Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Frank Kendall served as the 26th Secretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2025. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics under Obama. His new book, Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare, comes out in June. He joined Second Breakfast on March 6th, six days into the US-Israel campaign against Iran.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
In this conversation:
Why the Iran campaign has already hit the limits of air power — and what the Scud hunt of 1991 tells us about mobile missile hunting today
Interceptor stockpiles, shot doctrine, and the Patriot/THAAD production crunch
Why this conflict is the wrong war to learn lessons from for a China fight
The third offset strategy, range-quantity-autonomy, and what we still haven’t built
Why defense tech hype keeps failing: “Nothing is fielded in the United States military until a service wants to buy it. Period.”
Sunk costs, the JROC as parochial protection racket, and what breaking up AT&L actually cost
The Anthropic-DOD standoff: what the contract dispute is really about, and why the supply chain risk designation is an abuse of power
YOU SHOULD SIGN UP TO MY WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!
chinatalk.substack.com
The podcast is also available in your favorite app, just search ChinaTalk!
Frank Kendall served as the 26th Secretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2025. Before that he was Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics under Obama. His new book, Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare, comes out in June. He joined Second Breakfast on March 6th, six days into the US-Israel campaign against Iran.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
In this conversation:
Why the Iran campaign has already hit the limits of air power — and what the Scud hunt of 1991 tells us about mobile missile hunting today
Interceptor stockpiles, shot doctrine, and the Patriot/THAAD production crunch
Why this conflict is the wrong war to learn lessons from for a China fight
The third offset strategy, range-quantity-autonomy, and what we still haven’t built
Why defense tech hype keeps failing: “Nothing is fielded in the United States military until a service wants to buy it. Period.”
Sunk costs, the JROC as parochial protection racket, and what breaking up AT&L actually cost
The Anthropic-DOD standoff: what the contract dispute is really about, and why the supply chain risk designation is an abuse of power
YOU SHOULD SIGN UP TO MY WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!
chinatalk.substack.com
The podcast is also available in your favorite app, just search ChinaTalk!
