Democracy's Arsenal: Creating a Twenty-First-Century Defense Industry

New geopolitical realities -- including terrorism, pandemics, rogue nuclear states,resource conflicts, insurgencies, mass migration, economic collapse, and cyber attacks -- havecreated a dramatically different national-security environment for America. Twentieth-centurydefense strategies, technologies, and industrial practices will not meet the security requirementsof a post-9/11 world. In Democracy's Arsenal, Jacques Gansler describes thetransformations needed in government and industry to achieve a new, more effective system ofnational defense. Drawing on his decades of experience in industry, government, and academia,Gansler argues that the old model of ever-increasing defense expenditures on largely outmodedweapons systems must be replaced by a strategy that combines a healthy economy, effectiveinternational relations, and a strong (but affordable) national security posture. The defenseindustry must remake itself to become responsive and relevant to the needs of twenty-first-centurysecurity.

Jacques S. Gansler is the author of the influential books The Defense Industry (1980), Affording Defense (1989), and Defense Conversion: Transforming the Arsenal of Democracy (1996), all published by the MIT Press. He is currently Professor and Roger C. Lipitz Chair, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and served as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology, and Logistics from 1997 to 2001.