Christopher Kirchhoff on Military Innovation and the Future of War

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christopher Kirchhoff is an expert in emerging technology who founded the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley office. He’s led teams for President Obama, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CEO of Google. He’s worked in worlds as far apart as weapons development and philanthropy. His pioneering efforts to link Silicon Valley technology and startups to Washington has made him responsible for $70 billion in technology acquisition by the Department of Defense. He’s penned many landmark reports, and he is the author of Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War.

Tyler and Christopher cover the ascendancy of drone warfare and how it will affect tactics both off and on the battlefield, the sobering prospect of hypersonic weapons and how they will shift the balance of power, EMP attacks, AI as the new arms race (and who's winning), the completely different technology ecosystem of an iPhone vs. an F-35, why we shouldn't nationalize AI labs, the problem with security clearances, why the major defense contractors lost their dynamism, how to overcome the “Valley of Death” in defense acquisition, the lack of executive authority in government, how Unit X began, the most effective type of government commission, what he'll learn next, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded July 23rd, 2024.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercadus Center at George Mason University,
0:09.0	bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems.
0:13.0	Learn more at Merkatus.org.
0:16.0	For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links,
0:20.0	visit Conversations with Tyler.com.
0:24.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
0:30.0	Today I'm here with Christopher Kirchhoff.
0:32.0	He wrote a book that I thought was great.
0:34.0	It is Unit X, how the Pentagon in Silicon Valley are transforming the future of war,
0:39.5	and that is co-authored with Rajam Shah. This book has a rave review from the Financial Times and on
0:45.0	Twitter also from Chris Blatman. To give you a full biography of Chris, he is an expert
0:50.2	in emerging technology. He helped to create the Defense Innovation Unit and he's
0:54.8	also worked as an assistant to Eric Schmidt. Earlier in the Obama
0:58.2	administration he was the Director of Strategic Planning for the National
1:02.0	Security Council and also the senior civilian
1:04.9	advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1:08.1	Chris, welcome.
1:09.1	Thank you, Tyler.
1:10.1	I have many questions about your topic.
1:12.2	How permanent is the ascendancy of drone warfare?
1:15.3	So it's the thing now.
1:16.8	Is this the next hundred years, the next five years?
	...

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