Author Topic: Newt Gingrich: Our national security system needs real innovation. Here's a blueprint  (Read 577 times)

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Offline EC

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Oddly, it's a book review.

I seldom write about books, but after reading "The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower," I was so impressed that I wanted to share it with you.

Written by two veteran defense reporters, the newly released book, provides remarkable insight into Israeli weapons development.

It is thoughtful and provocative, and a book that I encourage every decision-maker in America to read – including every member of Congress.

The authors, Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, have exceptional knowledge of – and contacts within – the Israeli defense establishment.

Throughout the book, they thoroughly discuss how Israel uses innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and the application of technology to solve problems. Their descriptions will inspire you to think differently about your own business and career.

I suspect the book will also rightly cause some to rethink how innovation occurs in American national security. It personally left me convinced that we could innovate a lot faster and a lot cheaper than we currently do today. That’s because part of the problem in our national security system is structural, but part is cultural.

The American defense establishment is too expensive, slow, hierarchical, and concerned about the possibility of failure. Real innovation requires tolerance for failure – and a willingness to have smart subordinates be insubordinate in the pursuit of real breakthroughs.

The story of Israeli survival from its earliest days is a narrative about facing overwhelming odds and having to continuously innovate. Failure to innovate during the 1948 War of Independence would have led to Israel’s downfall. Coming in the shadow of the Holocaust, in which the Nazis had killed more than six million Jews, every Israeli understood that defeat and annihilation were possible. The almost unimaginable pressure of taking on six countries with regular armies while inventing the Israeli Army forced perpetual improvisation and new ideas.

More: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/08/newt-gingrich-our-national-security-system-needs-real-innovation-heres-blueprint.html
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