Through Ukraine, Tech Start-Ups Make Their Move Into the U.S. Defense Industry (www.nytimes.com)

While waiting for a decision by the Pentagon, the company recently moved to lay off some employees.

Mr.

Roper said. And it is failing at that.

There are some success stories.

The Defense Innovation Unit created a program that evaluated various surveillance drones coming onto the market and set up a contracting tool that allows Pentagon agencies to buy them directly, without a multiyear acquisition process.

He noted that artificial intelligence, for example, still has not been integrated into Air Force flight operations beyond some basic experiments.

The Pentagon is still in an invention only mode that goes all the way back to the Cold War when it now needs to be in a collaboration mode to accelerate private industry, Mr.