A Stronger Defense Powered by Dynamic Tech

Delays in defense procurement, eroded manufacturing capacities, and regulatory rigidity are undermining U.S. capability—streamlining acquisition, strengthening supply chains, and empowering new entrants must be priorities to match China's industrial surge.

This summer, we twice witnessed military history unfold. Ukraine first stunned the world with Operation Spider’s Web, crippling Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber fleet deep within its territory by using commercial drones smuggled in civilian trucks.

Large institutional investors can anchor a generational rearmament of the American industrial and innovation base.

With bipartisan momentum building, Wicker calls for sweeping changes to simplify acquisition processes, cut red tape, and empower private-sector innovation—all backed by the largest Pentagon reforms and defense funding in decades.

Chris Brose says, “at every level, I think, our conception of military power, and the industrial base that we’ve been optimizing to build it, is just systemically wrong. We are not falling behind in defense technology—we are falling behind in how we build, acquire, and field it.”

Business leaders and technologists increasingly feel compelled to enter public service. Studying earlier eras will help us understand how to make it work.

With prime contractors lagging and startups struggling to scale, Pickett and Beecher warn that the U.S. defense industrial base is fragmented and inefficient—calling for an integrated, software-first approach that bridges old and new systems to boost agility and deterrence.

True national strength depends not just on budgets, but on a reformed Pentagon—one that is agile, accountable, and aligned with modern threats and strategic needs.

The U.S. defense apparatus treats capability acquisition like central planning—slowing delivery and misaligning with battlefield needs—while empowering combatant commands as true “customers” could drive faster, mission-focused innovation.

When people think about startups working with the government, the phrase “black box” often comes up. But what if that box is finally being pried open?

Paints a sobering picture of America’s diminished military readiness—highlighting critical shortages in munitions, aging platforms, and a faltering industrial base—and argues urgent, sweeping reforms are needed to rebuild deterrence and prevent strategic surprise.

For over a century, the United States has been the birthplace of world-changing innovation – from the Wright brothers’ first flight to the invention of the transistor, the moon landing, and the birth of the internet. But in recent years, belief in American progress has wavered.

These 50 companies aren’t just strengthening America’s ability to deter conflict, they’re re-industrializing America in the process.

To sustain national power and deter geopolitical threats, the U.S. must rebuild its industrial depth—revitalizing manufacturing, securing supply chains, and making bold strategic investments.

The Pentagon’s procurement system is mired in bureaucracy, stifling innovation and wasting resources. Streamlining processes and empowering new entrants can restore efficiency and strengthen national defense.

Ukraine has radically pivoted its approach to military innovation, moving from a wholly state-owned research and development model to one in which innovation is outsourced to the commercial sector.

A call to action: this report urges the Department of Defense to drastically speed up delivery of cutting-edge capabilities—through flexible procurement, streamlined acquisition, and stronger support for nontraditional vendors—warning that battlefield success depends on keeping pace with innovation.

At a House Select Committee hearing, Brose issues a stark warning: without a dramatic revitalization of America’s defense industrial base and workforce, the nation will be unprepared for prolonged high-scale conflict—highlighting systemic weaknesses in supply chains, production capacity, and innovation.

This testimony warns that America's defense industrial capacity has eroded steadily—putting deterrence at risk—and argues that revitalizing manufacturing, supply chains, and innovation ecosystems is imperative to maintain global leadership.

America is a country of immense wealth, but our manufacturing infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.

A bold manifesto urging a radical overhaul of U.S. defense procurement—from dissolving monopoly buying to igniting competition—argues that revitalizing America’s industrial base is essential to meet modern strategic challenges.

It is time to celebrate one of the proudest American achievements: its “military-industrial complex.” Spawned in a time of great distress during World War II, it won the greatest war in history and kept the Cold War from boiling over against a nuclear-armed peer rival, the Soviet Union. For over seventy years, it kept America and the free world stable, secure, and ready to confront any military challenge. Today, it’s a shell of its former self. Thanks to shrinking funds, a changing industrial picture, and decades of vilification by critics on both the Left and Right, the American military-industrial complex’s decline has made us less safe, less secure, and more vulnerable to our enemies.

Fundamental shifts in threats and technology require fundamental change in how DoD functions. DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency. U.S. industrial production is grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions needed today, let alone given the demands of great power conflict.

Without swift and widespread cultural change in the ways the Department incentivizes talent to innovate, our national security remains at risk, leaving us vulnerable to being surpassed by our adversaries.

Marc Andreessen and Tyler Cowen discuss techno-optimism, AI, and other topics at the a16z American Dynamism Summit.

After two years of exhaustive study—including over 400 interviews—this bipartisan commission offers 28 recommendations to replace the aging PPBE system with a flexible, strategy-aligned Defense Resourcing System that accelerates capability delivery and strengthens the DoD workforce.

US Dep. Sec. of Defense Kathleen Hicks is interviewed by Wall Street Journal national security and foreign policy editor Sharon Weinberger.

Anduril Cofounder and CEO Brian Schimpf lays out the case for how and why technology plays a critical role in helping ensure a safer world.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) discuss why the US must strengthen its technological advantage in areas like AI.

CSIS analysts reveal that while China’s defense industrial base is shifting toward a wartime posture, the U.S. system remains stuck in peacetime—lacking the scale, resilience, and coordination needed to keep pace in great-power competition.

We believe a strong America means a strong world. A safer world. A more civilized world, which is a term we should use more. And that technology is the backbone of maintaining this order and civilization and always will be.

Shifting away from expensive, slow-moving legacy weapons systems toward a force structured around many low-cost, autonomous platforms will restore deterrence and better match the pace of modern warfare.

The Pentagon must return to its role of seeding world-changing technology, and to do this, it must fix the valley of death, now.

The sharpest phase of that competition could be more like a sprint in the 2020s, because China has entered a perilous period: it has acquired the means to disrupt the existing order, but slowing growth is narrowing its window to act.

We are in the early stages of a generational defense cycle that requires unconventional thinking and tools. Here are some ideas for how to do it.

The U.S. faces critical shortfalls in munitions, surge capacity, and supply chain resilience needed for a potential war with China. Scaling up production, securing component access, and reforming acquisition systems are urgent steps to restore deterrence and readiness.

These are edited highlights from a recent Clubhouse discussion among Hadrian founder and CEO Chris Power, a16z partners Katherine Boyle and Marc Andreessen, and Not Boring newsletter author Packy McCormick.

When markets are competitive, the Department reaps the benefits through improved cost, schedule, and performance for the products and services needed to support national defense.

Two weeks before the start of our perpetual lockdown, The New York Times columnist and Substack writer Ross Douthat released “The Decadent Society,” a survey of America’s general apathy toward building a more dynamic future.

We’re committed to working with and investing in the best founders who want to make American dynamism real.

The best ideas no longer arise in a US defense industry encumbered by 60 years of Stalinist-style central planning and security controls, but from commercial sources that once were primarily in the U.S. and are now globalized.

After six decades of PPBE, the United States is shackled with what Donald Rumsfeld called ‘one of the last vestiges of central planning on Earth.

Over decades, U.S. defense acquisition has drifted from market-like competition to entrenched centralization—locking in failure through bureaucratic rigidity and budgetary inertia.