Taking the innovation war to the military

It is an inconvenient truth that from the dawn of mankind, war has been a sad feature of the human condition. Human conflict comes at enormous cost with its impacts on people and society.

Paradoxically, the need to defend yourself has also meant that defence has also been a key driver of many economies and the need for a winning edge on the battlefield has made the military a source of great innovation. An uncertain geopolitical environment and complex future means that the need for national defence will remain. And militaries globally perform valuable roles in aid relief, humanitarian aid, disaster recovery and peacekeeping.

The question is not what the military is or for, but could defence become an incubator for emerging disruptive technologies? Nobody wants their business to be disrupted but the military works in the ultimate disrupted marketplace. Could new partnerships and linkages between the business world and national defence forces allow pre-emptive strikes to be made to leverage and maximise the benefits of disruptive technology?