Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

In 2016, Shah, a former fighter pilot turned entrepreneur, and Kirchhoff, a technology strategist, took charge of what became the Defense Innovation Unit, tasked with finding ways to employ the methods of Silicon Valley startups within the military and bypass cumbersome Pentagon procurement processes. One of their first successes was to develop an app for the Combined Air Operations Center, which had been deploying aircraft against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq by using obsolete systems and moving pucks around whiteboards. Another initiative explored how large numbers of small satellites could monitor North Korean military preparations. Much of this account moves beyond what has been achieved to explore the prospects for more transformational innovation, with some choice examples from Ukraine involving the use of drones. The drama in the book, however, comes from what the authors call the “antibodies” in the system, as a sclerotic Pentagon bureaucracy and congressional staffers bent on protecting their privileges threatened to block the innovation unit’s progress.