The new book from Black Rudder
Ambition, Oversight, and Wartime Defense Culture
“We’re a virus that’s inside the body of DOD.”
Mark Schmidt, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, March 2023
In August 2023, HII gave Cyberlux a $78.86 million subcontract to build UAVs for Ukraine. Ten days later, HII paid Cyberlux $38.7 million. Cyberlux had ended the previous day with $2,297.01 in its operating account.
How it happened
Ambition
Cyberlux had been in the UAV business for only a few months. It wanted to become a serious defense company, and Ukraine needed UAVs.
HII Mission Technologies was growing beyond shipbuilding. It had the OASIS contract vehicle and the Government relationships Cyberlux needed.
Oversight
Ukraine, the foreign military sales system, GSA, FEDSIM, HII and Cyberlux each handled part of the program.
Each group could reasonably believe that someone else had checked the parts outside its own job.
Wartime culture
The need was real. People who asked for more testing or stronger financial controls risked looking as though they were getting in the way.
Speed became the priority. The harder questions could wait. By the time they were asked, the money had moved and production had started.
Why the deal worked
Cyberlux brought a UAV, a successful demonstration and a request from Ukraine.
HII brought the contracting route, the administrative systems and the credibility of a major defense contractor.
Together, they could turn Ukraine’s request into an American contract.
What happened next
Ukrainian users reportedly discovered this during training in Poland. They had expected a system that could survive Russian electronic warfare.
Attributed source accountA confidential source says a deliberately grounded test UAV malfunctioned and crashed into an explosives-storage area. The testers had declined to connect its charge.
Serious allegation · Not adjudicated factThe payment went into Cyberlux’s ordinary operating account. The account had contained $2,297.01 the day before.
Bank and contract recordThe story
Ukraine believed it had seen a useful UAV. It asked for that UAV by name. HII placed the order, paid the advance and began accepting UAVs.
Then Ukrainian users began reporting problems.
By then, Cyberlux was building toward an order of 2,000 UAVs. HII had accepted 392. The program was much harder to stop than it had been to start.
What the book argues
They didn’t need to want the same thing.They needed the same deal to happen.
Cyberlux wanted to become a serious defense company. HII Mission Technologies wanted growth. Ukraine wanted UAVs. The acquisition system wanted to move quickly. The advisers and intermediaries wanted the opportunity to close.
Each had a different ambition. All of those ambitions depended on the program moving forward. The book examines when that cooperation became something more: when people stopped simply trusting the work of others and began helping the program continue despite what they knew—or chose not to ask.
The new book from Black Rudder
How a new UAV business received a $78.86 million wartime subcontract, why the normal checks did not stop it and what happened when the UAVs reached their users.
The records behind the book
Read the source documents, follow the timeline, see who was involved and examine how the records connect.
Move through the sequence and open the passages supporting each event.
Open the chronology ↗ 02Open the filings, contracts, reports and communications used in the book.
Open the documents ↗ 03Find the people and organizations named in the records.
Open the actor register ↗ 04Explore the sources, the facts drawn from them and the links between them.
Open the canvas ↗