By Mike Dodd, USMC (Ret.)
“Accelerate, Innovate or Lose” – Those three words were how the Secretary of the Air Force, the Honorable @Frank Kendall, III, put it while speaking at the Northeast Indiana Defense Summit, hosted by Representative Jim Banks of Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District. This great event, now in its second year, brings together government, policymakers, industry and academia for a day-long exchange of information and ideas. Rep. Banks, a Navy veteran, has a personal tie to national security and, as a member of the House Committee on Armed Services, is a strong voice for creating meaningful and enduring policy that will help our servicemembers achieve their full potential and, at the highest level, protect and defend the United States.
Now back to those three critical words. As I see it:
Accelerate: we need to speed up DoD acquisition because this alone is a massive impediment to overcoming our adversaries’ capabilities.
Innovate: like never before we need daggum divergent thinking. Get creative and work collaboratively—government and industry—to embrace current technologies to create capabilities that stretch our current way of thinking. Create an atmosphere where scientists and entrepreneurs can do what they do best without the rest of us getting in their way.
Lose: this one is self-explanatory. If we don’t do the first two things, we will lose what we, as Americans, hold closest to our hearts; our freedom.
As part of our mission to Accelerate, Innovate or Lose, we must simultaneously wage a cold war against China. As Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, pointed out at the summit, “If we desire peace and freedom, wage cold war.” This modern take on the ancient Latin adage, “if you want peace, prepare for war”, essentially means we need to decouple our industrial base from China in areas that are jeopardizing our national security, namely microelectronics and information dissemination (think TikTok).
Thanks again to Congressman Banks—a true statesman—for bringing together visionary leaders and thinkers dedicated to our freedom and to ensuring we never wage a fair fight.
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