Boots on the Ground Know What They Want: Alexander Harstrick

Great technology doesn’t win wars, people win wars. But the technology certainly helps. Now more than ever, commercial capital investors, intentionally or not, are filling an innovation gap by accelerating the design and realization of critical battlefield solutions before war breaks out.

Conflicts abroad, specifically in Ukraine and increasingly in other parts of the world, have shown us that private support for defense innovation has unquestionable value. There are ways government procurers can make low-stakes enhancements to accelerate this relationship.

Anecdotally in Ukraine, the demand from small troop units involved in heavy fighting is for equipment that shows up in ...