The American military must make rapid adoption of new commercial technologies a priority.
The Defense Department must make the rapid adoption of new technologies a priority, particularly in the commercial sector. This will require Pentagon bureaucrats to overcome the aversion to risk that permeates their agency and to leverage the expertise of academia and the private sector. The goal will be to build a defense innovation ecosystem in which the brightest minds in technology, strategy and defense can collaborate without constraint.
That will be a tall order. As the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption and the Defense Innovation Board have reported, the status quo is woefully insufficient. Washington has yet to shift significant resources—or to adapt business processes—to harness commercial solutions at scale or speed.