Military

Forget Technology. The Real Military Edge Comes From Promoting Smart People

Let us not conflate military innovation with technology, as if that were the problem. Those who claim the United States lost its recent wars do not blame deficient technology.

The accelerating pace of change will make military innovation increasingly decisive in the 21st century, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s recent trips to Silicon Valley, Austin, and Cambridge reflect the Pentagon’s deliberate outreach to the technology sector and a clear priority on innovation. But technology is not the solution to the problem of innovation. Rather, innovation is a solution to the problem of technology. Its crux is agility in adjusting strategy and operations, which rests first in how an institution thinks, which is in turn a function of people and their development.