Insights_

Christen Smith explains how existing solutions and input from end users can change provider directories from a compliance burden into a strategic asset for care coordination, fraud detection, and public health.

In today’s competitive defense environment, supply chain performance is as decisive as firepower. Resilient, adaptive supply chains deny adversaries leverage by ensuring the continuous ability to generate and sustain combat power. Every weapon system—aircraft, ground vehicles, and naval platforms alike—relies on a robust industrial base that spans manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and repair nodes to maintain the steady flow of parts, materials, and logistics.

The successful modern technology enterprise depends on the frequent, low-risk flow of value to end users. Flow, in turn, depends directly on a deliberate approach to how that value traverses from developer to user, including the infrastructure, security, networks, data, application architecture, user experience, and team-to-team interactions that comprise delivery. “Continuous delivery” isn’t the sum of all these parts; instead, it describes the state of these elements seamlessly working together in concert to enable value. A network of interconnected value that links the necessary handoffs between teams and systems is, ironically, a tight analogy for modern logistics and supply chains.

Space is central to the Golden Dome strategy, but the fight does not begin or end in orbit. The battlefield stretches across land, sea, air, and cyberspace, where U.S. systems are contested daily by adversaries who innovate quickly, exploit vulnerabilities, and adapt faster than legacy defenses can respond.To stay ahead, Golden Dome must also take root on the ground. Securing the terrestrial domain must be a mission requirement. Protecting the homeland, defending U.S. forces, and deterring tomorrow’s threats demands a multi-domain shield that is resilient, adaptive, and free from the limits of yesterday’s systems.

No IT project fails because developers didn’t write code fast enough. Projects fail when teams build the wrong solution, misread their users, work or deploy in inappropriate environments, or create systems so complex they collapse under their own weight. Generative AI should take aim at these problems. After all, smarter coding agents without smarter processes only help build the wrong things—faster.

The ongoing conflicts between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Iran have demonstrated that the future of warfare will demand advanced missile defense systems. The growing inevitability—and potential impacts—of orbitally enabled attacks both in primary conflicts and resource wars underscores the need for national defense and security infrastructure in space.

In a multi-domain operational environment, Command and Control (C2) is not just a function, it is the foundation of mission success. As threats evolve with increasing speed and complexity, and data streams multiply from a growing array of sensors and sources, traditional C2 approaches are no longer sufficient.

In the race to embed artificial intelligence into every system, speed is winning—but trust is becoming more critical than ever. Each week brings headlines about AI breakthroughs, from generative models capable of drafting reports to predictive tools that promise to transform logistics and battlefield decision-making. Yet behind the buzz lies an uncomfortable reality: too many federal solutions treat AI as an afterthought—something bolted on rather than built in. That approach may accelerate deployment, but it leaves mission-critical systems fragile, exposed, and untrusted in the moments that matter most.

Government agencies such as NASA and the U.S. Space Force pursue bold scientific and defense missions in orbit. At the same time, commercial ventures like SpaceX and Blue Origin demonstrate that space is no longer the sole domain of government—it is rapidly becoming a viable arena for commerce. To unlock the full promise of this new space economy, we must recognize that logistics is the foundation—and that sustainable progress depends on innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors.

National Special Security Events (NSSEs) like the World Cup and Olympics represent more than international spectacle; they are national security priorities where operational success is measured in public safety, efficiency, and international perception. Millions of participants and spectators will converge on venues, creating concentrated hubs of activity that demand flawless coordination across government, private sector, and foreign partners to ensure participant safety.

Rows of vehicles and crates stretch as far as the eye can see—every Humvee, spare part, and weapons case a building block in the Army’s ability to fight. It looks like a warehouse, but it’s more than that; it’s the backbone of combat readiness. Each item represents time, money, and mission-critical capability—but only if the Army knows exactly where it is, its condition, and who is accountable for it.