“As a nation, we are in an undeclared state of emergency”⬇️

We’re a bit late to this insightful report from Palantir Technologies‘ Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar. Palantir Technologies is one of the leading Mil Tech challengers of the status quo in the USA. You have to rate the no B.S. clarity with which the team at Palantir just lays out the problem and gives a warts and all assessment of the current state:

“We have a peer adversary: China. ‘Near-Peer’ is a shibboleth, a euphemism to avoid the embarrassment of acknowledging we have peers when we were once peerless. In World War II, America was the best at mass production. Today that distinction belongs to our adversary. America’s national security requires a robust industrial base, or it will lose the next war and plunge the world into darkness under authoritarian regimes.”

Anyone else wonder how long Australia can continue to have a National Security Strategy that identifies a pacing threat and the most dangerous geopolitical circumstances since world war II and yet we carry on trade and budget settings like it is the 2000s at the height of the unipolar moment?

We will add a link to the report below – it is a quick read that covers how the US got into the situation in the first place and gets after what is needed to fix it:

1️⃣ The Last Supper and the Great Schism

2️⃣ The Department’s Heresy

3️⃣ The 18 Theses of the Defense Reformation

4️⃣ The Resurrection of the American Industrial Base

You just have to read this – it is sobering reading but great fun at the same time. Shyam and his team (if he had speechwriters supporting him) have written a truly excellent theses.

” The consumption of 10 years of production in 10 weeks of fighting in Ukraine demonstrated that the rate of production was the actual weapon all along. We must be able to produce everything at speed and scale, we must design requirements and incentives for manufacturability, and we must never stop producing. No more participation trophies for having a weapon sitting on a shelf — it only counts if you can make it.”

Now an Australian version of this would make for great reading!

The Defense Reformation

Our nation is in an undeclared state of emergency, and must resurrect the American Industrial Base we depended on in the depths of the Cold War.

🖼️ via Palantir Technologies