Defense innovation official warns military that risk aversion and slow change carry consequences

Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, the military deputy for the Defense Innovation Unit, urged faster risk-taking and adoption of commercial technology across the Defense Department during a May 15 Warfighter Talk at the Defense Logistics Agency’s headquarters, warning that caution in the bureaucracy can endanger troops at the edge.

“I think there’s a law of risk, which is certainly like the law of conservation of energy, and that is that risk can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred,” Kunkel said.

From DIU’s work with commercial firms to DLA’s logistics enterprise, he argued that reluctance to accept “bureaucratic risk” pushes vulnerabilities onto those in combat. “Just realize whenever we are not taking bureaucratic risk, that risk is being transferred somewhere else in the enterprise, and typically that risk is being transferred to an operator that doesn’t have the capabilities they need to win in a fight,” Kunkel said during his talk May 15. “If you’re not taking the bureaucratic risk, there’s an operator that’s taking a risk somewhere.”

Kunkel drew a comparison to the post-Vietnam period, describing an Air Force that lacked the tools to confront a peer adversary and a Pentagon leadership that responded by reshaping the force and taking risks on new capabilities. “We developed all these amazing things, F-22s, F-35s, B-2s, all that stuff was conceived in the early ’80s when we were looking at the Soviet Union as a threat,” he said, noting how much those systems overpowered adversaries in Operation Desert Storm. “It’s my thought that every fight we’ve had for the last 30 years, we’ve stepped into those fights with swagger, like we knew we were going to win,” he said.

That confidence, he cautioned, is being tested. “We’ve been challenged by someone that can fight back,” he said. “I would ask, is this a Pearl Harbor moment?”

He pressed for a new approach to strategy, concepts, and systems tailored to current threats. “For change agents like me, I’m like, we’re way past the Pearl Harbor moment,” he continued. “We know what it takes to win in China, and it’s a fundamentally different Air Force. It’s a fundamentally different Navy. It’s fundamentally different expectations out of our Army. It’s a fundamentally different Marine Corps.”

Kunkel pointed to the long path from concept to fielding as a key obstacle, recounting the timeline of the F-22 program: the YF-22 design was selected in 1990, he was chosen for the first cadre as the Air Force stood up the Pacific fleet in 2007 — and the aircraft remains a frontline fighter today. “It doesn’t make any sense that it takes us that long to field capabilities,” he said. “It was conceived in the Reagan years, and we were doing initial conversion 20 years later. And what’s really interesting is here we are in 2026, and that’s still our frontline fighter. We are not moving fast enough.”

DIU aims to close that gap by accelerating the adoption of commercial technology, he said, calling for acquisition approaches that welcome new entrants and emphasize outcomes over rigid specifications. He argued that tapping more commercial capabilities can broaden and strengthen the defense industrial base. “When I think about the capabilities that are going to be required for the future, the ability to adapt capabilities and then scale them in real time is going to be critical,” he said.

Kunkel said DIU’s focus is on delivering real capability to operators, not just prototypes. As part of DIU’s new leadership, Kunkel said his new mantra is: “It doesn’t count until it’s fielded forward. It doesn’t count until it’s sitting in the hands of a warfighter.”

To that end, he added, DIU is working to forge tighter links with the military services and combatant commands to identify urgent operational problems and match them with commercial solutions.

A recording of the event is available to DLA employees on the Campaign of Learning page (a DLA Common Access Card is required).