Just weeks before retiring from military service, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten warned that bureaucratic inertia and fear of failing are thwarting innovation in the U.S. Department of Defense while China continues to roll out new military and space technologies.“Although we’re making marginal progress, the DoD is still unbelievably bureaucratic and slow,” Hyten said Oct. 28 at a Defense Writers Group event.
If he had to offer any advice to his successor it would be to “reinsert speed into the process,” Hyten said.
A former commander of the Air Force Space Command and of U.S. Strategic Command, Hyten has been a long-time critic of the plodding ways of the Pentagon, particularly in the development of next-generation weapon systems.
DoD takes decades to develop and field new systems, he said. “The answer to every question on how long it’s going to take to get a follow on capability is 10 years or 15 years,” he said. A case in point is a new intercontinental ballistic missile that DoD is developing to replace the Cold War-era Minuteman 3.
That program, called the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, started around 2015. “If everything goes right, it will reach initial operational capability in 2030 and full operational capability in 2035,” Hyten said.
Hyten said he could not discuss specifics of China’s recently reported test of a hypersonic guide vehicle that orbited the Earth and reentered the atmosphere.
“All the facts I know about the test are classified,” he said. “A test did occur, it is very concerning.” Hyten also declined to comment on whether the Chinese tested a new capability the United States didn’t know about.
Without explaining what exactly was concerning about the test, Hyten called it another sign that China is executing its game plan to become a global superpower.
“What you need to be worried about is that in the last five years, or maybe longer, the United States has done nine hypersonic missile tests, and in the same time the Chinese have done hundreds,” said Hyten. “Single digits vs hundreds is not a good place.”
DoD is developing hypersonic missiles, he said, but is not moving as fast as China due to a risk-averse culture that fears negative media coverage and scrutiny.