Write a personal “Mi MOSA 2040” retrospective where – if continuously refined – it successfully breaks the stagnation that has historically plagued defense platforms.
ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)
A Farewell Speech by the Director of Modular Systems Innovation, March 2040
Colleagues, friends, fellow builders—
Thank you. For your presence, your patience, and your persistence.
As I retire this month after sixteen years at the helm of what we now simply call the MOSA office, I want to leave you not with a final report, but with a story. A personal one. About the moment in 2024 when I knew—knew—that something different was possible.
1. The 2024 Memo That Changed Everything
You all remember the memo. December 2024. The Army, Navy, and Air Force, for the first time in living memory, jointly committed to a technical principle: the Modular Open Systems Approach.
I was there—on the drafting call, in the back corner of a drafty conference room in the Pentagon’s E-ring. And I’ll tell you something that never made it into the record: halfway through, one of the junior drafters—we called her LT—looked up and asked, “Wait… are we actually going to do this? Or is this just another polite lie we tell ourselves about interoperability?”
That moment hung in the air like dust. And I remember responding—not with certainty, but with conviction:
“We will do this… if we make it personal.”
And for me, it became personal. That was the day I named the initiative not “The MOSA Directive” or “Tri-Service Technical Memo 3.14.”
No, that day I started calling it: “Mi MOSA.”
My Modular Open Systems Approach.
My commitment that the next generation wouldn’t inherit the brittle architectures and brittle alliances I had spent my career patching.
My commitment that the next generation wouldn’t inherit the brittle architectures and brittle alliances I had spent my career patching.
2. From Mindset to Movement
Back in 2024, modularity was still a technical checkbox. A procurement hurdle. A standards compliance headache.
But we knew—some of us, anyway—that it could be more.
We believed that MOSA wasn’t just a way to build systems.
It was a way to build trust.
Trust that a better sensor, built in Dayton or Bangalore or Canberra, could plug into the warfighter’s kit without drama. Trust that if an adversary cut off a critical chip supply, we could pivot to a domestic vendor in months—not years. Trust that our allies could build their own capabilities, knowing they’d integrate with ours—not as vassals, but as partners.
Over the next sixteen years, we saw that vision unfold. Slowly at first. Then suddenly.
3. The Breakthroughs That Made It Real
People ask me: what were the moments?
Here are three I carry with me:
2026 – ABMS 3.0
When we finally fielded a battlefield management AI that wasn’t locked to a single vendor. I remember the launch party. A 23-year-old Airman pushed a new targeting module live on a tablet—from her bunk, using a certified interface spec. That was the moment I knew we were shifting from integration hell to composable agility.
A 23-year-old Airman pushed a new targeting module live on a tablet—from her bunk, using a certified interface spec.
That was the moment I knew we were shifting from integration hell to composable agility.
2029 – The Allied Drop-In Test
We swapped out a flight control module on a Japanese drone, mid-exercise, using an Australian software kernel and a U.S. backup payload. Three nations, one interface. No integration delay. The drone was back up in 43 minutes. I cried.
2033 – The Chip Crisis That Didn’t Break Us
When tensions cut off rare earth supply from China, we didn’t flinch. We had already certified multiple replacement vendors. MOSA meant our security wasn’t brittle. It flexed, but it didn’t break.
That’s what “Mi MOSA” meant. Not a platform. A posture. Not an interface. A covenant.
Not a platform. A posture.
Not an interface. A covenant.
4. What We Built Together
As I leave, I see a defense industrial base that no longer resembles the one I inherited:
Instead of monopolies, we have ecosystems. Instead of delays, we have deliberate iteration. Instead of 10-year refresh cycles, we have real-time mission adaptation.
Instead of monopolies, we have ecosystems.
Instead of delays, we have deliberate iteration.
Instead of 10-year refresh cycles, we have real-time mission adaptation.
And more than any of that: we have a generation of engineers, acquisition officers, and warfighters who don’t think modular is risky. They think modular is normal.
That was never a given. We made it so.
5. My Final Interface
So this is my last plug-and-play module.
I offer it to you all, with no dependencies, no versioning conflicts, no lock-in:
Stay open. Keep building. Trust the architecture to evolve.
And remember: it’s not just the MOSA.
It’s always been Mi MOSA.
And now it’s tuya también—yours too.
Thank you.
Addendum to “Mi MOSA 2040”
Excerpt from the official retrospective issued by the U.S. Joint Modular Systems Review Board
Title: “Twenty Years of MOSA: From Mandate to Maturity”
Date: March 2040
2040 Retrospective: The MOSA-Led Renaissance and Decoupling from China
1.0 Introduction: A Systems-Level Reboot
By 2040, the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) is now widely recognized not only as a technical framework, but as the catalyst for a profound transformation in the U.S. defense-industrial base. What began as an acquisition mandate in the early 2020s matured into a governance revolution — one that broke long-standing dependencies, especially on China, and rearchitected the military-industrial ecosystem around sovereign innovation, trusted supply chains, and agile integration.
This is the story of how MOSA, once dismissed as a bureaucratic buzzword, became the operating system of American industrial resilience.
2.0 From Compliance to Ecosystem: The MOSA Inflection Point
In hindsight, the turning point came not from technology alone, but from policy fidelity paired with industrial imagination. After early growing pains, the Department of Defense (DoD) committed not just to enforcing MOSA compliance at the program level, but to nurturing the entire modular ecosystem. Three parallel shifts defined this decade:
2.1 The Great Standard Convergence
DoD’s investment in joint interface standards — SOSA, FACE, CMOSS, and their successors — matured into dynamic, evolving APIs for warfighting, managed by a network of public-private governance consortia:
- Enabled rapid insertion of commercial and dual-use tech into defense platforms
- Were versioned and testable, allowing industry to develop against evolving baselines
- Were open enough to invite innovation, yet governed well enough to ensure security and reliability
By 2028, most new platforms launched with “agile-by-default” architectures, capable of component swaps without requalification of the whole system. Legacy platforms, too, were gradually retrofitted — driven by modular combat system overlays and adaptive software-defined middleware.
2.2 Rise of the Modular Industrial Base
MOSA created a market for micro-primes: specialized firms building plug-and-play hardware, mission software, AI agents, and sensing packages. These “capability boutiques” operated in niches — yet thanks to MOSA standards, their solutions could be widely adopted across multiple systems and services.
This allowed the U.S. to:
- Onshore critical manufacturing for RF chips, optics, and mission computing modules
- Cultivate regional innovation clusters (e.g., additive aerospace in Ohio, edge AI in Austin)
- Drive dual-use acceleration without requiring vertical integration
By 2030, over 60% of component suppliers in major defense systems were U.S.-based or from trusted allies, up from just 30% a decade earlier. MOSA’s open standards enabled domestic substitution without platform redesign, becoming the quiet engine of supply chain sovereignty.
3.0 Decoupling in Practice: Four Strategic Outcomes
3.1 Trusted Substitution of Critical Components
When mid-2020s tensions exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains:
- U.S. and allied vendors were able to certify compatible replacements quickly
- Open test harnesses and digital twins enabled pre-certification of modules
MOSA didn’t just allow substitution; it pre-cleared the runway for it.
3.2 Competitive Resilience Through Ecosystem Redundancy
MOSA fostered redundant innovation ecosystems:
- Multiple vendors competed to deliver modules for the same function
- Single points of failure — especially in hostile supply relationships — were eliminated
In sectors like tactical radios and battlefield AI, U.S. and Five Eyes providers displaced Chinese incumbents.
3.3 Strategic Flexibility via Swappable Alliances
Platforms from allies (UK’s Proteus drone, Japan’s Fuji loitering munition, etc.) adopted modular standards:
- Interoperability became a diplomatic tool
- The “Swappable Alliance Doctrine” was born: if your interface speaks our language, you’re in
3.4 A Deterrence Architecture That Evolves Faster Than Threats
Modular, composable deterrent systems allowed:
- Rapid fielding of cognitive EW, quantum-augmented positioning, and AI decision aids
- Adaptability that outpaced China’s vertical innovation cycles
The U.S. and allies deployed a horizontally composable kill web, defined by trusted, swappable modules.
4.0 Lessons Learned
4.1 Governance Was Everything
MOSA’s success rested on governance maturity:
- The Digital Engineering Authority maintained interface currency and certification
- A national network of testbeds accelerated real-world module validation
- Procurement evolved to reward adaptability, not just compliance
4.2 Modularity Is a Strategic Posture
MOSA matured from design philosophy to competitive doctrine:
- Independence from hostile supply chains
- Agility in alliance-building
- Narrative control through openness
By 2040, “open by design” was standard across defense, space, energy, and healthcare systems.
5.0 Final Word: From Doctrine to DNA
MOSA’s true legacy is cultural.
- Engineers, program managers, and warfighters learned to think in layers
- They built for change and trusted in ecosystems
- They didn’t just comply — they composed
Decoupling from China wasn’t a single act. It was the natural outcome of modular sovereignty —
A future where freedom travels faster than dependency.
A world where, as we say now: “If it’s not open, it’s obsolete.”
— Excerpt from “Twenty Years of MOSA: From Mandate to Maturity”
U.S. Joint Modular Systems Review Board, March 2040
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