The Evolving Global Defense Environment

In this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, guest host Matt Hassan, Director of Internal Communications, sits down with David Allvin, recently retired four-star general and the 23rd Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

Together, they explore how the global defense environment is shifting as threats become more interconnected and contested, and what that means for the United States and its allies.

They also discuss why alliances, coalition operations, and true interoperability are becoming mission-critical, and examine the growing role of Collaborative Combat Aircraft in maintaining air dominance. 

Episode Highlights:

• The Evolution of Global Defense and Why Rethinking Modern Defense is Key
  Learn how the defense environment has evolved over the past 40 years, and why speed, adaptability and iteration now matter more than perfect, long-lived platforms in an era of accelerating change.
• Why Agility is the Defining Advantage of the Next Decade
  From leadership and culture to acquisition and technology, explore why agility is a critical enabler for faster decisions, smarter risk‑taking, and sustained deterrence.
• Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and the Future of Air Dominance
  Dive into how CCAs reshape airpower by enabling human‑machine teaming, accelerating operational tempo, and helping the U.S. and its allies maintain air dominance in increasingly contested environments.
• Industry, Government, and Allies: Accelerating Together
  Explore how closer collaboration, open architectures, and interoperability—designed in from the start—are essential to maintaining global security and coalition effectiveness.

Transcript

Matt Hasson

Welcome to another episode of Aerospace Unplugged. I'm guest host Matt Hasson, director of internal communications for Honeywell Aerospace. Today we're talking about how the global defense environment is shifting as threats become more interconnected and contested, and what that means for the United States and its allies. We'll look at why alliances, coalition operations and true interoperability are becoming mission critical as operations grow more integrated and decision timelines continue to shrink.

We'll look at why alliances, coalition operations and true interoperability are becoming mission critical as operations grow more integrated and decision timelines continue to shrink. 

We'll also examine the role of collaborative combat aircraft and how they factor into maintaining air dominance in increasingly contested environments.

And finally, we'll discuss the part industry must play in accelerating integration, supporting partners, and defining what success looks like in the decade ahead.

Matt Hasson

Joining me today is General David Allvin, recently retired four star general and the 23rd Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. General Allvin completed a distinguished 39-year career defined by operational leadership, strategic modernization, and force development. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and command pilot with more than 4600 flight hours.

He held multiple senior leadership roles across the Air Force, including key assignments at the Pentagon, leadership of major strategic planning efforts, and supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan. During his tenure, he helped drive priorities such as next Generation Air Dominance, organizational modernization, and deeper interoperability with allies and partners. General Allvin, it's a great privilege to have you with us. Welcome to the show.

General David Allvin

Hey, thanks very much. It's really great to be here.

Matt Hasson

Yeah. Appreciate it. Let's dive right in. So, you led at every level of the Air Force. Looking back, what pivotal moments in your career shaped how you think about leadership in modern warfare?

General David Allvin

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. This is great, to continue to be a part of this conversation. You know, with Honeywell and understanding, first of all, that, Honeywell success, the success of the defense industry is the success of the nation. And so as I move from sort of customer and, maybe demanding customer and leader within the Air Force to great advocate and cheerleader, it's just an honor to stay a part of this conversation.

General David Allvin

You know, four decades is a lot. So there's a lot of time that I've had to, to experience and reflect on leadership. The leadership lessons don't change much. They're all about the airmen. They're all about managing risk. And they're all about being able to lead with confidence. The airmen in some very, very tough tasks.

I think some of the pivotal moments that that to me, showed the changing of modern warfare. There were a few. One of them happened very early in my career. And that was, in 1989. When I was first assignment assigned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in the wall came down and I was there in Germany and participating in it. And you got the sense that things were changing. Think the world in general, as we knew it was fundamentally changing.

General David Allvin

And what I didn't anticipate but have grown to appreciate over the three decades since, is the accelerating pace of change. The introduction of technologies at a greater, quantity and quality than we'd ever seen before, and understanding how to integrate that into our capabilities to succeed in modern warfare. Keeping up with the adversary and maintaining deterrence. That's been that's been the biggest thing.

General David Allvin

The second would probably be when I was tasked by General Welch, when he was a chief of staff, to write sort of a strategic vision for the Air Force. This was when I really started to dig in and think about what does it actually mean, looking into the future, where are we? Are we on the right path? And I really started to come up with this idea of strategic and operational agility.

General David Allvin

And I think I've been sort of pinned to that ever since. Appreciating the value of agility in a increasingly non-linear world and applying that to modern warfare, I still think, is one of the keys to our success.
 
 

Matt Hasson

So, you mentioned it 40 years is a long time. Over the span of that, of your service, quite a bit has changed globally. You know, from the iPhone. You know, it's not a security thing, but, you know, the technology has advanced so rapidly, and now it's a matter of minutes as technology changes and, and the world's become more interconnected, like I mentioned. What changes stand out most to you, and how should leaders recalibrate response to change?

General David Allvin

Yeah, I think we came from a of a time coming out of the Cold War when we were the dominant superpower in the world, and we knew we developed the best capabilities, and we focus just on improving those capabilities in the manner in which we developed them. And so we I think we've been hardware centric for a long time, and moving from hardware centric to software centric systems that can adapt to changes in algorithms and data architectures and things. That right there is something that I think we need to get our head wrapped around, because we have worked for a long time to have the most dominant platforms, but dominant platforms anymore because of the increasing pace of change. Everything is about speed. It's about speed of recognition, speed of decision, speed of action. And if we don't develop the capabilities that leverage that our adversaries will do, and we'll be on the wrong side of the cost curve and on the victory, victory versus defeat curve. And that's the most important one. We can't afford that.

Matt Hasson

Yes. And that brings us to the next question, which is from your perspective, where's the biggest gap, in your opinion, from between operational need and acquisition delivery to your point software, hardware. That whole conversation and what is that gap costing us? What's the biggest gap and what's that costing us?

General David Allvin

Yeah, I think this is it's a terrific question because it's a hard answer. And we can't do it overnight. We developed this. We got to where we are over decades. We got to being this this very built to last force that would develop the most exquisite capabilities also can to be the most expensive, but we could afford it. We're the richest nation in the world. And so we developed exquisite individual, platforms and capabilities and understanding now that there is, a penalty for that, because if the way, the manner in which you build it, the manner in which you test it, the manner in which you employ it, it drives towards perfecting the platform, and not on integration that's going to cost you.

General David Allvin

And so you better be darn right in the, in the capabilities that you build about what the future's going to bring. And in a non-linear future that doesn't happen. So I think the biggest gap is a change overall in the way we think about developing capabilities, understanding that there are disruptive technologies happening more often than ever before. And the real secret sauce is how to integrate those, to be able to grab those and leverage those and exploit those and put them into existing capabilities.

General David Allvin

But the manner in which we have developed platforms, aircraft, munitions, all those the manner in which we did that didn't necessarily account for the fact that there would be this pace of change and a lot of disruptive technologies coming in front of us. So it's a mindset I think, that we all need to get, which is about speed, speed to delivery.

And oh, by the way, not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough. We can no longer afford to have the beautiful shiny object that has no flaws, no errors in it, because by the time you deliver it, it's obsolete. 

Matt Hasson

Yeah, you made it, during your presentation yesterday, you talked about the built to last. That that whole analogy, I thought it was fascinating because I hadn't thought about it, through that lens.

General David Allvin

Well, it really is. It's I just to repeat there for for those who weren't listening, it, we love that it was built to last sort of a 20th century. Right. You know, icon for what we value that value proposition. I think it was Ford Motor Company was one of the ones who leveraged the most. Ford Motor company built to last. That's a great value proposition, but there are times when, it may not be as optimal as you like. And there's that's because there is an assumption underneath that value proposition and that is whatever you’ve built, if you build it to last, you have to assume that it's going to be functional, effective and valuable for as long as it lasts.

General David Allvin

Otherwise you have a capability that's still working, but is actually isn't doing what you need. And so I give a real quick example, sometimes have dialog, had dialog with congressmen and I won't name the congressman's name, but, but had a pretty good interchange with a particular congressman. And he said, hey, general, why, you know, this is about, you know, retiring the A-10 or some of the other capabilities that were sort of dragging down our whole fiscal, bottom line and keeping us from getting the capabilities that we need.

And he said, you know, why would we invest in something new when you can't show that you're going to maintain the stuff that you have? And so I tried to come up with an analogy and I said, Congressman, is it the imagine you were in a company that supported NASCAR racing. What's your job?

Your job is to win races. So let's say you buy cars in the 80s and they're the best cars at the time. And they're winning races. And then the 90s come along and technology changes, the track changes, the rules change. And you still got your fantastic 1980s car. Well, if you're spending money on maintaining those cars, they'll run, but you're not winning races.

Matt Hasson

You're still not.

General David Allvin

I said, we're in the race winning business, not in the capability mean maintaining business. And I don't know if it had any effect, but that's how it that's how you have to think about things. The intent is great, it’s built to last, but if it's not doing the job then you got to get rid of it.

And that is a paradigm shift because it causes you to put investments in different places than you would before. You may not want to invest in a long-term sustainment, tailored supply chain and a depot maintenance schedule, because we're planning on that thing lasting for 50 years. Maybe you start moving more into design to continue to iterate on design and leverage new technologies. That's, I think, what I mean by a mindset shift in the way that we should maybe pursue capabilities in the future.

Matt Hasson

So the Department of War is discussing the need for acquisition reform. What does acquisition reform look like in practice, in your perspective? 

General David Allvin

I think it's easy to get jaded and you hear a lot. Oh, and another attempted acquisition reform. Well, I don't care how many time Lucy puts the football there, I'm going to come try and kick it. We got to keep getting after, I think right now the unsuccessful acquisition reform is one that reevaluates all the questions that we asked when we put some of the shackles on. Shackles, I say that sort of pejoratively, when in fact some of the regulatory, you know, weight that's been added to capability development is justified and it makes perfect sense.

It's for safety reasons, etc.. But sometimes when you make a risk decision, you make a risk decision as to whether to add another restriction on or put another requirement on before it fields, you make that in the context of risk. So what is the risk if something goes wrong here okay. You weigh that against what is the risk if I don't have this capability.

General David Allvin

Well post-Cold War before you know, the ascendance of other regional and now global powers that are threatening us, the risk of safety was sort of elevated here. We didn't really see the risk of not the national security risk of doing nothing or going slower. But now when you see that you have to re-ask that question, maybe you might change some of the rules and regulations.

General David Allvin

Don't just throw them all out because you don't like them, but re-ask the question, is that risk now less than the risk of doing nothing, the risk of going slower because of the national security risk. And when you do all that, you will find you'll scrape away some of the red tape, some of the bureaucracy, but the right red tape and bureaucracy, because it's about speed, we've got to be able to leverage the ability to test things and develop things faster.

General David Allvin

And iterative testing and maybe not wait for the perfect thing before you feel it. I think that's what it looks like. And that's what the secretary has been talking about with this, you know, be on a wartime footing where you will accept more risk because you got to get it in the field, accelerate, capabilities to the hands of the warfighter, those sort of things.

General David Allvin

That's what it looks like a, an apparatus, a defense apparatus that works with industry to say, hey, speed is a value here that we need to maybe elevate more than, you know, perfection.

Matt Hasson

Do you see the way we designed and built the F-35 that acquisition process to be part of the evolution of the acquisition process, building it as we, you know, fly it?

General David Allvin

Yeah, I was I don't want to be pejorative, but I think when we think about it, we think about the F-35. It's a front line. You want a front line, you know, a fifth-generation fighter. We started working on that in the 1990s. And when you think about it, in the 1990s, we were still in that give a whole lot to industry.

General David Allvin

And I want to make sure I'm very clear on this. This is not a, you know, government versus industry. But when as I spoke about in the presentation in the 90s, when we actually were coming off the peace dividend to the Cold War and everything, we did outsource a lot. The mergers and acquisitions, you know, led to five basic primes and we sort of outsourced a lot of that and relied on them to do vertical integration for everything.

General David Allvin

If I'm a company and I'm doing vertical integration, I'm developing a product. I have to have a business model and the business model was largely we've got it all within our company, ourselves or the, you know, the tier one, tier two that support us. But at the same time, while we're doing that, we own the intellectual property.

General David Allvin

And we were we were okay with that at the time because we didn't see the value of changing the software. And now every time we wanted to software change, we had to go to the Prime and it was going slower. So I don't know that that the model that the under which the F-35 was built, is the way that we would do it now.

General David Allvin

We have to have more integration and more knowledge parity on the government side to know exactly the design and some of the more intimate details than we did when we short when we built some of those, capabilities.

Matt Hasson

Okay. So what are hard lessons from past modernization efforts to your point, should guide how we scale capability across allied forces going forward?

General David Allvin

Yeah, I think there's key words you can put in allied as well. And I think that's important. So let me talk. I think I really got to some of the other ones about, what lessons the lessons are, the government needs to have knowledge parity. And we're doing that with our agile master systems and government reference architecture that the Air Force undertook primarily in next generation air dominance, which I want to reiterate, is not just the aircraft.

General David Allvin

It's not just the F47, it's the F47, plus the collaborative combat aircraft, plus all the mission systems that go together. That entire portfolio was designed, first of all, the Air Force knew that we had to regain knowledge parity. So by the time the competition came to a head as to who was going to be announced, we knew as much about the design as either of the competitors, which was a different thing, but it enabled us to understand and tweak and move faster to where we wanted to go, because we had that knowledge parity.

General David Allvin

And I think that is something that's very, very key for us going forward. There's also we have some progress to make, I think in in terms of tech assurity. So understand we want to we want to protect some of the technologies for national security. Absolutely. But again there's there's a risk, decision that has to be made when you're considering to whom you sell, how you build it.

General David Allvin

But if you if you build and develop capabilities in a way, with that in mind that I probably want to integrate with not only our own joint forces, but with other, allies and partners, then you might design it in a way that enables you to still, protect some of the technology, but be able to deliver it in a way to our allies and partners who are buying it, understand, are interoperable from the very beginning. And I think that's where we need to focus on the coalition piece.

Matt Hasson

You mentioned, air dominance. So when you think about the future of air dominance, collaborative combat aircraft, what everybody's talking about right now, what advantages, does CCAs bring that cannot be achieved currently?

General David Allvin

Yeah. I think, I think we have to start with, first of all, the theory of victory, of what airpower needs to do. Airpower has always been, well, once the army let us be airpower. There is since the inception of the Air Force, at least we have always, you know, we hold air superiority very dearly, but we don't just have air superiority just because it's fun to keep the skies clear. We do it as part of coalition or the combined arms warfare.

General David Allvin

So we have a responsibility to ensure some level of freedom from attack, freedom to attack, to enable the joint force to come and achieve a joint objective. That's where we do it. That's the outcome that we seek with air superiority and supporting with. Same thing with, with, global strike. Global strike hits the targets that enable the joint force to be able to achieve coalition objectives.

General David Allvin

So these with these end states in mind, we were sort of the King Kong in the 90s. We took in Desert Storm. We had sort of trained for and force design for in the Cold War. And we applied that, you know, in the invasion, to counter the invasion of Kuwait, people took notice because what did we do?

General David Allvin

We took the American way of war, of airpower in the last half of the last part of the 20th century is we would bring all we needed as close to the fight as we could. We would have four staging bases now in the Cold War. That was in the context of air land battle. And, you know, how we would fight the Soviets in the fold, a gap, but still we would bring the forces forward.

General David Allvin

We would take we call the Iron Mountain flow the the flow of the forces as close as we could and then stay in a relative sanctuary. That would be all that air refueling, all the airlift, all the logistics, and even the fighters who would be stationed just outside the contested area. And then we would generate tempo inside, degrade the air defense system of the enemy, and then be able to, gain air superiority to interdiction and make it an unfair fight.

General David Allvin

But what that required was we had to get all the forces close enough, but that was okay. And we had all the forces and the capabilities and the range that was required that was made possible by air refueling. It's a long it's long wind up to the pitch. But here's the thing. Here's that's the Air Force we still largely have.

General David Allvin

What adversaries are doing are pushing us out further creating a range problem, creating a mat a tempo problem. Because we can still fight our way in with highly, capable but highly expensive platforms. But can you generate the tempo when you're pushed out to a different range? This is where collaborative combat aircraft operation will make a difference instantly because they'll provide more affordable mass.

General David Allvin

Are they going to be of the exact exquisite capability of our fifth and sixth gen fighters? No, but they're not designed to be. They're not expendable, like drones, but they are a tradable to where you can factor that into the equation and you can get more effectiveness per the cost. And plus, you don't have to worry about a human being there as well so that comets or rescue etc..

General David Allvin

So that's the immediate operational impact. The longer-term impact I think, is we got to get our head into autonomy and human machine teaming. And if we don't do that now, we're going to be falling behind on that.

Matt Hasson

So what decisions need to be made today to make sure that CCAs are combat ready immediately?

General David Allvin

Yeah, that's a great question. I think first of all, they need to be they need help like time now. Otherwise we don't want to build things that well, I think they'll be better in the future. The number one thing is, how do they buy down the risk for us to be able to solve that challenging problem of being able to support, to support the joint force, in an area where the contested geography is increasing that that's thing number one.

General David Allvin

But thing number two is this is in the way that we are developing the CCA. You need to be able to not built to last but built to adapt. So this increment, one that we put out there has certain capabilities. And the Air Force put certain restrictions KPPs, key performance parameters. One of them was cost. We got to keep the cost down.

General David Allvin

And so that will limit what it does for you. So we need to ensure that as we do that we don't do the standard. Well you know for another X amount of dollars I could put this on it and I could put that on and I could put a coffee machine right where once you do that, you, you defeated sort of the value proposition of it, keeping it low cost, so you can afford operationally to make that decision and you have enough of them to make a difference. So that's number one. We need to make sure that those requirements stay firm and we keep the open architecture. Because in five to 7 to 9 years, there's a possibility where those CCA increment one that we put out, we take them out to Florida and we make target drones out of it.

General David Allvin

But we we're okay with doing that because we haven't built a depot facility sustainment tail on it. And we can afford to flip to increment two, which is what we're already starting to work on now. So increment one to be effective needs to at least be able to do some of the supporting pieces of affordable mass to support the fifth-generation combat capabilities.

General David Allvin

But they also need to have the open architecture, to be able to flip into adapt into the next increment two. And as we start getting more and more confident with human machine teaming, that this needs to be the basis of it.

Matt Hasson

How do you build the trust in a CCA that's a cultural shift yet for people to understand yet? Yes, there's nobody's flying this. I believe it was the secretary of the Air Force went out and flew in.

General David Allvin

Oh yeah, Jake Kendall. He went out and did a sort of one-on-one with that.

Matt Hasson

Is that some of the steps we need to take, or how do you build the trust and what are how can leaders and industry help build that trust?

General David Allvin

Yeah, I think it's I think it's time, time and practice. And I think if you don't over promise and right now, the CCA increment one is really not over promising which is exactly what we expect it to do. But it'll be getting reps and sets and it'll be, we've already I know that some of the, some of industry is working with, grabbing a couple of our pilots and putting them in the simulator and seeing just to understand how an actual pilot, because it's not like we'll be all autonomous.

General David Allvin

There will be sort of mission management, if you will. There will be someone in a crewed fighter that will have two, four, six, eight, ten. We're trying to fit with that. I still say we, the Air Force, is still trying to figure out what what the right number is. But as we gain reps and sets and understand what it can and can't do, that's how we build a confidence in them.

Matt Hasson

So let's shift to the role of industry as we move forward. What mind shift, set shift, should defense companies make to keep pace with integration, autonomy and scalable production?

General David Allvin

I think it's the same thing. We think about speed. And I understand I say this like it's easy. I do have an appreciation of how industry is, is not, an industry it's not a thing, it's myriad things that make up the industry. And each of those entities, have their own culture, their own business models. But in general, if all of the if all of industry understands the value of leaning forward and building things, I call it solving for agility. As you think about possibilities that you might be able to integrate a better IMU or some other capability in propulsion.

Understanding that if you if you push that forward in a way that it can apply to many things because you have consistent architecture or you have the right software systems that can integrate with others thinking that way, the sort of the software first, the very adaptable, because then it'll be applicable to a broader set of capabilities, not just one particular platform.

General David Allvin

I think thinking that way. And also better dialog, this is not just on industry. The dialog goes both ways. So the understanding and integrating early on with the government on not the specifications. Don't tell me I need, you know, this many millimeters of this or hole here. No I don't want another specification. What's the problem you're trying to solve.

General David Allvin

And how can we help solve this. So I think increasing the dialog as we do that and then continue to work and harp on, on getting rid of the red tape and bureaucracy that isn't serving us. I think they can help with that as well.

Matt Hasson

So red tape and bureaucracy, how can industry move faster on integration sustainment without compromising security?

General David Allvin

Yeah, that's a balance. That certainly is a balance. And I think we need to, the compromising of security, I think, is, it it's not just in the, in the, capability development or in building, things, but in general, the concept of security, because you're talking about talking about security when you want to be able to secure the technology, either for your company or for the nation.

General David Allvin

And doing that, I think in the past, if we think about, if we think about network security, we always had this idea that we need to secure the network, so we just build bigger and thicker firewalls. And if you do that, you build these thick firewalls. And so that's how we're going to protect that.

But if something gets in once you're in it's you know, it's free reign in there. So that's why this idea of the zero-trust philosophy that is going on with our networks, I think it's almost a zero-trust philosophy as we build capabilities, which is you assume that there's probably going to be some level of penetration. How do you easily isolate that?

General David Allvin

You sequester that and ensure that the entire, the entire system isn't totally damaged. But so it's almost the same type of philosophy. Hey, we understand there's going to be risk here, but let's almost assume how do we mitigate the risk rather than try and prevent that from happening? Totally. I think that's a different mindset. It's a little uncomfortable to say that, but that's what's going to help us make those risk decisions that I may not be comfortable with it, but how comfortable am I going to be if I'm five years behind in this capability? And Americans and partners are dying because of that? That's that's a little bit different.

Matt Hasson

Yeah, so over the next five years. So let's pivot here and let's talk about the road ahead. To sustain credible deterrence, what must the United States and its allies do to get it right over the next five years as far as deterrence?

General David Allvin

Yeah, it's a big question is deterrence is a big word. Deterrence is, it's funny because when you say we want to deter China, we want to deter Iran. Your deterring behavior is what, your deterrence is in the mind of that huge and impact.

So the confidence that we can portray as we are making our way through this hugely dynamic in and asymmetric and non-linear future, if we can show that confidence that we are leveraging and exploiting all this, all the goodness, and then, oh, by the way, that the tradition of America always coming up with something better or always come, always being able to outfox or outthink or out build or out manufacture, potential adversaries to keep that alive in this world.

General David Allvin

Because right now, if you let yourself believe it and say, well, the barrier to entry is so low, that's why I was found a little bit, curious when, when the Ukrainians really started making drone warfare, changed the landscape of that particular fight. And I say that carefully. They changed the landscape of that particular fight. It's not something you can extrapolate to warfare.

General David Allvin

Okay. All warfare has changed. Well, this is how you fight without air superiority, so I guess we're going to have to fight with that air superiority. Now, this is how you fight when you don't have air superiority. So it doubles down on why air superiority is so important now. But you know, if you if you think about the ability to go faster and have that confidence that, hey, America is always coming up with something a little bit different, a little bit better.

General David Allvin

That I think is, is something that we can we display that when you do that, you put doubt in the minds of the adversary. We're thinking about doing an act or not. I think that credibility, that confidence that with industry and government and our allies and partners, that we're always going to come up with something a little bit better.

General David Allvin

And then if you give us even some of the marginally better and the capability, the training and the sort of the culture of our American force is going to just it's going to double down on that. Now you got no chance.
 
 

Matt Hasson

That's right. So for leaders navigating rapid technical, technological change as well as geopolitical change, what capabilities or habits will matter most?

General David Allvin

Agility of mind to be able to be adaptable, to be able to, also communicate this? No, no, we're going back even into leadership. And this is something I feel really, really passionately about is, communication is such a key part of leadership. And if you look at how much change has happened in the last 20 years, the experiential, the experience that that the, the youth, have right now is so different from what we have.

General David Allvin

We have to be able to make sure we solve that communication gap and effectively communicate, because we don't we're missing, all the brilliance that our younger airmen and soldiers and sailors that have, they have for us. So I think on the leadership, the leaders need to continue to be agile of mind, continue to be, effective in communication all the way down.

But at the same time, they need to look at risk a little bit differently. They need to understand the risk equation that we put into our mind in the 90s and the 2000s. I mean, even I do not want to, denigrate the valor and all of the things we did in countering violent extremists.

General David Allvin

And because that was something the bravery is just it just has always proven that America has the most, the bravest, the most courageous of any nation in the world. But what we're getting ready to be up against is back again in the existential nature, I think, into the future. And if we don't take account for that and don't leaders don't understand that this is the time of consequence that we are trying to set ourselves up for that next seminal moment, to be in the right position.

General David Allvin

We're up against a dynamic, complex, more dangerous environment, the future. And leaders need to understand that this is requiring more of them now than they may have imagined. Agile mind, good communication and smart risk taking.
 
 

Matt Hasson

Throughout this conversation, you've used the word agile more than anything else. And being in the military, that's not something that's always associated. There's processes, there's methods. Same thing in industry. How critical is agility to what we do at Honeywell Aerospace?

General David Allvin

I think I can't overstate it in general. I cannot overstate it just because the principles are there. If you have, an environment, if you believe the proposition that the pace of change, the pace of change, not change, we've always had change, but the pace of change is as great as it's ever been, and that the dynamics and the potential futures, I mean, I could I would drive myself crazy if I was a futurist, because the dynamics of how many potential futures are out there and trying to lay bets on one or another is folly.

General David Allvin

And so trying to build that perfect thing, to develop that perfect thing, that's going to be everything we need for the next 20, 30 years. It's dangerous. And so that agility to be able to know how, I'm probably going to be wrong to some level, but I'm going to be the one who gets right quickest. And when you start making decisions, you look at all those myriad futures and you can't necessarily pick one.

General David Allvin

But there's some Venn diagram. I cannot imagine a future where, data latency, data resiliency and data speed, is not going to be important. I can't imagine that. I cannot envision a future. So if you start using that as one of the central areas where I know whatever I do, I'm going to walk down that path and you start building it to where and if it goes left or goes right here, I can jump to that particular path or this path that I think is important.

General David Allvin

The agility is, is, is becoming to me the most valuable because pace of change meets disruptive, meets disruptive technology, meets nefarious actors that can harm us more and put all of us together. We got to be agile.

Matt Hasson

Yeah. Just yesterday, you shared a visual. Yeah. For those that missed it, it was a visual of a man standing with multiple paths in front of them. And the implication was there was no forward motion happening with him. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I thought that was critical. Yeah, it's you got to take that step, right?

General David Allvin

Yeah. I wanted that visual to be a couple things because the also the paths were they're sort of winding roads and here and, and I wanted to sort of display that.

Yeah. Any of those paths could probably get you there to that, whatever that destination is. But at some point, if you need to make decisions or if one of those paths starts to be blocked or be, you know, long no longer, you know, viable, you need to be able to jump to another path. They're all there in front of you.

General David Allvin

They're all there in front of you. If you let yourself sort of get, intimidated by it, you'll stand there. And so in that there's, there's a the gentleman standing with a sort of briefcase in his hand, not moving. And to me that's the absence of agility. That is stagnation, because I want to get it perfect before I go, because I want to make sure I'm on the right path there, all the right path.

General David Allvin

You just need to be able to find one where you can find the off ramps. And so, as I said yesterday, part of agility is being able to rapidly change course. But in order to rapidly change course, you have to be on course. And on course means you're moving. If you're not moving, you're just standing there changing directions and changing your mind, not going anywhere.

General David Allvin

So go move, outsmart, risk and be able to jump left and right to ensure that you can continue moving forward. I think that's the path and that's what agility is all about.

Matt Hasson

Alright General, so the name of our show is Aerospace Unplugged. So what do you do when you're unwinding, when you're unplugging from a long day, what's your go to?

General David Allvin

How much time do you have?
 
 

Matt Hasson

Yeah, as much time as you need.

General David Allvin

Because this is another area that over the past ten years I've really gained a lot more interest in. This is, you know, when you're in a grind, you're working hard. You know, you sometimes don't pay as much attention to taking care of yourself. And, you know, as I got closer to retirement, I started thinking, you know, I, I have a goal. I want to live to be 100, but when I'm 100, I don't want to be sitting in a chair drooling and not knowing my name is I want, I want to actually live to be 100 and to be functional and live so, so, so healthspan not just lifespan.

General David Allvin

So I've been paying a lot more attention. I've get, you know, the ring and the watch. And so I actually I do a lot of things that I think are to enhance my longevity. And so understanding that when you, when you get older, you know, your, your muscle mass drops in some precipitous rate. So I do a lot of more resistance training and lifting, but I do more things that that help me, I think, for longevity.

General David Allvin

And if you talk to any of the folks who know the business, there's really four things that affect longevity. You know, your sleep, your nutrition, your exercise and your stress. And so when I, when I was a lot of times I given speeches at the end of when I was a chief, I would talk about three of those.

General David Allvin

You can try, you got to do anyway. You got to eat, you got to sleep, you know, and you've got to be able to have some fitness. You can control how you do those. And so I some ways I do it, I do breathing exercises. I actually, I do cold showers. Yeah, I go from sauna to a cold therapy.

General David Allvin

So, I do a lot of things in those areas. And the fourth is on the stress. Sometimes you don't control the stress. So for me I just really enjoy, doing the fitness workout and doing sort of the breathing, the cold therapy, all the things. The biohacking, I guess is what I call my.

General David Allvin

Because to me, if you can notice and in a word, sort of humble brag here, between the time I was 57 and 62. So I'm 62 now, I actually found myself by dedicating myself to this on my off time doing that. My, VO2 max, which is a measure of health, actually went up and I increased muscle mass.

General David Allvin

So I'm always I always have a target of a goal, whether it's in work or in life. And so having something that I can target when I unplug is, is good for me. So that's, that's my jam. When I do that.
 
 

Matt Hasson

Just let me ask you this. You've only been retired for a couple minutes, but do you plan on doing and mentally the Air Force PT test, though? Because I've been retired for seven years and I'd still do it once a year because I'm still up to your point. I'm committed to maintaining that. Right. I still want to get my 90 or better. Are you, are you planning on doing it?

General David Allvin

I probably will, I probably the thing about it is one of the things that I think they they've undone, but I actually wanted to push to the two miles because I think the two most important. So I will do that. It won't be the focus of my training because when, when you're training for longevity, it's different than when you're training for just the fitness, but yeah, absolutely. It's, we gotta…

Matt Hasson

My kids still make fun of me for it. They're like, dad, you're not in the Air Force anymore. But it's important to me.

General David Allvin

When you're still knocking out 50 pushups, you know?

Matt Hasson

Yeah, right. Let’s do it.

Matt Hasson

General Allvin, thank you for joining us today on Aerospace Unplugged. It was truly an honor to have you on the show and appreciate your time.

General David Allvin

It was great to be here, thank you.