The Pentagon Is Breaking Up With Paper: Inside the Race to Software-Defined Warfare

Change is accelerating inside the Pentagon’s software ecosystem, and leaders say the department can no longer operate at the speed of paper. Pentagon Chief Software Officer Rob Vietmeyer outlines how software, risk management, and acquisition practices are being fundamentally retooled to meet modern operational demands.

Vietmeyer explains that software-defined warfare is no longer a future concept—it is already here. Combatant commanders now rely on software to collaborate, share data, and operate across complex, multinational environments. However, the department’s traditional approaches to acquisition, cybersecurity, and risk assessment were built for a slower era. Paper-based reviews, manual approvals, and weeks-long decision cycles simply cannot support today’s mission needs.

Innovation in Government: The Future of Records in the Data Lifecycle

Federal agencies are moving rapidly toward fully digital operations, and records management is at the center of that shift. What was once viewed primarily as a compliance requirement is now a strategic function tied directly to data quality, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, transparency, and mission outcomes. Throughout this episode of Innovation in Government, government leaders and industry experts discuss how records are becoming dynamic data assets that must be governed, secured, and leveraged across their entire lifecycle. The conversations highlight how agencies are modernizing technology, rethinking workforce roles, and adopting automation to meet digital mandates while strengthening trust in government information.

The Intelligent Border: Fast. Agile. Secure.

The latest episode of Modernizing Government: The EY Insight explores how data, cloud, and emerging technologies are reshaping the mission of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the federal government at large. Francis Rose hosts discussions with George Kaczmarskyj, Principal for Government and Public Sector at EY, and Mark James, Executive Director of the Enterprise Cloud Services Division at CBP.

Filmed on location at the EY Center for Government Modernization, the conversations highlight lessons learned from commercial sectors like financial services, the importance of data governance and trust, CBP’s cloud migration journey, the adoption of AI and edge computing, and the future of secure, agile border operations. Together, they shed light on how a fast, agile, and secure intelligent border is being built.

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