Defence Industry had a ‘last supper’ after Cold War I. Now Palantir’s CTO is calling for a ‘first breakfast’ to respond to Cold War II ⬇️

In the heady days following the fall of the Soviet Union, the then Defense Secretary William Perry gathered the executives of US Defence companies together for dinner. At this ‘Last Supper’ Perry explained that a peace dividend was about to be extracted from the military budget and that companies would need to merge if they hoped to survive. Within a decade US Primes had consolidated from 51 to 5, creating the US military industrial complex we have today.

What has become clear in the early stages of Cold War II is that this unipolar moment military industrial complex is not fit for purpose. Inspired by a view that ‘M-Day (mobilisation day) was yesterday’, Palantir Technologies Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar has launched First Breakfast as a catalyst for the contest of ideas. We highly recommend First Breakfast’s work to you and the ‘Heretics & Heros’ series in particular.

One of the ‘Heretics & Hero’s’ posts immediately caught our eye – whenever ‘Freedom’s Forge‘ author Arthur Herman is writing anything, we’re quickly reading! Herman’s Heretic & Hero is the Royal Navy’s Admiral Jack Fisher ⬇️

“During his six years at the Admiralty, Fisher also single-handedly transformed the strategic outlook of an entire armed service. He did it by acting as Disruptor-in-Chief, i.e. through his relentless pursuit of bringing new personnel, new technologies, and a new strategic vision to a navy that was already the largest and most respected in the world, but which had grown complacent after nearly a century of naval supremacy.”

There is much to be admired about a career military officer who rises to the top of his service (then the most powerful in the world) only to decide to disrupt it to ensure it was future ready. The strategic foresight, intellectual curiosity, innovative thinking and courage of conviction Admiral Fisher displayed is sorely needed in a geopolitical context where the free world needs a hard power renaissance in order to deter conflict!

🖼️ via Palantir’s ‘First Breakfast‘