Mobilize is a prescription to save our nation. This book is a must read for anyone who gives a damn about our country’s future.
From Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer comes a bold vision for resurrecting America’s industrial base and winning the 21st century.
About
America is in an undeclared state of emergency.
Not since the Cold War has the United States been on the brink of so many catastrophic conflicts at once — and our military-industrial complex has never been less ready. In a conflict with China, we would expend our weapon stockpile in weeks, a stockpile that took years to build and would take even longer to rebuild — assuming we could convince China to continue to sell us the critical components. Our rivals have cornered the market on technologies that we pioneered and once dominated.
Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer, Shyam Sankar, and co-author Madeline Hart issue an urgent call to action for America’s workers and companies: Mobilize.
This is a must-read for anyone who cares about innovation, defense, and the future of American power.
Annie Jacobsen
Author and Producer, Pulitzer Prize Finalist
During World War II, manufacturers famously rallied to support the war effort, and for most of the 20th century, companies from General Mills to Chrysler had defense businesses. It was the American industrial base that underwrote American victory. But today, there is a disconnect between America’s vast, innovative private sector and its stultifying, small defense sector.
What America needs is visionaries, rebels, and even heretics to overcome the bureaucratic inertia that has always stood in the way of tectonic shifts. For too long, the Pentagon has prayed at the altar of process. By empowering exceptional individuals and harnessing the power of capitalism and competition, we can unleash the brains and brawn we need to resurrect the industrial base, prevent World War III — and help our country build, and win.
Advance Praise for Mobilize
In the words of American leaders
Shyam Sankar earned my respect. He’s a true patriot, a strategic thinker, and the kind of guy who doesn’t bend the knee to bureaucracy. Mobilize takes lessons from our past and applies the capacity of America’s centers of innovation to ensure we rebuild the Arsenal of Democracy to head off the next big war. It’s a prescription to save our nation. This book is a must read for anyone who gives a damn about our country’s future.
Shyam Sankar exposes the harsh truth: America will not deter China without revitalizing its industrial base. In Mobilize, he lays out what the U.S. government must do now to rebuild by getting bureaucracy out of the way, replenishing our empty stockpiles, and reshoring manufacturing. Every leader in the Pentagon and on the Hill should read this book if they want to see the USA win the next war.
Shyam reminds us that we must remember how to build if America is to remain a force for innovation, broad-based prosperity, and global freedom. Mobilize is a timely call for long-termism and first principles thinking in an age dominated by short-term noise.
Maintaining deterrence is vital yet increasingly difficult in this turbulent world. Mobilize is a historically grounded and thoughtful examination of the problems facing American defense, and it is full of inventive and provocative ideas for how to address them. Every serious student of American defense policy should read this book.
Mobilize is a fascinating and insightful read, that powerfully sums up the current woes of America’s defense industrial base. It also provides a new perspective for understanding how we used to arm ourselves effectively to deter and defeat our enemies, and how we can do it again. Every chapter, every graph, explains why our defense industrial base is in crisis, and why it’s not too late to fix it.Mobilize is a book that belongs not on the shelf but on the desk, of defense industry executives, state governors and members of Congress, and Pentagon officials-as well as on the essential reading list for the occupant of the Oval Office.
Shyam uniquely understands not only the challenges, but more importantly the solutions required to bring true innovation back to the military and repair the defense industrial base. This book builds upon his widely acclaimed paper, The Defense Reformation, which delivered a shock to the Department of Defense. Here, he outlines practical and ambitious solutions to ensure America prevails in the 21st century. The question is not whether we can — but whether we are bold enough to answer this call to transformation.
Bracing and brilliant — Mobilize exposes how cost-plus complacency has eroded America’s edge, and why the Pentagon must rediscover the American spirit of trailblazing nonconformity, or fail. Weaving together previously unknown stories from military history — from Kelly Johnson’s Skunkworks to William Perry’s defense-acquisition initiatives — the authors make a spellbinding case for reform. This is a must-read for anyone who cares about innovation, defense, and the future of American power.
Mobilize should be read by every American who cares about rebuilding the arsenal of democracy. Sankar gives a defining read on how the U.S. military and American entrepreneurs must fight together if we are to prevent future global wars and build the second American century. It’s a revealing and realistic account of what’s at stake from one of the country’s most patriotic and knowledgeable business leaders. There’s no time to waste: we must mobilize American talent, production and power now.
Mobilize is a call to action, and a warning: That America is falling dangerously behind its adversaries in national defense and running out of time to catch up. Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart map out a clear plan to get the Pentagon — and the country — where it needs to be. This is an important and necessary book.
Excerpt
Breaking the Pentagon
In The Fast and the Furious, Ja Rule tells Paul Walker: “It’s not how you stand by your car. It’s how you race your car. You better learn that.”
Today the Pentagon is standing by a very expensive car. To use the industry lingo, it’s an exquisite car. But our entire system is geared for standing still and looking impressive, when what really matters is whether we can race. Speed is the critical variable that separates winners from losers, in business and on the battlefield. For too long, we’ve been moving painfully slow.
This chart, from Bill Greenwalt and Dan Patt’s paper, “Competing in Time,” gives a historical view of how long it took to bring a new product to market in military aviation, commercial aviation, and the automotive sector:
About the Authors
![Headshot of [object Object]](/_next/static/media/shyam.ea4e7ba0.jpg)
Shyam Sankar
![Headshot of [object Object]](/_next/static/media/madeline.67ec0208.jpg)