The Pentagon’s newly announced “Future of Warfare” initiative will aim to fundamentally transform U.S. military doctrine while delivering a blueprint for how American forces can succeed in a world of fast-evolving technology and artificial intelligence, according to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Mr. Gingrich, tapped by the Trump administration to co-lead the effort alongside SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of the defense technology firm Anduril, says the group will deliver a study by the end of January that aims to gain bipartisan support for “huge structural reforms that we need in our national security system.”
In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Gingrich suggested the initiative, formally called “Project Meridian,” is broader than what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth initially announced during his annual “State of the Force” address on Sept. 30 at Quantico, Virginia.
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Mr. Hegseth said Project Meridian, which is being commissioned by Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael through the MITRE Corporation, would be squarely focused on how the military can most effectively identify and put into action cutting-edge technology and weapons.
Uncertainty over the scope of the initiative has been coupled during recent weeks with skepticism over the prospect that Project Meridian may be riddled with conflicts of interest, given that Mr. Musk and Mr. Luckey both have prominent roles in companies currently doing tens of billions of dollars worth of contracting business with the Pentagon.
In announcing that Project Meridian has been directed to deliver findings within 120 days, Mr. Hegseth said it is being headed by “America’s best minds.”
Mr. Gingrich told The Times that the involvement of the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit company that manages a wide swath of federally-funded research initiatives, means the initiative is backed by “really remarkably talented and experienced people who have been thinking about this for many years.”
“Of course, if you get a chance to work with Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, you’re automatically in a remarkably bright and accomplished league,” the 83-year-old former House speaker said.
He also emphasized the need for big-picture philosophy to undergird the Project Meridian study.
“Our problem has not been weapons,” Mr. Gingrich said. “It should trouble us that we spent 22 years in Afghanistan and lost. That was not a problem of weapons.”
Mr. Gingrich said that while the military and government need “to be aware of the weapons of the future,” the project will focus more on “how do you use them and why do you use them and how you define success.”
As for his own bonafides, Mr. Gingrich highlighted his experience on Capitol Hill, his advisory role to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the transformation of the military in the early 2000s, and his role as “the longest serving teacher in the Joint Warfighting Course” for U.S. military officers.
Sharpening the vision
Project Meridian is the latest in a widening array of new Pentagon programs and initiatives that have emanated from Mr. Hegseth’s office over the past year as the defense secretary pushes to accelerate U.S. military modernization.
Last November saw the creation within the Pentagon of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) to take over what had been the Biden-era Replicator drone acquisition program.
In December, the Pentagon announced the creation of the Drone Dominance Program (DDP) — a $1.1 billion initiative to rapidly expand the U.S. military’s small unmanned aerial systems and one-way attack drone arsenal.
More recent months saw the opening of a new National Security Fund Finance (NSFF) program for channeling Pentagon loans, potentially worth billions of dollars, to private investment funds. Capital firms receiving the funds are in turn expected to invest the government’s money, along with their own separate pools of private financing, in companies that promise to deliver the critical materials needed for futuristic military technology.
The extent to which the DAWG, the DDP, the NSFF and the broader department may be impacted by the Project Meridian study remains to be seen.
Mr. Gingrich stressed that any recommendations in the forthcoming future of war study will need public and Congressional support.
“The proof will be in the pudding,” Mr. Gingrich said.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said, adding that “we have an obligation not just to come up with good ideas, but to come up with ideas that are explainable and understandable.”
“If we can write a document which the grassroots conclude is central to our survival as a country, then I think the odds are very good on a bipartisan basis that we can actually get something big done,” Mr. Gingrich said.
The former House speaker’s push for major structural reforms may run counter to Mr. Hegseth’s publicly stated vision for Project Meridian.
In announcing the initiative, the defense secretary said outright that it “is not about developing new strategies or new policies,” but will focus on “discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems.”
Conflicts of interest?
Mr. Luckey, Anduril’s charismatic and eccentric co-founder, no longer plays a business role in the company’s day-to-day operations.
With his outspoken willingness to build what he calls “killer robots,” he is widely seen as a key leader of futuristic military technology and pioneer in the fast-moving landscape of new, “hybrid” defense firms delivering products quickly for sale, not just decades-long Pentagon contract bids.
As a billionaire and major Republican Party donor and supporter of President Trump, Mr. Luckey has been embraced by the GOP establishment as a defense technology creative disruptor.
Clad in his trademark Hawaiian shirt, but with a rarely seen business jacket, Mr. Luckey stood next to Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Musk as Mr. Hegseth announced Project Meridian last month.
Mr. Musk, who is ranked as the world’s wealthiest man, is also a major Republican Party donor. He too has become a key figure in supplying the military with critical futuristic technologies.
He currently retains his role as CEO of SpaceX, whose rocket launch capability provides for nearly half of all U.S. Space Force launches, and whose communications platform, Starlink, is used by the military.
Mr. Musk’s work on artificial intelligence may also be a driving force behind his attachment to Project Meridian. He owns X, whose Grok AI chatbot has been adopted by the Pentagon as part of a program known as GenAI.mil.
Mr. Musk’s previous role heading the Trump administration’s now defunct Department of Government Efficiency sparked widespread conflict of interest allegations given the billions of dollars in federal contracts held by the companies he owns.
With regard to Project Meridian, both Mr. Musk’s and Mr. Luckey’s dealings with companies directly contracted by the Pentagon raise questions of independence.
Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, told The Times in an interview that the involvement of the two means there are only a few frameworks available for Project Meridian to avoid “criminal conflict of interest.”
“If they become special government employees [for this project] then the conflict of interest statute applies to them,” said Mr. Painter, who now teaches corporate law at the University of Minnesota. “On the other hand, if you want to run it as a federal advisory committee, the conflict of interest statute doesn’t apply to them.”
Working through the MITRE Corporation could give Project Meridian coverage on the federal transparency requirements that a federal advisory committee would bring, while also avoiding possible legal conflict of interest issues.
“The third route of running them through a defense contract, give them all security clearances and it’s a consulting contract, that makes sense,” Mr. Painter said. “They’d just call themselves defense contractors, which is what they really already are anyway, at least two of the three and probably all three.”
By running Project Meridian through the MITRE Corporation, the Pentagon appears to have settled on the third route.
As a nonprofit behind six of the U.S. government’s federally funded research and development centers, MITRE’s research capabilities outstrip those of any single military service. The organization is also legally restricted from competing directly with industry or from manufacturing products itself.
Messrs. Gingrich, Musk and Luckey convened the first meeting of the initiative in a classified room at Quantico on Sept. 30 — a level of secrecy and use of classified material that Project Meridian is likely to maintain until its Jan. 28, 2027 deadline.
Mr. Hegseth said the initiative’s findings will be released in “a full public rollout,” but that the report will include a classified annex.
The public deadline is “to ensure this is not another endless Pentagon study that is outdated before it is finished,” the defense secretary said.
“In that time, Project Meridian will ruthlessly map the trajectory of war’s domains and technologies,” Mr. Hegseth said. “To ensure this War Department, your War Department, dominates the future.”
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