The article suggests a balanced approach, employing a mix of disciplined updates and cutting-edge new technology. This approach can optimize near-term performance while shaping future capabilities. It also emphasizes the importance of strategic roadmaps, partnerships with warfighters and mission experts, and prudent investments in people, research, and collaboration for the cost-effective modernization of American defense agencies.
Key takeaways:
- Upgrading existing defense systems has benefits such as lower costs and less disruption to ongoing operations, but it also has limitations due to old architectures and the accumulation of technical debt.
- New platform development allows for optimization around emerging technologies like AI and open architectures, but requires a greater upfront investment and poses risks as they are brought online.
- Hybrid strategies, such as incremental upgrades or developing new systems designed to integrate with existing infrastructure, can balance the tradeoffs between upgrading and new development.
- The decision between upgrading and new development should be informed by factors like needed capabilities, technology maturity, cost, and alignment with modernization roadmaps.