By Shivaji Dasgupta
This book is a tribute to the world-leading entrepreneurial prowess of Silicon Valley breaking bread with a clinical expose of governmental hubris, where the nimble thought-leading startup is a cascading Indiana Jones, saving the free world from untold misery. Shah and Kirchhoff smoothly blend Holywoodian drama with Oval Office truths, and the outcome is nothing short of a thrill-a-minute potboiler. Donald Trump, as ever, precariously poised between good and bad.
DIUx (defence innovation unit experimental), nicknamed Unit X, is a team with a do-or-die mission, akin to Kevin Costner’s gang in Brian De Palma’s cult movie The Untouchables. Al Capone, in this case, being an unholy alliance between legacy defence contractors and the US military establishment, led by Raj, a tech guy who knows about national security, and Chris, a National Security guy who knows about tech. The commissioning authority being the visionary Ash Carter, secretary of defence, seeking to embellish military security with the customer-centric wisdom of Silicon Valley.
The narrative has a simple but powerful adhesive. Courtesy the era of relative peace, post the 1980s, consumer technology has grown at a far sharper pace than defence technology. Raj, also an F16 fighter pilot, during the Iraq mission discovered that his personal Compaq iPAQ, a $300 gadget, did a better job of navigation than the $30-million fighter plane. Most notably, the fail fast and reboot faster culture of the West Coast, driven by commercial motivations, was terminally missing from the defence procurement systems. Especially in a monopsony (single buyer) scenario, often complemented by a solo or limited group of sellers.
The chapters proceed at Netflix pace, each unleashing fresh ingredients for drama. ‘Zeroised’ is a dire version of ‘Yes Minister’, wherein a $30-million budget (Unit X) allocation disappears like a Cold War double agent. Ed and Evelyn, nom de plumes of the defence ministry staffers, are copybook evil bureaucracy. A nondescript portion of a $770 billion budget terminated for disproportionate favouritism to California and the residual grievance of a denied Gulfstream Jet joyride. Till Michael Mccord (Comptroller) comes to the rescue with a favourable loophole, with newer acquisition pathways formulated by Lauren Dailey. Unit X is thus formalised with five portfolio arenas—AI, autonomy, human systems, IT and space.
Chapter 3 is about further revelations, where our heroes, in cahoots with Eric Schmidt (ex-Google and subsequently defence innovation board), visit the combined air operations centre (CAOC), the command post for the Middle East. They discover Second World War-style war battle cabins, with pucks on whiteboards connecting fighter jets with mid-flight refuelling tankers. Technology solutions offered by Northrop Grumman were abysmally sub-optimal, compared to private solution providers. Quite naturally, the Unit X approach conflicts sharply with the conventional mechanisms, and eventually the ‘lean’ methodology of the Valley is adopted wonderfully by the team to develop a successful app.
The plot then moves on efficiently to North Korea and the elusive quest for their deeply competent ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) programme, the KN-08 have a stated competence to demolish Seattle and even Los Angeles. It was soon discovered that conventional technology was insufficient to locate the well concealed missiles and the groundbreaking SAR (synthetic aperture radar) approach would be enlisted. Strangely enough, Pentagon once again turned up as the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the gig, for reasons of insecurity. Payam Banazadeh, Capella Space, was enlisted to solve the matter in public-private mode but that too got scuttled in the end. Ironically, the same man developed a cutting-edge technology for an allied military power.
By 2017, Unit X had awarded contracts for 48 projects, leveraging $84 million in funding from thirty military entities, closing deals swiftly. Standouts included ForALLSecure, designed to defeat cyber attacks without human intervention, and Shield AI, drones that would detect human presence before the SEAL units moved in. Drones became a huge area of focus overall, with a rogue squadron (Luke Skywalker) equivalent coming to the party, blessed thankfully by secretary of defence James Mattis (Carter’s successor in Trump 1.0), and advocated by Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman and Peter Thiel (Founders’ Fund). Project Maven and Saildrone appeared as two notable poster boys.
Quite predictably, the tale continues to the provocative handshake between China and AI, streets ahead of the USA, as per Madeleine Albright amongst significant others. Xi Jinping’s obsessive focus for his nation to be the AI superhero by 2030, a key concern of the Aspen Strategy Group, an influential American think tank. Lt General HR McMaster, a thought leader, is lauded for his visionary rabble rousing on the need for American efforts to radically surpass current levels. The CHIPS and Science Act, a US federal statute enacted by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden, is projected as a much delayed but highly valuable intervention.
True to OTT cadre, pure play human interest angles appear at opportune moments. The solemn departure of Raj and Chris from Unit X, voluntary albeit dramatic, and the passing of original evangelist Ash Carter, leads to many thoughtful rewind anecdotes and fast-forward mementoes. To complete the logical cycle of foes (North Korea and China already done), the latest Ukraine conflict is amply quoted, a use case being Russian fighter aircrafts being destroyed by low-cost drones.
While beginning on a simplistically practical note, Unit X concludes with defensible idealism—the urgent need to disrupt the status quo to deter wars, as the calling card for true patriots and innovators. Now that Trump is back, a sequel may well be in the works.
The author is an autonomous brand consultant and writer
Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War
Raj M Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff
Simon & Schuster
Pp 336, Rs 1,199
