Mastodawn

Australia's F-35s arrived in 2018. When the logistics software failed, Australian engineers couldn't inspect or fix it - they waited for a Lockheed Martin patch. Scale that up to AUKUS submarines and $9.9 billion of classified AI in REDSPICE, and "sovereign capability" starts to sound like a terms-of-service agreement you didn't read. Estonia built its entire e-government stack on open standards - no single vendor holds the keys.

We're assembling the world's most expensive collection of potential bricks.

Demand the terms sheet. Demand the keys.

https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-06-16-the-billion-dollar-brick/

#DigitalSovereignty #OpenSource #VendorLockIn #Procurement transparency #AUKUS #auspol

The Billion Dollar Brick: AUKUS and the Illusion of Sovereign Capability

Australia is spending billions on AUKUS submarines and classified AI systems it cannot inspect, maintain, or control. That's not sovereign capability: it's a very expensive dependency.

Digital Nomad