Defenseless

How Armies of Bureaucrats, Academics, and Lawyers Are Leaving the US Unprepared for Its Next War

by Dr. Jack Schuss

THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN THE DOMINANT GLOBAL MILITARY POWER SINCE THE COLD WAR ENDED, BUT NOW THAT DOMINANCE IS BEING CHALLENGED.

New weapon systems and technologies, often relying on low-cost commercial products such as drones, are quickly entering the battlefield, and the country needs to quickly master and counter these threats. Unfortunately, our development- and deployment-cycle times are dramatically longer today than they were decades ago, slowed not by shortcomings in US technology, but instead by bureaucratic process delays. This situation must be reversed if the nation is to deter its enemies.

Jack Schuss has long been troubled by the insufficient speed of American development of new weapon systems. He finds himself in a unique position to assess our current situation, having led the engineering efforts of two major development programs—one military and the other commercial—both executed under the same defense contractor. In Defenseless, he narrates these experiences in fascinating detail. He highlights how the commercial program’s progress was quicker and its objective more rapidly accomplished than that of the defense program.

Yet, Defenseless is not without hope. Through these stories, Schuss illustrates tactics to reverse this trend, including embracing faster commercial development processes that have powered American innovation.