Any Yakulis explores how the Department of Defense has an innovation problem, threatening our competitive advantage with our adversaries. Risk aversion, bureaucracy, red tape, heavy regulation, and a culture that values the status quo over change are stalling the pace of innovation. The simple reality is that innovative thinking gets squashed by the "this is the way we've always done things" mentality. DoD must prioritize this self-inflicted innovation crisis to streamline advanced technology to the warfighter when needed most; an institutional culture shift must occur. DoD must focus on new collaborations with startups, venture capital (VC) and overall, start taking measured acquisition risk in the same way our operational force takes calculated but necessary risk.

Repeat billion-dollar start-up founder Palmer Luckey, who sold his pioneering virtual reality company Oculus to Facebook in 2014, has castigated socially-minded investment funds for failing to include the defence and nuclear energy industries in their portfolios.

Over the years, steps were taken to better equip the U.S. military toward modernizing defense IT infrastructure in the face of cyber threats along with increased budget free from sequestration. Recently, a group of defense investors has been closely observing dual-use technologies that may be useful for the army.