To keep up with China, Pentagon must cut red tape and embrace latest technology, top US official says | South China Morning Post

The US Defence Department is lumbering along with practices often little changed since the 1960s and needs to introduce much more cutting-edge, off-the-shelf commercial technology to keep up with the growing threat from China, said a top US defence official Wednesday. Defence Department ideas, technology and speed of adoption are often years behind the US private sector, even as China's military-civilian fusion strategy allows it to obtain and absorb commercial advances far more quickly, said Michael Brown, head of the Defence Innovation Unit [DIU] set up in 2015 to introduce more commercial technology into the Pentagon. "China's national strategy is…