From BUD/S to the Boardroom: The Fight to Revolutionize Munitions Factories
A career-ending spinal injury during Navy SEAL training could have closed Joe Musselman’s chapter of service. Instead, it became the catalyst for a new one. He first founded The Honor Foundation to help special operators bring their elite standards to civilian leadership, then launched BVVC Capital, a venture fund backing relentlessly focused founders. He most recently assembled the founding team at Union, a munitions company designed to re-imagine munitions production. In this conversation, Musselman shares the through line in all of his work and how elite standards, trust, and execution can reshape people, networks, and organizations.
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Solving the Pentagon's Acquisition Puzzle
There's a fundamental mismatch between the agile acquisition processes that the Pentagon says it wants, and the unfortunate bureaucratic reality. Bonnie Evangelista, an acquisition maverick, joins the show to explain why. She spent the last seven years implementing rapid acquisition strategies for Army Defensive Cyber, the Joint AI Center, and the Chief Digital AI Office, and is now a strategic advisor supporting the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul team rewriting the Federal Acquisition Regulations.
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Lessons Learned and a Big Play on Drones from Latvia
Could this small state's collaborative approach to defense planning be the future for countries seeking asymmetric advantages? Ryan traveled to northeastern Europe to sit down with Uģis Norītis, Latvia's undersecretary of state for planning at its Ministry of Defence, to discuss how Latvia is growing its defense industry and industrial base. Hear how Latvia leverages battlefront testing in Ukraine, military-led prototyping, its budding drone industry, and expansive drone testing and training ranges that it wants to make available to companies from allied countries to prepare for the future fight. Did you enjoy this episode? Sign up here for the biweekly Cogs of War newsletter to stay updated on our new content.
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Inside Skunk Works: How the OG Aerospace Innovators Operate
What does it take to push aerospace innovation from concept to battlefield? Ryan sits down with John Clark, Lockheed Martin’s senior vice president for technology and strategic innovation and former head of the legendary Skunk Works. They unpack the Skunk Works playbook for rapid innovation, reveal proven strategies for bending the cost curve, and explore why established defense giants may have an unexpected edge in the race for AI advantage.
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The Future of Software-Defined Warfare
How can you bring together technical directors, military officials, and competing commercial interests to craft effective defense tech policy? Whitney McNamara and Stephen Rodriguez, the co-author and commission director of the Atlantic Council's Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, sit down with Ryan to talk about guiding tech adoption and more in government and defense.
A new show and vertical focused on defense tech and the defense industrial base, created and produced by WAR ON THE ROCKS and supported by BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON.
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