, emergency action procedures, missile attack false alarms, the strategic balance, and strategic intelligence estimates. Highlights from the new FRUS collection are featured in an Electronic Briefing Book published today by the National Security Archive." #nuclear #emergency #continuity https://lnkd.in/gVt4FpCd

Craig Spacey CEng CMarEng thank you for bringing this to our attention! This is very illuminating and incisive discussion of U.S. submarine construction challenges. My eyes couldn’t help but gravitate towards • William Toti focus on discerning root causes before working out solutions—a discipline sorely forgotten when approaching harder problems. Amazon working backwards offers a valuable methodology to support such an approach. Some tounge and cheek, but working with many leading consultant organisations I have been forced to develop the Suppression of Good Idea Fairy (SGIF) operations. The principles are drawn from the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, (SEAD)😃. The model of SGIF focuses on mission-critical work and ruthless eradication of well-intended yet unworkable distractions that only diffuse focus and effort! • William Toti call to rebuild the supply chain and provide direct shipbuilding competence to leaders—deep solutions require deep competence - resonates very strongly with my personal experience and many years helping the worlds largest companies transform their ways of working. Certainly, this type of disciplined and focused approach could be the sole avenue through which we will achieve the ‘all-hands-on-deck’ effort necessary to secure the future of the US submarine force. The lessons, though, are wider and we must be carful to learn, rather than simply identify, lessons. Excellent work, Captain Toti!

The Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary with the Military Museum have been having a series of public talks on key security issues facing Canada. On November 23 2023, I was privilege to have been able to share my thoughts on the changing Nuclear Weapons international security environment. We are seeing a massive modernization of the deterrent forces of all of the major nuclear powers. But even more troubling is the emerging warheads and delivery systems that can be thought of as being war-fighting. So moving forward in an increasingly dangerous international great power system, what does it mean? In an attempt to answer this, my talk was titled "Thinking about the Unthinkable: The Modernization of Nuclear Weapons and their Delivery Systems". https://lnkd.in/gbGb9zDW

‘Shiny object syndrome’… I do like this article from William Toti ‘A ruthless focus on building more nuclear submarines’. And the suppositions aren’t just applicable to subs, they are applicable to most military industrial capacity challenges facing nations seeking to build military capacity in a pre-war state. If mass is your issue then AI is in the <5% helpful space - engineering capacity, supply chain resilience, welders, functioning ship lifts, consolidated people capabilities… all these things are credible solutions. When I stood up and led the first phase of the UK’s reinvigoration programme for collaborative submarine enterprise activity we did similar. Joint root cause analysis with experts in their field offering credible options for improvements. And it worked, we (they) increased supply chain resilience whilst removing £26m of non-value add activity… and it was done collaboratively and with a clear eye on the mission. Listen to your experts, stop listening to those you’ve paid to have an opinion. It’s amazing what a team can achieve 💪 https://lnkd.in/eUJxRXQD

Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “Father of the Nuclear Navy,” left behind an extraordinary legacy of safety, reliability, and leadership. He pioneered a nuclear propulsion program guided by five foundational principles: 1. Integrity 2. Level of Knowledge 3. Questioning Attitude 4. Formality 5. Forceful Watch Team Backup Under his leadership, the US Navy created the safest nuclear fleet in the world—operating over 150 nuclear-powered submarines for more than 65 years without a single nuclear incident. Now, imagine if we could take these same principles and apply them to healthcare. My latest release with Dr. Robert Roncska, "High Reliability Healthcare", provides a clear roadmap to do just that. By adapting Rickover’s five pillars to the healthcare field, this approach empowers medical professionals to create a culture of safety, accountability, and continuous improvement. From reducing errors to improving patient outcomes, these principles have the potential to transform healthcare systems into high-reliability organizations. The question isn’t if we can achieve high reliability in healthcare, but how quickly we can adopt these proven strategies. Let's make healthcare safer for all.

US Air Force Launches Space Vehicle Laboratory Construction in Albuquerque New Mexico. Located at Kirtland AFB, the site will be inducted as the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) primary evaluation center for next-generation re-entry vehicles to deliver assets between terrestrial bases and orbital missions. The $8.7-million infrastructure project will cover 5,265 square feet (489 square meters) of area in Albuquerque, with works expected to be completed in 14 months. The Kirtland laboratory is the first of four planned hubs that will support the nation’s broader strategy to bolster nuclear deterrence capabilities. Expansions locations to support this objective will include collaborations with other US defense agencies, the Department of Energy, and industry partners. https://lnkd.in/eNHuTh6x #space #afl #siteselection #florida #ohio #texas #economicdevelopment #testandevaluation #modleing #securityclearance 

Every day there is reporting about the increased cost in the Sentinel ICBM program and the Nunn-McCurdy review. Here is what some reporters are failing to mention. Nuclear forces as a whole account for only 7-percent of the total 10-year cost for national defense. This includes all nuclear forces - personnel, weapons systems, infrastructure, delivery systems, storage, stockpile services etc. So, 7-percent of the total defense budget that forms the foundation of our national defense strategy is not a bad price tag. Another consideration reporters are leaving out is the cost of the new Columbia SSBN. Ballistic missile subs are several times more costly than ICBMs, but ICBMs are what's making headlines for news outlets and an ever increasing pile of "concerned citizen journalists." The projected costs straight from the Congressional Budget Office are publicly available.