Bob Work

Robert Work served as the 32nd US Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2014 to 2017, a tenure that spanned both the Obama and Trump administrations. Before that he spent four years as Under Secretary of the Navy and more than two decades as a Marine Corps officer, retiring at the rank of colonel in 2001. He subsequently held research and advisory roles at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, George Washington University and the Center for a New American Security, and later joined the board of Raytheon.

Work was among the principal architects of the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, the initiative that placed autonomous systems, AI-enabled weapons and human-machine teaming at the centre of US military modernisation. His advocacy for drone warfare and autonomous systems during his time at the Defense Department shaped the doctrine and procurement decisions that now define the field.