The following video clip is making the rounds in a few circles, particularly the federal IT contracting world which overlaps heavily with the inside-the-beltway world.  GorT is very familiar with both.

Let’s put aside the issue that the General and Congressman Hunter (R-CA) got into regarding the support of our troops deployed.

Congressman Hunter is defending a piece of software called Palantir.  It is an impressive tool that allows for the collection and analysis of disparate data sources through intuitive means.  In some cases, Hunter has termed the software “cheap”, a statement with which GorT would disagree.  To some degree it is worth noting that during the hearing, Congressman Hunter refrains from mentioning the software package by name and instead refers to a “operational needs statement”.  This “statement” is a document to help direct funding and acquisition resources towards a particular effort, usually bypassing much of the regular acquisition processes.  I say this because the positioning that Hunter does by not stating the software by name, even in passing, and in how he rephrased his “question” portion of the hearing into more of a soapbox leads one to believe that lobbyists for Palantir are driving this effort.  That isn’t to say that it is an issue but it is worth noting.  Hunter needs to be careful, however, as advocating for yet another piece of software that has a not-insignificant license and maintenance cost at a time when we need to be smart about growing any part of the federal budget is dangerous – especially on his side of the aisle.

On the other side, General Odierno is defending a program called the Distributed Common Ground System for the Army (DCGS-A).  This is a huge DoD program (with similar ones for the other branches) that provides a broad range of capabilities well beyond what the Palantir software delivers or even claims to deliver.  So the viewer should consider that this isn’t an apples to oranges comparison.  Odierno, rightfully, stands up for the brave men and women that serve under him and in doing so he also defends DCGS-A. 

Like any big government program there are problems with DCGS-A.  It suffers from the typical, large federal IT contracting problems where, while it delivers capabilities, it isn’t delivering in an efficient manner.  Instead, portions of the program are spent creating work and resulting products that just won’t get used (various documentation efforts – not saying all by any means, for example).  Congressman Hunter makes references to the Google Cloud and the Apple Cloud and, in so doing, makes a subtle gibe that why is the government recreating things that already exist.  Simply put, there are reasons why the DoD and Intel Community cannot use regular, commercial clouds, including the security concerns.  However, the government does try to take lessons learned, commercial practices, and similar or the same hardware and software and tries to make it work internally.  Many times it fails.  There are those who try to then apply, “this is how we do it” and they refuse to consider other options.  There are contractors who are just looking to put butts in seats and staff contracts with any schmoe who claims to be a system engineer or developer or tester.

Much like our warfare has become asymmetric and unconventional in nature, we need to adapt our acquisition, development, and integration processes to be asymmetric, unconventional and more agile.  Big programs that are three years or longer from start to finish without multiple iterative releases of capabilities will be outdated at the pace that technology changes, let alone the potential changes in the geopolitical, economic, and domestic landscapes.

So many will champion Odierno for taking Hunter to task and I can agree with part of that.  And others will champion Duncan Hunter for calling out – however it was motivated – a bloated program of record that has issues which I can agree with as well.  But in the end, both are right to a degree and there’s a real problem underlying it that needs to be addressed.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.