A two-day summit on July 14-15, between defense-related business, academic, and government leaders, organized by U.S. Senator Dave McCormick and headlined by President Donald Trump, at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, signaled broad agreement that the United States must continue to revitalize its industrial and technological defense base to meet the geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges of the Chinese Communist Party.
The list of federal government officials participating in the summit, in addition to President Trump and Sen. McCormick, included CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, Assistant Secretary of War Michael Cadenazzi, Undersecretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz, Congressman Scott Perry, and Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler. Two Pennsylvania state officials, Governor Josh Shapiro and Attorney General Dave Sunday, also served on panels.
Business leaders included JP Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, President and CEO of Lockheed Martin Jim Taiclet, Executive Officer and President of Northrup Grumman Kathy Warden, General Dynamics President Danny Deep, President and COO of Blackstone Jon Gray, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir Technologies Shyam Sankar, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Valor Equity Antonio Gracias, and President and CEO of Hanwha Defense USA Michael Coulter.
Temple University President John Fry, University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel, and Penn State University President Dr. Neeli Bendapudi served as moderators of several summit panels. Those and other universities are key players in defense-related innovation.
In one sense, it was a gathering of elements of what President Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address, called the “military-industrial complex.” Opponents of a defense buildup often quote Eisenhower’s warning about guarding “against the acquisition of unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex, but they isolate that quote without providing context. Eisenhower prefaced his warning with the following:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction… [W]e can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Eisenhower, therefore, understood the need for a vibrant, innovative military-industrial complex that would help the United States maintain its military and political preeminence in global politics.
The panelists at the Defense Innovation Summit all agreed that since the end of the Reagan buildup in the 1980s which helped us win the Cold War, we have outsourced too many important defense-related materials and technologies to other countries, placing us at a disadvantage vis-à-vis our current major adversary, China, in areas such as microchips, rare earth minerals, and shipbuilding capacity, to name only a few. And during that same time period, we have imposed regulations on defense-related businesses and suffered through a defense acquisition process that stifled innovation, delayed production quotas, and produced cost overruns. (RELATED: Rare Earths, Real Bottlenecks, and Misguided Policy)
There was also unanimous agreement at the summit that the United States must lead the AI revolution, especially as it applies to warfare and strategy. If we don’t lead here, China will.
The business and investment leaders at the summit all praised the Trump administration’s movements to unleash the “arsenal of democracy’ and its commitment to incentivize America’s defense industries and tech companies to become a new generation of “freedom’s forge.” The business leaders credited both the president and Secretary of War Hegseth for spurring innovation and production. President Trump urged the business leaders to continue to produce the best weapons of war, but to do so faster because quantity can be as important as quality under wartime circumstances. We need both quantity and quality to meet China’s challenge.
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